Taanya Ravi along with RHFI stops animal sacrifice in Muneshwara temple

After over 70 years, animal sacrifice comes to an end in the Defence Colony shrine, thanks to a firebrand 22-year-old Taanya Ravi for her active participation.

The gory ritualistic animal sacrifices using sheep, chicken, and goats at the Sri Muneshwaraswamy temple in Indiranagar’s Defence Colony have finally come to an end.
The Indiranagar police have put an end to the practice that was going on for the last seven decades. This followed two seperate complaints filed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act by a 22-year-old financial analyst Taanya Ravi and Debashis Rationalist, general secretary of Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India last month.

The temple, located in 6th cross, 3rd main road, Defence Colony, is said to be more than 75 years’ old.
When RHFI visited the temple last month, its caretaker Indira had confirmed that the sacrifices took place in the premises but that they were mainly conducted on Sundays.

“I was aware of animals like chicken, sheep, and goats being sacrificed inside the temple premises for a long time now. Last year, I attempted to file a police complaint and tried to get the cops to accompany me to the temple, but in vain. They simply refused to entertain my plaint. Subsequently, I had my advocate issue the temple secretary with a legal notice and had marked the police sub-inspector and inspector in on it, but the sacrifices continued as the legal notice was ignored,” Taanya told RHFI.

Determined not to allow the bloodshed to continue, the financial analyst attended a workshop held by the Animal Welfare Board of India in March, which helped her glean more knowledge about the laws. She also spoke to residents whose houses are located next to the temple, and they too confirmed that the sacrifices took place twice or thrice a week.
Having familiarised herself with the law, the activist then confidently approached the police again on Sunday upon learning that another sacrifice was about to take place, and this time, with the help of RHFI, she succeeded in lodging an FIR. A separate FIR was also filed by Debashis Rationalist on behalf of RHFI.

Taanya designed a huge poster saying animal sacrifices are strictly banned in the temple and – with the help of the member of RHFI – strung it up in front of the temple.
There is also a board put up by the temple authorities themselves which states in Kannada that animal sacrifices are a no-no.
“Devotees who come to the temple now with the intention of conducting animal rituals glance at the poster and go away. The notices are put up in both English and Kannada. We have been issued instructions to inform the police if anybody tries to defy their orders,” she said.

Debashis Rationalist said the law mandates that animals can only be slaughtered inside a registered slaughterhouse and not within the precincts of a place of religious worship. So people who slaughter animals in public can be booked under sections 29 and 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act; section 6 of the Karnataka Prevention of Animal Sacrifices Act and sections 428, 429, and 268 of the IPC.

Murdered blogger’s friend: ‘I was trying to help Ananta Bijoy get out of country’

Blogger Ananta Bijoy seems to be the latest in a series of fatal Islamist attacks on free thinkers in Bangladesh. The killings have frightened Dhaka’s bloggers, Bijoy’s friend and colleague Asif Mohiuddin tells DW.

DW: Ananta Bijoy Das, a blogger who had a day job in a bank, was hacked to death on Tuesday, in what’s thought to be another Islamist murder. Asif, do you think Ananta Bijoy was aware of such a possibility?

Asif Mohiuddin: I was trying to help Ananta Bijoy for the last two months to get out of the country. I was trying to get his papers together and had submitted them to some organizations to get him out because he was being threatened for a long time.

He was in the hit list. He told me many times that he was on the [terrorists’] hit list and that he was still at home because of the threats. Some people attacked his house a few months ago and he was afraid and panicking. I told him not to go out of the house, but he had to go to work. He was my good friend and I am very upset about this.

Asif Mohiuddin says liberal bloggers in Bangladesh are in a state of panic

How are people in Bangladesh reacting to the killing?  

The bloggers I know are in a state of panic right now. Some of them have stopped writing and some are hiding themselves. Some of them want to get out of the country. This is the ninth such murder since 2013. In 2013, I was attacked and blogger Rajiv Haider was killed next month. Many other bloggers have been attacked in the last two years.

What steps has the government taken to reduce such incidents?

