Category: Enough said

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Enough said

Help victims, not the accused

Humra Quraishi writes on the malaise of rape and how a lack of policing is helping rapists get away it.

Another gang rape has taken place in New Delhi. No, it’s not really surprising, for eve-teasing is so rampant there that no woman is actually safe on the roads or lanes of this city. After dusk, it’s risky for a woman to commute, unless of course, she is a top politician or a senior civil servant or Somebody Important, in which case she has adequate security as she goes about her daily tasks.

And before I write any further, let me mention that even young men and teenage boys are not safe in Delhi either. With this, another point that cannot be ignored is that people’s faith in cop and the policing system is nil. The average citizen is apprehensive about entering a police station to lodge a complaint, because that one act results in a hundred different offshoots, with him or her facing some unsavoury consequences. There are several horror stories to be told about the city’s lockups, the police thanas, the interrogation and detention centres. The worst crimes take place right there, under the watchful eyes of cops.

In fact, there are no records and statistics to show how many cop-rapists and molesters have been hanged thus far. They get away because of all the possible loopholes in this system.

So where do you and I go for help if we are molested or raped or eve-teased? It sure does require nerves of steel to report these crimes, and that’s why most of these crimes go unreported. Reporting them is, perhaps, the last resort for most people.

I am of the definite view that hanging is not the solution. Are we so short-sighted to think that hanging a couple of men will solve all crises, be it related to terrorism or rape? Death isn’t a remedy for such ills. Those off-with-your-head orders were fine when given by rulers of bygone days, because the rule of the law was paramount then. Here, when every fifth or sixth man is trying his level best to grab an opportunity to touch or intrude on a woman’s personal space, how many men can be hanged? We will upset the gender ratio if we hang every eve-teaser and rapist.

Another important point, which most of us ignore, is what we are seeing on the big and small screens today –  obnoxious item numbers, with even more obnoxious lyrics, and our top heroines dance in them without the slightest trace of embarrassment. There are disgusting image portrayals, but there doesn’t seem to be any effort being made to stop this kind of objectification.

Today the situation is so pathetic that we have moved backwards, beyond the medieval ages. If you are planning to move out of your Delhi home after dusk, you to yourself well and try and return before it gets late. Men friends or a male companion cannot be of much help if such a situation happens to you, because rapists attack in groups, and are often deranged with drink that only a policeman can probably stop them.

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

(Picture courtesy ibnlive.com)

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Confer with those who need help

Humra Quraishi writes about her disgust over international conferences that seek to include only the well-informed, upper classes of society.

I recently received an invite to the World Breastfeeding Conference 2012, and I confess, I was somewhat taken aback to see it. Hosted in New Delhi, it is said to have attracted 900 delegates from 86 nations.

No, I didn’t attend it. I didn’t feel the need to, not because I am no longer in the child-bearing or breastfeeding stage myself, but simply because I have long felt that such meets are hosted only for the ‘upper’ sections of society, or the ‘top drawer’, if you will, which is anyway well aware of the benefits of breast feeding.

Why couldn’t the organisers of this meet – The global Breastfeeding Initiative for Child Survival (gBICS), together with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Women and Child Development (GOI ) – hold this meet at some of the rural pockets and locales of the country? Why hold this in New Delhi and why in one of the posh locales of New Delhi? Why not in one of those outlying colonies or bastis and mohallas and jhuggi clusters, whose women may actually need the knowledge these conferences have to impart?

And what hits the most is the fact that Minister of Women and Child development, Krishna Tirath, does not seem to react when children and young teenagers are detained and arrested and harassed by the various security agencies in the police machinery. Why is there little to no intervention from the Government, and in particular, from this Ministry, when such incidents take place?

Stretching my disgust a little further, let me also add that Krishna Tirath should try walking on any of those stretches of New Delhi or commute by any of the public transport means available to the rest of us, and then see for herself what happens. As I have been writing all along all these years, it’s actually tough for a woman to walk on the streets of the capital city without being eve-teased. I am now middle-aged, but even I have to think twice before stepping out of my house in a sleeveless shirt, unless I throw on a long flowing dupatta to cover my arms and chest.

And in the midst of these basic realities, if we hold these fashionable conferences (or let’s just call them publicity-seeking meets), then there’s something, or maybe everything here, that just doesn’t jell together. These discrepancies between two Indias stand out so blatantly.

