INDIA

Ayodhya ‘Surya Tilak’: Crafty Misuse of Science by Hindutva Votaries

S. Krishnaswamy | 13 May 2024

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There are numerous other centuries-old temples in India that have achieved similar feats even without instruments and devices.

Usually in a sound and light show, the two occur in the same place. On April 17, 2024, at the still under-construction Ram Temple at Ayodhya, at exactly 12 noon on the occasion of Ram Navami, light from the sun was focused through a set of mirrors and lenses on the forehead of the idol of infant Ram or Ram Lalla.

The political sound, indeed noise, reverberated from different parts of the country,  including from Nalbari in Assam where, with a chant of Jai Siyawar Ram, the Prime Minister during an election campaign speech said, "After waiting for 500 years, Lord Ram has been seated in his grand temple. Now…, by applying Surya Tilak to Lord Ram, his birth anniversary will be celebrated in the holy city of Ayodhya." He also shared pictures of him watching the Surya Tilak on an electronic device. 

Soon the oohs and aahs rolled out on social media, even as pro-government print and electronic media saw saturation coverage for several days before and after on the “stupendous” achievements of Indian science in making this extraordinary achievement possible. A true marriage, they said, of modern science and ancient religiosity.

Misusing Science

On X (formerly Twitter), none other than  the secretary, Department of Science of Technology (DST), praised the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, an autonomous research institute funded by DST, and the Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee, under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), for designing, making and installing the system which had succeeded in applying Surya Tilak precisely at 12 noon on Ram Navami and precisely on the forehead of Ram Lalla.

When the CSIR announced the project in November 2022, an open letter was released by over 300 scientists  criticising India’s premier research institution for its involvement with religious activity, and for forgetting its commitment to the constitutional duty of promoting a scientific temper. Unfortunately, this trend of the government railroading scientists and public-funded institutions into the ruling establishment’s pet projects and ideological positions has been happening continuously since 2014.

Equally importantly, many wondered why the secretary of DST would go out of his way and use his official position to praise “the accurate calculations and well-optimized design” of the apparatus  using mirrors and lenses that was used to redirect the sunlight from the second floor of the temple to the idol. This was in fact criticised in the scientists’ open letter as “bringing out a cannon to kill an ant.”

After all, the same IIA had designed the remote sensing payloads for the Aditya L1 spacecraft, the first Indian mission to observe and collect data from the sun, while ISRO had successfully carried out the detailed computations required to position Aditya L1 at the exact spot in space and in an orbit from where it would always face the sun and send back uninterrupted data back to Earth.,

This is the deep irony in the crafty misuse of science by the Hindutva proponents. On the one hand, they glorify an exaggerated, and sometimes imaginary, notion of knowledge in ancient India. On the other hand, they misuse science or at least the idea of science and often falsify “findings” of modern science, to bolster Hindutva ideologies in the reflected glory of science in order to give them legitimacy in the eyes of the people who hold science in high esteem.

So, during Covid one heard that NASA had observed the “radiation” of lamps lit in India and the vibrations of plates and vessels being beaten to ‘drive away” the virus. And in Ayodhya itself, it was said that Indian satellite technology had been used to pin-point the exact birthplace of Ram Lalla where his idol had been installed! Clearly, the installation spot had first been selected and its GPS coordinates “pinned down” to mark the spot!

Why not ancient Indian knowledge?

This notion of the misuse of modern science is reinforced by the question: is the idea of a “surya tilak” or the sun illuminating the idol or parts of the temple at specific times of the year unique to Ayodhya? Would ancient Indian knowledge not have achieved the same goal?

The “Surya Tilak” idea is not unique to the Ram temple in Ayodhya.  The idea itself, and ingenious means to achieve it, are part of centuries-old traditions based on ancient knowledge and technique. Temples across the country have used elements of temple design and architecture to light up its deities or sanctums on certain days or times. Most of these temples were constructed several centuries ago.   

