Rape, laws and the Indian state

I got the idea for writing about an extended post on rape in India, not just from the Dhananjay Chatterjee incident, but from a comment on this networking site called Orkut. The Calcutta community on this site has been having a furious debate on the death penalty for Dhananjay Chatterjee and one guy, Siddhartha, has some interesting things to say. I am cutting and pasting the comment that got me thinking:

I'm not particularly fond of death as a concept. There have been many people who have been raped and have managed to reconstruct their lives (Germaine Greer?). Death is a one-way road. I personally would choose hope (however faint) over finality. If only for revenge. If only for the struggle to survive and rebuild. There's a very strong urge to hang on to life.

If I were a woman, I think I would prefer to be raped than to be murdered. Now womens' rights groups please don't attack me -- I do NOT, emphatically NOT, even faintly condone either crime. Both are abhorrent and both should be punished exemplarily.

Anyway, this got me thinking about death versus rape etc. And this is what I wrote in response to what Siddhartha had to say:

Bit ambivalent about the death versus rape thing. On the whole, as a woman, I guess, I'd reluctantly agree with Siddhartha- I'd prefer to live and rebuild my life. Although I guess that might be a function of my family, those around me, the class I belong to etc- which will allow me to rebuild my life. Can't say I speak for a majority of women....

I guess, as I said in an earlier post, rape is every woman's ultimate nightmare. So what do you do when you get raped in a country where a woman is raped every hour? Well, ideally you should not bathe, shower, or change clothes. This is important to preserve any evidence of the rape. Go to a friend, well known social worker or to a place where you know someone can help you. Report the rape to the authorities. Seek counseling; this can help you deal with the issues you might face after the attack. But all of this sounds easier said than done. Because if you do wish to seek action against the rapist, you will then come up against the rape laws of the Indian state. I found two aspects of rape laws in India very troubling (and I'm no lawyer, this is very much a layperson's perspective)- first, that your personal life is a matter of concern. As the Mathura case showed, if you are considered of 'loose moral character' that will be exploited to the hilt by the defence lawyers. However, I have a even more fundamental question: what if you are a prostitute and you are raped? Does the fact that you sell your body for money mean that your body can be violated at will?

Here's another article about the unfairness of rape laws in India. What really disturbed me about this article, was the bit about 'Other Unjust Judgements' and that takes me to the second aspect of rape laws in India- that of consent. If you are raped, to secure conviction you must show that you resisted. So how do you show that? As the Mohammad Habib case showed, if you're a 7 year old girl, and were unable to inflict damage on the rapist's penis, he might go scot free. This whole consent thing is very disturbing because if you are say, being gangraped, by say five men, and you are a 16 year old, struggle becomes almost futile. You might be beaten up, you might become senseless.

One of my friends in Delhi told me something interesting once. She said that she was once fighting physically with her kid brother almost five years younger, who was about 15 at this time and she said, he's become so so strong. He can hold my wrists in an iron grip and I can't get out. (She's 5' 10" and a big girl to boot). It got us talking about resisting men and she rightly pointed out, "how on earth do I resist successfully against someone who rapes me if my 15 year old brother while playfully fighting can pin me down and overpower me?" This is a very critical point, simply because as the Sakina case showed, a 16 year old girl, sold into prostitution, and forced into having sex, couldn't plead rape, because it was assumed that she was having sex willingly. And of course, the entire Mathura case revolved around the concept of consent as well.

So, how much should I resist, and how should I resist someone bigger and stronger, or instead some people, if I have to prove that I was raped against my consent?

I think there are some important questions here that deserve to be answered before rape laws can truly become gender sensitive.

More on the death penalty...

Here's a Hindu article on the death penalty in the Dhananjay Chatterjee case. Slightly disappointing article because it doesn't give you any extra stats or information. However, it does make the interesting point that the death penalty allows no room for restitution, which after should be one of the aims of the justice system. But then again, as a number of readers have pointed out on Jivha's blog that Chatterjee is not just being punished for rape, but for murder as well...and that too for a 14 year old girl. This is a girl whose life is gone forever, and whose family's silence says a lot about what they feel.

