Another Summer Of Discontent

Karnataka is facing its fourth drought in a row. With the government clueless, farmers are preparing for the worst.

                                                                     

Parched In June, Karnataka received the lowest rainfall in 52 years.

A fourth consecutive year of drought has left a sword hanging over the necks of farmers in Karnataka. While the state government is making efforts on a war footing to contain the damage, it has been met with scepticism by farmers, who feel the measures are too little and too late to salvage the situation.

In the past four years, Karnataka has ranked second behind Rajasthan in terms of total area under drought. The drought is not just causing damage to agricultural production and losses in farmers’ income, but is leading to water scarcity and extreme poverty across the state. Last year alone, government estimates show that 15.45 lakh hectares of kharif area suffered crop losses of 50 percent or more. This year’s first crop, sown across 203 lakh hectares by 30 June, is already damaged. Now, only a miracle rain can save the second crop.

The monsoon, however, has continued to play truant. According to statistics available with the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Cell (KSNDMC), the state has been worst hit this year. This June received the least rainfall in 52 years. While the average rainfall for June was 195 mm, last month saw 116 mm. Reservoirs too have reached their lowest storage levels: at 166 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) against an installed capacity of 864 tmcft. Last year, at this time, the water levels were at 254 tmcft; 125 taluks across 30 districts in the state have been declared drought-hit. Farmers of north and interior Karnataka are the worst hit. The government is now advising them to grow alternative crops like pulses, ragi, maize and groundnut.

Nearly 56 percent of the workforce (76 lakh families) in Karnataka is engaged in agriculture and allied activities. Out of the state’s GDP of Rs 2.15 lakh crore, Rs 41,306 crore comes from the agriculture sector. But the sector has seen negative growth of 0.6 percent in the past five years.

The rainfall deficit is huge this year. Even though the coastal districts received some rainfall, the interior parts of Karnataka are reeling under drought,” says VS Prakash, former special director of the KSNDMC. “If we don’t get good rains by the end of July, the situation will worsen. The sowing will not happen in the targeted 74 lakh hectares.”

On the floor of the Assembly, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that his government has geared up for the emergent drought. Revenue Minister V Srinivas Prasad informed the House that drinking water was being supplied to 1,062 villages and a circular had been issued that reservoirs and tanks should be utilised only to meet basic human needs. The state had released Rs 250 crore and then an additional Rs 400 crore for drought-relief purposes.

However, not everyone is convinced by the government’s move, especially the farmers and groups representing them. “The government’s efforts are a total failure. They have no permanent solutions. They always come up with temporary measures,” says Kodihalli Chandrashekhar, leader of Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha (the largest farmers’ union in the state).

Even after three years of consecutive droughts, Karnataka does not have a well-defined drought policy. The revenue minister heads drought-relief operations and the state’s chief secretary coordinates it. Drought management is equated with reliance on large-scale resource transfer to drought-affected regions.

“Since the state is seeing repeated drought, the government should have looked for permanent solutions. Otherwise, there will be an increase in the number of farmer suicides,” says Chandrashekhar. Karnataka is among the states with the highest number of farmer suicides. Last year, 1,403 farmers committed suicide in the state.

While the state government has asked the banks to defer the collection of loan dues from the farmers, the latter are demanding the government to waive off loans considering the four years of drought. They argue it was a practice followed by the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad. But the state is unlikely to take this step.

The article was first published in Tehelka magazine: http://www.tehelka.com/karnataka-drought-another-summer-of-discontent/

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Justice Eludes The Wrongly Accused

Remains of the day 16 persons were injured in the 2013 Malleswaram blast.
Photo: Bangalore News Photo

Last November, in what was perhaps its first such intervention in a terror case, the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC) directed the state government to pay compensation to three men wrongly arrested for involvement in a bomb blast outside the BJP office in Malleswaram, Bengaluru. But Peer Mohideen, Saddam Hussain and Tenkashi Haneef are yet to receive any compensation.

