Author: The Metrognome

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Overdose

An open letter to our politicians

Jatin Sharma is furious over politicians’ irresponsible statements following the Delhi gang rape case. This is his letter of rebuttal.

My dear mindless politicians,

I have had enough from you guys.  Don’t play politics when your daughter has died. Don’t play politics when the nation is feeling sad. And don’t try to teach us things when the nation is feeling wounded.

In the past few days, the rage over the death of our daughter has grown five-fold. There is no need to enrage us more. As a country, we know that you have failed as leaders to run our nation and make our lives better. And no, don’t take any credit for running our nation! It’s only because of the intellectuals and the people of India and their hard work that our country can boast of a good economy. You guys have had no part to play in it, except for the being part of several scams that have happened in the country.

You have constantly dirtied my city with your posters on the streets wishing me during Ganapati and Janmashtmi and Eid festivals. I don’t need your good wishes. You will never ever take up real issues in your lifetime. You are actually scared to lead us.

I am utterly disgusted – with the way you have started handling the Delhi gang rape case. And you’ve made some incredible statements, some utterly senseless and irresponsible statements that have shamed me to the core of my being. I have a few replies to make:

Statement 1: The rape victim should be given the Ashok Chakra

Whoever made this statement should be asked to go to the India-Pakistan border without a gun and fight with the enemy. When that person dies, we will give him the Paramvir Chakra.

Don’t make a hero out of that girl. She suffered. She was humiliated. She was out with her friend, may be her boyfriend. Please acknowledge that in India, girls have boyfriends. Girls have boyfriends in Bharat also. She was raped by five to six men. She didn’t want to face this situation, she just wanted to live her life. No girl wants a Chakra, she wants security. Give women security, and you can keep the Ashok Chakra.

Statement 2: To prevent rape, we will shut down establishments by 1 am.

Whoever said this should be asked to first shut their mouth, or should be taken around their city in the night to understand the new, progressive India.

This is like saying if you fear robbery, you should stop earning money. By this statement, you mean to say that people should stay at home so that when criminals come out on the streets, people are protected since they are already home. That’s just perfect. And I recently read a story where a man violated a dog. Hope you are asking the dogs to stay at home after dark, too.

Statement 3: Rapes occur in India, not Bharat.

Rapes occur in India because they are reported. In Bharat, because of mentalities like yours, they just die down.

It’s time that India takes over. A rape is a rape, wherever it happens. When we elected you, we elected for an entire nation. You need to understand both India and Bharat and govern. If you cannot understand that both these entities are the same country, you should just resign.

Statement 4: Sita was kidnapped after she crossed a line. There must be a Laxman rekha on women’s behaviour.

Please focus on not having Ravanas in society. Ravana didn’t rape Sita, and he was still taught a lesson.

Why do you blame girls for rape? You should blame your penis-wielding sons! You are a politician, you are responsible for what you say. Please remember that Sita was asked to prove herself with an agnipariksha, which she passed. And yet Ram abandoned her later.

Sita didn’t lose any dignity. But that is what it is. It’s time you came out of the Dwapar yuga and start being responsible for every human being, be it a man or a woman.

My take: If people are restrained and beaten up to avoid being troublesome to society, why can’t we stop politicians, too? Twisting a knife in a wound is not a solution. When the nation is burning, politicians shouldn’t be allowed to fan the flames further.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because he feels that if he grows up, he will be like everybody else.

(Picture courtesy indianmuslimobserver.com)

 

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Big story

Mumbai shivers at lowest season temperatures

City temperatures are expected to rise after Monday morning. Saturday recorded the lowest-ever temperatures this season, at 12.4 Degree Celsius.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

For a city unaccustomed to shivering as it wakes up and huddling under blankets as it goes to sleep, Mumbai sure is picking up a few tricks this winter. For long, Mumbai’s winters have been known for their pleasant, cool breezes and a nip in the air in the early morning hours. During the last few days, however, the city has experienced some truly chilly weather, and will continue till Monday morning.

