Documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak talks about his new film, Red Ant Dream, and the architecture of revolutionary desire

 

Red Ant Dream — Trailer Published on May 1, 2013

A documentary about those who live the revolutionary ideal in India

Director: Sanjay Kak
Synopsis:  ‘Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist’, the revolutionary patriot had said almost a hundred years ago, and that forewarning travels into India’s present, as armed insurrection simmers in Bastar, in the troubled heart of central India. But to the east too, beleaguered adivasis from the mineral-rich hills of Odisha come forth bearing their axes, and their songs. And in the north the swelling protests by Punjabi peasants sees hope coagulate–once more–around that iconic figure of Bhagat Singh, revolutionary martyr of the anti-colonial struggle. But are revolutions even possible anymore? Or have those dreams been ground down into our nightmares? This is a chronicle of those who live the revolutionary ideal in India, a rare encounter with the invisible domain of those whose everyday is a fight for another ideal of the world.
Gondi, Odiya, Punjabi with English Subtitles

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Talking about a revolution…

by BUDHADITYA BHATTACHARYA, The Hindu, Bangalore, May 16, 2013

 

• [Sanjay Kak. Photo: Apal Singh]
• The third in a cycle of films that interrogate the workings of Indian democracy, Red Ant Dream by Sanjay Kak looks at the revolutionary ideal as it exists in India today. Moving between Punjab, Bastar and Niyamgiri, the film documents the songs, histories and struggles of people who try to imagine a different world into being. The director responded to questions in an e-mail interview:

 

Can you talk about the beginnings of Red Ant Dream? When and why did you get interested in making this film?

 

[Photo:  A Still From the Film]

It’s always difficult to say where the beginnings of a film lie, because in a sense what you put into a documentary could be the summation of many years of thinking about an idea, your whole life even! For more than a decade all my films have been about resistance – Words on Water was about the movement against big dams in the Narmada valley, Jashn-e-Azadi about Kashmir, and now with this new film we look at the stirrings in Bastar in Chhattisgarh, the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha, and briefly Punjab. More specifically, I think Red Ant Dream was a reaction to the way in which the rebellion led by the Maoists in central India was being depicted in the media and in public discourse – as an isolated, autonomous outbreak of something like a pestilence, something alien called Maoism.

India: Maruti Suzuki Workers Union pamphlet on the occasion of May day

Sanhati, April 30, 2013

[Note from Maruti Suzuki Workers Union : We are currently on an indefinite dharna in Kaithal, Haryana since 24 March 2013, which included an 8-day Hunger Strike, and will continue until our demands are met. Please join us, in large numbers on 8th May 2013 in Kaithal (in front of the D.C. Office) for a program and rally to take the struggle forward.]

Make Stronger the Unity of the Workers of Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Bawal and the Toiling Masses of Haryana !

On the occasion of May Day, take the pledge to challenge the attack of the Capitalists and the Government which serves their interests !

Friends and Comrades,

Our experiences in struggle since 4th June 2011 provide us with the realization of a renewed importance of May Day and its glorious history. Moulded and tempered in the hearth of the struggle against exploitation and repression, the meaning of this history confronts us with an immediacy and concreteness today.

Exploitation and unceasing exploitation, struggle and repression: what all have we not witnessed during the space of these two years! On the strength of our unity and the solidarity of the workers of the industrial belt of Gurgaon-Manesar, after three phases of strike actions in 2011, we finally formed our Union in March 2012. This expression of our collective strength was unbearable to the management of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Manesar and the state administration, who, to break this unity, as part of the conspiracy of 18th July 2012, declared us to be mindless criminals and terminated the jobs of 546 permanent and around 1800 contract workers. Along with this, 147 of our innocent fellow workers were thrown into jail, who continue to languish there, while non-bailable arrest warrants were thrust on 66 of us. An atmosphere of terror through continuous police repression and administrative intransigence firmly on side of the company management has been hounding us ever since. When we look at the horrible exploitative conditions of work of our fellow workers inside the factory today, the rationale behind the lies and fabrications of the company’s narrative around 18th July 2012 become clear to us. The workers working inside the factory today are bereft of all the rights that we won during the first phase of our struggle. Fewer workers than earlier toil harder than before. When even as much as an inkling of a renewed attempt to raise our voice, to establish our Union inside the factory came, 13 of the more active workers were promptly transferred to various corners of the country, and the attempt crushed there itself. So much for ‘everything’s under control’ in the Maruti’s ‘way of life’!

