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scandal The
unheard concern Yeh
Woh issue Sceptic’s
Diary The
man on the Left
Tehelka for a reason The recent case of sexual assault involving journalists is being seen in the backdrop of a string of gang rapes that led to an effective social movement against the crime in the last one year By Ammara Ahmad Last December, a
girl in Delhi was brutally gang raped in a bus by six people including the
bus driver. She passed away 13 days later in a hospital in Singapore. India
has never been the same. There were large scale angry protests across the
country. Eventually Sonia Gandhi had This is precisely what we
loved about Tehelka — its activism, sprawling investigations that lasted
for weeks, its commitment to social issues and clear support to humanitarian
causes which newspapers cannot afford. Tehelka team did stunning ground work
on the Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai gang rape cases. Tehelka was founded in the
year 2000. By 2001, Tehelka had become a household name because of its sting
operations (Operation West End) which exposed the graft involved in the
defence deals in the capital. The exposition led to the resignation of then
defence minister George Fernandes and also the BJP chief Bangaru Lakshman. Ironically, Tehelka was
new-age media, one of the first of its kind in this part of the world,
apparently fighting the age-old discrimination it is now accused of
embodying. Its main attraction was its website, laced with Thinkfest videos,
interviews and other multimedia content. It gave the magazine cheaper space,
more colour and longer investigations. Indeed Tehelka was creating a tehelka
with its activism and investigations. The Indian newspaper
fraternity says this activist journalism was spearheaded by former editor and
now rape-accused Tarun J. Tejpal himself. Tejpal started his career
in the 1980s with the ‘Indian Express’ and remained unnoticed. Later he
joined ‘India Today’ and in 1994 helped set up the ‘Outlook’
magazine. In 2000, he founded Tehelka, the modern sting operation master and
a byproduct of the dot-com revolution. Tejpal became the rags-to-riches dream
editor, often cited as one of the most powerful men in the industry. After the recent assault
case, this power makes one cringe. Powerful men have slipped down this slope
many times. Recently, the mayor of San Deigo stepped down due to 18
harassment charges. Dominic Strauss-Kahn famously lost his French presidency
bid because of rape charges that led to conviction. In fact, when in 2008
President Zardari told Sarah Palin that “she is even more gorgeous in real
life” among other things, the famed human rights activist Asma Jahangir
said that had the woman been of a lower social rank, it could have been
construed as harassment. Another former Tehelka
employee, who also worked with the ‘Outlook’, said she was harassed by
Tejpal. The Tejpal-Chaudhury duo played a questionable role in her case too. When you hear that the big
boss said “do this or lose your job”, you wonder if this had been going
on for a long time. Perhaps it was one reason why so many promising
journalists kept bidding Tehelka adieu after sometime. Hartosh Singh Bal, the
well-known editor from ‘Open Magazine’, was at one time working with
Tehelka. He recently described it as an organisation that “eventually
became a shrine to the cult of Tarun with Shoma as its high priestess”. He
said it’s all about the sources of funding (for Tehelka) and that the ad
revenue model needs to be replaced with funding by readers. Tehelka is
allegedly funded by the mining mafia of Goa and a controversial company Essar
from Chathisgarh. Activists pointed out
during the Delhi gang rape outrage that the case became popular because it
lacked the complexity of most rape cases — no family members were involved,
no caste or community politics, no family revenge or honour issue. The Indian Penal Code then
upgraded the definition of rape to all kinds of penetrations, because many
abusers were taking advantage of this legal gap — committing sexual assault
without actual intercourse and escaping the grip of justice. Indeed. Even Shoma
Chaudhury didn’t know at the time that next year, around the same time, she
will be defending her boss’s rape attempt as an ‘internal matter’,
‘untoward incident’, and walk around falsely claiming the victim is
‘satisfied’ and refrain from initiating a police probe. This time things are
different. There is CCTV footage showing Tejpal chasing the girl into the
lift twice and her escaping it on both occasions. The string of emails,
Tejpal’s apologies and her responses are all public record. The colleagues
she went to after the second assault have testified and their witness
testimonies match her account now. Today, it doesn’t matter
what Chaudhury says about the incident or Tejpal tries slandering the victim
by saying she was smiling and partying till late at night. The famous gang
rape cases and the debate following them have cleared the public mindset.
