01-11-2020 The Asian Independent

18 01-11-2020 to 15-11-2020 NEWS
www.theasianindependent.co.uk
New Delhi : A 19-year-old Dalit
woman in India’s northern state of Uttar
Pradesh died late last month after
reporting she’d been gang raped and
brutally assaulted by four upper-caste
men. After fighting for her life for two
weeks, victim died in a New Delhi hospital.
According to media reports, police in
Uttar Pradesh quickly cremated the victim
in the middle of the night without
the consent of her family, barring journalists
and opposition politicians from
visiting her village and family in the
district of Hathras. The government
denies these claims.
The Hathras case prompted suspicions
of complicity and cover up by
police and Uttar Pradesh state officials,
capturing the attention of national and
international media. “They brutalize
and intimidate Dalits so that our community
knows their place and feel too
intimidated to seek better wages and
rights that should be guaranteed to
them,” Dalit rights activist Thenmozhi
Soundararajan told DW.
Culture of impunity
Dalit, also known as the “untouchables”
in India, languish at the bottom
of the South Asian country’s caste hierarchy.
Dalit women, who make up 16%
of India’s female population, face higher
risks of gender and caste-based violence
and are often exposed to widespread
sexual violence.
At least 10 Dalit women are raped
per day, and their vulnerability to rape
has increased by 44% in the last 10
years, according to a report by the
National Crime Records Bureau of
India.
Rape of Dalit woman fuels outrage
across India
AHuman Rights Watch (HRW)
report found that one of the reasons
Dalit women are more vulnerable to
violence is because they make up the
Muslim intellectuals and activists
speaking at a webinar on Sunday condemned
the Paris beheading of a school
teacher, Samuel Paty, by an 18-year-old
Muslim fanatic, Abdullakh Anzorov.
The webinar was organised by the
Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy
(IMSD). Moderated by its convener,
Javed Anand, all four panellists are
office bearers and prominent members
of IMSD.
In his introductory remarks Anand
stated: “We are here to condemn in
unequivocal terms, no ifs and buts, not
only the man responsible for this barbaric
act but all those who had any role
in the instigation of the crime as also all
those who seek to justify it. We are here
not just to condemn the slaying of Mr
Paty, but also to demand the abolishing
of apostasy and banishing of blasphemy
anywhere and everywhere across the
world”. Islamic Scholar Dr Zeenat
Shaukat Ali, Mumbai-based, argued that
killing people for blasphemy or apostasy
is not permissible in Islam. The
Qur’an never mentioned such punishments.
The Qur’an has stood for peace
and justice in a non-violent way. It will
be very fruitful if scholars and ulema
scrutinised and sifted through Hadith
literature which has been pending over
the years. The confirmation of a Hadith
has to be in consonance with the verses
of the Qur’an, she said.
“Respectfully, the Paris beheading is
Why India’s Dalit women are
vulnerable to sexual violence
The recent rape case of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in northern India has shed light on how lower-caste women are disproportionately
affected by sexual violence. Tanika Godbole reports from New Delhi.
majority of India’s landless laborers and
scavengers, and a significant percentage
of them are forced into prostitution or
sold into brothels.
For this reason, Dalit women are
more likely to come into contact with
landlords and enforcement agencies,
who can then easily exploit and abuse
them with impunity. “For centuries,
landowning castes terrorize the Dalits.
They live and work their lands as their
Muslim intellectuals, activists condemn Paris beheading,
demand abolition of apostasy and blasphemy laws
a wake-up call to the ulema and leaders
of the Muslim world. It is time for both
the clergy and the parents to instruct
children that such acts of violence are
not only detested and abhorred by Islam
but are in total contradiction to Islam’s
reverence for peace, explicit recognition
of tolerance, compassion, social equality,
high moral order and spiritual depth,
Ali added.
Columnist, New Age Islam, Arshad
Alam, Delhi-based, in his presentation
contextualised the Islamist beheading of
the teacher. Pointing out that it was
planned and pre-meditated, he argued
the prime objective of such acts of terror
is to silence any critique of Islam. Alam
added that Charlie Hebdo cartoons must
be seen within a European tradition
which has for long satirised religious
traditions, particularly Christianity.
Since Islam is also now a European religion,
the same yardstick must be
applied to this religion also. Those who
want to retain blasphemy laws on the
statute are basically the same forces
which are opposed to the liberal secular
tradition and therefore should be rightly
understood as indulging in right wing
politics, he said.
Alam argued that it is incumbent on
Muslims to raise their voice against the
laws of blasphemy and apostasy as
worldwide they are the worst victims of
such laws. Moreover, these laws serve to
control and intimidate the minds of
own private kingdoms,” said
Soundararajan. “Just as there is no way
to understand sexual violence in the history
of the US without understanding
racism and slavery, there is no way to
understand the frequency and lack of
punishment of violence against women
in India right now without understanding
caste,” she added.
Systematic and structural discrimination
: For many Dalit women, law
Javed Anand
and order systems are not accessible.
Women seeking to file police complaints
often find it difficult to do so.
Evidence collection and witness testimonies
are even more challenging.
Police are slow to register complaints,
investigations concerning Dalit women
are often delayed, and officials often
raise doubts there was a rape.
If a case manages to be filed, the
woman is likely to face new obstacles
before a judge “whose gender biases
and caste affiliations can greatly influence
the judgment in the case,” HRW
reported.
Witnesses rarely agree to come forward
to testify or corroborate the victim’s
statement for fear of retribution
from perpetrators, who are often in positions
of relative power in the community.
Role of the media
Indian mainstream media often
ignore stories about women belonging
to marginalized communities.
“Caste-based violence is quite common,
but it doesn’t receive coverage in
upper-caste dominated newsrooms. It’s
common for Dalit villages to be burnt
down, for the cops to refuse a postmortem
for women who have been
raped, for the local administration and
upper-caste people to suppress cases
filed by Dalit people,” activist Manisha
Mashaal told DW.
But the Hathras case, unlike most
atrocities against Dalit women, made
global headlines and sparked nationwide
protests. “What made the Hathras
incident stand out is the blatant gaslighting
and harassment that Dalit families
face in the wake of such heinous crimes.
It was captured for the world to see,”
said Soundararajan. Many equated the
Hathras case with the 2012 bus gang
rape of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh in Delhi.
The rape triggered mass demonstrations
and resulted in a significant
increase in public discussion of crimes
against women in India. But activists
argue that India’s legal system remains
slow in hearing and prosecuting rape
cases, even more so in cases concerning
Dalit women.
“The atrocities are immense against
Dalit women, and the rape case in
Hathras is just the tip of the iceberg,”
said activist Mashaal.
-Tanika Godbole
Muslims and till the time they are not
abrogated, Muslims and others will not
have the freedom to discuss, debate and
critique, something which is cardinal in
order to develop a free and open society.
Advocate and mediator, A. J. Jawad,
Chennai-based, spoke about the similarities
between blasphemy and sedition as
weapons of power and control used by
theocracies and autocracies to suppress
dissent and to whip up mob frenzy. He
said that religion and nationalism are
excuses used to charge up emotions.
The anti-blasphemy laws and anti-sedition
laws are used to attack detractors
and dissenters by theocratic and autocratic
(far right) rulers.
He pointed out how in the 11th century
AD, Sunni scholars of law and theology,
called the “ulema,” began working
closely with political rulers to challenge
what they considered to be the
sacrilegious influence of Muslim
philosophers on society.
The most prominent in consolidating
Sunni orthodoxy, said Jawad, was the
brilliant and highly regarded Islamic
scholar Ghazali, who died in the year
1111. In several influential books still
widely read today, Ghazali declared two
long-dead leading Muslim philosophers,
Farabi and Ibn Sina, apostates for
their unorthodox views on God’s power
and the nature of resurrection. Their followers,
Ghazali wrote, could be punished
with death.
Ghazali’s declaration provided justification
to Muslim sultans from the 12th
century onward who wished to persecute–
even execute – thinkers seen as
threats to conservative religious rule.
The trend continues today, said Jawad.
Activist and writer Feroze
Mithiborwala, Mumbai-based, said
essentially the basic argument against
the cartoon controversy is that they
“mock” and “offend my religious sensibilities”
and thus should be banned. The
cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, which
undoubtedly hurt the feelings of ordinary
Muslims actually required a nonviolent
response, which would have
been far more effective.
On one hand, we have a murder committed
by a religious fanatic in the name
of blasphemy. On the other hand, there
is a secular French tradition of absolute
freedom of expression, which includes
the right to offend all religions,
Mithiborwala added. He said it’s high
time religious people realised one basic
truth: every religious text and tradition
is ‘offensive, blasphemous and heretical’
to the followers of other sects and
religions. The very concepts of blasphemy
and heresy are essentially anti-people
and anti-democratic, as their agenda
is to stymie any theological and intellectual
debate and discussion on the
issue of religious oppression and violence,
both ideological and structural.
Therefore concepts such as blasphemy
and heresy have no place in any conscientious
civilised society and must go,
Mithiborwala concluded.
A 2-minute silence was observed at
the beginning of the webinar as a mark
of respect for the slain teacher whom
Hassen Chalghoumi, an imam who
leads prayers at a mosque in a Paris suburb
described as “a martyr for freedom
of expression, and a wise man who has
taught tolerance, civilisation and respect
for others.” The imam added: “This is
not Islam, sorry, it’s not religion, its
Islamism, it’s the poison of Islam.”