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Global Demonstration 30th January

Binayak Sen, on christmas eve last year was sentenced to life imprisonment on flimsy evidence (mostly a planted letter, hearsay evidence; find more here) for spreading ‘disaffection’ towards the state. Section 124A of the Indian penal Code mandates an absolute unconditional love for the state. Beware, you may be charged with sedition under Indian law (a section that has outlived the British Raj who introduced it) if you express any feeling that falls an inch short of devoted love and adulation. Critiquing state practices of land grabbing, tribal dispossession, inadequate (read no) rehabilitation, extrajudicial killing, torture and the  curious phenomenon of salwa judum fit the bill of falling out of love with the state. In other words, ‘disaffection’. Notwithstanding what the Father of the Nation boldly proclaimed almost 90 years ago–that sedition was the highest duty of a citizen, not many in the state machinery and corporate media seem to share the same sentiment. Close to a century, colonialism has taken its roots in India. Last year, in  what was an unbelievable show of unbridled love for the country, the Bharatiya Janata Party demanded that Arundhati Roy and others who shared the stage with her in a Seminar in New Delhi on Kashmir, be charged with sedition. Roy famously remarked that Kashmir was never an integral part of India, a sentiment echoed by thousand other Kashmiris. The frenzy that erupted has few parallels in the history of media circus in the country. The net tightens around Roy thundered a channel. Arundhati Roy’s ’seditious’ speech, echoed others.

With Binayak Sen, the media has been kinder. However the witch hunt by the State has filled up the gaps of unkindness not contributed by the media. Shortly after Sen’s sentence, his wife was slammed with an FIR, which was, after insistence by the Union Home Ministry (which in turn acted only after rights groups took up the matter) dropped.

Today, the Free Binayak Sen Campaign has taken the world by storm, demanding the immediate release of Sen and protesting against his unjust sentence. Demonstrations in front of the Indian Consulates in London, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Washington and a growing Facebook campaign prove that the campaign has come here to stay. A hopelessly romantic assertion is– here at the ground of the tireless protests and the long marches, democracy rings the strongest, the values embedded in the Constitution stands the tallest; the chants of ‘free democracy’, ‘we are all binayak sen’, ring sharper than all the media frenzy of hunting down civil liberties and fundamental rights to life and freedom. Egypt, anyone?

For more information:

http://www.freebinayaksen.org/

The world’s most famous political prisoner was released today amidst jubilant supporters, hundreds and thousands of them, who flocked at her residence. Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and Amnesty International’s most prominent prisoner of conscience was under house arrest with the latest period of detention spanning 7 1/2 years. She spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest or in jail.

Supporters flock as Aung San Suu Kyi is freed

In 1990, in her essay Freedom from Fear, she famously set right the equation between power and corruption expressed first by Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887.  Suu Kyi said–

‘It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it……..Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions, courage that could be described as ‘grace under pressure’ – grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.’

Grace is Aung San Suu Kyi today.

Last week, one heard about the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) decision to impose a partial ban on The Baloch Hal, the first and only online newspaper that tells the story of Balochistan to the rest of Pakistan and the world-at-large. The reason for the ban, according to the PTA, was that The Baloch Hal published ‘anti-Pakistan material’. As expected, this vague claim remains unsubstantiated.
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Anusha Rizvi proves that spoof can be a powerful tool of social awakening.

By Laxmi Murthy

‘Just like a documentary, so realistic!’ remarks one of my aunts as we stream out of the theatre, the haunting background score of ‘Peepli [Live]’ still resounding in our ears. ‘Excellent film, but what’s the use,’ says the other aunt, ‘We will simply go back and discuss it in our drawing rooms’. ‘But at least we will do that – now we will talk about farmers’ suicide,’ is the conclusion. (more…)

Ahmed Yusuf writes about the recent assassination of BNP-M Secretary-General Habib Jalib Baloch, and the life of his namesake.

BNP-M Secretary-General Habib Jalib Baloch

Habib Jalib Baloch, the secretary-general of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), was gunned down on 14 July in Quetta, in what is believed to be a targeted attack. The incident took place in broad daylight, when Baloch was dropping his children off to school en route to work where he was to plead a case before a court of Pakistani law. (more…)