This is just a story that happens many times over in the free, democratic, India that upholds justice and civil liberties to all its citizens.
The link below will certainly consume quite some time if you decide to read through. But read you must. And especially the gentry that savor Arundati bashing and cry vociferously "Ms Roy keep your hands off Kashmir".
The only similarity is she is just another woman, a citizen of this country like us. But the commonality ends there and this emotional write up tells that in ample words.
So please click the link "Article" and read on about democratic India . Because our children too as well as we can be the ones seeking justice and in the dungeon waiting for the hangman's call and ......
The link below will certainly consume quite some time if you decide to read through. But read you must. And especially the gentry that savor Arundati bashing and cry vociferously "Ms Roy keep your hands off Kashmir".
The only similarity is she is just another woman, a citizen of this country like us. But the commonality ends there and this emotional write up tells that in ample words.
So please click the link "Article" and read on about democratic India . Because our children too as well as we can be the ones seeking justice and in the dungeon waiting for the hangman's call and ......
The Very Strange Story of the Attack on the Indian Parliament
-- By Arundhati Roy,
"To invoke the 'collective conscience of society' to validate ritual murder,
which is what the death penalty is, skates precariously close to valorising
lynch law.It's chilling to think that this has been laid upon us not by
predatory politicians or sensation-seeking journalists (though they too have
done that), but as an edict from the highest court in the land."
Article
10 comments:
The capital punishment, if you look at it dispassionately, is merely the blood-lust of a 'civilized' society. Especially so in the cited case where the evidence is scanty. But then you cannot expect decency from authorities who are trying to set an example and to satiate the blood-lust of the people.
Death sentence should be carried out against public enemies like the Rajas and Kalamadis who have betrayed the trust of a nation and unflinchingly robbed the country. I am sure that would set the right example. There are many more of the kind whose very existence is a threat to humanity. But people like them are growing like viruses. There wouldn't be much left of our leaders if we start killing them; and we might have to begin with the former CJ of Supreme Court and starting downwards, many public figures stand in the queue to the death house.
Our judicial system; talk about it - there is no transparency; its outdated and manipulated.
As Balan said, death sentence makes sense if it can be carried out against public enemies. But if one starts; none of the big names would survive.
@ Balan / @ insignia
Did you folks go into the link and read Ms Roy's comment on the matter?
Sure. Read the earlier parts in detail and then skimmed through the rest, to read the concluding parts again in detail.
What Arundhati Roy has written is her opinion.That doesnt make it any more valuable or good argument.Just who is she to make comments on matters of national interest?.She is nothing more than an ordinary citizen and her opinions do not carry any more values.She is a writer with skills,but she is not a genius who can make judgements on matters from Adivasi protests,Narmada dam,Kashmir issues and now,the Parliament attack.
It seems she is more competent to come to conclusions than the supreme court judges.One thing is obvious.She makes a stand exactly opposite to what the government takes in each and every matter.The simplest way to get popularity is to go against the normal or the usual and she has learned the trick.To say that whatever our government does is stupid is simply spitting on our selves.Let us leave these matters to the descision fo these self declared intellectuals !Let Kashmir go to Pakistan,let there be no more dams,let the Maoists roam around and kill people, and let all the terrorists be released with a copy of Bhagavad Gita,and the rapists and murderers attend a session of sermons and go home!I think we should make her our next PM,because she has solutions for all our problems!
It is easy to say that there should be no capital punishment.I dont know how many of us would have the kindness to let go of a criminal if our loved ones get raped and killed.The man who brutally raped the nurse in Bombay was given a 7 year sentence,and the woman still lies unconscious after 37 years.A good act of kindness by a morally conscious community. This is a joke to me.Now what do you suggest to be given to the murderer who raped and killed the girl in Kerala few weeks back? Two years in prison and a sermon? Come on.
@ doc antony,
Yes indeed she is an ordinary citizen. And what are you and me? Ordinary too! And who is this extraordinary person who has the mandate to comment on all such matters you quoted, that can affect any one of us and posterity?
