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TheIndian EXPRESS
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l THURSDAY l JANUARY 31 l 2013

The Indian EXPRESS

BECAUSE THE TRUTH INVOLVES US ALL

ITH fresh evidence exposing the excessive tactics adopted by the local police in an incident earlier this month in the Maharashtrian town of Dhule, the state government needs to demonstrate its capacity to come to grips with the aftermath. On January 6, there occurred a spat over the settlement of a bill at a roadside eatery, which in no time took on the dimensions of a communal clash, leaving six persons, all of them Muslim, dead in police firing. That what appeared to be a rather unremarkable argument could claim such a toll is alarming enough and draws attention to the dangers of not addressing communal faultlines of the sort that appear to have defined Dhule, especially after riots in 2008. However, the stark picture that has now emerged through video footage accessed by this paper indicates much more than just incompetence in dealing with an altercation. It calls into question the polices conduct. The footage shows police personnel going on a rampage to destroy private property and loot shops, and yet more chillingly, to defy the manual and shoot above the waist at persons in the crowd. With this sharpening picture of the police allegedly abdicating the basic rules of professional and impartial conduct, Chief MinisterPrithvirajChavandoesnot

Maharashtra government must urgently respond to evidence of police misconduct

have the luxury of allowing the rhythms of routine inquiries to run their course before seizing the situation. He needs to urgently act on the emerging evidence of deliberate police aggression. In fact, the record suggests that a fair stock-taking will, of necessity, have to be anchored from outside the town. Reportedly, a chargesheet filed in the 2008 riots by the Dhule police had claimed as an established fact that Muslims were the masterminds behind all terrorist activities across India. It would be irresponsible to cast a communal colour on the police action without a thorough scrutiny but when the identity of those felled in police action, in the street versionofevents,isnotseentobeentirely incidental, there lie the makings of an administrative crisis that could spiral out of control. Dhule town is strategically located on the cusp of two national highways, and its location facilitates the hinterlands access to wider markets.Muslimsmakeupaquarter of the population. And in the textile industry it has historically thrived on, Dhule speaks of an older inclusiveness, having provided a base for north Indians fleeing the upheaval after the 1857 uprising. The dangers obvious in such a town being torn apart by the suspicion of police mal-intent can only be addressed by reassurance through swift government action.

Dhule imperative

GYPTS drift into political chaos is, arguably, the most unfortunate blow the Arab world could suffer post-Spring, given the countrys pre-eminent position in influencing the region. What started as peaceful protests in Cairo last Friday, to mark two years of the revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak, had by Sunday turned into bloody street battles in Port Said, after 20-odd football fans were handed death sentences for riots that killed more than 70 people at a match last year. Even after President Mohammed Morsi declared an emergency and deployed the military in the cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez along the Suez Canal to keep the shipping lines, so vital to the Egyptian economy, open people came out in defiance. The warning of the army chief, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, that the destabilising political struggle could lead to a collapse of the state, cannot be ignored. After two years of transition, Egypt is a divided country, with the Muslim Brotherhoods liberal and minority opponents demanding Morsis resignation. Although the protests in Cairo and those in the

Its ferment doesnt mean liberals can reclaim the revolution. The militarys role remains critical
Suezcitieshaveseparateoriginsand aims, they are connected by Morsis rapid loss of ground and control. Post-Spring Egypts transition from rule by the military was bound to be phased and problematic. Morsis ascent as Egypts first democratically elected president was a beginning. But soon after the military handed overpowerlastyear,Morsispromise of a government for all Egyptians began to sound hollow. His November decree giving himself near-absolute powers, and his pushing the controversial new constitution through an Islamist-dominated legislature, were the tipping point. As the country erupts now, Morsis firm response seems to have only aggravated the crisis. This chaos does not mean the liberals might reclaim the revolution. Egypt could just as well witness the Brotherhood, flanked by the Salafists, pushing the country in the oppositedirection.Theroleofthearmy is still as critical as it was two years ago. With Syria caught in a long and bitter civil war and Libyas warlords defyingitsgovernment,ifMorsicannot convince his opponents to sit down and talk, Egypt could end up dangerouslydestabilisingtheregion.