Or so the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Mumbai, says.

As per the update posted on the IMD website, the minimum temperature in the city till Monday morning would touch 11 Degrees Celsius, with slight departures expected up to 10 Degrees Celsius. The cold wave condition is likely to persist for 48 hours, starting from Saturday.

Maximum temperatures are expected to hover at around 28 Degrees Celsius.

(Picture courtesy blogs.sacbee.com) 

Categories
Enough said

Death is not the answer

Humra Quraishi writes on why the death penalty could be a dangerous tool in the hands of the guilty powerful.

Even as I write this column, news reports are coming in of a 17-year-old raped by her friend in South Delhi’s posh Safdarjung Enclave. And just a day ago, there were more reports of women molested and burnt and killed. Yes, we ushered in the new year amidst tremendous hopelessness and simmering anger. As each single day passes, more women are being violated and killed, yet our politicians come up with more stale assurances and do little else.

And in the midst of this, we sit raping the very issue of rape. Politics has taken complete charge – not just between the Congress and the Right Wing, but also between the civilians and the military.

I don’t want to waste this space in battling either. For the basic crux is this – none of the tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, rich men, poor men, beggars, thieves, mantris or their attached santris, has any business or legal right, officially or unofficially, to condone or try to explain why rapes happen and how it could be the woman’s fault. No sarkari ploys or camouflages can shield them when they do this.

It’s even more bizarre to hear these politicians pass those statements that were probably last heard in medieval times: they speak freely of chemical castrations or hangings-to-death. Some Right wing politicians are currently behaving like the kings and queens of a bygone era; but where the latter said, ‘Off with his head1’, these politicians are ‘Off with his pen*s!’

As I have been writing all along, the death penalty or castration orders are not the solution to the problem. In fact, it will lead to absolute anarchy as hundreds of innocents could potentially be hanged or their vital organs harmed forever. With corruption seeping into every single sphere of the government machinery, it’s a well-known fact that even in cases involving thefts, the actual culprits have been seen hobnobbing with the high chairs of power, whilst ordinary citizens are detained and sit languishing as undertrials in the jails and prisons of the country.

So there’s little guarantee that innocents would not be charged with rape and hanged to death to shield the culprits who may be close to powerful persons who can protect them. And we would realise this only years later. In my opinion, it is not just the actual perpetrators who are the offenders in a crime, it is the bunch of communal politicians who help protect such offenders and who wield complete power over the police machinery that are the more dangerous.

This could be just the very tip of the never-melting iceberg. Seeing our track record of the sheer misuse of power and all that it drags along with it, meting out the death penalty to all and sundry could have serious, dangerous offshoots which could rip off whatever remains of our ‘modern, developed society’.

At the cost of sounding repetitive, I want to emphasise that it’s the mind, the psyche of the rapist which ought to be set right before we do anything else to him. But first, we need to set right the minds of all those Bollywood producers and film directors who go about making third rate films complete with cheap item numbers and horribly vulgar dance movements. It’s about time we focus our attention on the very cause of what is turning men into beasts when it comes to women.

Whilst Bollywood flourishes along with the political ruling class, there seems to be no attempt made  to book the film industry under charges of spreading vulgarity or provoking hundreds of impressionable minds to think that women are ‘easy’ in real life as well, that all they are good for is to entertain men in whichever way they desire, and that if a woman says ‘no’, she actually means ‘yes’.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

 

Categories
Deal with it

A clean juloos this year

A group of volunteers ensured that the recent Arba’een procession was a clean, almost zero-trash one, and were largely successful.
by Shezanali Hemani

Arba’een, meaning forty in Arabic, is a significant day marking the 40th day of Martyrdom of Imam Hussain, the Grandson of The Holy Prophet Muhammad. This day, 20 million mourners gather in Karbala, 110 km from Baghdad, Iraq on the Holy Shrine of Imam Hussain. Commemorated by Muslims all over the globe, this tradition of remembering Hussain on the 40th Day has its significance in historical events which occurred 1,400 years ago, as well as a part of the 40-day mourning period practiced by most cultures in the world.

