Who will 'encounter' the system?

Yesterday, I slept with an uneasiness after hearing two news. First, the encounter and next, the 23-year-old rape victim was set ablaze by a gang of men, including the alleged rapist, as she made her way to court to attend a hearing in the case, in the Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh.

As soon as I woke up today and as a habit the first thing I do, I opened my phone, the first news I saw was that the Unnao rape victim succumbed to her injuries. The mood turned gloomy for obvious reason and immediately after that a message popped up in my Facebook messenger. A female foreign friend of mine writes to me, “Nowadays rape is BIG news in India, i don't feel safe for coming to India.....im tourist,” and she pastes a few links of the recent rape news published in some of the famous news portals across the world.

Yes, this is how I started my day.

Honestly, I didn’t know how to react but I feel the recent rape cases since the Nirbhaya incident of 2012 had shaken and moved the conscience of the country. Statistics say that India is ranked 93rd in rape incidents per 100,000 citizens in different countries. There are 1.8 rapes per 1,00,000 of the population in India but due to the size of the population, the size is a staggering 32,500 cases in a year. It takes around 90 cases per day!! Though my friend’s country and a lot of the 1st world and developing countries including Sweden, the USA, Australia, Belgium are way above the ladder just within the top 20 countries of highest rates of rape. So, this is not a problem with our country, it is a worldwide problem.

Though we are celebrating the “encounter” of the four accused in the Hyderabad rape case and this has led to many people including the victim’s family saying that "justice" has been delivered but this cannot be the norm. Police are not to pronounce verdicts and do justice, justice should always be delivered by the court. Let me elaborate on this. Police make a lot of mistakes and those mistakes are corrected when the case goes to court. Even from lower courts to higher courts. Remember the last year’s Ryan School’s case or the Arushi murder case. There are plenty of such examples. So the police are just an agency to keep control of the crime, they are not above the crime and not to pronounce a verdict. The encounter specialist cannot be the hero of society. Rape is a heinous crime and the government and the judiciary must see that the rapist is convicted and punished and justice is served at the shortest possible time. Retribution cannot be a social norm at this stage of civilization.

One good thing that is happening in India is that the rape and sexual violence against women in India have received more attention since the widely-reported gang rape and murder of a student in the capital, Delhi, in 2012. The conscience is awakened. Almost every year people are found on the streets protesting for quick justice.

But, the question remains why is INDIA in general so happy about the Hyderabad incident? It is because the general populace lost its faith in our sluggish judiciary system. What is celebrated today is the failure of governance, judiciary and the system as a whole. The sentiment of the people by large reflects the distrust and disappointment of the system. It is an expression of power emanating from a sense of deprivation, neglect, denial, rejection on one hand and loss of fear for pain and punishment on the other. Our justice delivery system has completely failed to give any justice. It re-confirms that justice delayed is justice denied. Such a sluggish justice delivery process cannot be the norm. If this continues to happen then there will be more such incidents of “encounters” or public lynching.

This is a serious national illness. The real culprit may have died in "encounter" today, but in an encounter tomorrow the innocents may be killed. Again, how many encounters will take place across the country to kill all rapists? If around 90 rapes are committed in a day, then 90 encounters every day all through the year!! Moreover, will the encounter killing of the rapists stop rape?

No, it won't. If it had then it would have stopped after 2004 when Dhananjay Chatterjee was sentenced to death and hung, the first hanging in India in 13 years for the rape and murder of Hetal Parekh, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, in 1990. It is high time for the government to ponder upon with immediate effect how can they deliver justice within the shortest time so that the citizens of the country can have faith in the judiciary. Crime in India has become an investment-free business and conviction rates are less than one percent, even after a decade or more. People now committing a crime with impunity safe in the knowledge that punishment is unlikely. The system should be such that the criminal fears the police, the police fears the society that is people and the people fear and respect the system.

