Dilip Simeon's blog

NB: This action by the Congress-led Rajasthan government, is a marker of the barbaric cruelty of our justice system. We have created a heartless culture wherein murderers film themselves committing heinous crimes and high-class criminals and their thugs roam free with police protection. India's  political vocabulary, replete with terms like 'secularism', 'pseudo-secularism' and 'Hindu Rashtra', is nothing but meaningless chatter. It shows us once more that communalism is a question of ideology , and only secondarily a matter concerning xyz political party.  It's no longer 'the idea of India' we need to discuss, but the idea of political murder . No doubt the bulk of our learned media pundits will let this pass by, as they have let so many other crimes pass in front of their eyes without blinking. Even Pehlu Khan's ghost may not rest in peace. I am so sorry, Pehlu bhai, I bow my head in shame. May Allah give you peace. Glory to modern Indi...

NB : It is the RSS that is responsible for this brutal onslaught on poor people's lives. I appreciate Tavleen Singh's concern for justice for Pehlu Khan and other victims of cow-vigilantes (something rare among supporters of the Modi regime), but her wish for justice - which I share - is likely to remain unfulfilled. We have seen what has just happened in the Samjhauta verdict, not to mention 1984 . The list of travesties of justice is endless, and began with Gandhiji's assassination .  We inhabit a culture of genocidal complicity; and criminals - especially those motivated by communal hatred - enjoy impunity.  The 'idea of India' is much discussed nowadays. I'd prefer a discussion on what our high-minded elite thinks of the idea of murder   The issue is beyond parties. The decline of judicial institutions represents the perversion of civil conscience. Communal ideology has a cross-partisan effect. The whole idea is to abolish the distinction between le...

NB: At least 67 people have been killed in encounters since 2017, but not a single charge-sheet has been filed nor action initiated against police officers involved. In May, the NHRC directed the state government to constitute a five-member team to investigate 17 of these cases. This is a government of gangsters, for gangsters, and run by gangsters. DS Key witnesses to the lynching of Pehlu Khan in Rajasthan last year, including two of Khan’s sons, were Saturday fired upon on National Highway 8 in Alwar while on their way to a court in Behror to depose in the lynching case. While police have registered an FIR and assured the family of security for court appearances in the future, Khan’s family said they will move an application to transfer the case to Alwar from Behror before the next hearing. Asad Hayat, the lawyer representing Khan’s sons, Irshad and Arif, told The Sunday Express that he was in the car with them when a black SUV without number plates tried to force them to sto...

A lynching is a majority’s way of telling a minority population that the law cannot protect it. That is why in the American South so many African-American men were dragged from jails or hanged outside courthouses Mr Modi is a master of messaging. So much that his silences, much like his speeches, convey a lot. And there is a pattern to his spells of silence. Mr Modi goes mum when he knows that his words might provide a healing touch to a section of population that is being terrorised and marginalised by elements in the larger Sangh Parivaar. Yes, I mean Muslims. So you will not have a word of condemnation over killings of an Akhlaq or a Pehlu Khan or other Muslims in Jharkhand or Jammu. He prefers silence while his party motormouths send across a clear and unmistakable message that Muslim lives don't matter in the India of today. Events after the public lynching on April 1 of Pehlu Khan in Alwar are chilling to say the least. It was Dadri  deja vu .  Gau  goons at...

A joke popular on social media these days goes like this. ‘Dear Pakistanis we as a nation have become immune to the martyrdom of our soldiers because they are paid to die, you just try and kill one of our cows then we will show you the fun.’ I begin with this joke to make the point that India is in danger of becoming a laughing stock in the rest of the world because of our new, violent obsession with cows. So enough is enough, Hindu fanatics. Stop! Stop right now if you really love Bharat Mata. It is hard to understand why a Prime Minister so passionate about making India a modern, digital, prosperous country has seemingly not noticed that hunting and killing Muslims on the pretext of cows and love jihad does not sit well with modernity. The PM talks about a ‘new India’ built with the energy of the largest population of young people on the planet. Has he noticed that hunting Muslims is serving mostly to distract these same young Indians from far more important tasks? Vipin Tri...

