Babri Masjid - Verdict from Ayodhya

So this is kind of old news, but I figure the case has been going on since 1961, so a little more time won't hurt anyone. The issue is fresh in my mind because at the weekly HRLN staff meeting, we had a lengthy discussion regarding the verdict.

The history of the situation in Ayodhya, about the Masjid itself as well as its societal impact on all of India, is long and convoluted, and I won't pretend to be able to summarize it all here. (FYI - the Court judgment in this case? Over 8000 pages.)

However humble it is, a brief timeline of the relevant events:

????: Lord Ram is allegedly born in Ayodhya.
1528: Babri Masjid is built, allegedly on the site of Ram's birth. For over four hundred years, the Babri Masjid was used as a masjid.
1949: Overnight, deities of Ram are placed in the center courtyard of the Masjid.
1961: Overlapping title suits are filed, with both sides (Hindu and Muslim) claiming to have exclusive jurisdiction over the property.
1980s - 1990s: Rising religious fundamentalism, particularly on the part of the Hindu right, leads to the Babri Masjid matter being center stage. Politicians use the alleged ownership of this site, and how the government is withholding access, as a launching point for more political and religious rhetoric.
1992: The Masjid is demolished, piece by piece, by activists.
Mass riots ensue as a result of the demolition, mass violence between Hindus and Muslims.
2010: The High Court of Allahabad comes to a decision in the title suit regarding ownership of the land under the Babri Masjid.

In the time leading up to the verdict being announced, there was a lot of fear that whatever the decision was, it would lead to more violence. The day of the decision, a lot of people left work early, so they could be inside when the decision was announced - in case something did happen, and riots occurred. It was a tense feeling: sort of surreal, because everything was normal that day, so how could violence erupt so easily? But at the same time, that's exactly how it had happened before, and that reality was present in everyone's mind. One of the women in my office was quite confident nothing would happen, simply because of the police/security presence due to the Commonwealth Games - an interesting theory that remained untested, so far as I know.

The verdict that came out was this: the land would be divided three ways. The Hindus would get a part of it, the Muslims another part of it, and a third group (a sect of Hinduism) would get a part of it. Most people looked at the verdict as a success - not because it was particularly fair, or the legal reasoning was particularly sound - but simply because no violence resulted from it.

The discussion at the meeting was lively. Some of the more salient points:

• The layers of politics, going back dozens of years, are fascinating. Just one example: the Shah Bano controversy. Shah Bano was a Muslim woman whose husband had divorced her, but Muslim law dictated that she could not receive alimony. The Supreme Court ruled against Muslim law, and said that secular law should hold power in India. There was a lot of uproar over this in some Muslim communities, and in a move that most interpreted as an attempt to appease such communities, the Parliament passed a law essentially overturning the Supreme Court's decision. Certain Hindu communities were angered by this obvious appeasement, and demanded their own appeasement: they should be allowed to have a mandir at the site of Ram Janam Bhoomi.
  
• An "archaeological survey" was done several years ago, and reported to the court that there were indeed ruins of a Hindu temple under the mosque, supposedly giving proof to the claims of the Hindus that there was a mandir before a masjid. But what the Survey could not determine is whether the masjid was simply built upon the ruins of a temple, or if the masjid-builders had deliberately destroyed the mandir and then built the mosque. The judges took differing views on this: some determined that it did mean it was destroyed; another said there was no way to tell.
• Another problem of this archaeological survey? It was not even complete. The temple that was extemporaneously created in 1992 (upon the demolition of the mosque) was not dug up in order to complete the study.
  
• A large part of this judgment was clearly based on "sentiment" - NOT law. In order to avoid religious conflict, the court decided in a way it thought to avoid violence. But is this anyway to make decisions? Is the judiciary to be held hostage by the masses (and not even masses, really, but a small violent minority)? This sets a bad precedent, to make a decision for convenience and diplomacy. One guy pointed out that the Supreme Court itself had made many decisions about free speech, etc., which were guaranteed to cause havoc, but that didn't stop it from ruling on the law.
• A lot of people in the discussion felt very strongly that this verdict, in granting that Hindus had a right to worship on the spot, and keep their idols there, served to justify the demolition. There was a lot of feeling that the court had set a precedent - a bad precedent - that if any religious group wanted to claim a particular ground, they could just storm in (causing destruction and harm along the way) and claim it. Not only claim it, but then receive legal authority to stay there.
  
• There was a lot of discussion of faith in this judgment - the public's belief that this was the birth site of Ram, etc. But if the courts are now making judgments based on religious faith, will this lead to courts sanctioning the caste system? Dowry? Where will they draw the line?
  