India & Kashmir: Breaking the silence

David BARSAMIAN interviews Pankaj MISHRA, ISR

27 April 2013

In Kashmir, the scale of human rights violations—from collective punishment and assassinations, to custodial deaths and disappearances—is staggering. Yet little of what goes on in that Himalayan region reaches the outside. Those who resist Indian rule, the Indian government tells the world, are fundamentalist jihadis backed by Pakistan. But the reality is quite different. Kashmir is an unsettled issue, dating back to the disastrous 1947 British partition plan to divide the subcontinent in two: a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. Today, Kashmir is one of the most volatile places on the planet.

Pankaj Mishra writes for the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, and the Guardian. He is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, An End to Suffering, Temptations of the West, and From the Ruins of Empire.

ISR regular contributor David Barsamian, host and founder of Alternative radio (www.alternativeradio.org), spoke with Mishra in Boulder, Colorado.

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David Barsamian: In your introduction to a collection of essays Kashmir: The Case for Freedom, you wrote: “Once known for its extraordinary beauty, the Valley of Kashmir now hosts the biggest, bloodiest and also the most obscure military occupation in the world. With more than 80,000 people dead in an anti-India insurgency backed by Pakistan, the killing fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet.

In addition to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids, and checkpoints enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the Valley’s 4 million Muslims are exposed to extrajudicial execution, rape and torture, with such barbaric variations as live electric wires inserted into penises.”

And then you proceed to ask the logical next question: “Why, then, does the immense human suffering of Kashmir occupy such an imperceptible place in our moral imagination?”

Pankaj Mishra: There are several reasons for this, particularly in the last decade or so, there has been this idea of India emerging as a great economic power and also as a strategic ally of the United States. There has been a lot of bad news coming out of India that’s not been reported internationally, certainly not in the Western press. I think the government also places very heavy restrictions on reporting out of Kashmir, even on foreign correspondents.

Many of them start their tenure by going to Kashmir and being shocked and appalled, because nothing has prepared them for what they see there, so they go and do these anguished reports about this horrific situation. Very soon the government cracks down on them, and they are told to stay within their limits. And for the next of their three or four years in India , they observe those limits, because the price is you might have to leave your job or it might become harder for your newspaper to maintain a bureau or an office there. So there isn’t really enough reporting happening of the kind that happens, for instance, in Tibet. Even though the Chinese government does not allow journalists to go there, still reports filter out all the time. And when there is a massive event there, like the riots in Lhasa back in 20 08 09, it’s on the front pages and in the headlines for days on end.

Political Prisoner News: Stand in Solidarity with Dalit activist political prisoners!

by the Democratic Student Union, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 6 April 2013

Stand in solidarity with the members of Kabir Kala Manch! Resist the branding, persecution and witch-hunt of people’s artists and activists!

Nausea served in the plate , the untouchable nausea 

The disgust grows in the belly, the untouchable disgust 

It’s there in the flower buds, it’s there in sweet songs 

That a man should drink another man’s blood, 

This is the land where this happens 

This is the land of hellish nausea 

– Excerpt from a song written by Sheetal Sathe

किस किस को कैद करोगे?/ लाखों हैं मुक्ति के पंछी, कैद करोगे किसको

लेकर पिंजरा उड़ जाएंगे खबर न होगी तुझको/ इस पिंजरे की सलाखों का लोहा हमने ही निकाला है