It is also high time for society to start educating itself. Society needs to treat its sons and daughters with equality. We do not have to teach the sons to give respect, we together have to respect women. Violence against women is integrated into almost all cultures and religions of the country. So, men find legitimacy in female abuse, oppression and exploitation. Hence, the socialization of violence starts at home. We need to change the culture and the ethos of our society. In a country, where the dowry system exists, it is very tough to educate respecting women. The dowry system dehumanizes women by treating them as property — goods that can be exchanged. So, each dowry that’s paid reinforces a system where women are viewed as second-class citizens. Centuries-old beliefs and cultural distortions have resulted in this culture of rape and it includes marital rape. Rape is all about power, not sex and for sure no pleasure involved. A rapist uses actual force or violence — or the threat of it — to take control over another human being, the second class citizen.

So, all the people who celebrated the “encounter” should pledge to treat women with equality, give respect to women, eliminate the custom of dowry – then maybe we will have a future with no or minimal rape incidents.

India and her Refugees

 The recent controversy of NRC (The National Register of Citizens) in Assam has brought the issues of refugees in India on the forefront. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a register maintained by the Government of India containing names & certain relevant information for identification of Indian citizens of Assam state. Assam BJP unit president Ranjeet Kumar Dass said that bringing Citizenship Amendment bill (CAB) has become more pertinent for over 19 lakh people are excluded in the final national register of citizens (NRC) published on August 31. He said that the bill will benefit large number of Indians who did not make it to the NRC. Huge controversies are there on this bill and moreover a couple of years back the news of the Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar at a staggering rate to Bangladesh and the controversy created around them to enter India had set all the eyeballs on the news of refugees. Not only the Rohingya, the Syria refugees are also in the news for quite some time but Indian weren’t much concerned about them. Rohingya’s knock on the Indian border has definitely brought the Indians to their senses. Also the Indian Government’s move to grant citizenship to the Chakma and Hajong community has brought the refuges in headlines.

The refugees all across the world walk for days through jungles and mountains, or wades through rivers, or brave dangerous sea voyages across the deadliest seas and arrive exhausted, hungry and sick – in need of international protection and humanitarian assistance. There had always been refuges all across the world for different reasons. People were forced from their home countries due to conflict or repression or something else, and who must find new homes and new lives abroad. The number of refugees and internally displaced now stands at more than 65 million, the largest figure ever recorded. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than half of the world’s refugees come from just three countries ravaged by conflict – Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia (these figures do not include the 5.2 million Palestinians registered by the UN Relief and Works Agency).

The current refugee crisis is global. The coverage has focused heavily on the refugees arriving in Europe, and especially on Syrian refugees. But in fact refugees are fleeing countries from Honduras to Nigeria to Myanmar, and they are arriving in wealthy countries including the US and Australia, as well as poorer ones like Turkey and Lebanon. It is a worldwide problem — one whose scale and severity is unmatched since World War II.

With this alarming rise of the refugee crisis let us look how India deals with the refugees.

India is not a signatory of several international laws and conventions that govern the inflow, status and treatment of refugees like the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention on the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. India, meanwhile, deals with refugees and asylum seekers and refugees on an ad hoc basis. The care and treatment of refugees falls under India’s Registration of Foreigners Act of 1939, the Foreigners Act of 1946 and the Foreigners Order of 1948. The Indian Evidence Act, the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure apply to refugees who are living on Indian soil.

There are eight groups of refugees in India, namely the Tibetans, Bangladeshis, Pakistani Hindus & Sikhs, Afghan, Tamil, Rohingya, Chakma and Hajong.

India had been extra ordinarily generous to the Tibetan people by allowing them to enter India in hundred thousand and also allowed them to develop their settlements, schools and medical facilities. The Chinese invasion in 1950 led to years of turmoil that culminated in the complete overthrow of the Tibetan Government. The 14th Dalai Lama fled to India with some of his officials to Dharamsala, India in 1959. Year later, about 100 thousand of Tibetan men, women and children have found refuge in India, Nepal and Bhutan. Again in 1980 after Tibet was opened to trade and tourism, a second wave of Tibetan exodus took place due to increasing political repression. About 25,000 Tibetans joined in a span of next 10 years.