I'm not sure about the legal point it makes about Chatterjee's guilt. Even his family so far hasn't really denied that he guilty, or could have raped and killed the schoolgirl. Nor has Chatterjee himself vigorously protested his innocence. So really in this the argument about his guilt isn't valid. However, it could be applied more widely when guilt is not conclusive.
Jivha has an interesting post on why the death penalty should not be applicable for rape. All I will add to this is my earlier point about a) convictions becoming harder to secure, thereby making life even harder for rape victims b) the general bias in the judicial system.

But then again, you read about cases like this and you really wish the persons responsible to be wiped off the face of the earth.

P.S. I thought I'd add a link to this article about the hangman Nata Mullick. There have been a number of articles on him but this is ironically very tragic indeed. Somehow the elaborate ritualistic preparation to "murder" a human being sickens me a bit.

Doping and Indian Sports

Having just spent a glorious People's Sunday at Wimbledon watching Roger Federer play some sublime tennis (and Tim Henman some pretty sub standard stuff), I felt the need to blog this:

There's this article in the Telegraph today that has been making less waves than it has. But I was looking up some old articles about doping in Indian sports, particularly following the Sunita Rani controversy and came up with this astonishing article. If this stuff is true, then our entire sports structure is not that different from the erstwhile East Germany. It would also explain really poor performances at the Olympics and so on. All this is very mystifying for another reason as well. If you do take banned stimulants, and this is an 'official programme' then the least one ought to aim for is international glory. But assuming that this true, this systematic doping doesn't seem to have improved our performances at the international level at all.

Weightlifting, of course has been in the spotlight before. Further, India is hardly alone in this whole doping controversy thing. With the noose tightening around Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, clearly there's a lot we ordinary sports fan don't know about.

(On a personal note, I must say all this is hugely disappointing. Growing up, I've always hugely admired those with sporting talent, and I'm sure many of us revere those with extraordinary sporting abilities. The truth is that most of these athletes- dope tainted or not, would be pretty special anyway- I don't think only steroids could have made Marion Jones who she is- she's clearly hugely talented anyway. But it means that come August, when I switch on the TV to follow the Olympics, the niggling doubt that pretty much every single athlete or maybe even swimmer, was possibly on performace enhancing steroids will seriously rob me of the joy of watching them perform).

Some links- and a controversy

I promised to blog some of the more interesting links I found, but let me begin by mentioning this excellent blog by Amardeep Singh.
I came across it, because he has covered in fair depth, the controversy surrounding Hinduism Studies. (Go to June 22 post for a further update, I can't seem to be able to link to it). Now, I will admit that Hinduism Studies per se is fine, honestly it is. I think there is a problem with left wing secularists in India who think that anyone who believes in God is a potential Modi. No they aren't. And you alienate them by believing thus. I know plenty of my own relatives who are fairly devout but would never ever vote for the BJP or fall for their anti Muslim rhetoric and are appalled by it. So let's not dismiss everyone who believes.

Next, I will admit that I am worried by the way South Asian courses are designed in Western universities. There is an emphasis on 'what is wrong' with India, rather than 'what is right'- and for god's sake, we are country with over 20 distinct languages, 6 major religions and so on, and we've remained relatively united. Give us some credit please.

At the same time, the Hinduism Studies crowd often worries me, because some of them, and I do insist on the word 'some', have links with more dubious organizations. But while there is a lot of misinformation about Hinduism in the West (and what about Islam eh?), I am not sure these guys are tackling it the right way. (No pun intended!!)

Ok, so here are some of the other links I promised:
SACW is obviously the best resource for any South Asian scholar. But it has a special section on the textbook controversy and on history writing in India. There is this other site called Akhbar which has a great set of essays on a wide variety of subjects, including the curricula in Pakistan.