Adrift in Egypt

T IS very difficult to try and be a rational voice in the cacophony of cries for revenge and retribution on the alleged perpetrators of the ghastly crime that was committed on the night of December 16. I am equally ashamed, outraged and shocked that an incident like this could take place in the heart of India, which gave birth to a Mahatma Gandhi, a Gautam Buddha, a Swami Vivekananda and many others like them. I would also like to say that in nowayamIholdingabriefforthealleged perpetrators of this dastardly act. However, I cannot, as a responsible citizen of a supposedly civilised country, subscribe to the calls for retribution and the hysterical outbursts of many, especially of those who engage in such rhetoric just to please their own constituencies. We must question whether we really want to regress into a country where the rule of law is substituted by street justice. As Amartya Sen said in a recent newspaper article, street protest is one thing, and street justice is quite another. The punitive system has to work through our judicial system. It is very important to protest and have candle-light marches, to create awareness, pressure state and society to stand up for justice. But it is not ideal to have a mob mentality take over. If one persons rights have been violated, it does not give society the licence to violate other rights by taking the law in its own hands. I would like to put a few things in perspective so that we do not allow this one incident to colour all our actions and destroy hard-won human rights laws, enacted to protect the most marginalised and weak sections of our society women, children, the disabled, the old and transgenders, among others. The debate should not be reduced to womens rights versus childrens rights and whether we should have one at the cost of the other. If the accused are given access to their rights under the rule of law, it does not mean that justice is not being done to the victims. One incident, however tragic and heinous, involving a juvenile, should not turn us against a law that seeks to protect and rehabilitate thousands of children under 18, who constitute 42 per cent of our

Against street justice

We must become a society that protects children, not one that needs to protect itself from them
MINNA KABIR
population. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2000, amended in 2006 and then in 2011, is not, as many think, a lenient law. It is, however, a special law, which seeks to deal with a child under 18 in a different way, in order to ensure that he grows up into a good human being. It is not the work of good Samaritans, as somepeoplearetryingtoportray.It is the culmination of many years of experience working with children in difficult circumstances, it is the result of research by psychologists, social scientists, teachers, activists, legal minds and others, and it is a work in progress in many countries. States are still learning how best to deal with children under 18 who live in difficult circumstances, and with children who are in conflict with the law. One of the arguments put foron December 11, 1992 and passed the JJ Act 2000 after much deliberation. We are bound by this ratification and this legislation. It is also misconstrued that the boywillgofreeafterheis18.Section 15(g) of the JJ Act was amended in 2006, so that even if the child is 18 whentheinquiryagainsthimisconcluded he can be kept in a special homeoraplaceofsafety.However, he can be kept for a maximum period of three years. Section 8 of the JJ Act 2000 and Rule 40 of the JJ Rules 2007 categorise different types of observation and special homes, and provide classification according to physical and mental status, and degree of the offence committed. In certain reports it says that the children in special homes roam free. This is not permitted under the act. As for determining the age of a

LETTER OF THE WEEK AWARD

To encourage quality reader intervention The Indian Express offers the Letter of the Week Award. The letter adjudged the best for the week is published every Saturday. Letters may be e-mailed to editpage @expressindia.com or sent to The Indian Express, 9&10, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi -110002. Letter writers should mention their postal address and phone number. The winner receives books worth Rs 1,000.