The blast took place on 17 April 2013, when the state was gearing up for the Assembly election. Congress leader Siddaramaiah, who replaced Shettar as the Karnataka chief minister after the polls, had at that time accused the BJP of carrying out the blast to garner sympathy votes. Later, the Bengaluru Police pinned the blame on the Tamil Nadu-based terror outfit Al Umma, which had earlier been banned by the Tamil Nadu government for orchestrating the 1998 Coimbatore bombings.

The police prepared a list of 17 persons who were allegedly connected with the Malleswaram blast. Thirteen of them were lodged in the Bangalore Central Jail. Most of them had earlier been accused of being involved in the Coimbatore blasts and later acquitted in that case after spending around 10 years in prison.

Mohideen, 39, was named as the “prime accused” in the FIR filed just after the Malleswaram blast. He was picked up along with his brother-in-law Basheer in a joint operation of the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu Police. Mohideen had to spend six months in jail before the investigators realised they had no substantial evidence against him. His name did not figure in the chargesheet filed on 19 October, nor did the names of Hussain and Haneef.

Soon after his release on 29 October, Mohideen had told TEHELKA that he was incarcerated because of his refusal to turn an approver in the case. He also alleged that he had been tortured in custody. Hussain, too, was released soon after, while Haneef continues to languish in the Trichy jail as he was also accused in another case.

The KSHRC immediately took suo moto notice of the cases of Mohideen, Hussain and Haneef, and directed the Karnataka chief secretary to release an interim compensation of Rs 2 lakh each. In its order, the commission stated, “There is a need to look at victims of police lapses. Arresting and sending (people) behind bars on charges of terrorism for no fault (of theirs), amounts to serious lapses on the part of the investigators. Police officers, who, without thinking, subjected innocent men to unjust detention and torture to extract confessions, should be made accountable… The award of compensation was just a small step towards sensitisation of the police force towards the view that a person whose rights have been violated should be regarded as a victim.”

However, Abdul Kalam, legal counsel for the three men, says, “Even after eight months since the KSHRC’s directive and 15 months after they had been arrested in the Malleswaram blast case, not even one of them has received any compensation.”

Home Secretary SK Pattanayak told TEHELKA, “I do not know why the compensation was not paid, but I will look into it.”

So, what lies ahead for the three men who were arrested and then released without their names figuring in the chargesheet?

According to KSHRC member G Hunugund, the commission has already done what it could by issuing a directive to the state government to pay interim compensation to all those who got hurt in the blast and whose property was damaged as well as those who were wrongly arrested. “If the government has not released the compensation for Mohideen, Hussain and Haneef, there is nothing that we can do,” says Hunugund. “The onus is on them to approach the high court.”

Kalam, however, informs that his clients do not want to move the court on the compensation issue as they fear it would antagonise the police and “more innocents might be arrested”.-- 

The article was first publsihed in Tehelka. http://www.tehelka.com/karnataka-no-compensation-for-three-men-wrongly-arrested-in-a-blast-case/

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Money Can’t Buy Loyalty: Opposition to the government’s decision to payimams has come from a surprise quarter: Muslims themselves.

The Congress government in Karnataka has touched a raw nerve by deciding to give honorariums to pesh-imams (chief imams) and muezzins (who call people for the congregational prayer). While the government claims that it is following a Supreme Court directive, the move has raised concern and confusion in the community. Some Muslim scholars and activists have decried the move as “internal meddling” and “against the principles of Islam”.

Interestingly, the idea of giving honorariums to pesh-imams and muezzins serving mosques that fall under the state wakf board was mooted when the BS Yeddyurappa-led BJP regime was in power. However, the scheme did not take off due to budgetary constraints. But, the Siddaramaiah government has now allocated Rs 47 crore, helping the scheme to take off.

In a public announcement, Qamarul Islam, the minister for minority affairs, Haj and wakf, informed that the government intends to give a monthly honorarium of Rs 3,100 to pesh-imams and Rs 2,500 to muezzins after the completion of every three months. The minister added that the scheme would be applicable to those wakf institutions whose income is less than 1 lakh per annum. He also informed that the wakf board would obtain the attendance certificate from respective institutions of serving imams, scrutinise them as per rules and send the proposal to the government for the sanction of the honorarium. “The honorarium then would be released to their respective accounts via online banking,” he added.