My personal assumption is, the government is supporting fundamentalists. Maybe they don’t care or maybe they are afraid of them, I don’t know, but after the death of Avijit Roy, our prime minister [Sheikh Hasina] spoke to his father, Ajay Roy. This was never mentioned to the media. It was a secret call to say sorry, because our prime minister thinks that if she supports atheists, it would project a bad image for her party.

Our leaders don’t want to be seen as supporters of secularists or atheists. They want to show others that they are very Islamist and this is the reason why fundamentalists have the courage to kill bloggers.

What exactly do you mean when you say “atheist writing?”

Our writing is logical writing, related to science and reason. We call ourselves atheist and we don’t believe in God or any religion.

Do you think these fundamentalists have support from common people?

No. In many Islamic countries, people don’t support Islamists, but they think that if someone criticizes Islam or Prophet Muhammad, those people should be punished by death penalty or any other punishment. Many people say, ok, this person was an atheist and he died.

How do such incidents happen out in the open, on the streets? Where is the police in such cases?

It all happens very quickly. When they attacked me, it lasted barely 30 seconds, but I was badly injured. And Avijit Roy’s wife told me that the attack on them had lasted a minute at the most. Before people around the victims can react, the murderers run away.

These killers, usually from Ansar-ul-Bangla [linked to al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent], have a strong base in Bangladesh. They operate through so-called “sleeping cells,” which react sometimes or stay in hiding. Imams of mosques in Bangladesh belong to the Ansar-ul-Bangla, but the men who actually go and kill know nothing about al Qaeda.

I once asked a police detective why no one had been caught for Avijit Roy’s murder. He said atheists had to die this way. This was normal.

What about your safety and your family’s?

I am afraid. My family is in Bangladesh. They’re safe. I live in Germany, but I don’t feel safe, because they [terrorists] have a strong base and my name has been on their hit list for a long time.

Asif Mohiuddin is a blogger from Bangladesh and is in Germany on a scholarship, after having survived jail in Dhaka and a brutal 2013 attack by Islamists. The liberal author won the DW Best of Blogs award in 2012 for his blog “God, Almighty only in name but impotent in reality.”

Courtesy: Deutsche Welle

Bangladeshi secular blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death in third fatal attack this year

Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India condemns the act. The general secretary of RHFI, Debashis said that “The rationalists and free thinker bloggers of Bangladesh are in a state of panic right now. Some of them have stopped writing and some are hiding themselves. This is the ninth such murder since 2013. The government is supporting the fundamentalists.”

Ananta Bijoy Das, a Bangladeshi writer known for advocating science and secularism, was hacked to death by masked men wielding machetes while on his way to work Tuesday morning.

Das died instantly in the attack, police in Sylhet city told the Associated Press. He is the third Bangladeshi writer to be killed in less than four months.

Though police did not offer a motive for the killing, they mentioned to Al Jazeera that Das has written about science and the evolution of the Soviet Union. He was also a blogger for Mukto-Mona, or “free mind,” the site launched by prominent author Avijit Roy, who was killed at a Bangladeshi book fair in similar fashion in February.

“Mukto-Mona … is about free thinking and is about explicitly taking on religious fundamentalism and particularly Islamic religious fundamentalism. [Das and Roy’s] names have been on lists of identified targets,” Sara Hossain, a lawyer and human rights activist in Dhaka, Bangladesh, told the BBC.

Attacks on progressive writers and critics of Islam are happening with increasing regularity in Bangladesh, where nearly 90 percent of citizens are Muslim and religious conservatism is a rising response to political turmoil. The country has a long tradition of official secularism — the principle was enshrined in the 1971 constitution (though that section was nullified between 1979 and 2010). But in periods of conflict, it also has a tradition of antagonism toward religion’s most radical critics.

Washiqur Rahman, a young blogger who was hacked to death in March, lamented online before he was killed:

Today is Bangladesh’s liberation day

The Mullah has freedom, extremists have freedom, Muslims have freedom, the corrupt have freedom, political leaders have freedom, adulates of the political leaders have freedom, rapists are free, the armed forces are free, so-called civil society is free, intellectuals who support Islamists, they also have freedom, religious leaders have freedom, the garment factory owners have freedom, the ferry owners have freedom.