On Pakistani textbooks, here is Rosser's article. But there is also this report, which you can find on the SDPI site- the A.H. Nayyar report on the curricula.

Finally the Feb 2003 issue of Seminar, has an excellent collection of articles on 'ways of representing our shared past'. They are a must read.

History textbooks to be revised

The NCERT has decided to 're-write' history again and revise the textbooks that Murali Manohar Joshi wanted to introduce. All very well, and from my ideological point of view, an excellent move. However, as I will blog in the next few days and argue, this whole business of 'rewriting' history that is problematic. In fact the earlier textbooks (the original ones of Thapar, Bipan Chandra et al), through their omissions and silences actually gave the space for these 'alternate' histories to be written. This is not to say that all alternate histories are equally legitimate. There is after all, 'good' history and 'bad' history, to be judged on the basis on how accurately one can draw reasonable conclusions from the evidence placed before oneself. And no one is arguing that Joshi is a 'reasonable' person! But what is heartening about the NCERT's move is that it seeks not to introduce a standardised book for each Class, but a series of books or reading materials, that children can draw upon. This means that you will have one or two core textbooks, but for those further interested in the subject, the NCERT will provide some guidelines on what else they could read. Considering how boring and appalling the CBSE history exams are, this could only be a Good Thing.

Hanging on the edge- the death penalty in India

This news report, sums up what happened yesterday. Dhananjay Chatterjee who was supposed to have been hanged for the rape and murder of Hetal Parekh lives for another day. As I read that article a number of thoughts flashed through my mind. First, while we don't use it on the same scale as the United States, India does execute people now and then. The most famous case is that of the assassins of Indira Gandhi but as this article, which explains in detail the nuances of the issue (it IS however anti death penalty), it is meant to be used in the 'rarest of rare' cases. Now this for me raises two questions.

First, is Dhananjay's case one of the 'rarest of rare' cases. On first glance it would seem not. After all, horrible as it may sound, rape and murder of teenage girls is not that uncommon. The fear of rape after all is the single biggest fear, perennially unspoken that a woman carries with her. If you ask a roomful of women, what their greatest fear is, you'll probably hear banal answers like: flying, cockroaches or spiders! So while no one will ever articulate it, most will admit when pressed by other women (I tried this once...), that rape is their ultimate fear and the ultimate form of degradation. What Hetal Parekh suffered was agony of the worst kind and what her parents continue to suffer today must be unbearable. And even if this is not one of the 'rarest of rare' cases, it could be argued that instituting the death penalty for rapists might act as a deterrent.

But it won't. And here's the counter argument. First, the problem with rape cases in India is that women are afraid to come forward, that the judiciary and the police are insensitive and the laws are often skewed. Merely threatening to kill rapists will achieve very little. Since most rapists know they will go scot free, I don't think this will unduly bother them.

So that takes us to the next question, that of the concept of the death penalty itself. As one of the above articles that I've linked to points out, 114 countries have abolished the death penalty and India is one of the few last remaining countries. While I sympathise greatly with the Parekhs and I cannot even begin to comprehend the horror that Hetal went through, I must say that I don't support the death penalty. Not for the usual 'it won't bring the girl back' kind of logic, but because the death penalty achieves very little and is so open to misuse in this day and age of TADA and POTA. Further, as someone who believes that counter terrorism by the state is no answer to terrorism, I can't quite see how I can stand up for the death penalty. However, one other thought: Dhanajay Chatterjee through all of this is becoming quite a celebrity. Let's not make him into a martyr (and hanging him might just do that), he's a killer and rapist. Let him languish in prison forever. Let him spend the rest of the 30 or so years that he will live, regretting what he did. A rape is a not a 'mistake', it's a deliberate and diabolical act and let's not be moved by his family members claiming that 'he's suffered enough'. Rubbish.