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

 

 

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A fine gentleman

Humra Quraishi writes on the demise of IK Gujral, and what she first thinks of when she hears his name.

I heard the news of former Prime Minister IK Gujral’s demise, and the very first image that floated in my mind was of him and his poet wife Sheila strolling in the Lodi Gardens. They wouldn’t walk formally, like most married couples do, but like two close friends, hand in hand.

It was such a lovely sight to see the two together. This is not a tale of ancient times, but something that happened just about 12 years ago. I used to live in New Delhi then, and I’d go running towards those gardens to try and control my high blood sugar levels. And  whenever I would see this couple, I would stop and stare at them, sometimes for minutes. My own marriage was nearing a stage of collapse, and later it did collapse totally, so whenever I’d see couples in love walking in that romantic way, I‘d stare at them enviously.

But let me not get carried away with my romantic reminisces, and focus on IK Gujral in a wider, bigger way, as his younger brother, artist Satish Gujral has done in his  autobiography, A Brush With Life. There’s an entire chapter in this volume on Inder  Gujral titled ‘Friend and Brother’, and carried several political details and many important socio-political backgrounders. But if you were to know the actual traits of his personality, you must read the entire book, for it certainly brings out Inder Gujral as somebody who was always a class apart from the rest.

To quote Satish, “With my father’s indifference towards the household, the authority to  make decisions had passed on to my eldest brother, Inder. Though he was still in his teens, he was recognised as the heir apparent. He was not the first born child of our  parents, but the first to survive; my father doted on him. Inder had inherited many of his traits.

This affinity of temperament drew them close to one another…the audacity of spirit which Inder demonstrated when he took to politics was undoubtedly inherited from our  father. Inder was only ten years old when, like our parents, he courted arrest. Although he  was kept in the police station only for a night, his actions reassured my father that his son was following in his footsteps…”

The passages where Satish writes of his near-fatal accident in Pahalgam’s Lidder river – which left him severely injured and impaired his speech and hearing – brings out the  supportive role played by his brother Inder. In later years, Satish embarked on his artistic journey. “Inder found an art school in Lahore where I could learn drawing, painting, sculpting and much else…” And later when Satish shifted to Mayo, the bond between the brothers deepened.

“The one thing I could not stomach in Mayo’s hostel was tasteless and badly served food. My father, who knew how fussy I was about food, arranged for me to eat in Inder’s  hostel, which was only half a kilometre away. Joining my brother every day for meals brought us closer to each other. Besides eating with him, I learnt a great deal from him  about literature and poetry, and above all, how personality was moulded by  commitments.

He also sensed that my resentment and frustration at being handicapped was building up to a climatic rage, which, unless channelled into creative pursuits, would be my undoing. It was Inder who infused in me a fervour for social revolution. He felt that this would ease my burden and instil in me the hope of a better world.”

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

 

 

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‘Amrita Shergill threatened to seduce me’

Khushwant Singh tells Humra Quraishi about his first love affair and how he could never make a pass at women.

I need to get something off my chest. I am disturbed by the upheaval taking place in the sexual lives and attitudes of us Indians. Divorce rates are going through the roof, singletons’ clubs are seeing more memberships. And everybody’s writing books – just yesterday, a newly-divorced friend cooed that she’s all set to make the most of the divorce by penning a book on it!

So it was very refreshing to catch up with Khushwant Singh, and I asked him if he thought sex education ought to be introduced at the school level. His reply was rather surprising. “It may lead to an early indulgence in sex…but then, it’s shocking to know that many adults don’t know a thing about sex, not even the basics.”

He went on, “My friend Prem Kirpal didn’t even know that women menstruate! In his 30s, he was attracted to a woman friend and wanted to get close to her, but she wouldn’t let him near her. The next day he told me that he couldn’t go ahead with her as she was wounded!”

He said that there was “too much sexual frustration in the country, leading to rapes and gang rapes,” and that the concept of ‘love’ in India was limited to “a tiny minority that prefers to speak English rather than Indian languages, read only English books, watch only Western movies and even dream in English.” He then added, with his usual candour, what love and seduction have meant for him. “It baffles me, why do women confide in me the way they do? Total strangers have rung me up to discuss their personal problems. They tell me of their inhibitions, their love affairs, their extramarital relationships. When it comes to women, I am a patient as well as an interested listener.”