But Muslims have strongly opposed what they consider interference in their religious affairs. A section of Muslim activists and scholars, who had earlier opposed the BJP government’s move to implement the scheme, are dismayed that the Congress regime has gone ahead with the scheme despite their opposition. They are adamant that the state should have no role in the registration of madrasas, the formation of a Madrasa Board or defining the role of a priest.

Community leaders worry that once the imams start getting salaries from the government, they will be subordinated by the state as they will be accountable to the government as public servants. They believe that such a move will hinder their entitlement for free speech against the ruling party or lackeys of the party who would ultimately have a final say on who should be entitled for the salary and who should not; leaving the priestly class at the mercy of local corporators or MLAs. Some even worry that this move would give the right-wing groups an issue to rally against the minorities in the name of appeasement politics.

“Once they take the money, they will be working under the government or at least feel obliged to the government,” says Masood Abdul Khader, convener of the Karnataka Muslim Muttahida Mahaz, an umbrella organisation of Muslim bodies. “Imams are forbidden to take money from the government.”

Echoing similar sentiments, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind state president Atharulla Sharief says, “For centuries, the Muslim community has been managing mosques and madrasas on its own. This practice should continue. Keeping in view the dignity of the imams and muezzins, such financial aid is undesirable.”

However, Sharief says that if the state government is insistent on providing aid, it should follow the Tamil Nadu model where retired imams and muezzins get pensions from the wakf board. It is estimated that chief imams and muezzins serving nearly 7,000 mosques are eligible under the scheme. “These mosques fall under the category of the prescribed income limit (under Rs 1 lakh per annum),” says Karnataka Wakf Board CEO Mir Anis Ahmed.

Even though the scheme was announced three weeks ago, the wakf board is yet to receive applications from districts other than Bengaluru. But Ahmed has an explanation. “The scheme insists that the mode of payment is through online banking. Most of them are finding it difficult to open a bank account. Once it is done, I am sure the applications will come,” he says.

Ahmed also rubbishes the fears of the state gaining control over these imams. “They have some apprehensions that once money is given by the government, local managements will lose their grip and the state will interfere in their administration,” he says. “I need not give answers to such hypothetical situations. We are acting purely based on the recent SC directive.”

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Al Ummah Arrests: The Big Catch That Never Was

Left in the lurch Husna and her husband Malik used to sell kitchenware. Photo: Imran Khan

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But for the fact that it is less than an hour’s road journey from the historic Hindu shrine at Tirupati, Puttur in Andhra Pradesh is a forgettable dusty town one drives through in minutes on the way from one city to another without even noticing it. Earlier this month, however, national news networks stopped over there after the police arrested two terrorists reportedly on the run for years and hiding lately in this sleepy town of 55,000 residents.

Since their arrests on 5 October after a nightlong siege of their rundown rented house in Puttur, Bilal Malik, 25, and Panna Ismail, 38, are said to have confessed to murdering local BJP leaders in neighbouring Tamil Nadu as well as to planting bombs two years ago in a failed bid to assassinate BJP leader LK Advani. The police said the duo have been members of an Islamic terror group named Al Ummah.

But, as with most police narratives about terrorists, the story of Puttur’s fugitives throws up too many contradictions when held up to scrutiny. Over the past two weeks, TEHELKA has investigated police claims of the antecedents of the men (along with that of a third who was arrested in Chennai a day before their arrest), examined the previous terror cases against them, met their families, and visited Puttur to verify the events of the arrest.

First, the story of their dramatic arrests. Just after midnight following 4 October, the police quietly began to evacuate hundreds of residents from a low-income locality in Puttur. After all houses but one had emptied out, the police surrounded it and challenged its occupants to give themselves up. But, according to the police, the men inside attacked them leading to an “encounter” in which Ismail was shot. Malik’s wife sustained a gash on her face. Because no one saw the alleged encounter, there are no independent witnesses.

The police claimed that Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, an absconding terrorist they arrested on 4 October, led them to the duo at Puttur. Explosives, bombs and a pistol were also reportedly recovered from a locked house nearby allegedly owned by Ahmed. Initial reports claimed a policeman died in the encounter. But the Andhra Pradesh DGP later denied that. News reports also spoke of a “10-hour gunbattle”, which, too, turned out to be untrue as there had been no exchange of fire. This reporter found no bullet marks in that house.