ये लोहा पिघलाने हमने अपना खून उबाला है/लोहा लोहे को पहचानेगा, फिर क्या होगा समझो

लेकर पिंजरा उड़ जाएंगे खबर न होगी तुझको 

- From Deepak Dengle’s poem ‘Kis Kis Ko Kaid Karoge’ penned by him in jail

Three days back, Sheetal Sathe and Sachin Mali of the Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) courted arrest outside the Vidhan Sabha Bhavan in Bombay. In May 2011, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had arrested two of KKM members Deepak Dengle and Siddharth Bhosle and charged them under various sections of the draconian UAPA. The charges against them were that they were Maoists who spreading issues of caste oppression and social and economic inequality. For the last two years, all that the prosecution could present in the court as evidence to prove its claims were some books and the fact that KKM highlighted the wrongs present in society and the need to change it through their songs, plays and music. This witch-hunt that the state subjected KKM to so as to prevent them for performing and taking its message to the people forced its other members to go into hiding, and the state had declared them as ‘absconders’ since. This witch-hunt by the state of Kabir Kala Manch singers, a group of young Amberdkarite singers, faced a determined opposition from the progressive and democratic sections and eventually forced the court to grant bail to its arrested members. In a landmark judgement, the Maharashtra High Court observed that highlighting issues of social and economic inequality, far from being a crime, is commendable. Questioning the logic that leads anyone raising issues of social inequality and caste oppression being branded a Maoist, the judgement interestingly observed that such a reasoning “would indicate that these issues, which are real and important, are not addressed to by anyone else, except the CPI-Maoist” and all “the other parties or social organisations are indifferent to these problems faced by the society!” While courting arrest on Tuesday, Sheetal Sathe and Sachin Mali have made it clear that this should not be perceived as ‘surrender’ and all they expect is a fair trial without they being subject to any torture and physical abuse.

Afzal Guru did not get a fair trial: Amnesty International

April 06th, 2013

Supports family’s demand for return of mortal remains.

Accuses CM for being “Non serious” in revoking PSA.

SRINAGAR, Kashmir – Stating that the Parliament attack Convict  Mohammad Afzal Guru who was hanged on Feb. 09, did not get a fair trial, Amnesty International on Saturday said that the world human rights watchdog had written to President of India stressing to reconsider the death penalty of Guru.

“We as an international organization for human rights do feel that there wasn’t an impartial probe and trial in Afzal Guru’s case.” The three member visiting team of amnesty led by its Director Programme for India V.K Shashi Kumar told KNS on Saturday.

The team also said, “Amnesty had officially written to President of India urging him to reconsider the death penalty of Guru.” Amnesty team added that it was favoring the demand of return of Guru’s mortal remains. “ They (Family) deserves the right to ask for the mortal remains and we support their demand.” Amnesty told KNS.

The three member team included V.K Shahshi Kumar, G. Ananthapadmanabhan and US based female researcher Christine Mehta.

The human rights watchdog also lashed at Chief Minister Omar Abdullah saying, “He is not serious in repealing Public Safety Act in the state.”

“As Chief Minster he could simply issue an executive order if he was serious to repeal the act.” The team told KNS, however they accused Omar of resorting to dilly delay tactics with regard to revocation of the act.

Stating that pressing for repealing of PSA in Jammu and Kashmir was their single point agenda, the team said, “Under the garb of PSA, political leaders in the state particularly in Valley are put under house arrest.”

Indian Maoists’ message to Nepal Maoists CPN-Maoist — August 31, 2012

[We have recently seen this message from the CPI (Maoist) to the new CPN-Maoist party, sent in late August of last year.  The new party in Nepal has, since this statement was issued, held its Congress early in 2013 -- and while it decided not to return to the revolutionary path of Protracted People's War, there are indications that an intense struggle continues within the new party to adopt this revolutionary course.  The content of this statement reveals some of the reasons Indian Maoists appear to be hopeful as well as cautious in in their assessment of events in Nepal as of late August, 2012. -- Frontlines ed.]

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COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) — CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Hail the formation of Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist

Message of CC, CPI (Maoist) to the CC, CPN -Maoist

 August 31, 2012

To Comrade Kiran, The Chairman, CPN-Maoist

The CC, CPI (Maoist) is sending its warmest revolutionary greetings to you and all the CC members and the entire rank and file of the CPN-Maoist on the formation of the new revolutionary party in Nepal after a prolonged internal ideological and political struggle against the opportunist and neo-revisionist leadership within the party who betrayed the Nepalese revolution and by demarcating and making a break with them.

Even while the Nepal Revolution reached the stage of strategic offense, the UCPN (Maoist) leadership assessed the national and international situation subjectively, took erroneous tactics which themselves led the party get bogged down in the quagmire of parliamentarianism with capitulationism uninterruptedly since end 2005. The opportunist faction that was dominant in the party rapidly went on taking modern revisionist positions including 12-point Agreement, 8-point Agreement and Comprehensive Peace Agreement etc thus betraying the cause of the Nepal people and causing enormous harm to the New Democratic Revolution. The revolutionary faction of the UCPN (Maoist) led by Comrade Kiran and other revolutionaries put up a fight against the neo-revisionist stands that harmed the interests of the Nepal oppressed masses and have split at various stages from the revisionist leadership. Our CC considers such splits resorted to by genuine revolutionaries demarcating from the neo-revisionist leadership and its erroneous right opportunist line as correct steps that would advance the revolution in Nepal and serve the interests of the oppressed classes and all oppressed social sections in Nepal.

