Rape, Protests and Whataboutery

Rape has once again ceased to be a statistic. In our country it happens once in a few years and in its wake brings in a widespread convulsive outrage, which spills on to the streets.

Keyboard warriors call for eye for an eye retribution and as a template cite methods used in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, whom they otherwise look down upon. Some end up betraying their latent patriarchy, while others, especially the political class, end up with their foot well entrenched in their mouths.

Last time it was the infamous December, 2012 Delhi gang-rape, often referred to as Nirbhaya case. As the incident happened in the national capital, it instantly caught the eye of national television. Egged on by saturation TV coverage and continuous buzz on social media, the outrage was instantaneous.

Delhi's wintry smog laden streets got filled with protesters and the government of the day had a tough time dealing with them. Footage of policemen using water cannons and canes to control the restive mob became a staple fare of almost all TV channels.

In Delhi even those who had never taken part in a protest in their lives got busy preparing placards and heading to protest venues. All this put the government of the day on back foot.

Newspapers were forced to report every rape case that came their way and that too provide a good display instead of relegating them to 'in brief' sections.

Dinner table conversations started veering over the topic and parents of teenage children had tough time answering queries like 'what is rape?' or how different it was from molestation!

The pontificating anchors pointed out the victim was just like us, called her 'India's daughter' and cautioned us that it could happen to any of us and they whipped up a sentiment of blood lust among the masses. The culprits happened to be from the fringes of society with no political or social clout, the very riff-raff detested by the middle class.

They were put immediately behind bars and going by the standards of Indian judiciary the trials were speedy enough. The government also formed the Justice Verma commission, which recommended many changes in laws related to sexual assaults.

Gradually the outrage died down and the daily rapes retreated to its realm of statistics and police record books.

...

The current outrage, in contrast, is a slow-burn one caused by gruesome rapes in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, which acquired limelight months after the actual incident. In the interim period they remained on life support on social media through the posts filed by activists fighting the cases.

Both cases were different from the Delhi rape in one aspect - the alleged perpetrators were influential people with political and social clout.

Moreover since both places were located far away from the myopic TV cameras of our news channels they got little attention and the cases dragged on for months with the perpetrators almost succeeding in burying them.

In fact the clout enjoyed by the perpetrators at Kathua was so strong that there were street demonstrations in the district to defend them. They even unfurled the Tricolour and invoked religious symbols to defend the perpetrators. The accused included a temple priest and few police officers.

Even more appalling was the conduct of the lawyers who actively protested the filing of the chargesheet by the crime branch against the accused.

In Unnao rape case the accused happened to be a BJP MLA and hence the matter was in deep freeze from day one. The tipping point was reached when the Unnao rape victim's father died after being in police custody. Around the same time the contents of Kathua case chargesheet was published in a Delhi newspaper.

For national media this was its Rip Van Winkle awakening. TV channels could no longer remain in their cosy self-censored bubbles and ignore the protests breaking out in every corner of the country, mostly orchestrated through social media.

But having been embedded with the establishment for the past four years, they were not exactly comfortable in attacking it. Soon whataboutery crept in, where were these protesters when rapes happened in Assam, where is the money collected through social media campaign going.

One channel began an innuendo campaign against Deepika Singh, the valiant lawyer who has taken up the Kathua case against heavy odds, alleging that she was pocketing the money.

Moreover, the moment Prime Minister broke his silence expressing displeasure over such 'incidents', TV channel displayed the same kind of euphoria that a child shows after he gets back his favourite toy, which he had thought was lost forever.

For them it was a early ghar wapsi after a brief flirtation with anti-establishment hashtags.

Image courtesy: Facebook

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Nirav Modi: The LoU Guru

While the country was smitten by the pre-Valentine wink of Priya Prakash Varrier, a débutante Malayalam actress, her 15 minutes of fame and court cases in tow, a Diamantaire (honestly I was hearing the term for the first time) did the same at India's banking system and law enforcement machinery, whose snores were quite deafening.

Nirav Modi, hitherto known only to uber rich diamond jewellery buyers, has now become a household name and hot topic at dinner table discussions and esoteric terms like LoU, Swift code becoming more commonplace.

His uncle Mehul Choksi was not well known but his Gitanjali Diamonds and Gili were a regular fixture at newspaper ads and advertisement hoardings dotting the cities.

The TDS weary, Aadhaar tethered middle class were left gawking when the king size life of Nirav Modi unfolded on their LED TV screens. The repeated footage of this baby-faced man in the company of gorgeous women dripping in diamonds wowed many hearts.

The man planned his flight well in advance and cocked a snook at the Indian law enforcement agencies. It would have been business as usual had the erring Punjab National Bank official not superannuated or his successor had agreed to play ball with them.

