January 2023

“Delhi: 200 African nationals attack after police detain Nigerians for overstaying.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube)

Unusual passivity of Indian police faced with a mob. Unusual because a few days ago, for instance, as a crowd had gathered in front of actor Salman Khan’s house for his birthday, at some point police started to bludgeon the crowd, showering it with a rain of blows. Police passivity, however, is to be expected with foreign migrants: if police bludgeon them, their state will complain to Indian authorities and it is embarrassing, whereas when Indian police bludgeon Indians, no foreign state complains, only, perhaps, NGOs. In India, bludgeon blows are for India’s children only. – Note that this police passivity was the cause two people escaped.

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The U.S. is waging a “microchip war” against China, which is strange since China is the uncontested export leader of raw materials for chips. When you depend on someone for going on with you production, you avoid boycotting them, in general.

If China depends on foreign know-how for chips, as the current U.S. block on chip exports assumes, how can this obstruction not accelerate China’s plans to invade Taiwan, given Taiwan’s acknowledged know-how?

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Police State and the Impairment of Reporting to Authorities

When police are feared by wrongdoers and law-abiding citizens alike, reporting of crimes is impaired. This is what happens in police states, where police misconduct is uncontrolled and people fear police arbitrariness as much as crime.

(ii)

A complement to the Delhi Car Drag Case (see Law 29).

Why do you, NDTV, insist so much on Nidhi’s behavior? (Nidhi is the victim’s friend, whose behavior, namely her failure to report the accident, has been questioned.) Nidhi’s reporting would probably not have saved Anjali, who probably died after a few moments of dragging. On the other hand, a male witness said he alerted the police but they remained apathetic. What’s the point of focusing on the side issue? Not reporting a crime is not as culpable as committing the crime. Instead of focusing on a report that allegedly remained largely unheeded, why this insistence on a poor girl’s escape, who may have feared for her life as a witness to a criminal hit-and-run? Are you afraid of the police? If you, a media, fear the police by not investigating in depth an unheeded report after you made news about it, why would Nidhi be braver than you and want anything to do with the police?

Six days ago, on YouTube, you made news with: “‘Woman’s body dragged, cop car didn’t even try…’: Eyewitness to NDTV.”  The witness is quoted saying: “I told the PCR (Police Control Room) vans and pointed at the car, but they didn’t even try to catch it.” You’ve got a case of unheeded report, but now you prefer to insist on a poor girl’s not reporting to authorities, even though your very information shows that reporting may have been to no avail, for why would the police take heed of her report while they didn’t heed the report of the man you interviewed?

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The Fondling Conspiracy and the Commission for Women

“AAP, BJP [two Indian political parties: the former Woke and the latter Hindutva. AAP holds Delhi governorship, BJP is head of the coalition in power at the central government] Protest On Delhi Streets As Face-Off Over Mayor Poll Continues.” (NDTV, YouTube) There is a woman in the demonstrations. Most probably, in such unruly crowds her buttocks and nipples were fondled by greedy hands. We need a statement from the Commission for Women.

Delhi air pollution is also a big problem. The smog reduces CCTV cameras’ efficiency. Women will be fondled by perverts but camera images will be too blurry, too unclear to serve as evidence. We need a statement from the Commission for Women.

The smog is a conspiracy. Women will be fondled by strangers whose faces can’t be seen on CCTV cameras because of too thick a smog.

“Poor visibility.” A huge fog is expanding over Northern India and will make all CCTV cameras ineffectual because camera lenses function just like the human eye. The Commission for Women expects a big wave of fondling in the streets.

Women of all confessions are fondled daily in urban centers. Do you call that fondle jihad?

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Defence v. Smear

A Complement to “Breakup as Abetment to Suicide” (in Law 28). Actor Sheezan Khan was arrested after co-actress and ex-lover Tunisha Sharma committed suicide.

In court, what India Daily is calling a “smear campaign” by Sheezan’s team is legit defense. A smear campaign is something prosecutable under libel law. But as Sheezan Khan is tried, it is “No holds barred,” he and his lawyers have the right to “smear” as much as they wish in court, if they think it can clear him. Technically, this is no smear, no slander, no libel at all, but a legit means of defense, a most legitimate means, so the headline “smear campaign in court” is wrong. (A trial opposing parties is basically nothing else but parties “smearing” each other.)

Pay attention that a man placed under police custody and tried for abetment to suicide after a breakup is something unheard of. I believe this was made possible by love-jihad fantasies and prejudice and is plain wrong. Be that as it may, the unheard-of nature of the case needs an explanation. A rational explanation. Absent such an explanation, it looks like a case of prejudice: Because he is a Muslim and she was a Hindu, he was kept in custody and is tried on a frivolous claim. In a normal, functional political order, safe from love-jihad fantasies, a man would never have been kept in custody, but simply interrogated.

A mistake was made, a man’s rights have been disregarded, and my assumption is that the reason for this mistake is prejudice, not the principles or the laws in force. A first information report (FIR) cannot always have police custody as consequence. The present FIR is for abetment for suicide and the facts invoked are a breakup. This is no serious ground, with due respect to the grieving family. Abetment to suicide is a crime requiring mens rea (intention), but to suppose that the intent of a breakup is to make one’s lover commit suicide rather than the usual reasons why lovers break up, is unwarranted absent further elements hinting at the same, clues which the police themselves declared were nowhere to be seen (“no love-jihad or blackmail angle”). Therefore, this FIR from a grieving family should never have led to a man’s custody, even less to a 4+14 day custody, and denial of bail.