Not free: the farmers and labours
Not free: indigenous people and minorities
Not free: Freethinkers
Not free: All the people who just want to be human…

“His writing was very good. He was … careful, but that did not save him,” Arifur Rahman, another Bangladeshi atheist blogger and an acquaintance of Rahman’s, told the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), which translated Rahman’s post.

Two men were arrested in connection with Washiqur Rahman’s death. Meanwhile, police are investigating whether the local extremist group thought to be behind Roy’s death is connected with al-Qaeda. A video from Asim Umar, the purported leader of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, surfaced last week claiming responsibility for Roy’s and other killings.

“These assassinations are part of a series of operations initiated on the orders of our respected leader,” Umar reportedly said in the video, the Post’s Annie Gowen reported.

Bangladeshi social activists shout slogans during a protest against the killing of Avijit Roy. (Munir uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)

These three are the latest of several secularists to be killed or injured in attacks in recent years. Tensions between the Bangladeshi government and the Islamist opposition have put progressive writers in a precarious position, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. As the Post’s World-Views pointed out in February, religious conservatives and secularists alike have been denied political power. But in a country with a culture of zero-sum politics and a history of religious conflict, marginalized Islamist are as likely to lash out at bloggers as they are at Bangladesh’s prime minister.

“Mr. Roy and Mr. Rahman were the victims of murderous thugs, but they were also the victims of a poisonous political climate, in which secularists and Islamists, observant Muslims and atheists … are pitted against one another,” Tahmima Anam, a Bangladeshi writer and anthropologist, said in a New York Times op-ed after Roy and Rahman were killed. She titled the piece “Save Bangladesh’s bloggers.”

Last year, the group Ansar al Islam Bangladesh (also called Ansarullah Bangla Team) posted a “hit list” of writers seen as opponents of Islam, the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders reported. Among the killings for which the group claimed responsibility was the 2013 attack on Rajib Haider, an activist who called for harsh punishments of Islamists who committed atrocities during the country’s 1971 war. The same group is thought to be behind the attack on Roy.

Among Bangladeshi liberals, there’s little confidence that attacks on secular writers will be punished.

“The culture of impunity that has spread over the last few years clearly has very damning results,” Arifur Rahman told IHEU after Washiqur Rahman was killed. “… The word ‘Nastik’ (atheist) has been vilified in Bangladesh (and the rest of the Muslim world); they are seen as sub-human, it is OK to kill them.”

“It’s one after another after another,” said Imran Sarker, who runs the Blogger and Online Activists Network in Bangladesh, told CNN Tuesday. “It’s the same scenario again and again. It’s very troubling.”

In addition to writing for Mukto-Mona, where he won a “Rationalist Award” in 2006, Das edited a local science magazine, according to CNN. Fellow bloggers said that Das sometimes wrote against religious fundamentalism but most often focused on championing science.

“He was a voice of social resistance; he was an activist,” Sarker said. “And now, he too has been silenced.”

By: Sarah Kaplan
Morning Mix

Who is ‘Eeshwar’ in whose name oath is taken? Law Ministry stumped by RTI query

Who is ‘Eeshwar’ in whose name top constitutional functionaries and legislators take oath of office? This RTI query stumped the Law Ministry, which said there is no constitutional provision defining the term.

Who is ‘Eeshwar’ in whose name top constitutional functionaries and legislators take oath of office? This RTI query stumped the Law Ministry, which said there is no constitutional provision defining the term.
RTI-applicant Shradhanand Yogacharya also raised another query, seeking to know the meaning of “Satyameva Jayate”, the motto inscribed at the base of the national emblem.
The application, which was addressed to President’s Secretariat, was transferred to Home Ministry which forwarded it to the Law Ministry.
Failing to get any satisfactory response, Shradhanand took the matter to the Central Information Commission where, during the hearing held through video conferencing, a Law Ministry official told him that they can only provide information which is part of the records.
Central Public Information Officer S K Chitkara also tried to convince the applicant that “Satyamev Jayate” was not part of any Constitutional provision and terms like “truth”, “religion”, “caste” were not defined in any part of the Constitution hence no information could be provided.
He asked the applicant to understand the expressions in the context of circumstances or based on judicial explanations available in various judgements or law books.
Chitkara told Shradhanand that meaning of words like Eeshwar, Satya, Jati, Nyay and Dharma are supposed to be explained by teachers and Acharyas but cannot be asked under the RTI Act where the term “information” is clearly defined under the law.
Intrigued by the debate between the applicant and the CPIO, Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu also chipped in and asked the applicant “Can you define Eeshwar and Truth?” to which he had no answer.