Immediately after the arrests, the police said the men were responsible for the July murders of S Vellaiyappan, who belonged to Hindu Munnani, a fringe right-wing outfit, and the BJP’s Tamil Nadu general secretary V Ramesh. Police said the men had also plotted to kill Advani during a political rally in 2011 near Madurai.

The Karnataka Police, too, claimed it was Malik who had planted a bomb on a motorcycle that went off in front of the BJP office in Bengaluru in April.

The police made it appear as if the arrested men were a “big catch”. But the truth is the police have known the men for years during which, according to their counsel, authorities filed bogus criminal cases on terror charges. In many cases, the men have already been acquitted.

Malik was first arrested along with three others in 2005 for the murder of Kalidas, anRSS activist, in Madurai. The victim’s son had named two men, both of whom were later convicted, but not Malik and the other three. The trial court acquitted those three. But as Malik was a minor, a juvenile court heard his case. Later, the police booked him in two more cases, including for assault. “They would pick him up any time, search the house and grill him for hours,” recalls Ghazni, Malik’s brother. In 2008, Malik absconded, which is why his case is still open.

Malik’s family says the police have given no evidence of his involvement in Kalidas’ murder. And yet, the constant harassment and false charges forced Malik, the third son of a Madurai scrap merchant, to become a fugitive. “We gave him a good education as we didn’t want him to face poverty as we had, but his life has been ruined,” says Ghazni. But why would the police pick specifically on Malik? Ghazni says his brother’s only misfortune was being related to one of the other three accused, who were subsequently acquitted.

After absconding, Malik married a woman named Husna, who is 20 now. They have three children. According to their neighbours in Puttur, the couple sold kitchenware to low-income households, bartering them for old clothes. On and off, they also sold vegetables on a cart. At other times, Malik also engaged in the scrap business. “The police have warned both my parents and in-laws against helping me and my husband,” Husna told TEHELKA at Ghazni’s residence, where she has temporarily moved in.

Ismail, who was arrested along with Malik on 5 October, also has a somewhat similar story. Working as a small-time property broker, he first came on the police radar for the murder of an RSS activist named Muthukrishnan in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district in 2000. With five others named in that case, Ismail was eventually acquitted. The police then charged him with assaulting a Muslim man. In that case, too, Ismail was acquitted.

Once again, Ismail’s family says it was his misfortune to be related to a number of men who had been accused of carrying out a bombing in Coimbatore in 1998, which killed more than 50 people ahead of a rally that Advani was to attend. Nearly 170 activists were booked and 41 were convicted for life imprisonment. After an appeal in the high court, 24 of them were acquitted in 2008, including People’s Democratic Party leader Abdul Nasar Madani. Of the acquitted, four of them were re-arrested this year in the BengaluruBJP office blast case. The appeals of 17 persons are pending before the Supreme Court.

Fakhruddin Ahmed, the third man whom the police arrested in Chennai on 4 October, had dropped out of school after Class III. As his father had been an assistant sub-inspector, Ahmed earned the nickname ‘Police Fakhruddin’. His father passed away when he was five. His mother left to become a housemaid in Qatar.

Growing up without parents in a rough neighbourhood, Ahmed’s first brush with the law came at the age of 15 when he quarrelled with a milk vendor, according to Ahmed’s brother, Dervesh Muynuddin. In 1995, he was charged for setting a bus on fire. In the same year, the police accused him along with three others of planting a bomb inMadurai’s Meenakshi temple. But the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) later found the real culprits and admitted that their inclusion in the case had been a “mistake”. After six months in jail, all four were freed without being named in the chargesheet.

To escape further entanglements with the police, Ahmed left Madurai and settled at Karur city, about 150 km away. Nevertheless, the police accused him in 1998 for the murder of yet another Hindu right-wing activist named Paramasivam in Madurai and put him in prison. It would be nearly three years before he would be acquitted and freed from prison. But not for long. In 2001, Ahmed was accused of helping a local Muslim leader named Imam Ali escape from police custody. Just months later, the police shot Ali dead in Bengaluru.