Nobody is ready to buy Tejpal’s attempt to declare the BJP is vindictively
chasing him. Many think this fall was
engineered by none other than Tejpal himself. His associate, Shoma Chaudhury,
who has now resigned from her post as Managing Editor Tehelka, co-owned the
profitable ThinkFest with him. She had come under media scrutiny for
hindering/delaying the investigation. At this point, if anything
is struggling for life, it is the vivacious Tehelka. Historically, magazines
like the ‘Illustrated Weekly of India’, ‘India Today’ and even the
iconic ‘Pakistan Times’ and ‘Viewpoint’ on this side of the border
became extinct. Or should we say replaced by their more timely counterparts. Tejpal might face up to ten
years in prison. Maybe it’s time for him to sit in jail and write another
sequel to his novel ‘The Alchemy of Desire’ where a young reporter
legally brings a media scion ( and his sexist desires) down to his knees.
This would be different from the sequels he has done before.
An attack on a blasphemy victim in custody once again highlights the state’s slackness on the issue By Waqar Gillani Mohammad Saqib, a
mentally challenged person who claimed himself to be a prophet, was brutally
attacked by a prisoner on death-row in the Central Jail in Gujranwala a few
days ago. An inquiry into the matter has been initiated. The attacker got hold of an
iron rod when he heard some allegedly blasphemous remarks from the victim, a
senior jail o Some locals accused Saqib
of uttering blasphemous remarks and lodged a case against him about six
months ago in Lahore. They handed him over to the police. Later, a local
court declared him mentally-challenged and acquitted him. Soon after his release, he
again supposedly uttered such blasphemous remarks, attracting another police
case by the locals. This time he was sent on judicial remand to the
Gujranwala jail where he faced this attack which nearly killed him. Attacks on blasphemy
accused while in jails and in police custody have a long history. In 2003,
Samuel Masih was booked for blasphemy and was later killed by a constable in
police custody. In 2009, the Gujrat police arrested publishers of an
allegedly blasphemous book. A few days later, a guard killed one of them in
police custody. In 2009, Fanish Masih arrested in Sialkot was killed in jail
a few days later. Yousuf Ali was charged with blasphemy in 1997, sentenced to
death but prior to execution was shot dead in jail in 2002. The National Commission for
Justice and Peace (NCJP), working for the rights of the minorities, in one of
its published reports reveals that 1,058 cases of blasphemy have been
registered in the last 25 years. While between 1927 and
1986, only seven cases of blasphemy were registered in the subcontinent. The unending saga of the
controversial blasphemy law and its misuse to settle personal scores in
Pakistani society has been going on for the past three decades — mainly
after the promulgation of amendments in the Pakistan Penal Code in 1986 that
announced strict sentences during Gen Ziaul Haq’s reign. “There is dire need to
revisit and review the blasphemy laws. As many as 52 are extra-judicial
murders on charges of blasphemy,” says Peter Jacob, who has been heading
the church-run NCJP for many years. According to data collected
by different non-government organisations, at least 32 cases have been
reported to police this year. Out of them 12 involve Christians, 16 Ahmadis
and 4 Muslims. In May this year, Lee Ping,
the administration manager of a Chinese consortium, building a hydropower
project, was accused of desecrating the Holy Quran by a Pakistani worker. He
had allegedly thrown a copy of the Quran while moving the belongings of a
Pakistani doctor who had refused to vacate his room. Later, the authorities
cleared him of the charge. Last year, a young girl
Iqra Nadeem, who has now moved to Germany, wrote a book on this critical
issue after she was deeply moved by the tragedy of Gojra in 2009, where a
Christian colony was set on fire in central Punjab. In reaction, people from
extremist groups have been protesting against her book which mainly contains
the history of blasphemy and urges dialogue between the majority and
minority. Her book highlights the misuse of blasphemy laws; she holds that
local clerics aggravate the issue and use the blasphemy laws to settle
personal scores. The World Council of
Churches (WCC) held a discussion in Geneva last year after an 11-year-old
Pakistani Christian girl Rimsha Masih was detained on accusations of
desecrating the Holy Quran. “There is no relief or
reduction in the number of blasphemy cases. Sadly, it has become a profession
of certain elements to lodge such cases,” says I.A. Rehman, Secretary
General Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, adding, “These elements are in
the business of lodging such cases without proper investigation to gain cheap
popularity.” According to him, “The
issue of blasphemy laws is neglected. There is no dialogue on the issue and