Fascist noose and a Hangman ‘Democracy’: Resist the Indian state’s judicially orchestrated elimination of political dissent!

by Democratic Students Union, Delhi University

“..what a state of society is that which knows of no better instrument for its own defense than the hangman.” - Marx

Oh Enemy

One fine morning in the

wee hours

After tying behind the back

The hands that fought for sunrise

After blindfolding the eyes

That looked for sunrise

After putting the noose

around the throat

That spoke for sunrise

You turn that side

Only to find the sky blood red

In that crimson lap

Someone’s eyes have just opened.

- Varavara Rao

The Indian state is right now in its worst ever killing spree. Putting people mercilessly in the gallows and killing them in cold blood! The secret hanging of Afzal Guru has once again brought to the fore the barbaric practice of death penalty which the Indian state continues with, even after a great majority of countries have abolished it. Death penalty gives the state complete impunity to kill and is the worst form of cold-blooded judicial murder. While 140 countries in the world have abolished death penalty, as per the records of the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB),in India according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, a total of 1,455 convicts or an average of 132.27 convicts per year were sentenced to death penalty during 2001 to 2011. Death penalty, which the Indian state claims that it applies only in the “rarest of rare” case, is in actuality a routine tool in the hand of the ruling classes to browbeat and intimidate the oppressed and struggling masses. It is estimated that the number of those executed after 1947 is over 4,300.

Now after executing Afzal, the Indian state continues with its killing spree and has rejected the mercy petition of Simon, Meesakara Mathayan, Bilavendran and Gnanaprakasam who were a member of Veerappan’s gang and had spent 18 years in jail already. The state had sat on their mercy petition for nine long years before rejecting it finally. In their case the state even more cruelly has merely communicated the execution orders orally and has given nothing in written. All the four convicts are above 60 years old, with the senior-most being 70. The decision to execute these old men who have spent nearly two decades in jail, display the violent retributive & vengeful character that Indian judicial system has acquired.Along with continuing with this barbaric system, the Indian state off late has gone a step further in making it a clandestine affair. So the Indian state’s cowardice goes hand in hand with its ruthlessness.

Indian Govt should restore ‘civil and political rights’ of Geelani Sahib immediately: Dal Khalsa

Amritsar (Punjab)
25 Feb 2013

Chairman of Hurriyat Conference  Syed Ali Shah Geelani

Condemning his continued house arrest in New Delhi, the Dal Khalsa has urged the Government of India to release chairman of Hurriyat (G) Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani immediately.

In a statement party head H S Dhami termed the detention of Geelani Sahib ever since the hanging of Afzal Guru on Feb 9 as ‘illegal and unjust’. Taking a dig at Indian civil society and eminent human rights activists based in the capital for their stoic silence, he said the government has stooped too low to gag the voice of Kashmiri people.

Urging the civil society to speak up against state’s highhandedness, he urged the officials of UNHRC, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to intervene and take stock of the ground situation vis-à-vis rights violations.

He said the government was highly mistaken that by detaining Geelani Sahib it could break his resolve for carrying forward the struggle for Kashmir’s self-determination.

Accusing the Union Home Minister for his flip-flop position on “Saffron terror and RSS sponsored terrorism”, Mr Dhami urged Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde to restore the civil, political and human rights of Geelani Sahib immediately and allow him to be with his people and family members.

India: three girls raped and murdered, aged 5, 9 and 11

Outrage over sexual violence given new fuel after police recorded deaths as ‘accidental’ after bodies were found in a well

Maseeh Rahman in Delhi, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 February 2013

[Women arrive near Indian parliament in Dehli to protest against sexual violence. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP]

India has been hit by another case of sexual violence after three sisters aged five, nine and 11 were raped and murdered in a remote village.

The three girls, who lived with their mother in Lakhni village in Maharashtra state, disappeared on 14 February, on their way home from school. Their widowed mother is a poor labourer, and when the grandfather went to the police to report their disappearance there was no attempt to search for them.