There is also the act of death by hanging which our Supreme Court has declared is not derogatory, humiliating, aking to torture and so on. Again, I am not sure I agree. Death by hanging is both barbaric and anachronistic. I oppose the death penalty per se, and would prefer to have life sentences instead, but at least if you have to kill, do so humanely. On the other hand, in America, where they do kill humanely, they telecast the killing of people like Timothy McVeigh which people watch with some absurd kind of voyeuristic 'pleasure'. Let's not go down that road, please!

General news roundup

Manmohan Singh today spoke about something that is a matter of great concern for us- the fact that our Parliament frequently fails to function- his speech to the nation asked for co-operation that Parliament could conduct it's business- that of debate and legislation. I couldn't agree more.

I assume most people would have read and re-read this news item, and talked it to death, but just my two cents- if this is his idea of a joke, sadly Mr Vajpayee is in real need of a sense of humour? On a more worrying note, as many of us had predicted, the BJP is seeking to turn rightward in order to re-orient itself.

I didn't blog about this movie when it came out, but I think it's time I did. Jivha sums up cogently all that really needs to be said. Although despite his complaints against the TOI, it says pretty much what he has to say. If any of you have watched the movie, and want to write a review for it, let me know and I'll put it up on this blog. I'm afraid, Odeon Oxford isn't exactly queueing up to show Girlfriend, but if you have seen it, and have something to say, do go ahead!

Jemima, Imran and the British media

No excuse really for not blogging for so long...unless you count Court 1 at Wimbledon as a genuine excuse! I've spent the whole day trying to construct a reading list for my next thesis- a starting point, rather than a reading list would perhaps be a better term. Anyway, this exercise actually revealed a number of excellent sources on South Asian history, along with a number of other disturbing ones. I won't catalogue these now, but shall go on to say something about this news item that has been bothering me for a while. On the face of it, Jemima and Imran's divorce is a matter fit for tabloids. However, read that article carefully and you will see all the racist bias of the British media being revealed. The stereotype of Islam, and by extension Pakistan being an oppressor is being bandied about. From what little I know of the country, Jemima would hardly have lived without an air conditioner (!) unless Imran is peculiarly miserly. High society in the subcontinent lives in lavish luxury that most people in the developing world will only be able to dream of. So my guess is that Jemima probably lived in a huge house, with servants at her disposal, every amenity she wanted, and simply got bored because she missed her London life. Fair enough, marriages have broken up for lesser reasons, but to villify an entire country, it's culture and by implication it's religion because this marriage didn't last, is utter rubbish. Somehow the whole notion that Jemima has been 'released' (as if it is not marriage that is a bondage, but marrying into a Muslim family that is), is quite repugnant. All thoughts on the matter would be very welcome.

Back from Chicago...and a thesis proposal

Yup, that's right. I'm back (again!). The Chicago trip was great and I loved the city, especially its skyline. I was a delegate at the 43rd International Achievement Summit, and I met a whole range of people. I will blog a bit about the political aspects of the trip at some point, including a bit about this fascinating debate between Wes Clark, Shimon Peres and the President of Latvia, and later Bill Clinton.

Back to the world of Indian politics. I'd promised at some earlier point in time to write a bit about my thesis proposal. I will admit at the outset, that the proposal I sent Harvard was rubbish and I'm glad they didn't think so. But having thought a bit about my proposal, this is what I'd like to work on: Textbooks in South Asia have for a while been a perennial source of controversy particularly in India and Pakistan. Take a look at this article if you want a cogent summary of what's been happening. I'd ideally like to look at the NDA government's 'tampering' with textbooks and compare it with similar developments in Pakistan in Zia's time. My Pakistani friends tell me that textbooks in Pakistan remain a source of huge controversy and it would be interesting to compare how history textbooks seek to inculcate a sense of nation and nationality as well as deal with issues as ethnic minorities, divisive movements, and the question of 'identity' in modern South Asia. Ideally, if I can gather enough data, I'd like to expand my study to cover not just India and Pakistan, but Bangladesh as well (partly because I speak, read and write the language..and hence won't be at a disadvantage).