By: Press Trust of India | New Delhi | Published on:May 4, 2015

The relevance of Kawasi Hidme’s unheard story

Being an adivasi, a woman and being born in a region desired by greedy multi national companies does not serve one well. That is the story of Hidme and many more like her in the regions of Bastar, Chattisgarh. Kawasi Hidme was a young girl, full of energy from Borguda village in Sukma, Bastar region. She helped her widowed aunt till a small piece of land. The rice grown was just enough for them and Hidme would, during the season, sell Mahua in the local market. Like every girl of her age, she would be excited about the occasional fairs from where she can buy colourful bangles and other items which were otherwise not available in the local market.

In January 2008 just after harvest, as in previous years, a fair was organised in Ramram, the nearby village. Kawasi accompanied her aunt and her other cousin sisters to the fair and to buy ribbons and choodis. There she joined a group of other tribals who were dancing and singing. Having danced vigorously, she soon became thirsty and approached the nearby hand-pump for water. But as soon as she held the pump, someone very forcefully grabbed her. She looked up angrily and was shocked to see Police personnel. They had surrounded her and began dragging her by her hair towards their vehicle parked outside the fair. With hands and feet tied, she was thrown on the floor of the truck and driven to the Police station.

This was just the beginning- the start of the atrocities that were to be perpetrated on Kawasi Hidme for the subsequent seven years or so. As the staff at one police station would satisfy themselves, she would be sent to another. Repeated torture resulted in a death like situation for her. The policemen however, got apprehensive that she might die in the station itself. That would be a major problem. Her detention had to be formalised and she had to be sent to prison. This was not something uncommon for this area- adivasi girls like Hidme were detained and tortured for months on end and would ultimately be falsely charged under draconian laws such as the Chattisgarh Public Security Act, UAPA, etc.

However before sending her to the prison, the formality of producing her before the court remained. Kawasi’s condition was such that she had to be admitted to the hospital. It was only after a few days that she was produced before the local Magistrate. The Police had conveniently accused her of an offence that related to the murder of 23 CRPF personnel and the Magistrate remanded her to the Jagdalpur prison. On reaching the prison, the excessive physical and possibly sexual torture ultimately paid its toll and her body suddenly ejected her uterus. She bled profusely. Horribly scared, she somehow attempted and succeeded in putting her flesh back into her body.

Till then, she couldn’t share her experience with anyone, but now in prison she would be comfortable to talk to the other Gondi speaking women inmates. The next day as her uterus was again thrown out of her body, Kawasi decided to cut it off. She asked an inmate for a blade and when all the girls had gone out of the barrack, she sought to operate herself so as to end the pain. As she was about to act, a girl entered the barrack and screamed on seeing the bleeding Hidme. The other women inmates gathered. The blade was taken away from her and the jailor was called, who sent her to the city civil hospital for treatment. After a surgical operation at the hospital she was brought back into jail.

In court, the fabricated case against Kawasi was not progressing. The Police had mentioned two women and two policemen as witnesses. The two women never came to depose before the court and the two policemen denied having any information about her involvement. The evidence put up was itself suspicious at face value. The offence in which Kawasi was alleged to be involved, took place on the 9th September 2007. Statements of police personnels (with ‘remarkable memories’) were recorded on 5thDecember 2007, mentioning names of around 50 Naxalites supposedly calling out to each other. This list did not contain Kawasi Hidme’s name. However after 15th December 2007 when the police personnels added a few more names, her name suddenly appeared in newly recorded statements. And finally in court they denied her involvemnet.

Soni Sori, an adivasi teacher, was also in prison during this period and could interact with Kawasi. Soni Sori had undergone a similar treatment in police custody. She was administered electric shocks and stones were inserted in her private parts. After her release Soni Sori had informed human rights activists about Hidme’s condition who in turn, with sympathetic lawyers, started raising their voices for Kawasi. One such lawyer argued before the Court that as all the witnesses were complete, orders to release Hidme should be given. The judge replied that since she had already spent seven years in jail, there should not be a problem in spending a couple of months more! So Hidme stayed incarcerated for many more subsequent months. Finally in late March 2015, as none of the charges against her could be proved the Court ordered her release.

On the date of her release, Soni Sori and her nephew, Linga Kodopi went to receive her from Jagdalpur jail. When Linga took her back to her village, her friends failed to identify her and as she called out to each one of them, they started weeping. Though she was now free, her body was almost completely wasted. She had undergone multiple operations for gallstones. And each operation resulted in further exhaution. The mental injury is almost beyond repair. She regularly faces depression and sudden mood swings. On the other hand, the IG of Bastar, Kalloori has planned to fabricate Kawasi in a further case as she continues to speak of her violations and join Soni Sori in their fight against these injustices

This is not just the story of Kawasi Hidme, but rather the story of thousands of Adivasi women and men incarcerated for longest years of youth and vitality.The hard question we need to ask here is, who is going to compensate for their lost years? In the absence of legal aid, the torture these young women and men have undergone are never proved . The even more shocking part is that we do not hear such stories in the mainstream media. Soni Sori was one of the few women whose voice did reach mainstream media, the reasons being her own courage and the extent of gruesome torture she underwent. Though among aware citizens, it is not unknown that the Police frame adivasis and vulnerable people in regions like Bastar in false cases by branding them as naxals, but serious documentation on it especially when it comes to women still remains minimalistic. But all this fades in the midst of the footage that mainstream media devotes to coverage of the IPL, paid-news reports or events that do not concern us. This has created an illusion in the minds of our youth that a good life means a good job and abundant money with no concern for society at large. The few courageous women who decide to stand up against the mighty and powerful state apparatus face hostility at every step of their work. Recently when Soni tried to help Bhima Madkam, a local injured in a police firing, from Madenar village in Bastar to file a complaint, the police started harassing and threatening her saying that they will send her back to the jail by getting her bail order cancelled by the Court on grounds that she is ‘instigating people against the State’.

Apart from investigatng the case and arresting people, the police in these areas also assume the role of delivering justice. The growing impunity they enjoy is disturbing. The power that comes from holding the gun with absolutely no accountability is indulging. They assume the role of the overarching patriarchal figure who under the pretext of ‘protecting’ society, extracts ‘small’ (sexual or otherwise) favours, ‘teaches’ the accused a lesson and gets away easily unnoticed. Unless we broaden the discourse and dialogue on these issues, there is faint hope that anything is going to change for the better.

Hidme’s question keeps haunting us: “I was never involved in any Maoist activity… What was my fault?” We, as concerned citizens, have to decide if we are prepared for more such questions or are we going to stand up and challenge these injustices?

(Note : Support for the facts related to Kawasi Hidme’s case has been taken from Jagdalpur Legal Aid group’s lawyer, also a large part has been translated from information available in Hindi on activist Himanshu Kumar’s facebook page. The relevance of Kawasi’s story in our lives is becoming more important than ever before, hence I chose to talk about her story. All views expressed are mine.)

By: Sushmita Verma (Art by Sushmita)
Courtesy: Colours of the Cage

References:

http://www.indiaresists.com/bastar-villager-injured-in-police-firing-police-harasses-activist-soni-sori/

http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2015/04/magdalene-mailpidi-village-maoist/

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/maoists-naxals-jharkhand-ranchi-crpf-cobra-battalion-camp-police/1/431818.html

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/acquitted-after-7-years-tribal-woman-says-she-was-tortured/article7050393.ece

http://dantewadavani.blogspot.in/2015/03/blog-post_28.html

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-can-carrying-a-vessel-get-one-jail-yes-if-you-are-a-tribal-in-maoist-belt-2072969