Let us look at Ayodhya first. The Surya Tilak has to be applied on Ram Navami every year.  The festival falls on the ninth day of the bright half (Shukla Paksha) of the lunar cycle of Chaitra (March–April), the first month in a Hindu luni-solar calendar. A luni-solar calendar used in many cultures, incorporates both lunar and solar cycles. Dates in a luni-solar calendar, therefore, indicate both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, which is the position of the Sun in the sky. Since the lunar cycle is 29.5 days, Shukla Paksha does not fall on the same date every year, so Ram Navami falls on April 17, 2024 but on April 6, 2025.

Calculating the dates for Ram Navami for each year involves calculations that are quite simple compared with those the modern astronomers at IIA are used to. Such computations were done in India many centuries ago. Today, there are even simple computer programmes, or even phone Apps, by which this can be done many years into the future. After that, it only requires simple calibrated adjustments to the system of lenses and mirrors to ensure that a focused sun’s ray falls on the forehead of the idol of Ram Lalla.

Surya Tilak in other temples

Numerous other centuries-old temples in India have achieved similar feats even without instruments and devices.

At Karnataka’s Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple, every Makar Sankranti, sunlight passes into the cave temple to light up Nandi–the bull companion of Shiva–and then progressively completely illuminates the Shiva Linga and the inner sanctum.

The famous Konark Sun Temple in Odisha is also designed in a way that every morning, the first rays of the Sun directly hit the main entrance and then gradually filter into the temple area. It finally falls on the inner sanctum as the day progresses.

In the Trichy, Shankarapalayam Arulmiku Kashivisuvanathar Temple's Sivalingam on 7th, 8th, and 9th of Avani (August-September) around 06-6.30 a.m, light falls on the idol which is about two feet tall.

Nagalapuram Vedanarayanna temple near Tirupati has the sunlight falling on the idol from 6 p.m to 6.15 p.m on March 25, 26, and 27. At Katharmar Sun Temple, considered to be the second sun temple in Almora, Uttarakhand, sunlight falls on the idol on October 22 and February 22.

In Gujarat, even under a scorching sun, hundreds of Jain devotees gather every year at the Koba Mahavir Jain Aradhna Kendra to witness the ‘Surya Tilak’ on the forehead of Lord Mahavir Swami’s murti. The sun rays appear on the forehead of Mahavir Swami, exactly at 2.07 p.m on every May 22. As the temple administrator says, “There is no magic, but such Surya Tilak has been made possible thanks to skillful construction with perfect use of mathematics, astronomy and traditional knowledge of sculpture.”

In more recent years, Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes were kept in 12 different urns and transported to various parts of India for immersion. One of the urns was brought to Kanniyakumari. The Gandhi Memorial was completed in 1956 on the spot where that urn was kept.

The most striking feature of Gandhi Mandapam is the ceiling of the building. It has an opening that has been built in such a way that on every October 2, which is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, rays of the Sun fall exactly on the spot where his ashes are kept.

An alternative was possible

The Ram Lalla temple could also well have been planned in 2020 in such a way that on Ram Navami each year, sunlight falls on the idol’s forehead.  

The earlier plan in Ayodhya was to adjust the Surya Tilak instrument electronically. But after resistance from scientists on grounds of unnecessary complexity and cost, it was decided to simply adjust the mirror placement manually every year. So, first the mirror on the third floor will be manually oriented to gather the sun’s rays and then relay it through lenses and mirrors inside tubes to the idol of Ram Lalla at the designated time and date.

A simple inexpensive and participatory Surya Tilak for Ram Lalla on Ram Navami would have been to have many people holding mirrors to reflect the Sun’s rays on that day onto the idol. However, for the Hindutva votaries, such use of human power, which was acceptable for destruction of the Babri Masjid, is not good enough for a political light and sound show, especially before the elections. For that they want the glamour of science and the misuse of scientific institutions to showcase their power.

The writer is a retired Professor, School of Biotechnology, Madurai Kamaraj University. He is in the All-India People’s Science Network. The views are personal.

PAKISTAN

Hot capital

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar 

DAWN

Published May 24, 2024


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PAKISTAN is burning up. And so is much of its neighbourhood. The Indo-Gangetic plain, spanning the breadth of the subcontinent, is currently the hottest place on the planet. Extremely high temperatures are not unusual in these parts for this time of year, but the swing from the exceptionally wet and cool weather of a few weeks ago is hard to ignore. One can only hope that the next extreme is not a monsoon like 2022.