And he dwelt on seduction. “Women do seduce. I have been seduced by women all my life, right from the time I was attracted to Ghayoor (it’s she who’d held my hand). Most women have made the first pass at me, led me on, with the exception of two women, where I took the lead.

Even when I was attracted to a woman, I had little confidence to make the first move. I was terribly flattered when women made a pass at me…looking back, I wish I had the confidence to make the first move, for I could have got closer to several women, like Amrita Shergill. In fact, Amrita had threatened to seduce me just to teach my wife a lesson, but she couldn’t carry out this threat because she died a few months later.”

The thing about Khushwant is, he never holds back. I asked him about his first intense love affair, and he said, “I was in college. She was a Muslim from Hyderabad and had to come to Delhi to study at the Lady Irwin College for a degree in Home Science. I was around 17 years old and Ghayoorunissa was three years older than me, and she was my sister’s friend. On one of those occasions when she, my sister and I had gone for a movie, she’d slipped her hand in mine. That alone meant a lot to me…I really loved her. Now she is dead…she died several years ago, and I went to Hyderabad when I heard of her demise, visited her grave and have been in touch with her daughter ever since.”

“Why didn’t you marry her?” I ask.

“I went to England and she went to Hyderabad and got married. I continued to meet her even after her marriage, and I was so in love with her that I was drawn to the entire Muslim community. I believe that when you fall in love, your perception of his or her community changes, you begin to feel closer to that community.”

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

(Khushwant Singh picture courtesy caravanmagazine.com)

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The pain of Gaza

Humra Quraishi writes on how our collective detachment to the Gaza crisis and our pro-Israel stand has affected Arab-Indo relations.

I’ve been watching scenes of complete disaster in the Gaza belt unfold on my TV screen, and I am left wondering: where are the so-called world leaders who talk of peace? Where is the US President, Barack Obama, who ought to start his second term in power by trying to save the lives of hapless Palestinians; if nothing else, then at least to win a few brownie points! Where is the United Nations at the moment? And more to the point, where is our own government?

I confess I am shamed and shocked at the muted response to the barbaric killings of Palestinians. We sit detached as scores of Palestinians are being killed and pushed to the  edge in their own homeland. Is this happening because of our pro-America, pro-Israel tilt? If it is, then our current politics is a far cry from the time when Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira  Gandhi had close personal ties with the Arab nations, and with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

I’d attended a few receptions in New Delhi, where Indira Gandhi had honoured Yasser Arafat, and he, in turn, had showered praises on his ‘sister’ Indira. And it’s a well-known fact that in the 1950s, Nehru had gifted a sprawling bungalow on New Delhi’s Prithvi Raj Road to the first Iraqi envoy to India. The bungalow still stands, tall and elegant, but it is just about vacant. After Iraq was pounded by the American forces, the Iraqi embassy here shrank rapidly, gradually reduced to nothingness.

While covering the social scene of the capital city for almost three decades, I have witnessed the years when traditional Arab hospitality and warmth held sway here. The frequent parties and luncheons at the homes of envoys of Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Kuwait and Qatar were not just vibrant, they relayed warmth. And the Arab-India bonding lasted till about the time America and the allied forces invaded Iraq.

Even today, the plight of the Palestinians gets buried in the back pages of our newspapers, accompanied by occasional pictures of hundreds dying. We tend to overlook the complete picture, the historical context, and the very basics of the problem. In this context, I quote Palestinian envoy to India, Osama Musa, who had once said to me, “We have been under occupation all these years, over several decades. Can’t America see the killings that take place on a daily basis? I tell you, without America’s support, Israel is zero. Israelcannot survive a single day if America doesn’t support it. Israel is equipped by tanks and war planes, whereas we Palestinians only have a police force armed by mere pistols.”

He added, “You ask how peace will come about? It will happen the day Israel ends its occupation. We have been telling the Israelis to leave us alone. We are restricted to only 23  per cent of the total land that originally belonged to us. The rest is with Israel. Their policies have affected over six million Palestinians – of which three million are displaced, and the other three million live in their own land as slaves, not as free citizens.”

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

(Featured image courtesy www.csmonitor.com) 

 

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Did Modi really develop Gujarat?