There's been some work done on this, particularly by Yvette Roser, and I hope someday to be able to meet her. She suffered a serious accident in 2003, but it's worrying that she has links to the VHP. In fact, I've just realised that she's worked on exactly what I want to work on, which might mean that I might have to modify at least parts of my thesis proposal. Considering that she's worked on exactly the same three countries that I want to work on, I would need to find something pretty novel to say to avoid duplicating her work. One of my other ideas was to examine at greater length the use of textbooks to reconstruct particular versions of history elsewhere in the world. And the two examples that come to mind are South Africa and the Balkans. If anyone has any information on this, or could suggest readings, I'd be very glad.

Here's another interesting article on the kinds of 'mistakes' that abound in Pakistani textbooks. If you read that article, you'll find a number of pointers that I hope to pick up on when looking at the issue of textbooks. In particular, when dealing with the question of 'identities', I will look at the Hindu/Muslim identity in both India and Pakistan, and hopefully Bangladesh as well.

This incidentally is an excellent article by Rosser. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll find a whole series of links to more articles on the history curricula in Pakistan.

The man who's done a lot of work on the subject, is the father of a close friend, Krishna Kumar. His book Prejudice and Pride looks at how modern Indian/Pakistani history leading up to Partition is presented in the history textbooks of both countries. As Shahid Amin, aptly puts it, in this review, history textbooks become morality tales for children that try to create a national pantheon of heroes and myths.

On a more worrying note, I've been reading up about Yvette Rosser and I have to say I find some aspects of what there is on the net disturbing. I don't want to pass any judgement before I meet her and talk to her, but both this and this disturbs me. Actually I'd really like to read her thesis, because having read this much about her I've now come to the conclusion that I don't think we'll say very similar stuff in our theses!!

I billion.....and no gold?

I promise that this shall be the last post for the day! I really need to start packing. Anyway, I noticed this really good article by Rojit Brijnath and I couldn't help but blog it. Rohit Brijnath, many years ago used to write for that now defunct magazine Sportsworld. As a dedicated Sportstar fan, and it is the best sports magazine I have ever read, I looked upon SW as just another sports gossip rag, which is what it really was! But anyway, this is an excellent article on why we've never produced an individual gold medallist at the Olympics and what the prospects of doing so in the future are.

As an ardent sports enthusiast, who has Court No 1 tickets for the first Monday at Wimbledon in her right hand drawer at the present moment (and yes, I am showing off..couldn't help it!!), I thought a word or two about Indian sport would be worthwhile. To be honest, I cannot completely understand why we have never won an Olympic gold, apart from the obvious fact that the one sport we're reasonable at- cricket, was played only once at the Olympics as an exhibition event, where France won the gold. Enough said. So let's look at the major Olympic disciplines- let's not even consider swimming, gymastics, the other water sports, or even equestrian sports. All of these require a fair investment of funds, and most golds in these events go to the bigger, richer events.

Racquet sports- well, we've never been able to match the Chinese and the Swedes at TT, but then who has. It's the same story in badminton, although it would be great if Aparna Popat won a round or two at Athens. I remember Dipankar Bhattacharjee coming from nowhere to reach the pre-quarters in Barcelona '92...that I think is the best we can hope for from Aparna. I am big fan of Aparna's game, but I just don't think she has the power, skill, speed and even the hunger that you need to be in the top 10. I'd be glad if she could prove me wrong, but at 26 I am not sure she's going to get us that elusive Olympic gold.