Although only a police inspector testified as a witness, the trial court sentenced Ahmed to seven years in prison. Even the FIR did not name him. His appeal against his conviction is now pending at the Supreme Court, his counsel, Abdul Kalam Bahadursha, told TEHELKA. Ahmed served out his term and was freed in 2008. Not taking any chances after more than a decade of police frame-ups, Ahmed decided not to settle down in Madurai.

Do the police have any evidence against the three arrested men in the July murders and the bombing conspiracies of Madurai and Bengaluru this year? A closer examination shows that the question can only be answered in the negative.

On 29 July, BJP general secretary V Ramesh, 52, was murdered in his office in Salem. The prime witness, a 71-year-old watchman, could not identify two suspects out of three as the streetlights were out. The suspect he identified could not be nabbed. A sketch made from his description matches none of the accused.

Similarly, Hindu Munnani leader S Vellaiyappan, 45, was murdered in Vellore on 1 July at around 4 pm. No witnesses came forward and no theories were cited. More than three months later, however, the police suddenly claim that the three men it arrested on 4-5 October were responsible for that killing.

Earlier, on 28 June, a 35-year-old milk vendor named B Suresh Kumar was stabbed to death at his stall at around 10.40 pm in Madurai. Though CCTV cameras caught the gruesome murder, the police were unable to identify the killers due to the video feed’s bad quality. Later, two persons named Taufeeq and Abdullah were produced as co-accused in this case, who apparently confessed to the police that Ahmed was the main accused.

In 2011, before Advani was to arrive at Madurai as part of his nationwide political roadshow named Jan Chetna Yatra, a villager noticed a suspicious wire, which led the police to discover a bomb under a bridge. The police arrested two men, Abdullah and Ismat, and accused them of providing motorcycles and an autorickshaw to Ahmed and Malik to carry out the crimes. But the police themselves have said Ahmed was seen using Abdullah’s motorcycle at a place that is 30 km from where the bomb was found.

As for the 17 April bomb blast in front of the BJP office in Bengaluru, in which 16 people, including 11 cops were wounded, the police’s claim that Ismail, Malik and Ahmed were behind that bombing flies in the face of the facts of the case. The police had earlier arrested 17 Muslim men for the blast. But it was found that a SIM card used to trigger the blast had belonged to an RSS leader. The police then said it had been stolen from him a day earlier. Interestingly, the RSS leader failed to report the theft to the police. Yet, the police did not call him to verify how his SIM card had landed with the accused.

When questioned about the lack of evidence against the accused, CB-CID IGP MK Aggarwal said: “There is enough evidence against these men. But as the investigations are under process, I cannot reveal anything at the moment.”

Like the earlier times, the case against the three men may already be weakening. On 12 October, Ahmed told a judge in Vellore that the police had forced him at gunpoint to confess to his involvement in these recent cases. The police will need to do some hard work if they must prove the charges of terrorism against these men.

imran@tehelka.com

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Beyond The Rainbow Stereotype

Me, Myself and my Gender, a documentary which explores the life of male sex workers in Karnataka is headed for the international gay film festival in Slovenia. Directed by the husband-wife team of G K Vasuki and Maya Jaideep, both journalists hailing from the state, the film is the first look at communities of male sex workers and other MSM (Men having sex with men) communities in the state, which are slowly starting to emerge from the confines of social stigma and trying to carve out a place for themselves in the social mainstream.

The film is based on a research project by an NGO called Ashodaya Samithi, a street-based sex workers collective based in Mysore, which documented the lives of the MSM community in the districts of Mysore, Belgaum and Bellary. The twenty three-minute-documentary, narrated in a matter of fact style, revolves around a set of interviews with men in these districts who talk about their difficult journey, which commenced when they came to terms with their desire for men while living within a traditional and conservative milieu. With no social legitimation available for same sex desire, most of them chose the only options available: sex work, sex-change operations and religion. The documentary explores the role of religion, especially the Jogappa cult, a variant of the devadasi system prevalent in north Karnataka, in giving social sanction to sexual taboos like same sex desire and transgender identity.