Memorandum to Prime Minister Contain Religious Adventurism  in Faridabad-Mewat-Alwar Belt Sir The merciless lynching of 16 year old Junaid (resident of Khandawali, Ballabgarh) in a crowded train in broad day light on June 12, 2017 is a high point of religious humiliation and violence being perpetrated on the Muslim masses by organized gangs in the Faridabad-Mewat-Alwar belt for the last 2 years. Junaid and his brothers were bitterly abused and vulgar aspersions were called on their religion while they were being brutally beaten and stabbed. His brother Shakir Hussain is struggling for life in Trauma Center, Safdar Jung Hospital, New Delhi. The incident is not an isolated event, it has a sinister pattern. In May 2015, an attack was mounted on 150 Muslim families of Atali (Ballabgarh)  when they were preparing to complete an unfinished mosque following court order in their favor. 25 people were injured and 25 homes burnt before police intervened and took the Muslim ...

NB : This terrible tragedy is yet another example of the brutal hooliganism and injustice  unleashed on a nation-wide scale by the  Sangh Parivar government and its vigilantes. Completey innocent people are viciously attacked by thugs on the look-out for some pretext or other to indulge in violence. It is clear that their extended network of cadre operate with foreknowledge that they will be protected. Here too, in addition to the case against the cow-vigilantes, a case has been lodged against the victims - a well-known ploy by police to assist the accused by giving them a counter-case to bargain with. This kind of lawless behaviour has now become commonplace. In February the ABVP launched a violent attack on a seminar in Ramjas college . No doubt the ringleaders of such acts of violence will be rewarded with election tickets or other perquisites. The Sangh's so-called 'nation-building' will destroy India's social fabric and undermine the constitution and rule of law. P...

NB: Professor Vipin is one of India's staunchest activists for communal harmony and social integrity. He never fails to arrive wherever people are in pain and does his utmost to restore people's faith in humanity. India's rulers seem to be hell-bent upon destroying traditions of togetherness & inculcating fear among religious minorities along with impunity among hooligans. It is a crying shame that the government of the day finds communal hatred and violence to be the only means of retaining political power. Neither conscience nor compassion may be seen among the leaders and ideologues of the RSS/BJP. If untrammelled cruelty and defiance of law is what we may expect of this government, let us be very clear - they will poison the Indian polity for decades to come.   We must be grateful that we have persons like Professor Vipin amongst us.  वैष्णव जन तो तेने कहिये //  जे पीड परायी जाणे रे । पर दुःखे उपकार करे तो ये //  मन अभिमान न आणे रे ॥ Thank you sir - DS ...

There is a rule in journalism that most of us follow. It is not a rule etched in stone but an unwritten one based on that old idiom that dog does not eat dog. When I tried to find out where the idiom originated and why, all I came up with was the explanation that ‘one disreputable person will not harm another disreputable person’. You do not need me to tell you that disreputable people abound in the media, but on account of the dog not eating dog principle, we of the mighty fourth estate almost never attack our comrades. Tavleen Singh - Modernity or murder, Mr Modi? // Vipin Tripathi: Funds to help Pehlu Khan's family This week I am going to break this rule and write a critique of our newest English news channel, Republic. Not because I have anything personal against Arnab Goswami or against his frenetic, haranguing style of television journalism, but because he is breaking a journalistic rule that is definitely etched in stone. This is that journalists must not usurp the ...

The sickening attack by Karni Sena hoodlums on a school bus last week had a surreal quality when seen from Davos. Our Prime Minister had just left after giving a speech whose gist was that from ancient times India has believed that the world was one single family. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. In a conference whose theme was building bridges in a fractured world, these words of ancient wisdom had real resonance. Then came those images of small children screaming in terror as their teachers urged them to hide under the seats of their bus to escape the stones and glass from broken windows. If the teachers had not been speaking in Hindi, I would have found it hard to believe that the attack was in India and not in some war-ravaged African country. It was an attack so reminiscent of the kind of thing Boko Haram does that Farhan Akhtar could not have said it better than he did in this tweet. ‘Attacking a school bus is not an agitation. It is terrorism. The people who did this are terrorists. ...