However, a group of youths including Shias, sunnis and even a few Hindus, numbering to over 100 people, revolutionised the face of Arbaeen juloos in Mumbai this year. The idea to keep the juloos (procession) clean had actually taken root two years ago, but this year, it could finally be implemented.

Today, when we mourn the Prophet’s grandson’s death, for him who stood up in order to support the preaching of his grandfather, it seems very wrong for his followers to create a mess on the street and leave it for the BMC and others to clean. Also, ethically speaking, if we take so much care and effort to keep our own homes clean, why should we treat the city any differently? The city we live in we should retain its dignity, no matter what the occasion.

On January 3, the rest of the volunteers and I tied big trash bags at several spots along the juloos route, so that visiting pilgrims could throw such waste as glass, paper etc. The trash bags were laid all along from JJ to Mazgaon. More than one lakh people are believed to be present in this juloos from all over Maharashtra every year, most of them dressed in black clothes. The procession starts at 4 pm from Mogul Masjid near Bhindi Bazaar and ends at Rehmatabad Cemetery at Mazgaon.

Every year, a lot of waste is left behind on the road after the juloos ends. But this year, people noticed the difference. The owner of Greenfield restaurant (which falls on the route) said, “The waste this year have gone down by 80 per cent, compared to the previous juloos. This is a very good thing and it should continue. People think well about this kind of work.”

Aliraza Namdar, well known TV and theater actor also appreciated the hard work done by the volunteers and wished them luck for future projects. Owais Rizvi, Tabish Mehdi, Mohsin Fallah, Akeel Abbas Naqvi, Sohel Ajani, Ahmed Rizvi, Ali Miya, Asad Mirza, Rohan Gopalan and others were part of volunteer group.

Arba’een  is marked on the 40th day of the martyrdom of Imam Hussain.  Prominent religious scholars and leaders from the community participate in the juloos.

(Pictures courtesy Shezanali Hemani)

 

Categories
Event

“Marital rape is tantamount to sexual slavery”

Shibani Bathija, award-winning film writer, will give her take on marital rape through controversial play ‘The Vagina Monologues’, on Sunday.

Come Sunday, January 06, 2013, a special show of The Vagina Monologues will be held at the Comedy Store in Mumbai. In attendance will be Eve Ensler, Tony Award winning playwright, performer, and activist, who is the author of The Vagina Monologues. Eve will be in the city for the launch of ‘One Billion Rising’, a global movement to demand an end to violence.

Taking part in the readings will be screenwriter Shibani Bathija, whose last film was My Name Is Khan. Shibani spoke to Salil Jayakar on her participation in the special show, what she hopes it’ll achieve and whether it’s time for the film industry to do some introspection.

Excerpts from the interview:

Shibani, you’re reading a piece you have written on one of the ongoing debate areas on rape. Could you tell us about it? 

I have taken on the issue of marital rape to draw attention to the fact that women are not protected from it under existing Indian law. So, potentially a woman can be raped over a lifetime and have no recourse. It is tantamount to sexual slavery.

Why marital rape? Do you know of any personal instances? 

By and large women don’t talk about rape, and often in the case of marital rape they are given to understand that it is ‘duty’ and not rape at all, so no, I don’t personally know of instances but these are some stats I found. In the present day, studies indicate that between 10 and 14 per cent of married women are raped by their husbands: the incidents of marital rape soars to 1/3rd to ½ among clinical samples of battered women. Sexual assault by one’s spouse accounts for approximately 25 per cent of rapes committed.

This is a benefit show. Whom will the proceeds go to?