One incident, however tragic and heinous, involving a juvenile, should not turn us against a law that seeks to protect and rehabilitate thousands of children under 18. The Juvenile Justice Act is not a lenient law. It is, however, a special law, which seeks to deal with a child under 18 in a different way.
ward by antagonists of the juvenile justice philosophy and the JJ Act 2000 is that Section 82 and 83 of the IPC cannot be reconciled with Section 2 (k) and 2(l) of the act. Section 82 says that all offences committed by a child less than seven years old is not an offence. Section 83 says an offence committed by a child above seven years but less than 12 is not an offence if he has immature understanding, and this is left to the discretion of the court concerned. Section 2(l) of the JJ Act says that a child under 18 who commits an offence will enjoy benefits under the act. The JJ Act 2000 does not say it is not an offence; it saysaseparatebodycalledtheJuvenile Justice Board (JJB) will probe the offence and treat the offender differently. India ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child child who comes into conflict with the law, there is a procedure laid down in Section 7A, read with Rule 12. Many have aired misleading views on this with regard to the gangrape accused who is a juvenile. The option of a medical test has to be exercised by the JJB only if there is no satisfactory documentary evidenceoftheallegedoffendersdate of birth. In the case of the gangrape accused, the JJB has followed this procedure very strictly. As for revising the age of juveniles down to 16, it cannot apply to this boy retrospectively. Instead, it will affect other children in need of care and protection, and of the support of society. It will not help to lock up all offenders between 16 and 18 years in adult prisons; anyone who has read the Sheela Barse judgments of the Supreme

Court would know. About the argument that some countries have waivers for heinous offences, we need to first study their experience even they might have realised that it has not helped lessen crime among children. In 2011, the total number of children arrested for offences in the US (according to FBI data) was 11,29,456; in India (according to the National Crime Records Bureau) the number was 33,887. Studies by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, on why we should look at children differently, are illuminating. Besides, we have to consider problemsandcircumstancesthatarepeculiar to India. The statistics given out about India do not reflect the true picture either, and baseless alarmist views are being put out. Since we raised the age of juveniles from 16 to 18 years,crimeamongchildrenhasnot increased significantly, but awareness has. More children who would have been hidden in the adult system are being brought into the childrens system. The child crime rate from2000to2012reflectsthatjuvenile crimes accounted for only 0.5 per cent of total crimes committed in 2000. Rape accounts for only about 3.5-4.45 per cent of the total crimes committed by children, and of these, at least 50 per cent are because of love affairs, where the girl ran away consensually. Insteadofkneejerkreactions,itis important to revisit the JJ Act and the Rules to tighten procedures and ensure proper implementation. The JJ Act and the Rules in themselvesarerobustandhavefactored in possibilities for the rehabilitation, reintegration and mental healthcare, where necessary, of children, even in the most heinous offences. We have to ensure wellmonitored implementation of these provisions, and have a healthy dialogue to determine how we can constructively amend the act in the best interest of the children of our country. We must become a society that protects its children, not a society that needs to protect itself from its children. The writer is a voluntary child rights worker
express@expressindia.com

Letters to the

EDITOR

Toward justice

speed (IE, January 30). People in a fit of anger expect the government to act swiftly, but they seem to have forgotten the due proceedings of law courts. They are impatient in the aftermath of the Delhi gangrape, but the government should not act hastily in response to public pressure. The court must do its duty and hear the case from all sides to deliver a satisfactory judgement. H. Infant Vinoth Pune
APROPOS Need for speed (IE, January 30), there is no need to lower the age limit by amending the Juvenile Justice Act just because it has been established that the sixth accused in the Delhi gangrape case is a minor. However, the suggestion of dealing with juvenile offences on a case-bycase basis holds merit. Laws need not be uniformly applied, and the punishment should befit the crime. Vijai Pant Kashipur