And once India's second largest public sector bank dropped the bombshell, TV news channels had to break out of their self imposed cocoon of playing lapdog and guard dog to the government of the day. These channels and their social media cells buckled up their armour with hashtags containing words such as 'loot', 'jewel thief' and the like, and got down to the wild goose chase with each channel claiming 'exclusives' of their reporters having spotted them at Hong Kong, New York and other locations.

All of them evoked just a long languid yawns as they hardly looked convincing. It was like Inspector Jacques Clouseau trying hard to look as effective as Sherlock Holmes. A while later it came to light that many well known media houses had refused to pursue allegations against Modi and Choksi, despite many red flags raised by whistle blowers.

Now the uncle-nephew duo has joined the growing illustrious group of elusive scoff laws, who are well ensconced at various foreign shores. Ironically some of them are reportedly in England, the home of our old colonisers East India Company. 

Remembering 1993 Bombay Serial Blasts

March 12, 1993: It was just another Friday. But as the Churchgate bound local reached the terminus around 6 pm, there were only a handful people on the platform. Normally when a train enters the Churchgate station during evening peak hours the platforms will be packed with people, easily numbering thousands, waiting to pounce on it.

Those inside the incoming train follow an unwritten code of either sitting tight on their seats or huddle on the side of the doors to brace for a stampede from incoming passengers. Even before the train comes to a complete halt the intrepid and nimble footed ones on the platform perform some dare devil jumps on to the train and make a dash for a seat.

Once the train stops there is a flood of commuters darting towards empty seats and comfortable standing positions on the aisle, with some ending up with broken spectacles or bruised knees. After the commotion tapers off, those wanting to alight at Churchgate gradually get up and wade through the crowd towards the door.

However on this day the train passengers were spared of this drill of ducking kamikaze assaults. But as I alighted the train, the eerily empty look of a normally bustling station was not very welcoming. A thought crossed the back of my mind "Has another communal riot started".

The city had already gone through two waves of bloodletting after the three domes of Babri Masjid came down on December 6, 1992. As I reached the exit subway, I asked a cop whether there is any problem in the city, why there are so few people in the station.

He said a bomb has gone off and all offices have closed down. People left for their homes in the afternoon itself. 

I just couldn't get it and began to wonder how could one bomb empty up the whole of city's central business district.

Just then I came across a pavement newspaper seller and bought an eveninger Newsday, which is currently defunct. It was part of the Mid-Day stable, but used to hit the stands only by 5 pm, whereas other tabloids get printed and sold in the afternoon.

For the paper it was perhaps a big day and it had reported the blasts with a banner headline of bombs going off at various parts of the city, something that afternoon papers had missed. It was the biggest ever terror attack prior to 9/11. The 24/7 news channels and their shrill news hour debates, social media were still many years away in India.

As I went to the Air-India building side, where one of the bombs went off, the road was quite literally carpeted with glass pieces, as the glass panes in nearby buildings too had suffered damage. There were patches of blood here and there and the road was cordoned off.

Normally while going to that part of Nariman Point I used to admire and gawk at those high end imported cars and SUVs parked on the premises of these high-rise buildings. Remember those days the good old Ambassador was still ruling Indian roads. All these high-end cars parked in an around Air-India building were reduced to charred remains with their bonnets wide open and hoods blown off. Many of these cars remained there for months before they were cleared off.

Those were pre-cell phone days and telecommunication was a government monopoly. A landline telephone was a prized
possession one acquired after long waits, numerous visits to telecom office and greasing many palms.

Owning an STD booth was considered a major start up venture those days and many amassed a fortune out of it. Each booth used to have long queues, especially after 9 pm when the call charges were the lowest.

However on that particular day by 9 pm the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, which caters to Bombay area, (it had not become Mumbai then) crashed unable to bear the load, as everyone was calling their near and dear ones to talk about the catastrophe that had wrecked Bombay. Those days fibre optic cables was something you read about only in science journals, while the good old copper wires were the ground reality.

The subsequent investigation revealed that the explosives were shipped in from Pakistan through sea route and docked somewhere in the neighbouring district of Raigarh. Much larger quantities of explosives were stored there than that was used on March 12, as they were planning more such serial blasts.

Nearly 15 years later the same route was used by terrorists to carry out the infamous 26/11 terror attack on prime locations of Mumbai's central business district, thereby pointing to the fact that no lessons were learnt. 

The two waves of communal violence I mentioned earlier brought in communal fissures which later would get solidified and internalised among its people. Prior to that the city had never witnessed any widespread communal riot and probably the closest it came to was in distant Bhiwandi in 1984.