This discussion could go on forever. It's a crazy complicated issue, with such a conflation of politics, religion, violence, Constitutional rights, everythingyoucanimagine - one could read for years and still not be able to decide what to do. A certain part of me understands that the court did what was necessary to make sure that people didn't get hurt, but more of me looks at how idealistic Indian courts have been in the past, in terms of being socially progressive, and working towards a better India... why couldn't this court have done the same?

Dandiya!

It seemed wrong that I had gone to Navratri celebrations so much in the U.S., and couldn't make my way to one garba here in India... luckily, I am super well connected (:P), and managed to get into one on Friday night!

Started with food, obvs. Delicious pav bhaji.

Just one of my excellent hosts, enjoying the aforementioned deliciousness.


Then we quickly moved onto dessert: kulfi. YUM.


And then: the main event. They had the dancing areas blocked off with two circles: one for people who had been through training for the past month (I kind of felt like my three years in FOGANA should count, but whatevs), and the other circle for people who wanted to be silly and just mess around. Unlike in the U.S., they started off with the raas.

ACTION SHOT. We had a blast, though dandia were in limited supply. We mostly just twirled around in circles and laughed at ourselves.

Commonwealth Games

The Closing Ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games is currently going on - bringing to an end two weeks of athletics (and school/work closings for many, though not for HRLN!). Much has been said about the mistakes India made in preparing for the Games - or rather, in their lack of preparation. Stories of collapsing roofs, broken bridges, unclean and unhygienic housing and bathrooms in the Athletes' Village, amongst other problems, led a number of tourists and supporters to cancel their plans to attend, and a fair number of athletes to withdraw from the Games.

In any case, the Games started last week with a huge dramatic (and seriously spectacular) Opening Ceremony. The Government declared the day a holiday for all of New Delhi, and everything was closed. Dances, outfits, and music from every corner of India was showcased, with brilliant lighting and huge fireworks in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. It was a triumph for a lot of the Committee members and those in the Government who had participated in the planning.

[Having trouble focusing right now because the song selection for the Closing Ceremony has been absolutely absurd. Jee Karda from Singh is King, I Gotta Feeling from Black Eyed Peas, We Will Rock You, Aahun Aahun from Love Aaj Kal, Koi Kahe Kehte Rahe from Dil Chahta Hai... Random.]

In any case: so yay for all the glam and glory of the Opening/Closing Ceremonies, and for the Delhi Metro, etc etc. The real burden of the CWG, though, was carried by (as often is the case) the poorest of the poor. Slums have been destroyed without compensation or rehabilitation for the slum-dwellers. And, as I learned more about in the High Court the other day, wages and benefits for construction workers were completely withheld, not to mention the poor working conditions (leading to grievous injuries and several deaths).

HRLN's case was about the lack of compensation for more than 70,000 construction workers. Lack of compensation in actual wages, as well as benefits, not to mention compensation when the workers were injured or killed due to the unsafe working conditions. Previous court orders had been obtained, ordering the construction companies and the Government to provide compensation for these workers, but the orders remained unfulfilled. The defendants claimed a variety of defenses: the statute providing for this compensation was too new (it's not - it's been in place since 1996), the workers did not register (16,000 registration applications are pending, with no movement on their applications), the workers themselves were not coming forward (many had gone back to their native places, seeing as the work was over)... the list goes on.

There was a very interesting dialogue in the court regarding the practical application of the statute - the judges seemed very invested in fulfilling the mandate of the previous court orders, but at the same were aware of the realities of having one company held responsible for all the problems (there were about 6 different contractors for the work, with dozens of subcontractors on each project). There was also a great moment when (after Colin and others continually used the number of 70,000), the other side challenged this statistic. It turned out that the actual Regional Labor Commission was sitting in the back of the court, and came forward to confirm that there were indeed 70,000 construction workers responsible for the all the CWG construction.

The case ended with the discovery that the subcontractors had been required to give a registration (of at least the number of their employees) to the Commission when they received their contracts, and so the subcontractors could be called in for the registration of their workers.

It remains to be seen whether the subcontractors will follow through, and if the construction workers will get what they should have from the beginning. In any case, it does make it a little hard to take in the grandeur of the Ceremonies, knowing what lives were destroyed in order to make it possible.

PC & PNDT Act Consultation

Last Sunday was the consultation for the PC & PNDT Act. The Pre-Conception* and Pre-Natal Determination Techniques stand for those tests that are used to determine a child’s sex before birth – and sadly, in many parts of India, lead to the abortion of female fetuses. The legislation concerned here was meant to be used to police the use of such devices: require that any such devices be registered with a particular government agency, and to ban the use of such devices for the sole purpose of determining the sex.