THIS refers to Need for

MINI KAPOOR
S INDIA take on the West Indies this afternoon in Mumbai in the inaugural match of the Womens World Cup, perspective on the womens game may be gained by adopting two bookends. One, women first played a one-day world cup in 1973, two years before mens cricket adopted the format. Two, a debate on womens place in cricket was ignited in England this month when it was reported that the England wicket-keeper, Sarah Taylor, was in talks with Sussex to play mens second XI county cricket. Together, they could help us understand the backdrop against which the womens ODI champions will be decided in coming days and highlight the still uncertain trajectory of womens team sport, especially cricket. The history of sport can be read in many ways, but perhaps there is no neater way to run a thread linearly through the decades than by tracking the inclusion of women in deciding a disciplines highest honours. It is a work still in progress, and you only have to look at the Summer Olympics to see how. No women participated in the inaugural modern Games on 1896. They were allowed on the track for the first time at Amsterdam, in 1928 but when some competitors collapsed in the 800m event, the International Association of Athletics Federation

The Womens World Cup is a reminder that equality in sport is a work in progress
barred them from competition in races longer than 200m, and this ban held for 32 years. Even thereafter, it took an inordinately long time for women to access the possibilities open to male athletes: they ran the marathon at the Olympics in 1984, the 10,000m in 1988, the 5,000m in 1996. In other sports, women got to compete for a medal in weightlifting only in 2000, in wrestling in 2004, and in boxing finally in 2012, the last bringing Mary Kom something like her due, given that it allowed her a place on sports greatest stage so late in her career. Of course, when women have Indeed, taking that a step further, it is time we held cricket to the contention that a sport clears the benchmark of progressiveness, or modernisation, by the measure of gender equality it adopts in terms of the opportunities it offers. Certainly, the past six to seven years have seen progress, with the ICC mandated merger of womens and mens associations giving women access to the facilities (training, stadiums, accommodation) and back-up (umpires, broadcast of ICC tournaments) male cricketers enjoy. Its a big step. You only needed to have visited the Indian women at a trainated with the mens 2011 world cup triumph shows the reluctance to even acknowledge, howsoever symbolically, the need to raise the profile of the womens game. Cricket, more than most other sports, is continuously shaped by its commerce. So, women will obviously not derive the financial returns that men do till they find large viewerships. But equally, crickets administrators must examine the entitlements that should be the national teams, mens and womens. This is why the confusion over how to absorb Taylors news. Could it be that, as of now even in England where cricket administrators have worked hard to make the womens game more viable women cricketers achievements are in danger of being calibrated in the narrow context of how they measure up to men? It would be an individual milestone, no doubt, but it is questionable how far it would take the womens game. Or as Harsha Bhogle puts it while seeking a more enlightened way of watching cricket, when you appreciate Victoria Azarenkas tennis, you do not do so by measuring her serve against Rafael Nadals. Its a good caution to keep in mind in the fortnight ahead.
The writer is contributing editor for The Indian Express
express@expressindia.com

Batting for the women

THIS refers to Writing on water (IE, January 30) by Ramaswamy R. Iyer. The National Water Policy 2012 is silent about the displacement of people by projects and their resettlement and rehabilitation. Although there is a separate National Rehabilitation Policy, the broad principles, parameter and scope of rehabilitation of displaced people should have been addressed in the NWP 2012. Since the National Water Resources Council seems to have accepted that water is a community resource, the government should ensure that the entire population has access to it. C. Koshy John Pune

Troubled waters

Rural middle class

T THE height of the anticorruption movement, Minister for Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal had to scramble for cover after proposing measures that amounted to unmasking the governments anonymous opponents on the internet and cleaning out their mouths with soap and water. But now, I&B Minister Manish Tewari has proposed a nuanced approachtotheissueofanonymityonline.AddressingtheBroadcastEngineering Society, he said that the right to free speech comes with responsibilities, and that social media should distinguish between privacy and anonymity. Anonymity was great fun so long as the internet was an electronic frontier made for experimental living. But now, when mainstream debates are argued electronically and discussants routinely take advantage of anonymity to utter the unspeakable, it has become problem-

