'I am a displaced Bangladeshi and Muslim gay man. I am a survivor of religious violence. And I fled to India in 2016. I would like to tell the Bharatiya Janata Party and its president, Amit Shah, that I exist. Their construction of all Muslims as hegemonic oppressors is outrageous and demonises India’s own dispossessed people. I have experienced this first hand in 2016, but this year BJP has gone a step further.
Submitted by narendramodifacts on Mon, 12/23/2019 - 00:00
Two recent stories involving children and the anti-CAA protests may have caught your attention: an 8 year old was amongst those killed taking part in the protests; and a video of two young boys went viral - wearing BJP hats, they chant a slogan about shooting "traitors", namely protestors. (We have not linked to this video, since these children are victims too). This prompted us to look back at recent articles we tagged "children". What did we find? The nature of articles we archive means that naturally it was grim. The links are to specific examples, but there are many more.
'...These women are fully conscious of the imminent danger of this happening, as they hear about deaths of youth across Uttar Pradesh, in police action. Equally disturbing is news coming in from activists standing before Delhi hospitals, of youth with head injuries being stitched up secretly in ICUs. Hospital administrators colluding with police to avoid a medico-legal report. It is the constitution they have come out to defend; it is a secular battle in which people from all faiths have become equal partners.
'Both the toilet pan and television set are broken, food canisters lie upturned, the pipe of the cooking gas cylinder has been sliced into two. “Aag laga rahe the. They were setting the house on fire,” said a young woman who lives in the Naiza Sarai locality in Nehtaur, a town in Uttar Pradesh’s Bijnore district, 180 km west of Delhi. On Friday afternoon, the police fired tear gas shells and bullets in the neighbourhood soon after Muslim residents emerged from prayers at a mosque. The police claim the residents first threw stones at them, but the residents stoutly deny this.
'Parayan Maranna Kathakal – a play by 15 trans people in Kerala, was staged for the 25th time in Kochi on Friday. Only, in place of the many colours they have been using to express the different emotions in the play, it was an all-black theme on Friday, as a mark of protest against the newly-passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). “We are all wearing black to protest against the politics of religion. There is no caste or religion among us.
'On the night of December 18, former cricketer and incumbent BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly posted a tweet in reference to his daughter, Sana Ganguly. “Please keep Sana out of all this issues .. this post is not true .. she is too young a girl to know about anything in politics.”... Ganguly’s tweet came as multiple users on Twitter posted a purported screenshot of Sana’s Instagram story – an excerpt on fascism from Kushwant Singh’s book ‘The End of India’. A part of the passage reads, “Every fascist regime needs communities and groups it can demonize in order to thrive.
'India has slipped four places on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap index to 112, behind neighbours China, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, due to rising disparity in terms of women's health and participation in the economy. Moreover, India is now ranked in the bottom-five in terms of women's health and survival and economic participation, according to an annual survey report released on Tuesday...'
'A day after it came to light that a 30-year-old woman was attacked with acid in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district by four men for refusing to withdraw her rape complaint against them, police said a case had been registered and was being investigated from all angles. The incident happened a day before a 23-year-old woman from Unnao district was set on fire by five men, including two who were accused of raping her. The Unnao woman died at a Delhi hospital on Friday night.
'...The truth is India is no country for women. A large number of Members of Parliament (MPs) have rape cases against them. Rape is used as a brutal weapon to assert power over women.
'Public outcry and protests in response to rape cases in India can be documented back to at least 1972 in the Supreme Court's Mathura judgment, acquitting two policemen who allegedly raped a young Adivasi girl in their custody. Many such 'landmark' protests have taken place since. Most recently, in November 2019, the rape and murder of a 27-year old veterinary doctor in Telangana stirred angry reactions and joint protests...'