Humra Quraishi writes on a few startling findings that point to mishandling of funds and incompetence from the Modi government.

Correct me if I am wrong, but even the angrez didn’t indulge in the multiple divide and rule  strategies that are being used in our country today, by those in positions of governance. No  rebellion, big or small, is being allowed to take place, as counter-punches are rapidly thrown in as hurdles. No heated discussions are taking off as the Rakhi Sawants of the world are dragged  in as distractions in all forms and sizes. Naturally, no headways are made in important cases as other skeletons tumble out…

I’m not sure who is supporting whom and why, and why not. But one thing is becoming clearer as each day passes – there seems to be a rather systematic build up to get Narendra Modi to the    centre stage, right here at the Centre. May be even a foreign hand is lending hidden support to these efforts, considering that Modi has begun to get welcoming nods from several foreign  quarters to come and visit. Obviously, no quarter, foreign or otherwise, functions without bigger vested interests in the background.

Apart from wondering what will happen to the country if Modi is brought at the Centre, I am also wondering what will happen to those who are still labouring under illusions of development that are now synonymous with Modi. As the electioneering mood picks up in Gujarat, some  hard facts are spilling out in earnest.

To quote Ahmedabad-based Jesuit, Father Cedric Prakash,  who has worked hard to unearth facts and figures related to Modi’s purported development works, “Modi’s talks on ‘cost  of  development’ deserves scrutiny. The ruling party is burdening the State Exchequer with liability of crores of rupees every day. Even through the RTI route, it is difficult to arrive at the total of wasteful expenditure. The State’s debt as on 31st August 2011 was Rs 1,13,939 crore.

“As per the Report of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics for the 2011, per capita income of Gujarat is Rs 63,961, the average poverty alleviation rate for the country as a whole is 1.5 per cent per year whereas it is 1.7 per cent in case of Gujarat. The percentage of poor people in the State is 23 which, speaks volumes about the state’s development model.

“Again, only 43 per cent of households get water at their doorstep in rural areas, only 16.7 per cent villagers get clean water, 67 per cent of village families do not have toilet facilities, 30 per cent villagers are faced with malarial fever in epidemic proportion, and Gujarat ranks No 14 as regards infant mortality rate. In short, after all its talks on development, Gujarat has been able to achieve a 48 per cent target as far as Human Development Indices are concerned.”

Father Cedric also quotes the CAG Report on Gujarat for 2011. “In this report, there are many startling details about corruption, mal-administration, clumsy and faulty administration, improper and imprudent misuse of Government funds etc. This report was tabled in the Assembly only at the last moment and that too after intervention of the Governor. No scope was left at all for debating the report in the State assembly,” he alleges. He offers these facts from the CAG report as well: funds earmarked for education of dalits were not fully spent for over three years, the Government purchased gas at higher prices and then sold it to Adani and Essar at cheaper prices, irregularities of Rs 1,100 crore are believed to have taken place in Sujalam Sufalam schemes, State’s revenue deficit in the year 2008-09 was Rs 10,438 crore and Rs 15,074 crore in the year 2010-11.

Father Cedric also addresses this major finding: the Gujarat State Petroleum Company Ltd. (GSPCL) in collaboration with Canada’s Global Resources Company ventured into business of drilling petroleum from the Krishna – Godavari basin. In this partnership, the Canadian Company had no share in the losses of GSPCL. Drilling in K-G Basin was a failure. Yet, the CM created a media hype by riding a helicopter to the drilling rig. Though the entire effort incurred huge loss, the Canadian company was given a ‘share in profit’, which never existed. “Thus, poor taxpayer of the State was looted and a foreign company was handed over a huge bounty. It is believed that in this entire process, scam of over Rs 5,000 crore had taken place. The Government, which boasts of being No. 1, has shown total lack of finance management.”

By the end of the year 2000, he says, “There were 3,000 large scale industrial units. At the end of 2010, the number has increased to 9,000. Substantial amounts of government money is spent for setting up the CETP and in spite of not getting desired outcome, no care or caution is exercised in adding new and more industries. This type of industrialisation will cause huge damage to the environment to which the Government turns a Nelson’s eye.”

Humra Quraishi is a veteran journalist and author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Absolute Khushwant. 

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