it has negative impact on religious minorities and marginalised sections of
society.” The human rights bodies
maintain that blasphemy laws in Pakistan are in conflict with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, especially with Article 7 which calls for
equality before the law and protection against discrimination; article 19
which talks about freedom of opinion and expression; and article 18 which
guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. These controversial laws
are contradictory to Articles 2, 3 and 4 of the Declaration on the
Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion
and Belief, which clearly prohibits religious discrimination. Blasphemy laws
are also against Articles 2 and 4 of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons
Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities that
seek to protect fundamental freedoms “without any form of discrimination”
and the right to freely “profess and practice their own religion”. The UN Special Rapporteur
on freedom of religion or belief has suggested that this piece of legislation
is discriminatory and often abused. Rehman sees the state and
government is not taking action against such elements or initiating
discussion and review on the blasphemy laws. “They want to keep this issue
under the carpet,” he says. “Our governments have never paid serious
attention to such issues. Sometimes it seems the police officials have the
tacit approval of higher-ups to attack the blasphemy accused even in their
custody. The government has not shared the inquiry report of burning of
Joseph Colony in Lahore few months ago”. vaqargillani@gmail.com
Law of diminishing work By Masud Alam People do all sorts of things to earn a living. One of them is inventing phrases that sound stupid and sublime in equal measure. Like: ‘smaller is bigger’, ‘pious acts result in riots’, ‘life is a pirated copy of Bollywood’s B grade films’ etc. There’s this smart dude who says whatever kind of work you can think of, falls in one of the three categories: humans working with machines; humans working with ideas; and humans working with other humans and animals. It is my intention to prove that the above-mentioned dude is not half as smart as he claims credit for. That it is possible for someone to earn a living without working with machines, ideas or people. For this purpose I’ll use the example of Pakistan — a country created as a laboratory in modern times, in which failed experiments from the entire history of mankind are repeated. In the process, we may not have reinvented wheel, but guess who reinvented puncture-mending? Thank you. We were able to excel in this art by observing the hitherto unfulfilled needs of the wheel owner. We found that if you insert a sharp object into the wheel, the owner then needs to have the puncture mended. Today, a team of two half-wits is enough to run a successful puncture-mending business in which one goes round puncturing, the other mending. Pakistanis have successfully applied this model to all entrepreneurial pursuits. Take for instance the practice of law. No one goes to a lawyer unless they have a problem or complaint. From their spouses and friends to neighbours and strangers, everyone comes to pour scorn, fear, hatred, or helplessness into his or her ears. Having absorbed all this negativity year after year, the lawyer becomes cynic, suspicious and senile. The only times you’ll find them hospitable is during the visits before you sign the letter of engagement. You could tell them any problem in the world and they’ll tell you, after the briefest reflection, the exact amount you will have to fork out for the solution, and the minimum amount you’ll pay before the lawyer lifts a finger to point towards the possible solution or the absence of any. Having signed on the dotted line and having received the advance fee however, the lawyer becomes your new best friend, often for life, because the litigation that binds you together will likely go on till the end of your or the lawyer’s life, whichever comes first. This does not happen by default though. The lawyer works hard to ensure every relationship they build is for life. He exercises control by attending to a case only once a year. The rest of the times his clerk informs the court the lawyer could not present himself because he is travelling abroad/attending High Court/at the death bed of a parent/organising an election rally/busy with bar activities etc. All of these are accepted by the judge as valid reasons for absence. Forget the unauthorised absence and tardiness of school going kids coming from dysfunctional families, forget the doctors who leave their patients to die while they march in the streets chanting slogans for their own rights, forget the ministers who hardly ever show up in the parliament… the lawyer rules the roost when it comes to skipping work. Every day, every court room in every city is unable to proceed with more than half the cases on its cause list because one or both lawyers fail to show up. A good number