India has helped them to the best of her abilities and the Tibetans are now spread across the country in around 35 designated settlements and other places. According to a Delhi High Court ruling in September 2016, Tibetans born between January 26, 1950, to July 1, 1987 are considered Indians by birth and can apply for passports.

Since the partition of India in 1947, India has received waves of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) and Pakistan. Post 1947 the largest influx of refugees was seen during the Bangladesh Liberation War. Lakhs of people living in Bangladesh escaped the genocide carried out by Pakistani military. Refugee settlements came up in states such as West Bengal, Meghalaya, Assam and Tripura. According to official estimates, as many as 10 million refugees were given shelter during the massacre and majority of them never returned to their homes in Bangladesh after peace prevailed, rather they chose to assimilate within India.

Pakistani Hindu and Sikh Refugees started coming to India since 1947 but in the recent past they came in hordes due to Pakistan’s religious repression. India has at least 400 settlements of Pakistani Hindu and Sikh refugees. Most of them live in refugee colonies in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Delhi with ramshackle shanties and work as daily wage labourers. The government usually provides citizenship to Pakistani refugees after strenuous arguments, appeals and long periods of convincing the authorities owing to security concerns.

The afghan refugees first came to India after the Afghan-Soviet war that lasted from 1979-1989. Then in the last few years also there has been a huge influx of refugees during the Taliban regime and the post war. Around 60,000 refugees from Afghanistan had arrived during the Afghan-Soviet war, though most of them returned back and now it is estimated to be 10,000 afghan refugees are staying in India.

Around a lakh Sri Lankan Tamils currently live in India with most having arrived during or around the time of the Sri Lankan civil war. The people escaped violence and killings in Sri Lanka and sought refuge in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The population of Sri Lankan Tamils is more than the number that arrived but official estimates place around 60,000 Tamil refugees living in Tamil Nadu’s 109 camps alone.

Rohingya, the ethnic Muslim community belonging to the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Even though they belong to Myanmar, Burmese authorities refuse to recognise them as citizens. The Rohingyas are facing violence arguably to the extent of genocide in Rakhine with many calling it an act or attempt at ethnic cleansing. In recent months, Rohingyas have settled in places like Delhi, Hyderabad, Kashmir, West Bengal and the northeastern states. However, the government has refused to recognise Rohingyas as refugees.

Heartrending Nabami & Dashami

 The mood is sombre and a little melancholy as the Nabami (Navami for North India) begins. The Nabami morning gives us the warning bell that the festival that we eagerly wait for every year is going to be over by the end of the day and in an effort not to miss a moment we try to stretch the evening as long as we can. It is the same feeling when you know that your beloved is leaving the next day, and you want to spend most of the time together and make it as much as worthwhile possible. While, the thought of getting back to routine life, makes a lot of people feel blue, for many the passionate sense of attachment which they develop with the Durga idol, who has breathed life on ‘Shasthi’, adorned with flowers and jewels, worshipped with love and intense faith, and then bid adieu post a beautiful, vibrant celebration, makes them feel a little despondent. It is almost similar to a family member going away, who will not visit, till the next year. Behind the masked smile we wear on our faces, there is sadness. Though the sadness is not reflected in the celebration all of us feel it together. The feeling of sadness drains through us together, travels through every neuron of the body and carries every electrical pulse not to the head but to the heart. It travels through every one of us and connects each one of us. It is a feeling of hollowness, which approaches slowly with time. It is worse for us; we are celebrating, dancing, singing, eating, chatting, and also holding a thousand oceans of tears within. If one can really look deep into our eyes you can surely see the tiny drop of tear that sparkles at the remotest corner of our eyes which flow down the next day of Dashami.

The next morning is always gloomy and depressing. We have to let our daughter go. It is an emotional day for the devotees. She is prepared for the journey to the Himalayas with the ‘Sindoor Khela,’ one of the favourite parts of various rituals of Durga Puja. Though controversial nowadays, this is essentially the bidding-adieu-ritual. It is the act of wishing, a good journey and a happy married life which is done by applying the vermilion hued sindoor on her hair parting, feeding sweets, and wishing good luck for her journey back home. The ever-smiling idol that we adored for days, worshipped and celebrated the festival together also starts weeping. The intense feeling of the hearts worldwide reflects on the face of the idol.

