Jyoti Punwani writes on human rights issues. You can e-mail the author at jyoti.punwani@gmail.com
Jyoti Punwani examines the relevance of the Sairat, the hit Marathi film everyone is talking about, in today's times.
'How can we be silent when we see millions of Adivasis being displaced? Do we have a choice whether to speak or not?' 'My treatment this time was worse. Last time at least they didn't deny me medicines; those bought from outside were given to me. This time, even medicines bought at my expense were not given to me.'
'In the districts of Jagdalpur and Dantewada, the only time the accused walked out of jail was when they were acquitted. There is no concept of bail.' 'The women were very clear -- they had to fight. Remaining silent any longer was not an option.'
When an accused gets attacked on the way to court, and again within the court premises, with no intervention by a judicial officer, which space is safe, asks Jyoti Punwani.
'Muslims and Dalits must erase the way they remember their past, or carry out their their performances in private,' says Jyoti Punwani, as Maharashtra's Censor Board denies permission to a play Jai Bhim, Jai Bharat.
'People are beaten at the slightest provocation, paraded completely naked and then tortured. Did you know the number of prison deaths is the highest in Maharashtra? The one year I was in jail, 98 prisoners died.' 'The judges did warn the jail authorities, but they didn't care. They even violated the high court's order regarding my treatment. One judge asked my lawyer: "Can I go and implement my orders there?"' Professor G N Saibaba, who is 90 per cent handicapped, speaks of his ordeal in a Nagpur jail after being arrested for protesting against the Centre's anti-Naxal and anti-Adivasi campaign.
'When you read that for the first time, areas in Gujarat dominated by Patidars/Patels have been declared 'sensitive' for the civic polls that were held this week, you sit up and take note,' says Jyoti Punwani.
'One can understand this prejudice in the minds of policemen against Muslims, without accepting it. But what tilts the balance disproportionately is the police's blind eye to offences committed in the name of the majority.' says Jyoti Punwani.
'In the 30 years since the Ayodhya movement began, the RSS has created a generation of Hindus who are the mirror image of those fanatic Muslims who take to the streets at the slightest, even imagined, 'insult to Islam,' argues Jyoti Punwani.
'If a Delhi University professor's rights can be violated so easily, then think about what the rest of the population, with even lesser means, has to suffer under the State.'
The curative petition and other legal remedies still available to Yakub Memon are part of his rights as a prisoner condemned to death. Does the Maharashtra government want to deprive him of these rights, asks Jyoti Punwani.
'It is difficult to imagine the BJP becoming the legatee of Ambedkar. Whichever way one looks at it, Ambedkar's thought and Hindu nationalism are not easy to reconcile.'
'The educated, employed, and self-sufficient Dalit is being attracted towards the BJP. The middle-class that has rapidly emerged among Dalits in the last two decades has deviated from its path. It has become a traitor to its own class. It cannot distinguish between a friend and an enemy.'
The uncle versus nephew fight for the spiritual leadership of the Dawoodi Bohras enters the court-room, spilling family secrets and exposing the divide in the community. Jyoti Punwani reports.
The BJP has 165 first-time MPs. Are we to expect such utterances from all 165 of them? Or only those from a rural background? Because that is the explanation given by the PM, says Jyoti Punwani.
'Counter terrorism does not appear to be good guys fighting the bad ones; it is about people being picked up, detained and charged with crimes they did not commit.'
The RSS uses its resentment against mosques and loudspeakers to stoke anti-Muslim feelings among other Hindus, whenever it can, be it during riots, or before elections, says Jyoti Punwani.
For it's not the Sena alone that indulges in hooliganism. 'Thokshahi', as the Sena proudly calls it, is the hallmark of the party and of its offshoots. But other parties haven't exactly been models of good behaviour. Not just Maharashtra, ministers and MLAs slapping officials everywhere in the country is not unheard of, says Jyoti Punwani.
Dhananjay Desai has been allowed to spread his poison to young men in Maharashtra and Goa over the last five years, by a 'secular' Congress-NCP government. The 23 cases pending against him have not stopped him. He and his supporters must have thought they were immune when they lynched a bearded Muslim at night. Neither Desai nor his followers, nor the police, nor their 'secular' political masters, must have expected the nationwide furore that followed, says Jyoti Punwani.
'What of Modi? They are willing to take their chances. Maharashtra's Muslims recall how the Congress scared them with the Bal Thackeray bogey for decades, yet, when it came to using all the might of the State to protect them from Shiv Sena goons, be it in 1970, 1984 or 1992-1993, it did nothing. For them, the Congress's secularism is a cruel joke.' 'This argument that we ('seculars') must vote for the 'winning secular candidate' has one more implication: Those who are against Hindutva must forever be stuck with the same corrupt, cynical and tired old parties, who are not even secular,' says Jyoti Punwani.
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