“Jogappa is a ritual through which the male is allowed by the society to don the form of a female. In this case, this ritual is performed for them to take on the female form and only after this ritual is over, do they lead the life of women, most of them undergoing the process of sex change. This is prevalent in north Karnataka and is also known as the Yelamma ritual in the Belgaum region where females are dedicated to the god and they get social sanction to be sex workers. It is a ritual where they are wedded to the god and are thereby deemed to be in “the service” of the god,” says Maya Jaideep.

For all the protagonists in the film, the most difficult part of the journey of transformation from the sexual and gender identity they were born with and the one they have fashioned for themselves was the friction with their families. Unlike bigger cities, there was no counselling available and there was no gay community they could turn to for support. But once they joined traditionally accepted communities like Jogappas, Kothis or transgender communities like hijras their families have come around to accepting them. And with the intervention of NGOs like the Ashodaya Samithi, these men are struggling for a larger social acceptance, for the right to a life with dignity and an understanding of their own identities and desires. Many of them are involved in raising awareness about HIV and other communicable sexual diseases and the risks involved for sex workers. The activism not only helps them bolster a sense of community, but allows them to contribute to society in a way that can be recognised by others.

“I find myself giving lectures on HIV and how to combat it, and policemen who formerly used to harass me come to my classes and learn from me now. It is quite a change,” says Prakash, a male sex worker in the film who has been actively involved in the anti-HIV campaign.

The film which sets out to deconstruct the western myths and concepts of gays by bringing vivid aspects of their lives is also primarily a film about love and celebration of their identity. As Nagendra, one of the MSM interviewed in the film, says, being a sex worker and a lover was initially a conflict but he was able to negotiate with the support of his lover. “When I fell in love, for a year, I did not do sex work. My lover convinced me to do sex work; as sex is common but you can have intimate love with only one person’’. Nagendra and his partner now dream of together adopting a child.

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Karnataka government’s war on journalists continues

The Karnataka government’s war on journalists continues

The Karnataka BJP has chosen to hit back at the journalist who reported the infamous homestay attack where a few partying girls and boys were roughed up by more than 50 Hindutva goons. The images of the brutal attack captured by Kasturi channel reporter Naveen Soorinje created an outrage at the national level forcing the BJP government to invoke the Goonda act against them. A vengeful district administration and police responded by including Naveen in the charge sheet, alleging that he orchestrated the attack collaborating with the Hindu Jagaran Vedike (HJV) activists. A magistrate court, which is hearing the homestay attack case, has given a warrant for his arrest.

On July 28, around 50 activists of the HJV barged into the Morning Mist homestay located on the outskirts of Mangalore, and attacked a few boys and girls who were celebrating their friend’s birthday. The activists of the HJV not only beat up the boys but also stripped and molested the girls for not adhering to ‘Indian Culture’. While instances like these are an everyday affair in Mangalore – considering the hindutva factory in Karnataka; the presence of Kasturi TV Channel reporter Naveen Soorinje, however made the issue a national headline.

The BJP government stung by the exposé, initially, made claims to go hard on the perpetrators of the crime by invoking the Goonda Act which specifies harsh treatment and gives police the power to shoot on sight. However, in the recently filed charge sheet, no such act has been invoked. In 2008 too, during the infamous Mangalore pub attack case, the state administration had claimed they would come down hard on the Sri Ram Sene activists. However, even after three years, the trial hasn’t started in the case. In fact, one of the attackers in the July 2012 attack, Subhash Padil had also taken part in the 2008 incident.

Since the beginning of the investigation, Naveen Soorinje held that the local administration and the cops were doing their best to protect the perpetrators. And he cites the recently filed charge sheet as proof of their collaboration which contradicts the events which took place on that day.

According to the charge sheet, the police received the information of the attack around 9PM that day. However, the camera recordings show that, Ravish Nayak and Manikantha Neelswany of the Mangalore rural police were with the attackers while the attack was taking place. Tearing apart the police version, images captured on that day, even show, investigation officer TR Jagannath arriving at the spot at 19:28 and taking a local corporator into custody “which means the police before hand had the Information; not as claimed in the charge sheet. There is even video evidence of the assaulters being escorted to a safe place by the police,” says Naveen.