Police had two flimsy reasons to arrest Sheezan Khan: 1) the vague assumption that he had committed a crime (murder?) and 2) a vague FIR that should not have led to harsh measures, because there was no element of mens rea to support it. One flimsy reason plus one flimsy reason doesn’t add up to a good reason. Sheezan, therefore, should have been interrogated as a normal person, without custody. Some politicians publicly voiced their opinion on the case, suggesting a love-jihad angle. Lack of firm ground for arrest plus those kinds of hardly veiled political pressures plus a certain climate in the country where such concepts as “love jihad” can bubble up to begin with, lead one to question the reasons for the custody and trial. In this context, custody can be thought to be a way to obtain false confessions. If this sort of arrest is the normal practice of the country, then let me know; in that case, there would be nothing special about Sheezan’s arrest but my critic would become institutional, as I would oppose on principle a practice that allows this as a routine.

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“RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, of Hindutva ideology] chief tells Muslims to shun ‘idea of supremacy’.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube)

If one praises the Sepoys of 1857, is it supremacism?

There is nothing wrong with holding one’s credence superior, and no one should be asked to think he doesn’t have better opinions than others. Indeed, if I thought your opinion were as good as mine, I wouldn’t even call my opinion an opinion at all, it would be like having no opinion. I guess you can call this supremacism. The very word “tolerate” implies disagreement. You disagree with what you “tolerate” but you tolerate it; if you didn’t disagree, you wouldn’t “tolerate,” you would “endorse.” This is the meaning of toleration: we are not endorsing each other’s opinions. This, not liberalism (which is mush), is the correct view.

(ii)

I think Brahmins don’t support RSS (prove me wrong). RSS lacking Brahmin support for their New Age ideology is like royalists in European republics who want to restore the throne and altar while being scolded by royal heirs and the Church alike.

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“Austrian court drops accusation of terrorism against Professor Farid Hafez.” (Al-Jazeera English, YouTube)

Prosecuting authorities should be held accountable for their misconducts, but European laws grant them immunity. These authorities could place each and every one of us, Europeans, in the same legal limbo for years, and nothing could be done as far as law is concerned. This is despicable. Professor Farid Hafez has suffered duress for which he will never be compensated.

If there were no fairer authorities than these in the world, does it make my words less true? Would it be less true that, in these countries, which claim to be beacons of freedom, citizens can be subjected to such treatments without recourse and without compensation, and are asked to say “thank you” when after years of legal limbo, police harassment, all sorts of damages to their peace and reputation, a judge says they can be free? If this is a beacon of freedom, then any other place is just as fine. The hypocrisy of these regimes is as appalling as their disregard for citizens’ rights.

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Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards after the 1984 military assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest site of the Sikh religion. The two bodyguards were her most trusted and favorite servants, they had never failed in their service. But she had ignored the bodyguards’ true personality, their devotion to their faith. Did she not have the slightest clue that she might have wronged the Sikh faith with Operation Blue Star? The turning against and killing her by two most reliable men suggests that the operation was more than a little harsh and inconsiderate. There was obviously some blindness, an almost unbelievable naiveté on Indira’s part, that she failed to perceive the two bodyguards as wounded men of faith.

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The Mukherjee Commission

The Indian government was asked by a court to have an investigation and report made on Subhas Chandra Bose, a.k.a. Netaji’s death, but as the report concluded that the known version (plane crash) was not true, the government buried the report.

The Mukherjee Commission was set up by the government following a court order. The commission worked from 1999 to 2005. In its report, it rejected the plane crash theory. The government rejected the report of the Commission, “just like that,” as they say in the film Gumnaami about these historical facts. I find no word to express my moral indignation at this, but in legal wording it is contempt of court and breach of constitutional duty by the Indian government. The government was constitutionally bound by the commission’s conclusions. Its rejection of the report is blatant arbitrariness, it is arbitrariness on the face of it and, to be quite precise, in your face, that is, a slap in the face of all Indians.

(ii)

The above facts are the subject of Gumnaami, a 2019 film by Srijit Mukherji, of which the opening and end song’s lyrics read, in the film’s translation, as follows:

Subhash, Subhash the heart of India is here
The hero of India who we’re all proud of is here

Subhash is the heart of India
Subhash is the pride of India
Subhash is the respect of India
Subhash is the dignity of India

He’ll lead a storm called India
He’ll bring glory to India
To the foreign masters he’ll be a terror
Subhash, Subhash…

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Nudity v. Nakedness

“Mumbai Police sent a notice to Bigg Boss fame U. J. [no need to publicize the actress’s name here] on BJP leader and Maharashtra Mahila Morcha [BJP women’s wing] president Chitra Wagh’s complaints for ‘indulging in nudity publicly on the streets of Mumbai.’” (India Today, YouTube)

“I am independent, will wear what I want,” reacted the actress. The truth is she wears what she is told by photographers. Obviously, the nudity took place during an outdoors shooting, so there should be several people summoned, as it is a conspiracy.

Someone then claimed to me there was no nudity. The actress was summoned for nudity not because, I assume, she was naked on the street, which would have led to her arrest on the spot, had she escaped assault by an angry crowd in the first place, but because of improper attire. Risqué attire is nudity plain and simple. If you cover your body with transparent plastic bags, you are nude as per the law, make no mistake about it. And the same reasoning applies to all risqué provocation to the law and to the peace of decent people.

Indian law makes a difference between scant clothing and obscenity, for the section does not apply, expressly, to sadhus who go around naked. Using Gandhi or sadhus in the argument misses the difference. (The difference is unmistakable but you know how people are.) Obscene nudity is not nakedness per se but rather clothing that appeals to prurient interests. I unreservedly agree with Indian authorities that public space must be kept free from such prurient attires.

Indian authorities apply the law. If you are not happy with the Indian Obscenity Law, then have it changed. We will see if people follow your reasons about “Taliban rule” and what not.