The question of whether Ms Roy has the mandate or the right to comment on matters that touch her life and that of any of us is irrelevant than the flawed judgment, or the gross injustice done to the tribals or the human rights violations in the Narmadha belt.
Doc here, Ms Roy is irrelevant. It is the cause. Can you point out one instance in the past years when we could agree with the acts of the central or State governments on development that have been sustainable and inclusive?
There is a Forest Dwellers Act of 2006 that can usurp a tribal overnight. The land he was born, his fore fathers lived and sustained them is lost in a whiff and he becomes an alien in his own land. Is this development sake? Then as you ask about rape victims what would you do if you were a tribal evicted from your land or a SSP basin dweller whose land was flooded overnight and languishes without a piece of land to have a roof over head?
The government lied in the Supreme Court that there was no single person from the NB to be rehabilitated. Whilst the fact is there are over 200000 to be rehabilitated still.
And who gets the benefit of the dam?The big businesses and the city of Ahmadabad, not Kutch. The SSP actually makes the problem of drought in Gujarat much worse.
“And you can claim that the SSP is a panacea for the greater cause. Before the water can reach Kutch and Saurashtra, it will have to negotiate-literally-the water-intensive cash-crop growing, politically powerful districts. Against their own directives, the authorities have allotted Vadodara city a sizeable quantity of water. Sugar-mills, water-parks, golf-courses, and five-star hotels are already positioning themselves at the head of the canal, and many have already been issued licenses.
This is what the World Bank who backed out of the project had to say in its independent review”.
:
"We think that the Sardar Sarovar Projects as they stand are flawed, that resettlement and rehabilitation of all those displaced by the Projects is not possible? India and the states involved have spent a great deal of money. No one wants to see this money wasted. But we caution that it may be more wasteful to proceed without full knowledge of the human and environmental costs."
• The money saved by restructuring the project would be several times more than what is needed to fund water harvesting schemes in every single one of the 9,000 drought-prone villages of Gujarat.
Restructuring the project now would save 75 to 80% of those ousted from displacement”( quote)
Why, nearer home, in Kerala what specific betterment are there to the cost – benefit ratio with the great dam in Idukki?
The clamor these people like Ms Roy and Medha Phatkar make is not against development perse as you allege .Can these projects of development sustain and be inclusive? The answer is no they are not. And doc there are enough substantiated studies that tells big dams are not panaceas but destroyers. And the alternate is sane small projects that suit local and environmental topography and needs. But then the money that can be siphoned only through big projects!
ARUNDHATI ROY'S ARTICLE : THE GREATER COMMON GOOD
WHO PAYS ? WHO PROFITS ? : A SHORT GUIDE TO THE SARDAR SAROVAR PROJECT
Please read into the two links noted above. Perhaps you may see things different.
contd.....
@ doc antony,
.....This is the continuation of my comment
What locus standi do we have on Kashmir? When Nehru categorically gave his word to the UN to conduct plebiscite and later back tracked? When the instrument of accession signed by the government of India and the ruler of Kashmir had a clause for plebiscite and the withdrawal of Indian forces? Remember Kashmir is still not merged to the union like for instance Sikhim or Goa and even Hyderabad. What then does the special status Article 370 denote? What locus standi do we have over NEFP and areas of Mizoram , Tripura etc when they were only parts annexed by the British and later made part of India? Are they not the Balkan states of India? What right do we have over Kashmir when consistently the local elections were rigged during Mrs Gandhi’s tenure and subsequently too? What right do we have over Kashmir when even after more than 60 years of it being with India, continues still to be a zone were the military might rules, and people are alienated? And doc, Kashmiris are not fascinated with Pakistan. They are struggling for independence from the brutal government and military might of India. Please see that the concept of India is a recent one, the entity is a political fall out of the British rule. And medieval India extended from Burma in the east to Afghanistan in the west during the reign of the Mauryas and as much during the early Moghuls. Can we go to Afghanistan and demand that, that is our land? It is not territorial chunk that we must strive for. It is the heart and minds of people who live in these places that has to long for the concept of India. And various governments failed in these respects. This is what people like Ms Roy emphasise.