Then again, hope should not be the only fall-back plan. It is not as if global warming is an unknown phenomenon, or that most people are unfamiliar with the lexicon of climate change. There are many, in fact, who whip out terms such as ‘mitigation’, ‘adaptation’ and ‘resilient development’ at will. And ‘experts’ are said to be working in tandem with donors, governments and businesses to usher us towards a ‘just transition’ away from fossil fuels.

Pakistan’s quota of experts has increased markedly since the 2022 floods. They gather increasingly regularly at conferences on climate change, both at home and abroad. Consultants are hired and reports written. But virtually nothing changes.

The global political economy continues to be structured around what Swedish scholar-activist Andreas Malm calls ‘fossil capital’. For 200 years, coal and then oil have functioned as the ultimate global commodities, and the struggle to control them still shapes world politics. The continuing centrality of fossil capital makes a mockery of the notion that the rich and powerful are interested in reducing carbon emissions sufficiently to prevent the planet from becoming uninhabitable for humans.

The ongoing evolution of fossil capital is absent from the debate.

The Indo-Gangetic plain is one of the regions which will experience widespread desertification if the current rate of heating continues. Yet Western governments and corporations who milked the benefits of colonial-era expropriation, continue to disproportionately emit carbon to the detriment of South Asia’s working masses. The Gulf states and rapidly growing East Asian economies like China, too, are producing and guzzling oil. They may not be as big contributors to the rule of fossil capital as Western imperialist powers but any meaningful analysis of our present and future must include the growing role of the powers of the ‘East’.

The history and ongoing evolution of fossil capital is absent from the mainstream debate on climate change, let alone the policy prescriptions about so-called resilient development. Yes, Pakistani ‘experts’ do bring up the question of climate financing and the historic responsibility of Western emitters, but there is much silence on domestic economic policy, and particularly the nexus of state and class power that presides over ecologically destructive ‘development’ with no end in sight.

Take the minor but illustrative murmurs about government plans to tax solar power. The private market for solar panels has exploded lately; even katchi abadi residents and small farmers unable to access the formal power grid have bought relatively cheap panels and batteries to meet some electricity needs. The rumoured tax on solar power consumers provoked an uproar and was subsequently played down by the authorities. But to the extent that there was any truth to the rumours, they reflected the rigged game which is state — and IMF-dictated — policy; on the one hand is the unaddressed and decades-old IPP scandal, and on the other, the fleecing of working class and white-collar salaried populations through indirect taxes to meet revenue obligations.

More generally, Pakistan’s political economy is centred around real estate, oil and coal-fired power, big infrastructure (especially roads and bridges), and logistics. Demand is consumption-dr­iven, differentiat­­ed across class bra­ckets (expensive im­ported goods and entertainment for the rich; cheap consumer durab­les for the mass). Trade dominates manufacturing, mostly in the black.

The establishment is top dog, all other state and private profiteers competing for its largesse. There is no respite for vulnerable ecosystems, no matter which combination of landlords, real estate moguls, traders and manufacturers sit in government with Big Brother hovering over them. The core areas continue to be ‘developed’ intensively, which makes them progressively hotter, while the peripheries are expropriated and turned into ‘tourist havens’, making them hotter too.

Pakistani capitalism is a never-ending disaster story with even the rich diaspora providing a stream of hot capital for real estate, absent the slightest concern for future generations of working people. But then, fossil capital has never been characterised by foresight or humanity. Profit and power rule while most of the world’s people and ecosystems burn. We will need more than lip service for the tide to turn.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2024

Bengal: Who’s Responsible For Raging Forest Fires in Bankura?

Madhu Sudan Chatterjee | 22 May 2024 | NEWSCLICK INDIA

Locals indicate a pattern in the fires across Jangal Mahal that are leading to trees disappearing, and large-scale destruction of various animal species.





Burning Susunia Hill Bankura


The fire was raging in the forest of Bankura in Jangal Mahal, with the flames spreading rapidly due to wind pressure. The eerie silence of the forest was often broken by the melodious yet pitiful sounds of various bird species, desperately trying to survive. Amidst the heat of the fire and coils of smoke, animals, such as hares, deer, porcupines, wild boars, and various species of snakes, could be seen fleeing. But, where would they find shelter?

