the brook

It was disheartening to read of two girls being molested in Bombay on new year’s day. Far more shocking was to hear that the Police Commissioner of Mumbai was dismissive in his reaction and asked the media “not to blow this out of proportion”, because such things “can happen anywhere.”

There are just so many things wrong with this.

It is downright cowardice to imply that if we somehow lack the resources or motivation to fight crime, we should instead accept it. Especially a crime as degrading, as humiliating as sexual harassment – humiliating not only to the criminals but to the society at large – not long ago, Mumbai used to pride itself on being a “safe” city, one in which a lady could walk alone at night unafraid. And now, even if a couple of girls are walking in the company of men they know, they still aren’t safe. As a democratic society, we have laws against such behavior, and if the police aren’t competent enough to fight it, they just need to be better.

Actually, this wasn’t blown out of proportion enough. The reason this became visible was that media men happened to be at the scene and recorded the proceedings. I wonder how many other cases of harassment or molestation, or worse, happened that night that went by unnoticed because the victims were too scared, too uninfluential, or just too ignorant to report what happened. It’s not like we do not know that this is a problem – we just like to cover it up.

It’s hypocritical to say that this happens everywhere, so lets just put up with it. The Mumbai police are so proud of their offensive against drug abuse that these days they put up neon signs on intersections congratulating themselves for jailing X number of drug users. How come they could find the resources to fight drugs but somehow can’t find resources or even the will to start a fight against harassment? Behind drugs are the most powerful resources that organized crime has at its disposal, because drugs earn them money. Comparatively, street harassment ought to be much easier to combat.

Finally, is it that hard to take a stand and say “No, we do not accept this”? If so, that means we’ve just given up, or worse, sided with the perpetrators. That does nothing but encourage these people to behave in this way. That such a despicable act occurred in Mumbai is partly due to the “look-the-other-way” silence of a society that somehow condones such crimes. Is it surprising that the villians feel increasingly free to encroach upon their victims until their ethics and morals start to define of our society? We don’t want to let this continue, and part of that process is awareness, part of that process is to face that this indeed is a social disease that we’ve failed to cure.

We either work towards awareness and a cure, or the crimes get worse; and history holds our entire society responsible.

The Pakistani leader was shot dead just before a suicide bomber blew himself up at an election rally she was holding in Rawalpindi.

I liked to think that she was working to restore sanity in Pakistan. Obviously, there were people who did not agree. But what is clear is that whatever she was doing, it was with the full knowledge that this could happen at any time. This wasn’t a totally unexpected happening; this wasn’t even the first time she has been attacked. Yet she continued her campaign fearlessly. Much to admire, respect and learn. Working in the face of death at any moment is the bravest of all states, one I can only imagine.

May her soul rest in peace. Although we can hope otherwise, it seems clear that peace will elude her country for a while.

The upper echelons of the Indian judiciary have long been active in public affairs. Recently, however, they realized that they may have gone a bit too far. This has sparked a lively debate on whether the Supreme Court of India has interfered too much or too little with socio-political affairs in India.

Indira Jaising has a very interesting column about the issue:

Let us remember that in the Supreme Court, the discussion is confined to a handful of Constitutional ‘experts’, making it very undemocratic. While this is acceptable for matters of legitimacy in the domain of the judiciary, it is not acceptable for larger social justice and policy issues.

While Justice A K Mathur and Justice Markandey Katju commented that there have to be limits to judicial activism, Justice S B Sinha retaliates the following day refusing to decide the issue whether women prisoners in jail are being denied their rights. Further, the high court retaliates by refusing to decide a petition relating to beggars, for being chastised by the Supreme Court in entertaining all petitions in public interest.

And while the judges fight it out, justice suffers.

The other side of this debate may be summarized by viewing the comments on the above article; however, being the usual Rediff comments, they are couched in language and attitude too abysmal to quote. Essentially, the Supreme court has the status of a hero with many people (including, to some extent, me) – with its popular stance on many issues such as reservations, ragging and human rights. And of course, all Indians complain that the legislature of this country does absolutely nothing. Scarce a week in session passes by without near violence in Parliament, and recent reports of of MPs slacking don’t help. There’s long been a feeling of tiredness with our elected representatives; and we can’t help but applaud when an institution with a semblance of matched power steps in firmly and seemingly on our behalf. The people of India would like someone, anyone, to fix their problems, while they focus on how much money they can make now that the Sensex has gone above the 20,000 mark; and the judiciary seems a not wholly inaccurate approximation to what we need.

Nevertheless, Ms. Jaising’s argument and the judiciary’s self-reproach must be taken seriously. The judiciary isn’t there to do the dishes and clean up Parliament’s mess. Multiple branches of government exist to provide checks and balances, not backups. The parliament being lousy isn’t enough reason to have the judiciary start making national policy.

The scary thing about democracy is we get the government that we deserve. While I’d like for someone, maybe even myself, to just go in and fix some glaring issues in this country, I wouldn’t trade it for living in a democracy. At the end of the day, it’s the voters who must do the hard work for progress. As they say, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

Recently saw this PBS production detailing the landmark Dover trial in which evolution and intelligent design battled each other. A really well-made documentary, and a fascinating story both for the human and legal interest.