Maoists are extremists. And also enquire why an extreme view has come about in their minds. Perhaps the tribal uprising which borrowed Maoist philosophy may be or can be usurped by various shady organizations with nefarious designs. That happens in all uprisings when the authorities continue to have a Nelson’s eye.
The tribal villages bordering forest lands that will be lost to POSCO in the heartland of the tribal belt in Orissa is 150000.And what rehabilitation will help those people who have for generations lived on forest produce? Knowing very well the Governments lies, innuendos, and pro supplier agenda in the nuclear reactor imports, what can tribal and indigenous people expect from a multinational giant like POSCO or Vedanta? You may again say all this is for the greater common good. We can say so sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of Dubai and in far flung Kerala..
The Bhopal gas disaster – has enlightened our government not on the necessity for safe guards to avoid such disasters in future, but as to how to ensure that foreign firms and multinational suppliers and companies are protected from the liability of fallout. Hence the limited liability clause for nuclear accidents arising from imported nuclear reactors. Who do you think has the mandate to comment or protest this? You, me who are ordinary men like Ms Roy , Medha ? Or should we stay silent, quiet?
...contd
@ doc antony
continued....
Doc the case of Afzal Guru is not to be dismissed as lament for a terrorist and action to release all terrorists and let them walk around with Bhagavad Gita or a Koran. The case of Afzal Guru and the flawed prosecution case and also the strange observations and dismissive comments of the Supreme court have been questioned by many like F.S Nariman, Nayar, Soli Sorabji, Javed Akthar and many right thinking citizens. If we swear by democratic values there must be a due process in all respects and not concocted, faked evidences and kangaroo court proceedings. Did you read the link of Ms Roy? Or did you comment in haste? And about Dr Binayak Sen’s case? A cursory reading of the case and proceedings of these two are enough to tell even a lay person that the official machinery played foul. If a person in this high profile case can be let to lurch by the law and law enforcing agencies, think what could happen to any of us ordinary fellows in the shady dungeons of the many filthy police stations and interrogation centers in this country if we happen to be the unlucky ones to be picked for something we never thought of or did?
I ‘m not sure if I will support capital punishment! My perception has changed gradually over the past years. The man who sodomised and strangulated Ms Aruna Shanbaug was convicted in a different case. But retributive justice is strange. Then what is the difference between a civilised society and the ones where the archaic religious edicts that prescribe amputation of limbs for stealing, stoning for adultery, so on and so forth are carried out? And do you have statistics that can tell that Capital punishment has or will deter crime?
Did you not hear the chanting of those medical folks in Mumbai KEM hospital,.”lAruna Zindabad and Pinki Virani murdabad”( the petitioner for euthanasia). Remember this was the very same nurses and medics who claim pride over their care for the unfortunate Aruna. Is this not hypocrisy?
Doc, I also suggest that you read the book “ Shape of the Beast” . It is an interview N.Ram had with Arundathi Roy. I have no allegiance or kith- kin bonhomie with the likes of Ms Roy or Ms Padhkar. But what I admire in them is when they speak they speak with information, passion, unselfishness and foresight. There may be cases where one will stumble over and disagree with them, though not as yet.
However what I still wonder is who do you think has the right or should comment or take up issues that may threaten our existence? We are more or less cocooned in the comparative comforts of our life. And do not foresee an immediate or may wishfully think even a distant threat to our comforts. It is only luck that stays with us and that we have such people to live like watch dogs., watch dogs with passion . At least they are trying to bring change.
I'm afraid this has benn quite long!
Your replies to Doc deserves to be published as an article!Knowing Dr Antony, I suspect he replied in haste, without reflecting objectively on the issues discussed here. Asking "I dont know how many of us would have the kindness to let go of a criminal if our loved ones get raped and killed..." is childish and laughable.
@ Balan,
Yes , I presume the doc replied in haste.
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