of those who do, show up only to request for more time. And no such request is ever contested by the opposing lawyer, or turned down by the judge. Ever since the lawyers’ movement of 2007, they have found another, more viable tool to show their contempt for courts, their proceedings, the clients, their problems, and the law itself: it’s called ‘boycott of courts’. So a judge censures a lawyer for picking his nose and wiping the boogie on the desk of the judge, and the lawyers strike. A lawyer attempts murder and is caught in the act by police, the lawyers strike. A lawyer is caught selling pornography at his own shop, the lawyers strike… And every strike automatically means boycotting courts. So eager are they to skip work that the news of a fellow lawyer gunned down or roughed up is greeted like Ziaul Haq’s plane crash — one less undesirable person in the world, and one more welcome holiday from work. When they can’t find a reason to strike, they boycott courts to show solidarity with Kashmiris or Palestinians, or to celebrate the Mumtaz Qadri Day (for those with mushy memories that said Mr. Qadri is a self-confessed, widely witnessed, and convicted murderer who was garlanded by lawyers). The smart dude is wrong. There is a fourth category of gainful employment — putting in long hours to do absolutely nothing. masudalam@yahoo.com
Dharna politics With its sit-ins against drone strikes, the PTI clearly seems to be in the opposition mode By Aoun Sahi The PTI has decided
that it’s time for action. It has announced that Nato supply containers to
and from Afghanistan via Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be stopped at the border
points. In its various demonstrations and dharnas (sit-ins), attended by the
chairman Imran Khan himself, the party has declared that its teams would stop
Nato supplies from entering into the province at any point — including
Khairabad, Charsadda, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan and Hangu. It claims this
blockade of Nato supply would continue till the US stopped its drone attacks
on the Pakistani soil. The news coming from the
Peshawar sit-in is that the PTI’s tabdeeli razakars (volunteers for change)
have been acting as the police as well as the court. They have been stopping
trucks and forcefully checking their documents — creating law-and-order
problem for their own government in KP. Reportedly, the government has
registered FIRs against the erring workers. Though PTI has taken some
promising steps to give relief to the people since the May election, its
political narrative revolves around nationalism and religion. The way the
party links terrorism with drone attacks and drone attacks with Nato supply
lines is an example of it. Dr Khadim Hussain, a
Peshawar-based political analyst, analyses the PTI’s discourse as based on
fascism and isolation — using ‘ghairat’ as a symbol to spread hatred
against the whole world. He thinks the PTI that talks about political, social
and economic autonomy doesn’t need to rely on hatred against the West and
India to become a good nation. “PTI is also against pluralism. It wants
everybody to think like it and, if that’s not the case, it labels them as
either agent or corrupt.” The party is drifting
towards isolation — with no political allies other than Jamaat-e-Islami and
Jamatud Dawa. In a recent interview with NDTV, Imran Khan justified his
alliance with Hafiz Saeed, saying that political parties that don’t follow
a policy of boycotting people and politicians can strike a deal with whoever
they think is politically viable. “If I, as a politician, share stage with
a violent organisation, what’s wrong with that?” Khan asked naively
during the interview. He went on to say that the superior courts of Pakistan
are the forums where Hafiz Saeed’s involvement in the 26/11 should be
determined. If its workers stop truck
drivers and check their documents it means they are taking the law in their
hands. “If they think that Nato supply line is an issue of the federal
government and they would create problems for them on the international
level, they are actually committing treason,” says Hussain. Political commentator, Raza
Rumi, believes Khan’s party is emerging as a mainstream rightwing political
force in Pakistan subsuming and replacing all the religious parties. The PTI
has appropriated their agenda which is anti-West, hypernationalist and which
seeks to create an Islamic state. “There is no harm in having a common
agenda with JI. They rule together in KP province and its leadership shares
the stage with jihadi organisation,” he says. “PTI’s drumming up of
xenophobia is influencing the youth to become more terrified and vary of
Pakistan’s international interests. Anyone who differs with the PTI is
termed as ‘American parrot’. The party needs to review its policies
sooner than later,” says Rumi. One of the PTI’s most
dangerous tendencies is to consider interests of regional and international
forces as always anti-Pakistan. They do not believe that both can converge.