Stickers saying 'garv se kaho hum Hindu hain' (be proud to say we are Hindus) started appearing on the doors of apartments and at shop cash counters. So were red tikkas on many foreheads.

While travelling in trains the bhajan sessions became almost a regular feature, with voices more shrill than pious. Among commuters I would often overhear people derisively use the term 'landya' (for Muslims) and their association with 'do number ka dhanda' (illegal businesses).

All visible symbols and appearances of being an orthodox Muslim, such as fez cap, goatee and other sartorial peculiarities became very scarce in public places. Even non-Muslims who were sporting beards and even French beards felt that a discreet clean shaven chin was better part of valour.

Probably sensing this deep communal schism, a Parsi tea stall owner at railway station (I think it was Dadar) had put up a board, 'Yeh ek Parsi bava ki dukaan hai, Jai Maharashtra' (This shop is owned by a Parsi). During the riots there were cases of Parsis being mistaken for Muslims and getting targeted by Shiv Sena storm troopers.

While the embers of the communal violence and blasts died down, the process of ghettoisation got under way. Muslims who were feeling insecure in Hindu majority areas began to move out and vice versa. Mumbra a marshy land close to Thane creek became the new refuge of riot affected Muslims and the area mushroomed into a concrete jungle with little regard to planning and amenities.

Many housing societies in the city started embracing vegetarians only credo and it became more prevalent in upscale areas such as Napean Sea Road, inhabited by diamond traders of Gujarati-Jain origins and Marwari businessmen.

After they tasted success in turning their respective housing societies into veg only enclaves, it only whetted their zeal for food fascism. Thanks to the financial clout they enjoyed and the hold they had in the corridors of power they succeeded in shuttering non-vegetarian restaurants and meat shops in the entire neighbourhood.

The other day I heard a writer observe that Chowpatty beach is probably the only coastline in the world where you won't be able to savour fish-related dishes. The unravelling of much-touted cosmopolitan Bombay has surely come a long way.

A Note From Planet of The Apes

To my fellow apes,

Just got to know that some guy in India said Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution of man was “scientifically wrong” because nobody has seen an “ape turning into a man". This has led to lots of amusement among the humans of India, many are grinning like hyenas.

But for apes like us it offers a glimmer of hope. Finally we can get rid of these centuries old chains of so called association with humans. 

Ever since that long bearded bloke Darwin came to the scene we apes have been linked to hideous humans, the pompous termites working overtime to destroy the environment and hasten doomsday. They are never in harmony with nature. Never seen such confused and fun averse creatures!

His book ‘The Descent of Man’, published in 1871, claims that we and the humans have common ancestors. It is considered path breaking by the humans, but it actually led to our free fall. Ever since we have been smarting under the stigma of being associated with these wretched and born greedy creatures.

Initially there was opposition to the book and it enjoyed little credence among humans, thanks to the stranglehold of human centric obsession - religion. Then gradually all that outrage died out and the book almost became sacrosanct.

Every year these humans have been nibbling away the forest and disembowelling our mother earth to satiate their greed and the whole of animal and plant kingdom have been suffering.

These merciless marauders have taken away most of our habitats and we have been literally cornered and forced to make do with our shrunken habitats. Like ocean waves there seems to be no end to their greed and the threat posed by these malicious marauders keeps getting renewed from time to time.

Hence any claim disassociating us from these despicably evil two-legged monsters is welcome.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

'Your call is important to us ...'

'Your call is important to us, please stay on the line. All our operators are busy.' This cold impersonal voice at the other end of the phone is followed by instrumental music or announcement of discount offers.

Mind you this is what we get after undergoing a long drawn rigmarole of 'press 1 for this ... press 0 for that'.

By the time one of the 'busy' operators comes on line and says 'good morning my name is so-in-so and how can I help you' your systolic blood pressure may have travelled a great distance in the wrong direction.

Hence when they ask some questions like model of the gadget, its serial number or exact date of purchase - all essential from the manufacturer's or a service provider's point of view, but to the customer it acts like yet another turn of the screw and things reach snapping point.

One has to rummage through old bills, bend down or even go underneath the gadget to get the required numbers. After mentioning the number comes the assurance, "Thank you, your complaint number is so-in-so and our technician will rectify it within 24 hours," followed by a text message.

For some lucky ones their deliverance happens at this point, while for many others it is back to the Sisyphean grind with follow up calls.

Welcome to the world of answering machines, a contraption ushered in by the telecom revolution. It was seen as a as a posh device intended to ease customers' pain, but its too has its own penchant of being Kafkaesque and open to manipulation by human operators.

While bureaucracy of yesteryears took a toll on your legs with sundry babus making you run round in circles, the modern day answering machines does the same on your nerves by making you sit as your mental poise and phone balance take a hit.