There is a moment of silence to our soul when the clay statues are ceremoniously drowned to a water body for a solemn goodbye to Durga. The clay dissolves, and she is believed to return to Mount Kailash at the abode of Shiva and to the cosmos in general. Goodbyes are associated with a sense of sadness, and interestingly Durga Puja gives us the biggest joy every year and the biggest sadness as well. Four days of unadulterated festivities comes to an end. The chillness runs in our blood, coldness brings the synapses of our brain comes to a standstill but there is always the hope of resurrection, aashche bochor abar hobe – we will have again next year.

Bengali, Navratri & Non-Veg

 "During Navratri you have got non-veg!" My next door aunt exclaimed once she saw a famed chicken chain packet in my hand. "We do not even bit garlic or onion throughout Navratri." Her stance meant that I am committing a sin. "You also do not keep fast!!" I smiled and entered my apartment with a wry smile".

How would I explain to you that our Durga Puja is not the same as Navratri in North India, and the difference between veg and non-veg is distinct as well. When we the Bengalis speak about veg, that implies garlic, onion and also musor dal is out of bound. Moreover, you have to understand the sentiment and emotions involved with this festival that we call as Durgotsav – the Festival of Maa Durga. As every festival calls for celebration, so do we, and how can the Bengalis celebrate without non-veg food? You know what, Durgotsav can't be explained, it has to be experienced but it cannot be experienced in four days of festivity. It has to be experienced staying in Bengal or with the Bengalis for years to feel the essence of it.

Maa Durga is a member of our family. Since Maa Durga lives with her husband Lord Shiva at Mount Kailash and after the death of Mahishasur, she comes to her maternal home with her children Lord Kartikeya, Lord Ganesha, Goddess Saraswati and Goddess Lakshmi, so her arrival is entertained and celebrated as we do with our daughters when they visit their mother with delicious feasts and food.

Fasting? Oh, yes, we fast, but that's limited to the puja in the morning. We are on fast till we perform morning pushpanjali and we serve only vegetarian food as prasad or bhog. People involved in puja or purohit or panditji fasts for the day. Once again, our fasting is distinct from yours. Our fasting means no food at all. We don’t fast and eat with brat ki khana and brat ki namkeen and at times we fast without water (nirjala) as well.

If you've ever lived in West Bengal or C R Park in Delhi, you'll understand that Durga Puja has never been a religious festival. It's a festival that most individuals from any community and religion celebrate with equal fervour. It is a community festival and represents inclusiveness. It is above religion, caste, class, creed etc. It's also not restricted to a deity's worship. Too many individuals in Bengal, ‘Pujo’ implies many things-a time of dedication, a time of submission, a time to purchase new clothes and hop overcrowded pandals, a time of endless adda, a time to display the magnificent hidden cultural talents. It also, invariably, is a time to gorge. Food is an important component of the rubric of Bengalis and it is based on and derived from its culinary culture of fish and meat.

In its platter, from snacks, primary course to the main course, Bengali food that has originated and developed in the area of Bengal now separated is a distinct country called Bangladesh. Although the food habits, tastes, preferences and selection of food varies with distinct neighbourhoods, communities and religions, rice and fish play a dominant role remain the fundamental course. The reason is simple, Bengal is very fertile and we reap a wide variety of rice. Also remember that Bengal is a river dominated state, hence, freshwater fish was always there in abundance. A Bengali meal follows a tradition of multiple courses, serving meals where food is served course-wise usually in a specific format, marking it as the only meal of the subcontinent to have evolved such convention.

So we hope you've got wiser now and you will not raise your eyebrows at a Bengali friend who is eating non-vegetarian food during Navratri next time. Your Navratri is our greatest festival of the year. During Durga Puja, we not only consume non-veg food but we even sell non-veg food in or close to our pandals but our goddess is not disrespected.

We don't commit any sin or blasphemy. Our Maa Durga, Durga's Bengali version, gladly gave us the authorization not to be on fast. She enjoys seeing us happy. She's a daughter of ours. She's a family member.