Even though, there were other reporters including those from channel TV 9, Sahaya Tv (local right-wing channel in Managlore) and a reporter from the newspaper Jaya Kirana, the police have registered cases against only Naveen (accused number 44) and Sharan of Sahaya TV. This despite the fact that Naveen did not film the incident (as their camera man was sick that day), and had obtained the video from the other news reporters. However, he was the first to relay it on Kasturi New channel under the headline “Taliban Culture”. So far the police have arrested 27 persons in the case out of the 50 accused. They have been booked under section 120 (b), 143, 147, 148, 447, 448, 114, 341, 323, 324, 325, 504, 506, 509, 354 and 358 of the Indian Penal Code. The police have not yet arrested Naveen.

Local civil society groups are of the opinion that due to Naveen’s consistent reportage on the activities of the communal forces in the district and his regular reports on human rights violations on the part of the police, he had come under their scanner. “In the last two and a half years with Kasturi News 24, some of my reports have brought shame and legal actions to the police and communal forces. Hence I was made the target,” claims Naveen.

Corroborating Naveen’s statement, TV 9 reporter Rajesh Rao says, “former Mangalore Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar had called him in the middle of the night and had told him that he was angry with Naveen and he would see to it that he is booked under stringent laws.” Rajesh however said that he doesn’t know why his name didn’t crop up in the charge sheet.

Local civil society groups however are angry over the fact that Naveen is being punished for just doing his job; and a prime witness to this case is being eliminated. Says Vidya Dinker- coordinator of Citizens Forum for Mangalore Development “they have added an additional charge of indecent display of women on him, whereas, he was displaying the indecency of the Hindu Jagran Vedike and the state BJP government which was stripped due to the exposé. By targeting him, they are shooting the messenger.”

It’s not the first time that the Karnataka BJP government has targeted journalists. In the past four years, the state administration has intimidated reporters who went out of their way to report a story. In 2009, a reporter of Prajavani (a local kannada daily) did an interview of the commander of the banned Maoist party. Immediately, the police issued a notice to him to depose before the jurisdictional station C and reprimanded him for reporting on such issues. Though the reporter was objective in his reporting, his organisation, buckling under police pressure, transferred him to a desk job and later asked him to move out of the Bangalore bureau.

Noted political writer and columnist TK Thyagaraj has been harassed and cases have been filed against him for writing an article on The Gita. A similar fate has been meted out to another famous social commentator Sanath Kumar Belagali.

In Tehelka’s case too, a former reporter of this organisation Shahina KK was not only intimidated by the Karnataka police for writing an article on Kerala PDP leader Abdul Nasir Maudany, but cases were filed against her, due to which, once in every 15 days, she has to be present in Bangalore to depose before the state CID. She has been doing this for the past one year.

While the above cases do not reflect the extreme fate of some other journalists who had to pay with their lives in order to bear witness to a truth or report a story, it shows an increasing trend of intolerance on the part of the state against those who refuse to toe the official line.

Note: This post was first published in the Tehelka blog. 

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The ‘Koodankulam Conflict’ Map