The beneficiary of all our fundraising around Eve’s visit and launch of One Billion Rising is largely SNEHA (www.snehamumbai.org) which works in Dharavi and across five other centres in Mumbai.

Do you think that a show like The Vagina Monologues can really highlight this sensitive issue? 

Yes, I think it can, as the first step is awareness and through fiction and even humour, a bright light can be shone on issues that are often avoided or then misunderstood by more people than we imagine.

A section of media and society has been clamouring for a ban on item songs in films. Your take? 

I think the issue is first violence, then sexualised violence. The thing that needs to be cut out is a portrayal of violence without reason or consequence. When we get inured to violence, then all kinds become acceptable. Rape is about violence. As far as item numbers are concerned, getting rid of ‘sexy’ dancing is putting the onus on women again, i.e., if you show and or enjoy the movement of your body you are asking for rape. Have you seen traditional belly dancing? The ultimate item number and it is / was often part of spiritual rituals.

As a screenwriter, do you think Bollywood also portrays women in a bad light? Does the industry as a whole need to do some introspection?

Well yes, the moment women are incidental to a plot they are indicated as incidental to life in general, and then who bothers about how someone incidental is treated? The moment women are front and centre and forces to be reckoned with, everything will fall into place.

What do you hope to achieve through this reading? 

I hope to highlight this most common and most ignored form of rape and in the best case scenario raise some voices for an amendment to the rape laws to include marital rape. Marriage is a social contract based on trust, respect and partnership. When it becomes about coercion then it is a breach of contract and the law should acknowledge that.

The special show of The Vagina Monologues will be held at the Comedy Store, Palladium, High Street Phoenix, on Sunday, January 6 at 6 pm. Other speakers include Chitrangda Singh, Suchitra Pillai and Manasi Scott.

(Picture courtesy firstpost.in)

Categories
Big story

Say hello to Magnetic Maharashtra

State Government launches a counter-tagline to ‘Vibrant Gujarat’. New industrial policy to focus on making Maharashtra a premier investment destination.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It’s a bit strange-sounding, but we can make do with it if it brings results: like ‘Vibrant Gujarat’, the catchphrase that signifies all things Gujarat, from investment to tourism, we will soon have our own catchphrase. It is ‘Magnetic Maharashtra’.

The State Government unveiled its new industrial policy yesterday. Aimed at maximising the State’s investment potential by attracting investors and promoting overall growth, the policy provides for incentive packages that will attract major industrial investments, and also accounts for provision of fiscal and land incentives to medium, small and micro industries. Further, there are incentives for those wishing to invest in less-developed and Naxal-infested areas in the State.

All of this will collectively be ‘sold’ under the catchphrase ‘Magnetic Maharashtra, Attractions Unlimited’.

The last industrial policy for the State was announced in 2006, and it mainly focussed on investment from major industrial houses. The new policy aims at an investment of Rs. 5 lakh crores and an employment generation potential for 20 lakh people. 60,000 acres of land will be set aside for setting up industries. Additionally, the Government will offer special rebates, waivers in electricity and stamp duty, and relaxation in VAT for units planning to set up shops in under-developed areas of Marathwada, Vidarbha and tribal districts.

The State plans to boost these plans further with increased intracity and interstate connectivity. The policy mentions the  development of the Mumbai-Pune-Solapur, Mumbai-Nashik- Aurangabad-Amravati-Nagpur, and Mumbai-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg corridors, in addition to the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial corridor.

Other initiatives include providing for a single window clearance portal to build an investor-friendly climate. The policy’s mission is to “place the State amongst the most preferred investment destinations in Asia for global investors,” says Chief Minister Ashok Chavan.

If you want to read up on the new industrial policy:

The Times of India…CII welcomes Maharashtra’s new industrial policy

The Business Standard…Maharashtra’s new industrial policy to be announced today

MSN.com…Maharashtra’s new industrial policy on Thursday

 (Picture courtesy hindubusinessline.com)

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