The police found the bodies of the three girls in an old well two days later, and recorded the deaths as “accidental”. But it was only after people from the village blocked a national highway on Wednesday in protest against the police inaction that the state home minister finally took notice.

A preliminary medical examination showed that all the girls had been raped before being killed.

Arundhati Roy speaks out against Indian rape culture

Channel 4 News, Friday 21 December 2012
The writer Arundhati Roy tells Channel 4 News she believes rape is used as a weapon in India and that women in the country are “paying the price”.

India’s Growing Role in the Scramble for (displacing) Africa(ns)

Indian investors are forcing Ethiopians off their land

Thousands of Ethiopians are being relocated or have already fled as their land is sold off to foreign investors without their consent

John Vidal in Delhi

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 February 2013

[Farm workers remove weeds from young plants at the palm oil plantation owned by Karuturi Global, near the town of Bako, in Ethiopia. Photograph: Jose Cendon/Getty Images]

Ethiopia‘s leasing of 600,000 hectares (1.5m acres) of prime farmland to Indian companies has led to intimidation, repression, detentions, rapes, beatings, environmental destruction, and the imprisonment of journalists and political objectors, according to a new report.

Research by the US-based Oakland Institute suggests many thousands of Ethiopians are in the process of being relocated or have fled to neighbouring countries after their traditional land has been handed to foreign investors without their consent. The situation is likely to deteriorate further as companies start to gear up their operations and the government pursues plans to lease as much as 15% of the land in some regions, says Oakland.

In a flurry of new reports about global “land grabbing” this week, Oxfam said on Thursday that investors were deliberately targeting the weakest-governed countries to buy cheap land. The 23 least-developed countries of the world account for more than half the thousands of recorded deals completed between 2000 and 2011, it said. Deals involving approximately 200m ha of land are believed to have been negotiated, mostly to the advantage of speculators and often to the detriment of communities, in the past few years.

India: Nationwide trade union strike hits banks, Noida protests turn violent

Bharat Bandh turns violent in Noida.

Noida, February 20, 2013

[Protesters put a truck on fire during the 2-day trade union strike in Noida.]

A union leader was killed in Haryana and factory units damaged in Delhi suburb Noida in sporadic violence on Wednesday as the start of a two-day nationwide strike called by trade unions evoked a mixed response with banking services paralysed and public transport disrupted. Kerala, Tripura and Bihar were among the worst hit states where normal life was thrown out of gear while stray incidents of violence were reported in Odisha and Karnataka. Protest marches were taken out in several cities.Flight and rail operations remained unaffected in the strike called by 11 trade unions against UPA’s economic and alleged anti-labour policies.

Reports from state capitals said financial services were crippled and bus commuters faced difficulties.

In Noida Phase 2 area, workers clashed with factory owners in a hosiery complex and set ablaze vehicles prompting authorities to deploy PAC in the area. Workers went on a rampage and damaged industrial properties, police said.

From Sector 82 till Greater Noida entry point, which is the industrial belt, workers set ablaze a car, bus and a fire engine, police said.

“People just barged in, looted everything in sight and even tore our registers,” an industrialist said while another said every single building in the hosiery complex had their windows broken and many vehicles were set on fire.

India: Revolutionary Trade Unions’ Call for General Strike

 DELHI GENERAL MAZDOOR FRONT (DGMF)

S-21/E-42, Indira Kalyan Vihar, Okhla Phase I, New Delhi 110020

PRESS STATEMENT,  19.02.2013:  “Observe the Two Day Countrywide Strike on 20-21 February 2013!”

All the central trade unions have come together to call a two-day countrywide strike on 20 and 21 February 2013 in order to demand the fulfilment of a number of pressing issues connected to the lives of the workers and employees in both the organised and unorganised sectors. DGMF is aware that most of these trade unions are affiliated to the same parliamentary parties in power – whether at the centre or in various states – which are directly responsible for implementing anti-worker and anti-people policies. These political parties and their trade unions have repeatedly sacrificed the interests of the working masses of the country without batting an eyelid. In fact, all the parliamentary parties in the country today stand exposed as the agents and the representatives of foreign and domestic big capitalists.