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No Country For Old Men

While Indian employers are gleefully adopting the hire and fire credo by copy-pasting the American template, the HR recruiters, on the other hand, are pursuing ageism with a missionary zeal. With the country flush with young people (thanks to our rabbit-like breeding tendencies) fresh graduates are dime a dozen. Hence, our HR managers never had it so good.

In private and corporate sector no job at any level can be considered immune to pink slips. Nor do higher ups get any stray thoughts (bordering on altruism) "Oh, if I fire such a senior person he may find it very difficult to get a job. He has a family to run and EMIs to pay." In fact they are often the first to be sent off.

If the layoff axe falls and you happen to be on the wrong side of 30, your chances of re-employment are slim as the long shadow of experience makes your journey towards the coveted offer letter a gruelling marathon. And if you are above 40 then you are the proverbial camel trying to get through the eye of a needle.

They eagerly hire fresh graduates keeping in mind low wage bills and short shelf life. As these recruits hardly stay beyond a couple of years, they need not bother about doling out gratuity and other retirement benefits. Hence they do not want to suffer the toil of even considering a ‘costly resource’ with years of experience.

If at all a senior guy makes it to the personal interview stage, he or she will have to contend with patronizing interviewers and dynamite through an iron curtain of skepticism. Sample questions: How comfortable are you while working with young people? (ideal answer could be "As comfortable as former US president Bill Clinton with his interns") or “We have a very young team, are you sure you will be able to fit in?” (As if you came out of the womb as a 40-year-old, then lived rest of your life in an old age home!)

Unless you happen to be a ‘referral’ candidate or part for some crony entourage that follows a CEO when he moves from one company to other, then be assured you have been called due to extraneous factors like filling up a quorum of candidates (higher ups in HR department often ask 'kitne aadmi the') and not because they have any intention to hire you.

While many companies may wear their 'equal opportunity' employers tag on their sleeves and some may even carry out 'trophy hires' from sexual minorities and other disadvantaged groups, 'ageism' is not even considered a form of discrimination. In fact it is an essential requirement to retain 'competitive edge' and be 'nimble footed'.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Blurred Vision, Myopic Planning

It looked like the clip from a dystopian movie series Mad Max. A surreal looking video of an 18-vehicle crash near Delhi brought to the fore the chilling devastation caused by smog. Visibility on Noida-Agra Yamuna Expressway was so low that incoming cars at breakneck speed kept on banging into the vehicle pile up with drivers utterly clueless.

The winter season in north India, which used to come as welcome relief from energy sapping heat waves, is now turning into a smog season and the erstwhile gentle fog which used to blanket the region from time immemorial has now acquired a toxic dimension.

A doctor in Delhi told a British newspaper that half of his lung cancer patients are non-smokers. The air has heavy metals and other carcinogens at levels more than 30 times World Health Organization limits, conditions likened by medics to smoking at least 50 cigarettes in a day, the newspaper added.

The usual suspects used to be the rising number of vehicles and their emissions. But of late the paddy stumps burnt on the fields of Punjab and Haryana are also being pointed out as partners in crime. Esoteric terms like PM 10 and PM 2.5 have entered into common lexicon of the populace.

Air knows no boundaries and even neighbouring Pakistan is affected. But if you watch our TV channels you would be forgiven for believing that only Delhi is affected by smog. An India Gate blanketed with toxic air may be a good TV footage, but the problem is actually more acute and much more unpalatable in some of the smaller towns.

For instance, the air quality index in Moradabad is worse than Delhi, but this town and the lives of its inhabitants is of little interest to our TV anchors and talking heads.

Setting aside the Delhi-centric view of our news anchors, it must be said the prevailing smog over most parts of north India is a also a pointer towards the government's and society's failure on two fronts.

Firstly none of our towns, big or small have a viable public transport system. This has only led to proliferation of private vehicles. It began with Hamara Bajaj in the 1970s to Mera Sapna Meri Maruti in 90s and now to much more high-end offerings. In every city the number of vehicles are way beyond the carrying capacity of their roads and traffic jams are ubiquitous in almost all cities no matter the size.

Secondly our agricultural scientists and governments have done little to provide the farmers with a economically viable alternative to burning stumps. They still continue to do so as the farmers in Punjab and Haryana are short of time and have to sow wheat within a fortnight after the paddy harvest.

Amid all this shortcomings the desperate people have stopped expecting anything from the political and bureaucratic class. Many from middle and upper classes are trying to find individual solution such as air-purifiers, pollution masks to keep toxins at bay.

But they are at best desperate measures with limited effectiveness. Air does not care about social strata either!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat