Ten Issues - 4

1- Half-life of the Coal Child : Not many know that the dangerous and suffocating rat mines of Meghalaya are worked by 70,000 child miners. Following them into hellish pits, Kunal Majumder exposes the dark veins of an exploitative industry.

2- Glory, piety and politics : With Pakistan’s two main political parties looking exhausted by being made to play a continuous game of cat and mouse with the establishment, the new generation of young Pakistanis began to look elsewhere.

3- A Short History of Rebellion" : TSI discovers that most fade away or come back ‘home’. Some do make history–for better or worse.

4- Interview of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad given to the famous journalist Shorish Kashmiri for a Lahore based Urdu magazine, Chattan, in April 1946.

5- Of grids and groups: An alternative view of "open" and "closed" societies.

6- Over 200,000 Narmada Dam oustees still to be rehabilitated; A crime that goes unpunished for 25 years.

7- Killings of Ahmadis unleashes fresh soul-searching over Pakistan’s identity : The soul-searching is particularly acute given that the suppression of the Ahmadis is officially endorsed by the state.

8- The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People : The thing about habits is that for good and bad they require no thinking.

9- Invisible environmentalists : They forage the city, collecting and sorting often hazardous waste when the city sleeps and by day they are gone. Most of them are women and we have no long-term policy in place that looks at their welfare or health, writes Kalpana Sharma.

10- The Great Bhopal Killing : Read here complete history of Disaster.

In Between, Abhishek Singhvi who is the spokesperson of Congress is also the legal representative of DOW Chemicals (the company that purchased Carbide). Not only that, he is also a member of the committee that is supposed to investigate the Bhopal incident. So on the one hand he is an investigator, and on the other, he protects the legal interests of DOW. What a wonderful world !

The Necessity of Blasphemy - 2

For Starters, Abhrahmic religions are primary monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam practised in the West. They are more based on faith and blind submission than free will. Eastern religions have Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,Shinto, Taoism and Confucianism.

Let us start over with an analogy. Eskimos have nine names for snow because they know different kinds of snow. Now no other language can have nine names for snow; Same is true for Eastern religions. That's because they have deep understanding due to analysis on the human consciousness and religion. Now the West has all the words for science. In the East we have to coin words for scientific terminology; East don’t have it. Since a lot of metaphysical scrutiny has been done on human consciousness and nature, eastern religions have evolved more than their Western counterparts.

As far as religion is concerned the whole world will have to follow the East, because East has worked deep down into the interior most being. The 2nd evolved phase of scrutiny will start then after. There is nothing like Blasphemy in Eastern religions. If blasphemy was considered as a crime, then Buddha would be hanged in the first place. West regards any attack on religion as a sign of sin. That's why eminent atheist like Richard Dawkins, Sama Harris, Bill Maher and Christopher Hitchens attacks on Abhrahmic religion with logic and rational reasoning. Since human nature has not been studied by theirs religious priest, they look completely out of place in defending institutions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

I don’t have anything against any specific Muslim, Hindu or christian individual.I hold my defiance against Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. A society where one lives as an individual and not as a community is the answer to several of our social ills. Its the struggle between Individual Vs Institutions. Eastern religions are individual oriented while Western religions defend Institutions. An individual is a basic unit that can be changed with love, tolerance and compassion. The institutions have to be made, demolished and recreated with the time. People defend their faith without analyzing it completely and gives no place to doubt. Doubt is the important part of human nature through which trust is developed by testing the nature of person or religion. West waits for Judgement day at the end of linear time and East goes on the cyclic nature of time. The circular nature of time makes Eastern religion dynamic and rigidity in the interpretation is lost.

Any religion must be tolerant enough not sticking to a yardstick principle. You can criticise your own kind, but not foreigners, because they are unbridgeable different to you. The argument that outsiders should not be allowed to criticise any religion is being used more and more to thwart campaigns for reform. Hence, abolition of blasphemy laws and human rights should be included in interpretation of any faith based teachings. People everywhere, it turned out, want the same basic rights – and in every culture, there remain thugs who will try to take those rights away.

*Orthodoxy does not protect truth — it protects lies, for only lies need protection. Truth can stand on its own.*

Sine die at BHU

How many of you have heard this Latin word sine die (which means without a day or postponement for an indefinite time)? Well, it was a buzzword around BHU three decades ago during our time. Between 1967 and 1975, there was a period of violent demonstrations, resulting in closure of entire university for about 2-3 weeks every year. Till 1967, our university was known as internationally reputed central university. Students flocked to the university from all over India as well as from abroad. The political trouble started when Vice Chancellors were political appointees by ruling (Congress) party. To challenge the government,opposition Bharatiya Jan Sangh/RSS) party started violent demonstration.

A typical sine die ran like this: Just after Diwali vacation was over, there was daily political speech given by a local street leader. Sponsored by the opposition, he stood just outside university’s main gate and delivered profane against, govt., VC and university administration. A small passerby crowd collected at the scene, while others sensed the upcoming sine die in the air. After few weeks, sensing trouble, the administration called in Provincial Armed Constabulary to patrol the campus area. This was enough to provoke the militant students, who were usually from other (arts, science and agricultural) faculties. Although small in number, they had strong backing from local opposition leaders. Soon there was heavy brickbating between police and students around arts and science faculties. The part of the campus was littered with bricks & small bush fires. No one could venture out of his hostel, and everyone listened to news mixed with rumours. Sometimes police chased miscreants to their hostel rooms and beat them up. Fearing loss of student life, proctor decided to declare sine die, or indefinite closure of the university till further notice. Everyone glued to radio and waited for news.

In the early morning, BBC broke the news that authorities have declared sine die and all students are asked to leave the campus immediately. Students packed their luggage and boarded buses to railway station for onward journey. Families and neighbours were surprised to see us again immediately after Diwali vacation. National newspapers came out with screaming headlines such as “sine die declared at BHU; violence mars BHU campus”, etc. After about 2 to 3 weeks, we got letter from university that now the sine die is over and it is safe to return to campus for study. The classes started normally as if nothing had happened.

In 1974, we witnessed one of the most shocking and gruesome incidents outside Morvi hostel. As the violence continued between students and police in other parts of the campus, we saw two unarmed policemen traveling in a rickshaw in front of our hostel. Some of the troublemakers had blocked the road with cement pipes. Others lay hiding with bricks in hand. As the rickshaw stopped near the roadblock, miscreants came out and hit the policemen on their heads with bricks. Needless to say, they died on the spot and attackers ran away. Within minutes, a PAC truck arrived and they cordoned off our hostel. Using presence of mind, the hostel warden closed all the gates and denied entry to policemen.

Another reason for yearly violence by students was to cancel exams and receive mass promotions in arts and other faculties. Although IT was not involved in any way, its image suffered due to constant negative publicity. The degrading quality of students prompted IT director Dr. S.S. Saluja to take students from JEE pool from 1972. The sine die occurrence stopped in 1975, when ruling government cracked down on mischiefmakers during emergency rule. It is a great relief that the dark age of sine die is behind us.

---Yogesh Upadhyaya
Chemical Engineering 1977
First Published in Annual Issue 2004 – 2005 of REVERBERATIONS: The IT-BHU Magazine.

Thanks to Shashank Jain (Mech 08) for mailing this issue to our mech08 group.