Mainstream Weekly

Mizzima And The Story Of Indo-Myanmar Relations | Nandita Haksar

Nandita Haksar — 2021-04-16T19:18:08Z

The story of Mizzima media group is a good way to understand the Indo-Myanmar relationship with all its complexities. It is important to understand this relationship to have an informed debate on the issue of whether India should or should not help the Myanmar refugees trying to come across our borders to seek asylum from the brutalities of the Myanmar military regime which staged a coup on February 1, 2021.
Indian Origin Burmese
The position of Indians in Burma has always been (…)

- 2021

Justice Denied: Case Dairy of a Human Rights Lawyer

Nandita Haksar — 2019-07-07T09:04:35Z

This is the dairy of a case I filed in October 1987 and which was disposed of after 28 years by an order of the Manipur High Court in June 2019. The disposal exposes the bankruptcy of the Indian judicial system in reaching justice to victims of large-scale human rights violations.
On October 5, 1987
I filed a case in the Gauhati High Court. It was concerned with the torture and murder of people and large-scale destruction of property during the course of a three-month counter-insurgency (…)

- 2019

Post-Pulwama Triumphalism Spells Disaster for...

Nandita Haksar — 2019-03-17T21:42:55Z

In dealing with the Pulwama attack of February 14, India has exhibited a degree of triumphalism that could spell disaster for the Kashmiri people and for the future of Indian democracy.
India saw the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's invitation to be a guest of honour at the 46th session of its Council of Foreign Ministers Conference in Abu Dhabi as a triumph over Pakistan. An even bigger triumph was that the meeting passed a declaration without mentioning Kashmir.
The triumph was (…)

- 2019

Hundred Years On: How the Russian Revolution inspired India

Nandita Haksar — 2017-11-26T17:56:00Z

A hundred years ago, American journalist John Reed witnessed the momentous events of 1917 in Russia, when Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party, backed by soldiers and working-class people, seized power to end centuries of Czarist rule in Russia. Reed describes the scene in Moscow's Red Square in his book Ten Days That Shook The World:
“This was the day of the People, the rumour of whose coming was thunderous as surf...
“We forced our way through the dense mass packed near the Kremlin wall, (…)

- 2017

New Year in Mandalay

Nandita Haksar — 2017-02-27T07:08:50Z

We—my husband, Bogyi, our Burmese friend, and I—stood on top of Mandalay Hill with the Irrawaddy River at a distance and watched the sun go down for the last time in 2016.
According to legend, the Buddha himself along with his disciple, Anand, had climbed this hill and prophesied that a great city would be founded below the hill. And the Buddha's prophecy came true when King Mindon laid the foundation of the new capital on Febrauray 13, 1857. The royal city was officially named Yadanaba, a (…)

- 2017

Was Afzal Guru a martyr or a militant?: JNU Students were Debating a Question that Law Can't

Nandita Haksar — 2016-03-12T22:51:55Z

A Delhi High Court Bench headed by Justice Pratibha Rani gave bail to Kanhaiya Kumar, the President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union, on March 2 quoting a Bollywood song. The bail order began with a stanza from a song from the film Upkar, whose last two lines were:
Mere desh kii dharti sonaa ugle
Ugle hiire moti mere desh ki dharti.
It would have been entirely appropriate if the judge was alluding to Kumar as a national treasure in that reference. He is, no doubt, an (…)

- 2016

Milestone in History of Indo-Naga Relations: Naga Perspective of the Peace Accord

Nandita Haksar — 2015-08-15T07:32:48Z

On August 3, 2015 the Government of India and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim or the NSCN (IM) signed an agreement. Although the contents of the Accord have not been made public, it is being hailed as an important milestone in the history of Indo-Naga relations.
The Accord was signed by R.N. Ravi, senior Intelligence officer, on behalf of the Government of India and by Isak Swu and Thuingaleng Muiva on behalf of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN). So, is this Accord (…)

- 2015

Reflections of a Socialist Feminist

Nandita Haksar — 2015-03-14T10:35:15Z

The following article was written for Mainstream on the occasion of the International Women's Day (March 8) but could not be used earlier as it reached us late.
I was sitting with a migrant worker from Manipur and played the song ‘Bread and Roses' to her. The images with the song were of women fighting for an eight-hour day. I asked how she liked the song; but she had been watching the images and asked: “Did the women get an eight- hour day?” “Yes, at the time they did.” “But I work a (…)

- 2015

Je ne suis pas Charlie; Sorry, I am not Charlie

Nandita Haksar — 2015-01-31T17:51:46Z

The French President, Francois Hollande, immediately declared that the attack on Charlie Hebdo was an act of terrorism and an assault on freedom of the press. Michael J. Morell, the former deputy director of the CIA and now a consultant to CBS News and topmost national security professional, stated categorically:
This is the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the attacks in London in July of 2005. The motive here is absolutely clear: trying to shut down a media organisation that (…)

- 2015

Stray Thoughts of a Human Rights Lawyer on Human Rights Day

Nandita Haksar — 2014-12-15T12:33:46Z

The following article has been written on the occasion of the Human Rights Day (December 10).
For those behind bars
The best moments in my life are those when I stood outside a jail waiting for my client to step out—a free man again. Yes they were all men, I had no women clients who were in jail in all my thirty years practice.
There were the Burmese students who had crossed the border to take refuge in India and found themselves in an Indian jail; there were Naga villagers arrested by (…)

- 2014