The only reason PTI has given a call against stopping Nato supply is that it
would end terrorism and we would be a peaceful state. “There is nothing
more to it. It is the most simplistic solution of a very complex political
issue. It seems the trained and educated party cadre has no say in party
matters or they have no trained cadre at all,” says Hussain. Asad Umar, senior leader of
PTI, rejects the suggestion that the party’s political philosophy is
anywhere close to fascism. “The PTI is a pro-peace party. We are against
military action in Karachi, we are for political solution of Balochistan
issue and want good relations with India,” he says. Umar clearly says the PTI
believes in sovereignty of the state. “Pakistan must not allow its soil to
be used against anyone. We have mentioned this in our manifesto. Just because
we believe in talking to the TTP to bring peace in the country, people label
us as conservative, fascist and radical.” Umar says they do not
exclude internal factors while talking about drones. “We do not use
external factor when we talk about peace in Karachi. Have we linked
Balochistan peace with drones? We are the only party which has named and
openly condemned those organisations involved in sectarian violence. The
problem is that drone strikes have direct link with peace in tribal areas and
KP,” he says.
Hate speech and pitfalls BY Waqqas Mir Speech in a country
as emotional as ours is always tricky business. It is one of those things
where perfectly reasonable people can disagree in different and conflicting
yet equally valid ways. One particularly contentious area within the realm of
speech is hate speech. The recent tragic events in
Rawalpindi and the subsequent discourse brings this into stark perspective. Notice also the stark focus
on issues relating to identity when hate speech-related discourse is carried
out. And this requires particular attention. Public discourse when
dealing with hate speech is always in danger of essentialising entire
communities. This is especially true when discourse erupts in the aftermath
of human tragedy — such as the incident in Rawalpindi. There are two distinct
issues right now — one relates to unfairly blaming entire communities for
the actions of individuals within those communities and the other relates to
necessity or even desirability of hate speech laws. Regarding the first issue,
one relating to identity, it is important to be mindful of the injustice we
commit when we forget the inherent multiplicities of identities all of us
possess. Amartya Sen has written about this and has raised powerful points
including his argument that defining someone as a Shia or a Sunni ignores
equally other important facets of identity — being a male or female, a
Pakistani, a Punjabi or Sindhi for that matter, a cricket fan or a human
being. Reducing these identities and in fact ignoring them in order to focus
on one hides things that we cannot and must not ignore. Wouldn’t the view taken
of the Rawalpindi incident be different if we said that individuals violated
the law rather than trying to figure out whether it was members of the Sunni
or Shia community who were responsible? There is little or no value in
tainting or victimising entire communities. How does linking violation of the
law to identities of perpetrators help us in controlling such instances? Such an approach will only
engender existing biases or give rise to new ones. Democratic governments in
environments as volatile as ours have nothing to gain from this. Being a
human being is a more essential part of anyone’s identity than any identity
that may become more important in a given context. However, this is not meant
to deny that humans themselves value certain facets of their identity. But
without prejudice to this, even though a particular identity may be more
important to a human being it does not mean that governments will make life
any easier for themselves. One hopes that any judicial inquiry into this
issue will not focus on communities but individuals. The lens of identity
matters but the state needs to engage with it in a rational manner. The other issue is hate
speech and there have been calls for legislation on this. Firstly, bringing
out a new law will not make any real difference since lack of legislation is
not our biggest problem. Implementing the law will remain a challenge. Assuming we can implement
such a law, this still does not answer the question whether a hate speech law