Koodanlulam Nuclear Plant 

	Anti Nuke	Pro Nuke
Actors	Fisherfolk, farmers, workers, Dalits, Muslims, women, children etc.   Supporters in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and rest of India.   Supporting political parties, Social movements, Human rights groups etc.   Some sections of Media   Some international friends	Government of India   Government of Tamil Nadu    Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, CISF, Tamil Nadu Police, Central and State intelligence agencies etc.    Atomic Energy Commission, DAE, NPCIL, AERB etc.   Political parties such as Congress, BJP, DMK, AIADMK etc.   Indian Bureaucracy   Much of Indian Media   US, Russia, France governments   MNCs of these countries   Spy agencies of these counties   IAEA etc.
Positions	Nuclear power is bad, ugly and expensive.   Nuclear power plant is dangerous and unwanted.   Let us think like a creative leader and look beyond thermal and nuclear energy.   Let’s consider ‘New Energies’.   Let’s put Indian citizens’ interests first.	Nuclear power is good, clean and cheap.   Nuclear power plant is safe and badly needed.   Let us continue our colonized thinking and persist with thermal and nuclear energy.   Let’s consider nuclear energy.   Let’s put foreign countries’ and their MNCs’  interests first.
Interests	Safeguarding India’s natural resources such as sea, seafood, land, ground water, air etc. Protecting ordinary people’s livelihood and sustainable development.   Ensuring everyone’s food security, nutrition security, water security etc.   Avoiding health problems of ordinary people; and protecting the progeny.   Protecting Nature, Life, Future	Producing more electricity and ensuring energy security and national security. Promoting the development agenda of the rich and famous and powerful.   Ensuring the power brokers’ profits, commissions and kickbacks.   Ignoring such hidden costs and persisting with short-term gains.     Money, Money, Money
Gain	A few menial jobs   Low income from shops, services	Lots of good jobs   Lots of contracts, sub-contracts   Money, Power, Prominence   Electricity   Good life
Loss	350+ serious cases and legal hassles   Police action and harassment   Loss of income and wealth   Loss of public money on pro-nuclear campaigns   Loss of privacy and governmental intrusions   Natural resources   Livelihood   Displacement   Health   Wellbeing of children and grandchildren   Future
Attacks Faced	Dangerous false cases such as sedition, waging war on the State etc.   Arrests, imprisonment, torture.   Imprisoning women, juveniles, and children.   Legal hassles, refusing bail.   Police searches, attacks and harassment.   Having anti-social elements vandalize private properties and homes with police connivance.   Attack on negotiating team.   Intelligence departments’ psychological warfare.   Tear gas attack, lathi charge, firing.   Murder by police.   Aerial harassment of Coast Guard planes.   Death threats.	Nonviolent and peaceful siege, processions and agitations (for a few hours).
Slanders Faced	Instigated by opposition parties.   Small group’s protest.   Fishermen struggle.   Christian struggle.   Foreign countries’ and agencies’ plot.   NGO-funded struggle.   Missionaries’ and priests’ protest.   Struggle promotes smuggling in the sea and coasts.   Undertaken to harass governments.   Struggle promoted by incentives such as Rs. 500, biriyani and alcohol.   Misguiding innocent people.   Stubborn and unwilling to listen.   Receiving foreign money.   Using human shield.   Character assassination of leaders, casting aspersions on leaders’ integrity etc.   Accusing of using violence.   Publishing leaders’ addresses, contact numbers, emails in a newspaper.   Doubting people’s sanity and sending psychiatrists.   Arresting foreigners and connecting with struggle.   Linking us with Naxalites, terrorists, ISI spies etc.   Insulting women and questioning their morality.
Machinations		Telling half-truths and non-truths to people.   Dividing people with the help of immoral media persons.   Setting up corrupt media persons against the struggle.   Spreading rumors and  harassing people.   Dividing people along caste and religious lines.   Trying to instigate violence in the protest programs.   Trying to ‘buy’ weak protestors.   Splitting people by creating gangs and planting goons.   ‘Buying’ media and media persons.   Instigating businessmen and industrialists against people.   Using scientists and experts to confuse people.   Setting up proxy protesters against the struggle.   Setting up religious leaders to influence people’s opinion.   Distributing freebies.   Canvassing students and youth in colleges with government influence.   Doing campaigns with government influence.   Creating artificial power cuts.   Sending in spies and agents to endanger peace.   Promising houses, roads and other “development” projects.   Promising crores of rupees and wooing panchayat leaders and local leaders to the government side.
Favored Solutions	Abandon all NPPs   Focus on ‘New Energies’	Start more NPPs   Produce nuclear energy
The Way Out	·         Announce a moratorium on all nuclear activities all over the country. ·         Present a Cost-Benefit-Procedural Impact analysis of NPPs. ·         Do financial, energy, environmental, social audit of the existing NPPs. ·         Set up an “empowered and independent” regulatory authority. ·         Ensure transparency, accountability, and popular participation in nuclear installations. ·         Facilitate a national debate on nuclear deals, Uranium mines, reactors, waste dumps, and nuclear bombs. ·         Let people decide what they need!

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