The internet could use less anonymity, more responsibility

atic. Lifting the veil would enforce civility, without which debate is meaningless.Ifitcantbesaidfaceto face, if you cant put your name to what you say, dont say it at all. However,theissueisnotassimple as the binary of privacy versus anonymity.Whileanonymitycanbe annoying in a democratic society where everything is discussed online,itisessentialinplacesandtimes inwhichfreespeechattractsserious consequences. Dissent under a repressive government, journalism that investigates powerful interests and certain nonprofit activities may require the cloak of secrecy. The internet has an anonymous section thatrunsofftechnologieslikeonion routing, designed to support such activities. It would be an unspeakable crime to rip the veil off them and fortunately, in many cases, it is technically impossible to do so. But theinternetthatmostofususeevery day could do with less anonymity and more responsibility.

Just say the name

A sport clears the benchmark of progressiveness by the measure of gender equality it adopts in the opportunities it offers.
wrested what may be termed equality of status in their sport, the reception has often been grudging. A ridiculous iteration of women tennis players underserved right to equal attention was finally put to rest by the battle of the sexes match in 1973 when Billy Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets, asserting more than anything else the ridiculousness of the taunt. The point distilled from the episode, as too from the great performances of male and female athletes over the decades, is that it is by appreciating the womens competition on its own ambitious terms that sport as a whole is enriched. ing camp on the eve of the merger of Womens Cricket Association of India with the BCCI to see how dependent they were on the largeheartedness of public organisations to get themselves match-fit. However, you also just have to consider the claim this month by the Mumbai Cricket Association to Wankhede stadium for a mens Ranji match, thereby depriving the womens world cup of the venue. The womens tournament was to be in stadiums across Mumbai alone (till the Shiv Sena threat compelled the organisers to reschedule Pakistans matches to Cuttack), and the MCAs bid to deny the women a venue associ-

class wants (IE, January 28), Arvind Virmani refers to the middle class that emerged during the post-liberalisation period. We often neglect the rural middle class that emerged after the abolition of the feudal revenue system. People belonging to this class are part farmers. They appear to play an important role in the formation of the government because of their proximity to the rural poor. They also want poverty to decrease, but may not support programmes such as MGNREGA, which has raised labour costs, or subsidised food grain, which has dampened prices. M.K. Mahapatra Pune
THIS refers to Maximum city, minimum effort (IE, January 29). The ease with which Mumbai crushed Saurashtra indicates Mumbais domination in the Ranji final, which it won for the 40th time. That Mumbai has reached the finals of the Ranji trophy 44 times, and lost on only four occasions, shows its unquestioned superiority in the competition for the coveted trophy. Between 1956 and 1972, Mumbai won the trophy 15 times in a row. However, as more international matches were played and top players moved to the national level, the Mumbai team failed to maintain the tempo their illustrious seniors set. Ganapathi Bhat Akola

APROPOS What the middle

Winner once again

WORDLY WISE Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught. Honore de Balzac

OST people outside Italy long ago lost interest in the antics political,financialorsexualofSilvioBerlusconi,thebuffoonishformerprimeministerwhofinallywasforcedfromoffice14 months ago by Italys economic woes. But Berlusconis latest grab for attention demands condemnation. Over the weekend the 76year-old politician and media magnate, who is hoping to make a comeback in parliamentary elections next month, chose the occasionofHolocaustRemembranceDaytomaketheargumentthatBenitoMussolini,thefascistdictatorwhoalliedItalywithNaziGermany,wasnotsobad...

The blunders of Berlusconi

PRINTLINE
Withhispartytrailingacentre-leftallianceinthepolls,theformerpremier wasattemptingtoappealtofar-rightvoterswhowallowinnostalgiaforItalys fascist era... President Giorgio Napolitano pointed out Tuesday that,amongyouthgroupsandsoccerhooligans,openlyneo-Nazi miserable junk ideology and primarily anti-Jewish hatred wasgainingcurrency:toxicsentimentsthatarelegitimisedwhen a longtime prime minister praises Hitlers closest foreign ally. From a leader in The Washington Post