This consultation, in particular, was regarding a public interest litigation case that HRLN had filed recently regarding the implementation of the Act. Although the Act was passed several years ago, implementation was lax, and enforcement was non-existent. Attending the consultation were representatives from NGOs and organizations who were working on this particular issue in their respective states, and each representative gave a report on the status of implementation in their state. Representatives were in attendance from Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh (as well as Delhi itself).

After getting briefings from each state on the implementation of the legislation (mostly reporting that there was little enforcement, with maybe one-two convictions over the last four years), we then moved to the real goal of the consultation: formulating the exact requests that would go into the consent decree that we would present to the court in the upcoming hearing. We already had a draft put together, with requests ranging from increased infrastructure to implement the legislation, to better maintenance of records, more reporting requirements, and more transparency in the committee meetings for those who would be implementing the legislation.

It was interesting to see this discussion – some of the more interesting points:

• the language barriers. There was no common language among all the participants in the room, though English was probably the closest. Those from the North would often go between Hindi and English, but when they flowed into Hindi, someone would have to be sitting with those from the South to translate into English. When people spoke in pure English, then there would also need to be some translation for certain participants. I’ve become used to this constant language problem, to some extent, but it always amazes me to think that even being in the same country, with all relatively highly-educated people, there are still such basic communications issues. Add that to the complex topic we were discussing, and it’s kind of miraculous that anything is able to get done in a single day (not really, I supposed, but that’s often how it feels).
• the extent to which details were discussed. Consent decrees in the U.S., at least so far as my familiarity goes, are not usually incredibly detailed, in order to allow the parties the flexibility to negotiate. Also, there were a lot of things being discussed which seemed, to my mind, to stretch beyond the Court’s powers – going into the Executive’s realm of power. This was only raised once the whole day, and it was kind of a token aside, to not go too far in their requests. The attitude seems to be that different courts are willing to order different things, and so one might as well ask for as much as they want, and see how far the court will go.
• the difficulty in applying national legislation to the range of problems experienced in the states. It was clear that not only was the implementation at different levels in different states, but also that different authorities were trusted in different areas. Some states had faith in the committees that would be formed as a result of legislation implementation, and were willing to entrust them with enforcement duties, while others wanted more strict liability enforcement from the statute so that they would not have to rely on any committees.

The day ended up with a pretty complete list of demands to put before the court. The case has not come up yet, so it’ll be interesting to see what the court’s reaction is.

*If any science-y people are reading this (I know you're out there), can you please explain to me how one could possibly tell the sex of a child "pre-conception"? I mean, a child has to be conceived before any of this... right?

Back to reality?

We came into Kolkata on a bus from Durgapur in the morning. I was able to take a few pictures from the bus, though they didn't come out that well...

The gate to Kolkata West International City.

Howrah Bridge

After getting into the city, we headed for clean bathrooms: a mall, where else? We also had some delicious snacks, and a short visit to a famous Bengal confectioner's called Flurys. We then went on to do a bit of shopping and a lot of wandering around. Karuna had promised to bring back some mithai for the office, so we stopped at a mithai shop and also tried a local specialty: mishti doi.

After that we didn't have much time - we headed back to Ambalika's place, got all packed up, and then headed out to the airport.

Two last images from the trip that have little practical value, but I crack up everytime I look at them.

Yes, this is real. It's a bank. In Kolkata. With Spiderman.


No, I have not changed my name. Even better: this was absolutely not a problem for going through security. Love this country.

Day 2 of Factfinding in West Bengal

We started out early in the morning from Asinsol, as we knew we had quite a few interviews to get through before we needed to head back to Kolkata. We were well on our way to the village when we got a call from one of our village contacts. It turned out that Mukesh, our main contact the previous day, had been arrested the night before, sometime after we had left the village.

So… right. We go into the village, and hours after we leave, the person whose home we went to, and who we talked to the longest, and who led us around, is arrested. We didn’t know what to think – were we the reason? Was there something else going on we didn’t know about?

We decided to stop in advance of the village, and meet with some of the men who had met with us yesterday, in order to try and figure out a plan and if we should do anything. We discussed possibilities of going to the police station to see why Mukesh was being held, going to the court to file an action immediately, if we should even go into the village again. Ultimately we decided that we should go to the village, and prepare a petition to be filed immediately. We wanted to make sure the villagers themselves were prepared to file a suit, and could file it themselves – we did not want to give the impression (or actually have it) that we were forcing legal action upon the villagers: it should come from them, rather than from us.

When we got to the village, we decided we first wanted to find out what, exactly, had happened the previous night. We started talking to the villagers, and quickly realized we were getting conflicting stories: some villagers claimed dozens of police officers came in the middle of the night and were banging on door; eventually taking away Mukesh. Others, including those immediately neighboring Mukesh’s house, claimed to have heard nothing, only finding out in the morning that something had happened the previous night.