is desirable. How far will we go in banning hate speech? What will the tests
be and which communities will be affected the most — particularly when the
law is abused? The choking effect on
speech that hate speech laws have also needs to be considered. This isn’t a
society where there is a tradition of vibrant discourse on other issues. All
speech can then be affected. These and other things
should remind us of the possible pitfalls. The writer is a practicing
lawyer. He can be reached at wmir.rma@gmail.com or on Twitter @wordoflaw
A victim of sectarian violence, Professor Syed Shabbir Hussain Shah will always be remembered as an educationist, scholar, activist and humanist By Altaf Hussain Asad The gruesome murder
of Professor Syed Shabbir Hussain Shah in Gujrat on November 19 along with
his driver was widely mourned by all the liberal and progressive writers and
educationists of the country. A professor of history by
profession, Shabbir Hussain Shah was a left-wing activist who remained active
in the Lecturers Association and gave tough time to the state sponsored
Islami Jamiat in the days of Zia. He started his life as a section officer in
Islamabad. Later he joined the education department as a lecturer. His job
took him to many cities but it was his native town Gujrat where he passed
greater part of his life. He joined the University of Gujrat after retirement
from the Education Department and made all out effort to make the gigantic
project a success. He was serving as the Director of the Students Services
Centre. Shah was a brilliant
conversationalist. He challenged the official version of history which irked
people a lot. But he used to always lend ears to others with a smile — a
rare trait indeed. Historian Dr Mubarak Ali,
who had met him a few times, terms his murder a great loss. “I first met
him in Gujrat in a programme held in memory of Akbar Ali M.A and after that
many times. He was a progressive scholar and activist who believed in
scientific thinking. He read a paper in the conference that we arranged in
Lahore on Martial Laws in Pakistan. He made great efforts to make the Gujrat
University a success — and I must add, he was a real asset of the
university.” Ch. Masood Akhtar, a Gujrat-based
progressive lawyer, had known Shabbir Shah for the past 25 years, says the
murder of Shah is an irreparable loss — “he was a ray of hope in an era
of darkness in which we are condemned to live. He gave the idea of forming a
university to the then chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi and later devoted
his energies to the making of the institution. He had no personal enmity and
the police says Lashkar-e-Jhangvi might be behind the murder as it has found
a chit at the site of murder which reads that LeJ has done the dastardly act.
As a matter of fact the state is reaping what it has sown during the dark
days of Zia and now the guntoting coterie is dictating its terms”, regrets
Chaudhry Masood Akhtar. Sheikh Abdul Rashid, a
close friend of Shah and PRO of the Gujrat University says the murder of Shah
is an attack on “dialogue” as he strongly believed in freedom of
expression. He further says Shah was a
brilliant conversationalist who used to argue with facts and figures —
“We are compiling two books on Syed Shabbir Shah — one of his articles
and another of the tributes paid to him”.
The PPP stalwart and former
MNA Ghazanfar Gul says there is no Shia-Sunni history in the city of Gujrat.
He is also sad at the brutal death of Shabbir Shah with whom he enjoyed
cordial relations. “He was a fine man and a scholar. His services are great
in the realm of education and his death is a huge loss for us.” Shabbir Hussain Shah was
also an active member of Mazdoor Kisan Party and his old colleagues remember
him as a committed leftist whose dream was a classless and free society. He
didn’t care to compile his writings into a book form during his lifetime. Let’s hope his comrades
and colleagues will fill this gap.
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to attend the funeral of the victim to
pacify her voters. The protests took the form of a social movement and the
four adult accused were sentenced to death in September 2013. The event was
so terrifying that even the managing editor of ‘Tehelka’, Shoma Chaudhury,
was forced to ask: “Why did it need an incident so unspeakably brutal to
trigger our outrage?”
fficial tells The News on Sunday, adding the victim is stable
now. 