Convincing a conservative judge appointed by George Bush to rule that Intelligent Design is not science and shouldn’t be taught in science classes is no mean task!

You can watch the thing online here.

Here’s one article on rediff:

Here’s another:

Looks like our two esteemed world leaders have decided to make love, not war. The happy couple are, of course, to be applauded except that I wish they would, maybe, find a room? And no thank you, Rediff, one can do without the images.

The Economist explains that companies in America are being forced to go green because of the inevitability of carbon-trading systems: if they want to have a say in the carbon market, they need to be lobbying for emission controls. A quote that cracked me up:

As Mr Rogers explains: “There’s a saying in Washington: if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

And here’s another priceless jab from another article in the same survey:

There are lots of energy-efficiency regulations in place already, and they are being tightened. Incandescent light bulbs are the top target at the moment. Both the European Union and Australia said earlier this year that they are planning to ban them. But the man in the vanguard of this green revolution is Fidel Castro, who started phasing them out two years ago.

So this is how liberty dies. Overnight.

Is this any less than terrorism?

Using military force to kill unarmed, neutral, civilian diplomats from the UN? And that too after the UN peacekeepers called the Israeli forces ten times before the killing blow, each time only to be assured that the shelling would stop?

It is fast becoming a world where might is right. As a penetrating infographic from the independent shows, on one side there are the “mostly United Nations” – some 189 of them asking for unconditional ceasefire by both sides; and three nations who don’t want it – Israel, USA and UK.

It’s almost ironic that I am going tomorrow to attend a talk by Shashi Tharoor entitled “The future of the UN”. For now, it looks bleak indeed.

This is just in via digg and other sources – apparently the Indian government has issued orders to ISPs to block blogging sites including blogspot.

One of the reasons cited for this is that blogs are apparently being used by terrorists to communicate and spread information. I think this is not only draconian, but quite ineffective: you can’t block out the whole net, terrorists can easily set up blogs outside of the standard services, and there are workarounds to the ban that have already been posted. Worse, if the identity of the alleged misinformation blogs were to be revealed, this move would only increase traffic to that site. It appears that the government only requested for a few particular blogs to be banned; however some private ISPs have reacted over enthusiastically and shut down entire blogspot or geocities domains.

Links: Amit Varma, Blog Censorship wiki, Censorship Google group.

If you are accessing from India, I’d appreciate if you leave a comment and let us know if your access is being blocked.

It seems strange that with the country so widely divided up on the reservations issue, the entire elected Indian Parliament should pass the reservations bill with near unanimity. Doesn’t quite strike me as the democratic move – oh wait, but it is. Democracy is also about getting votes at the expense of the people if necessary. Nobody – not the government, nor the opposition can face the wrath of the OBCs when the next election comes; and so this bill goes through.

What’s even more pathetic, is that the Indian government chose to simply introduce the quota with no need, or backing for it whatsoever. Nothing brings this fact out more than a recent interview of Arjun Singh in which he admits he has no idea what the percentage of OBCs are in India, and he has only one thing to say about reservations logic – it should happen because Parliament decided it. Here’s an insightful excerpt from the interview:

Karan Thapar: Absolutely, Parliament has taken a view, I grant it. But what people question is the simple fact – Is there a need for reservations? If you don’t know what percentage of the country is OBC and if, furthermore, the NSSO is correct in pointing out that already 23.5 per cent of the college seats are with the OBC, then you don’t have a case in terms of need.

Arjun Singh: College seats, I don’t know.

Karan Thapar: According to the NSSO – which is a government appointed body – 23.5 per cent of the college seats are already with the OBCs.

Arjun Singh: What do you mean by college seats?

Karan Thapar: University seats, seats of higher education.

Arjun Singh: Well, I don’t know I have not come across that so far.

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Karan Thapar: Fifty years after the reservations were made, statistics show, according to The Hindustan Times, that overall in India, only 16 per cent of the places in higher education are occupied by SCs and STs. The quota is 22.5 per cent, which means that only two-thirds of the quota is occupied. One-third is going waste, it is being denied to other people.

Arjun Singh: As I said, the kind of figures that have been brought out, in my perception, do not reflect the realities. Realities are something much more and, of course, there is an element of prejudice also.

Karan Thapar: But these are figures that come from a Parliamentary Committee. It can’t be prejudiced; they are your own colleagues.

Arjun Singh: Parliamentary Committee has given the figures, but as to why this has not happened, that is a different matter.

In short, the message to the people from the government is – we are doing all we can to gather votes. We don’t care about the students of value or quality of education in India. The huge student protests made no impression on us because the students aren’t the people voting for us. And since 80% of India won’t bother seeing our interviews, it’s even OK for us if we make not the slightest attempt to be logical and sophisticated and present anything remotely resembling a clear case for reservations.

As for the opposition, they have remained totally mum – except for Navjot Singh Sidhu and Shiv Khera who joined the protestors (but made sure it was clear that they were doing this personally and not as members of the BJP). Is it unreasonable to expect that an opposition ask for a solid case for such an impactful decision which will clearly hurt so many student’s lives?

The bottom line is simple – logic has become a minority consideration, and reasonably arguments are things that nobody cares about, as I had complained earlier. I can only empathize with all the students whose hard work this measure will inevitably crush beneath its illogical, crazy but politican heavy feet.