These stories were difficult to believe – when we were walking through the village, literally everyone came out to see who we were, what we were doing there, etc. This was not a village that used to visitors from outside, and any disturbance would surely be noticed immediately. What was clear, however, was the fact that Mukesh had talked to us, and then gotten arrested. It was no stretch to believe that the villagers did not want to be talking to us for any length of time, for fear of what might happen to them. Mukesh's wife did not really answer our questions, and she also didn't seem to be much affected by the fact that her husband had been arrested the previous night (though it's hard to say what an "appropriate" reaction would be in the situation).

In any case, we ended up leaving the village after an hour or so of fruitless conversations. The wife of a man who had previously been arrested (in the first batch, still in jail) was unwilling to take our contact information in order to get legal help for him.

We then ended up going to a nearby village, whose residents had also been involved in the march to the police station. We met with some better luck there, in terms of people who were willing to take the HRLN contact information, and perhaps move forward with a case.

The investigation was an interesting experience. We collected quite a bit of information, and even if it doesn't go towards an immediate case, I know that the information will, at the very least, find its way into a larger human rights report regarding police abuses and other problems in West Bengal.

We ended up only making it as far as Durgapur on Tuesday night, as we missed the last buses to Kolkata, and so we stayed in a hotel there. The hotel search was a little complicated - our driver (apparently listening to us converse in English, assuming we had lots of $$$$) took us to an incredibly nice 4 star hotel, which we could not afford (though I wish I could have seen one of the rooms, I have to see what a luxury hotel in India looks like!).

Day 1 of Factfinding in West Bengal

On Monday morning, we headed out to Asinsol by bus. The bus ride took about 3.5 hours, and after reaching Asinsol, we checked into our hotel. After freshening up and having a bit of brunch, we headed out via car to the village where our investigation was taking place. The drive, we were told, would take about an hour. Four hours later, we came to a halt inside the village. Three guesses as to a key reason for delay, and the first two don't count.

The village was very remote – we left paved road a good thirty minutes prior to actually getting inside the village, and most of the homes were without electricity. One of the HRLN staffers who came on the trip, Miriam, was from Germany, and she was the only (visibly) non-Indian. I asked her later how she felt when she was in environments like this, but she brought up a good point – we all looked like foreigners to these villagers. Kolkata was far enough, let alone Delhi (or the US/Germany).

The first house we went to was that of Mukesh*. Mukesh was clearly a leader of sorts in the village, though there was nothing formalized about it. Mukesh and his wife laid out the background of the situation for us: Some time earlier, the local villagers had started a movement to make some changes in the village – going to the higher powers (state authorities, etc.) to try and get paved roads, etc. They were told over and over that these things would happen, but nothing happened. [This wasn’t exactly related to why we were there, but is in the way of providing a background for these villagers.] Most recently, the villagers had tried to close a liquor store that was located in a neighboring village – the purchasers of the alcohol were almost universally becoming drunk and then beating their wives/families, back in the village. Unsurprisingly, the liquor store owners did not take kindly to this movement. A group of villagers had gone from the village to the liquor store in order to explain their reasoning, and within a day or so, several of these villagers were picked up by the police.

The liquor store owners had not just stopped at complaining about the villagers’ interference – they claimed that these villagers were linked to the local Maoist movement. Twelve villagers were arrested. When the rest of the village found out, they were upset about this – particularly as not all of those arrested were even those who had gone to the liquor store in the first place. The villagers gathered together, and decided to all go to the police station together and find out why the men had been arrested, and what they could do next.

Mukesh estimated roughly 500 people went to the police station. Upon entering the gates to the station, police officers came out of the station and without explanation or warning, began to beat the villagers. We documented dozens of injuries which were still apparent, nearly two weeks after the week – bruises from lathis, cuts from the bayonets which are on police rifles (can I just say, WTF?? Police still carry bayonets??), marks from the rifles themselves. The police had beaten the villagers without discrimination: we talked to young men in their 20s, women in their 50s, and everything in between. The women were self-conscious about showing their injuries, often telling us to come back into their homes so they wouldn’t have to lift their skirt or turn their back out in the open. Some of the saddest moments were when the victims were convinced they had to have a huge mark on their arm or back given the amount of pain they still felt, but there was no visible evidence of the hit.

After all that, more villagers were arrested, many of whom were released later that night. Since the march/attack, which was on 12^th September, most of the arrested villagers had been released, but there were still 4 men in jail.

At this point, after taking dozens of pictures and speaking to several villagers, it had gotten late, and we needed to return to Asinsol for the night. We would be coming back the next day to make sure that we could speak to the families of the men who were still in jail, and make a plan for legal action against the police.

*Forgive me my paranoia.