When the economy slows enough to seem stuck at a speed-breaker and the Finance Minister has to explain new rules about trading in cattle, you know something is very wrong. To be completely truthful I am sick of writing about cows, but every time I try to change the subject, and speak, for instance, about more important things like the terrible bombing last week in Afghanistan, I am forced to return to the craziness that has spread across the land in the name of cows and other non-human beings like peacocks. When a high court judge declares that peacocks breed without copulation and that cows were sent to Earth by Lord Krishna as an advance guard for his own arrival, then it is really not possible to ignore the craziness that is going around these days in the name of Hindutva. Justice Mahesh Chandra Sharma gave several interviews last week on the day that he was retiring from the Rajasthan High Court. Not about the failure of our justice system to speed up the delivery of justice, ...

Gau rakshaks killed a dairy farmer, not cattle smuggler NB: This government has shown itself to be hand in glove with outright criminals. All peace-loving and law-abiding citizens should follow the facts of this case dispassionately and judge for themselves whether or not the Modi government and its RSS-affiliated allies are upholding the law of the land or destroying it in full light of day. Judges, bureaucrats and police officers may kindly note - the poorest Indians will have no protection left if the servants of the Constitution betray their oath of office - DS Samar Halarnkar - India's ruling party is sponsoring an assault on the Indian state This demand to amend the Constitution to ban cow slaughter, prohibit transport of cows across states and to make it applicable to all states and ensure it is a non-bailable offence was not made by fundamentalist Hindu groups but by a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India in 2005. The  judgement , otherwise notable for ...

What happens when the state gives moral sanction to violence? When through its silence, it validates target killings? When through its actions, it penalizes the victim and pardons the accused? When instead of outright action against those who lynch, torture and brutally kill in broad daylight and among dozens of eyewitnesses, it starts a police or judicial inquiry to question the innocence of the dead? A couple of months ago, when Mashal Khan was lynched on alleged blasphemy charges in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, chief minister Pervez Khattak confidentially issued a statement saying that a judicial inquiry should be held as there was no evidence that Khan had committed blasphemy. Perhaps if the deceased had been found guilty by the inquiry, the actions of the mob that killed him would have been deemed appropriate. Just like Mumtaz Qadri, the man who shot Punjab governor Salman Taseer 28 times in 2011, in an upscale neighbourhood of Islamabad. He was hailed as a ghazi, a Muslim figh...

NB: The brutal nature of RSS politics and the Modi government has never been so clear as today. This is a government that openly sympathises with and protects hooliganism in the name of religion and 'patriotism'. The Indian Constitution and Article 21 - which protects a citizen's right to life - has been rendered a joke by this regime. If we do not protest this galloping criminalisation of India we will have ourselves to blame for what happens next - DS There is no doubt that a form of  medieval madness  has taken over India in the shape of Islamophobia and regular lynching of Muslims in different states. The situation has moved quickly from not renting out homes to Muslims to refusing to tolerate their presence in public spaces. Muslims are being taunted on trains and streets, fights initiated and lynched. The lynchings have become so common that we do not know which one to respond to.  Should we weep for  Mohammad Naeem  in Jharkhand or  Hafiz Junai...

NB: The atmosphere of impunity that has overtaken the country since this government came to power has crossed all limits. Now the guardians of law are threatening citizens with murder. The message delivered to Shabnam is meant for all opponents of the so-called Sangh Parivar. Welcome to modern India - DS New Delhi, July 15: Eminent social activist Shabnam Hashmi has sought a thorough probe into death threats to her allegedly by a Delhi policeman over phone. She has written a letter to the Delhi Police Commissioner and sent its copy to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. "I was directly threatened that I will be killed in an encounter," Hashmi told reporters at a press conference at the Constitution Club here on Saturday. She informed that a man who claimed to be Sub Inspector Sandip Malik from Lajpat Nagar police Station threatened her over phone Friday night. The cop told her that there is the new law according to which whoever doesn't have an Aadhaar card and...