I think it boils down to that one big question: why have we never won even a medal in athletics...and will Anju Bobby George get us our first medal? I think Brijnath ignores a very critical aspect of Indian athletics- doping. After the performance at the Sydney Olympics it became more than obvious that a lot of our athletes were taking performance enhancing drugs, which they had to stop taking in the run up to the Olympics and which accounted for their poor performance. When Sunita Rani was first caught for a doping offence, she did say that there were others who took drugs as well, but subsequently that part of her story was conveniently forgotten. There was also this hilarious case of a javelin thrower banned by the AAFI who then competed at the next nationals, with a different hairstyle and a different name. And the AAFI didn't even notice it, till journalists pointed this out to them. So Anju Bobby George is really our best hope and I am a huge admirer of how composed and calm she is, even under pressure. Here's an update on how Anju and Anjali Bhagwat's preparations are coming along. All the very best!

P.S. This is entirely unrelated: thanks a ton Patrick! And a very belated happy birthday as well.

A forgotten anniversary

In the midst of all this D-Day celebration and continuous coverage of that on TV (note the bitterness- they cut me off in the middle of the French Open men's final...and I thought only DD went off for the news at matchpoint!), few people remember that it was around this time, two decades ago that Operation Bluestar took place. An event that was to shake India to the very core of its secular foundations. My own personal memories of that day are very limited. I was not yet four, and a trifle excited by the police presence in the city, all this talk of curfew and so on. It would take another eight years, and the events of 6 December, 1992, for me to experience that again.

The BBC has been trying to recapture the events of Operation Bluestar, through a series of columns and articles that are well worth reading. What is particularly telling are the comments in the 'Have Your Say' section. So many people want to forget, often I suspect for reasons of conscience. Just as many ordinary Delhiites showed incredible courage in saving their Sikh neighbours, an equal number stood by and watched in silence. A friend of mine told me yesterday that she wanted to work on rape as an instrument of power during the Gujarat riots, and it occurred to me that the story of how women were treated during the 1984 riots is very poorly documented indeed. Urvashi Butalia has done some excellent work on women and Partition, I'm not sure if she's written anything about the '84 riots. As most of those women are still alive, I suspect that bringing up '84, in an era when Jagdish Tytler gets re-elected and when we have a Sikh PM, is almost poor ettiquette. But these stories must be told, and if you know of a book that does look at this aspect, do contact me.

I don't know whether the mere presence of a Sikh PM will heal the wounds of what happened all those years ago. I would argue that it wouldn't..and that the Congress will remain forever tainted by that one action, that finally brought the carefully constructed Nehruvian secular consensus, however flawed, crashing down.

My dear beloved city..

Two news items that just caught my eye. Not really political, but I felt I ought to blog them all the same. First is this news report. Why would this Swiss man want to buy airtickets from the manager's office? I assume that since he's travelled all the way from Switzerland to India, that he's fairly well versed in how international air travel works. I sincerely wonder if in any other airport of the world he's ever bought tickets from the airport manager's room. Failing that, I also wonder if say, at Heathrow, he would have dared to break down the manager's door. I have two grouses against foreigners who come to India. First, please behave here as you would in your own country. Just because we are a poorer Third World nation does not mean that normal rules, laws and procedures don't apply here.

I remember reading this blatantly biased BBC newsreport some months ago about this man, caught for stealing drugs who was then released from an Indian prison. And the news report made him out to be some kind of martyr. What about the fact that the guy was a drugs dealer in the first place? I could think of a few places where he would have been beheaded by now. Next, the article seems to suggest that he was denied the right of appeal in India because he was a foreigner. What rubbish. The entire appeals process happens almost automatically. I cannot see a High Court, or a District Court having the jurisdiction to deny you the right to appeal. Patently absurd stuff, and clearly for whatever reason the BBC had bought it. I wish I could find the link to that article now.

Anyway, to return to what I was saying about our Swiss gentleman above. Clearly he thought that if he smashed down the manager's door at Calcutta (I'm sorry...I like Calcutta to Kolkata...I'm willing to say the latter in Bangla, and I always have, but not in English. Too bad!) that it would help him establish his authority in some way. Weird...I just don't get it.

What I also don't get it is when foreigners roam around the city wearing, what constitutes underwear. Like a vest and a lungi. No one in Britain walks around in a vest and pair of boxers down the main road. These are of course perfectly normal people, but they think that sensible dress codes don't apply when you're in an 'exotic' country. Apart from being hilarious this is also quite offensive. No one's asking you to wear a full sleeved shirt and trousers...you can wear your ubiquitous jeans and T-shirt if you want. But to wear a vest and lungi in public, when very few Calcuttans or even Indians do it (the South Indian mundu or veshti is completely different from the lungis that these people wear..), is quite ridiculous and a fashion statement that hardly constitutes fashion.

Ok, rant over. Let's look at the other issue I was talking about. It's the question of attendance in universities. Take a look at this article from the Telegraph. Now for those attending Western universities, this whole attendance business would be baffling. But there is I think a valid point here. Since our system is so heavily structured around classroom teaching, and since there's a heavy demand for places at universities, if you don't attend classes and merely turn up for exams, that's probably a good indicator that you are taking tuitions. Which is another menace altogether. I'm not one for draconian laws, but in a country where college seats are so limited, and the competition so fierce, I think it's fair that you attend a minimum number of classes throughout the year (also we don't have a process of continuous assessment). Given all of this, it's absurd to raise a hue and cry before exams when you fall short of the requisite attendance. After all, you knew all along what the required percentage was. In my college in Delhi, they were incredibly strict about this and put up lists with names of those who'd fallen short of the attendance criteria every term. Which was a good way of knowing how far behind you actually were. It's stupid to say, as some of the students in the article do: look I attended 65% of the classes last year, so I shouldn't have to attend so many this year. How hard is it to go to 6/10 classes every week? And if you were aware of the rules, why whine when they are imposed? Students in Calcutta are incredibly pampered.....I think a good dose of St. Stephen's discipline will remind them how privileged they really are!

Finally...I'm back

Indeed. It's been a very long time, and unfortunately I might have to go on sabbatical again as I leave for Chicago early tomorrow morning. Clearly much has happened in my absence so it would be sort of futile to do a summary of all that. The UPA released its new manifesto and brought with it many grumbles. Again, I wouldn't read too much into it. But what is indeed worrying has been Natwar Singh as Foreign Minister constantly shooting his mouth off! I will be the first to admit that one of the few achievements of the NDA government was the bonhomie with Pakistan. And perhaps some of that could be attributed to the personal chemistry between Musharraf and Vajpayee. Either way, our good frient Natwar Singh seems hell bent on destroying that.

The Cauvery dispute seems to have been raked up again. To be honest, I'd forgotten all about it! It also reminds me that I must blog at least a short summary of my thesis at somepoint. I'm also hoping that over this summer I'd probably convert a part of the thesis into an article, particularly the bit linking the politics over the dam to Hindutva philosophy and the politics of the BJP.


This is great news. NGOs in Calcutta (Kolkata?) have done a good job in Sonagachi, the city's main red light area with their AIDS awareness campaign. What has been admirable about the Sonagachi campaign is that there's never been a moral stand taken on the issue. Rather the aim is to teach them about condoms, educate their children, and to teach the women how to retain control over their own bodies.

The question of reservations in the private sector will require an entire post devoted to it. Incidentally you can find the complete text of Kalam's speech to Parliament here. I know this will be somewhat controversial, but I do support reservations for the public sector. I agree wholeheartedly that they have been ill conceived and badly implemented but there's a lot going for them as well. Further, if you do remember that approximately 20% of our population is Dalit, and are denied opportunities, perhaps we ought to do something about it. The fact is that opponents of reservations never have an alternative solution except for saying: we need economic growth and we need to uplift them. Ummm...how? Anyway I'll deal with this at some later point. And I'll try to keep blogging while I'm there, although I can't promise that!