The central trade unions have never seriously challenged the pro-imperialist policies of their mother parties. So to call a two-day strike upholding the rights of the workers is nothing but an eyewash – a move to hoodwink the toiling masses. It is out of popular pressure that these unions had to call a protest action in the form of the strike. The demands articulated by the two-day strike, however, are genuine demands of the workers themselves. DGMF therefore extends its solidarity to the workers’ strike and calls upon the working people of the country to observe the two-day strike. Without being a part of the grand alliance of ruling-class and revisionist trade unions, DGMF along with other revolutionary trade unions of the country has independently issued a strike call for 20 and 21 February 2013, and will strive to successfully implement the strike.

In solidarity,

Rash Behari

President, DGMF

Jagdish

General Secretary, DGMF

08826203405

INDIA: Growing Solidarity with All-India General Strike, February 20-21

REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRATIC FRONT:  “OBSERVE ALL INDIA WORKER’S STRIKE ON 20 AND 21 FEB. 2013!“

Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) extends its solidarity with the workers who are going on a two-day All India general strike on 20 and 21 February. While all the major trade union centres affiliated to various ruling class parties of the country have come together for giving a call for this strike due to the pressure from the working masses, the revolutionary and militant trade unions and workers’ organisations too have given a strike call for these two days. This strike is an opportunity for the workers across different sectors of the economy and regions to come together to highlight the burning problems of their common concern, which require urgent redressal. All the progressive, democratic and pro-people organisations and individuals of the country as well as the peasantry, the students, teachers, intellectuals, government and private employees, need to stand in solidarity with the striking workers in the struggle for achieving their just and genuine demands.

The strike call comes at a time when the imperialist world economy is going through its worst crisis after the Great Depression of the 1930s. The inherent contradiction of the capitalist economy between socialised production and privatised profit came into full force, leading to large-scale overproduction, unprecedented destruction of productive forces, high levels of unemployment, runaway inflation and mass impoverishment. The collapse of the imperialist economy was averted when monopoly finance capital resorted to Fascism in Europe and through massive militarisation and spending in the World War II, which was the direct result of the crisis in capitalism. During this period, achievements which the international working-class movement had won in the form of labour rights through decades of life and death struggles were virtually wiped out. In the post-war period, a resurgence of struggles by the working masses and the spectre of communism and national liberation movements forced the governments in imperialist, bourgeois and semi-colonial countries to recognise the rights of the workers under the garb of ‘welfare economics’.

Arundhati Roy on Indian-Pakistani war clouds and the ‘secret’ hanging of Afzal Guru

Does Your Bomb-Proof Basement Have An Attached Toilet?

Afzal Guru

An execution carried out to thundering war clouds

by Arundhati Roy

What are the political consequences of the secret and sudden hanging of Mohammed Afzal Guru, prime accused in the 2001 Parliament attack, going to be? Does anybody know? The memo, in callous bureaucratese, with every name insultingly misspelt, sent by the Superintendent of Central Jail No. 3, Tihar, New Delhi, to “Mrs Tabassum w/o Sh Afjal Guru” reads:

“The mercy petition of Sh Mohd Afjal Guru s/o Habibillah has been rejected by Hon’ble President of India. Hence the execution of Mohd Afjal Guru s/o Habibillah has been fixed for 09/02/2013 at 8 am in Central Jail No-3.

This is for your information and for further necessary action.”

The mailing of the memo was deliberately timed to get to Tabassum only after the execution, denying her one last legal chanc­e—the right to challenge the rejection of the mercy petition. Both Afzal and his family, separately, had that right. Both were thwarted. Even though it is mandat­ory in law, the memo to Tabassum ascribed no reason for the president’s rejection of the mercy petition. If no reason is given, on what basis do you appeal? All the other prisoners on death row in India have been given that last chance.

Since Tabassum was not allowed to meet her husband before he was hanged, since her son was not allowed to get a few last words of advice from his father, since she was not given his body to bury, and since there can be no funeral, what “further necessary action” does the jail manual prescribe? Anger? Wild, irreparable grief? Unquestioning acc­eptance? Complete integration?

After the hanging, there have been unseemly celebrations. The bereaved wives of the people who were killed in the attack on Parliament were displayed on TV, with M.S. Bitta, chairman of the All-India Anti-Terrorist Front, and his ferocious moustaches playing the CEO of their sad little company. Will anybody tell them that the men who shot their husbands were killed at the same time, in the same place? And that those who planned the attack will never be brought to justice because we still don’t know who they are.