After a long wait, the fire brigade’s alarm was finally heard. It took 10-15 hours for them to extinguish the fire. In the aftermath, amid the thick smoke, the scorched ground was littered with dead porcupines, birds, snakes, rabbits, wild boars, and foxes. The insects had turned into ashes.

This terrible scene of forest fires has spread across the Jangal Mahal area of Bankura district. The frequency of these fires is increasing every year, says locals. But, why is this so? The answer lies in the sequence of events in Jangal Mahal after the fire was extinguished. The administration, forest department, local panchayat, and elected representatives at the Assembly and Parliament levels, all aware of the situation, remained silent observers.
Forest Area of Bankura and its Greening History

The current forest area of Bankura and how the once-destroyed forest became greener have been in the news. It is well-documented that until the late 1970s, Bankura district was one of the most economically backward districts in West Bengal. Thousands of hectares of land lay uncultivated; there were no irrigation facilities. Agricultural production, including rice and potatoes, had reached its lowest point, and for a long time.

Bankura district had no industry. Due to this dire economic structure, the poor and marginalised people had no work and were unable to buy rice at high prices from the black market. JyansankarMitra, a senior citizen and former sabhadhipati (head) of Bankura Zilla Parishad, told this writer that approximately 70% of the population in the district faced food shortages. Poor and jobless people from villages and towns used to often stage protests at Block Development Offices, demanding a meagre 2 kilograms of wheat or rice. People were suffering from extreme malnutrition. Several residents who witnessed that period recalled a saying, "Kangali Bhojon" (poor person's lunch), indicating that during festivals at wealthy families' homes, poor people would rush to get a full meal.

With no alternative sources of income, these poor villagers became dependent on the forest. They collected forest resources and sold them, and even cut down tree branches and trees. Unscrupulous wood traders took advantage of their poverty, paying them small wages for this work. The Forest Department was unable to stop this, and the government paid no attention. As a result, the forests of Bankura were rapidly destroyed. By the end of 1977, the forest area of the district had shrunk to only 12%.

After the Left Front government came to power in Bengal in 1977, the Land Reform Act was implemented. As per the Act, land exceeding the ceiling was transferred to the state government's land department. Much of this land had been held by landlords under the names of family members and others, without being cultivated.

After legally reclaiming these lands, the Left Front government distributed them among the poor landless people as patta (permanent settlement of land). A three-tier panchayat system was created. The panchayat and various government departments introduced several schemes to help the poor landholders. Agricultural production increased within three years, and the poverty levels began to decrease.

Along with land reform, an initiative to rebuild the forest of the district was undertaken in the name of ‘social forestry’. Various species of trees, including teak, Akashmoni, eucalyptus, sandalwood, and banyan, were planted across Bankura's forest area. Seed nurseries were established in several places within the district. The panchayat, Forest Department, and Horticulture Department jointly carried out this work.

"At that time, it was a great challenge for us, but we were committed to rebuilding the greenery," said Subrata Goswami, a retired ranger of the Bankura Panchet Forest Division.

Recalling that period, Nayan Hansda, a 75-year-old resident of Sutan village in Ranibandh, recalls that the destroyed forest turned green within four to five years. The greenery spread in areas including Joypur, Patrasayer, Sonamukhi, Barjora, Taldangra, Bishnupur, and Sarenga. He said Forest Protection Committees (FPC) were created with approval from the Forest Department. Women and men from forest-adjacent areas were made members of these committees. The forest staff, including bit and range officers, held monthly meetings with them. The panchayat also maintained contact. Villagers could collect forest fruits, flowers, leaves, and fallen branches. Additionally, the committee members received 25% of the selling price after cutting mature trees to protect the forest.

"The Forest Department built community centres, wells, playgrounds and school buildings for the villages. Members were given umbrellas and winter clothes," Sunil Basuli, a retired range officer of Barjora Range told this writer.

"A family relationship developed between forest staff and FPC members. As a result of their 24-hour vigilance, there was no damage to the forest. It grew rapidly and turned dense. Peacocks, deer, rabbits, and various snake species could be seen. Herds of elephants from Dalma started coming to Bankura forest in 1984," he recalled.

According to satellite observation, the total forest area of Bankura district, comprising three divisions—Bankura (North), Bankura (South), and Panchet Division—is about 1,463.56 km², covering 21.27% of the total land area of the district, compared with Bengal's overall forest coverage of 18.96%.
Is Forest Greenery Gradually Decreasing?

Over the past five years, from mid-February to the end of May, miscreants have been setting fire in various parts of Bankura forest. The pattern of these fires suggests a deliberate and coordinated effort, as the fires are set in areas densely populated with valuable trees like Sal, teak, and Akashmoni. After the fires are extinguished, the burned trees mysteriously disappear within a week. Where are these valuable trees going? Despite knowing about these fires, the concerned range offices are not filing First Information Reports (FIRs) with any police station. Why?

A few days ago, the Baromile Jungle of Ranibandh forest, which covers the largest forest area in Bankura district, was burning. This area, located on the way from Ranibandh to Jhilimili, has experienced similar fires at the same time for the past five years. The flames spread from the roadside deep into the Baromile forest. Despite the fire brigade's efforts, the fire continued for 24 hours.

Fifteen days ago, a similar fire occurred in Barjora forest, where four fire brigade engines from Bankura and Durgapur tried to douse the flames. The trees in the forest were left standing, blackened and scorched. Similar incidents have been reported in Joypur, Patrasayer, Bishnupur, Basudebpur, Kanchanpur, Sonamukhi, Beliatore, Gangajalghati, Mankanali, Taldangra, and Sarenga forests—major forest areas in the district.

Additionally, many small and medium-sized natural and planted forests have been set on fire. Not a single forest area has been free of such fires. Even Susunia Hill, a prominent mountain climbing centre in Bengal, and the ancient Bamnisini hills of Ranibandh have not been spared. These hills, which are 400 meters in height, have seen fires continuously for years due to their valuable trees. Locals allege that most of the trees were burned and looted.

“For five months, several forests have been on fire almost every day. There are only six fire stations in Bankura district, with a limited number of workers and no new recruitments. Sometimes, we are late in reaching the locations,” Khalid Ansary, an officer at the Bankura fire station, told this writer He added that if news of fires comes from 10 places simultaneously, it is impossible to reach all of them.

When asked why the forest was constantly seeing fire during these four months, Divisional Forest Officers (DFO) Umar Imam of Bankura North and Pradip Bauri of Bankura South said the exact reasons were unclear. However, many unknown travellers or locals smoke in the forest and carelessly discard burning cigarettes and bidis, igniting the dry forest. They also mentioned that some people start fires for amusement. The forest department is promoting awareness to prevent such actions and is keeping a vigil on this matter.

Former Range Officer Sunil Basuli said, “During the Left Front period, even a small fire in the forest would result in an FIR being filed with the local police station by the concerned bit or range office, and a copy of the FIR would be sent to the forest department headquarters. I do not know if this happens now.”

He said earlier, FPC members used to protect the forest. They held annual general meetings to elect office bearers, but such meetings have not occurred for several years. FPC members have lost contact with the forest department.

Jadunath Saren, an FPC member of Dalangora under Taldangra block, said that while the committee was officially active, it was practically non-existent. Several FPC members across the district allege that ruling Trinamool Congress activists have taken over, leading to local disappointment and reluctance to risk their lives to save the forest.

“There have been no new appointments for 12 years. How can two forest staff monitor such a vast area?” said a forest staff member from Ranibandh who wished to remain anonymous. As a result, trees are being looted indiscriminately after fires and in normal conditions. Many medicinal plants are dying due to deforestation, and numerous porcupines have perished on Susunia Hill. Many animals, including deer, snakes, wild boars, and rabbits, are dying. A few days ago, three deer died in the Baromile forest fire in Ranibandh, he said.

Towards the end of the monsoon, the forest produces several species of mushrooms around the bases of trees, which are in high demand due to their taste and market value. Local women collect these mushrooms to sell in the market. Many women from forested areas of the district have reported that mushroom production is decreasing due to the burning soil, negatively impacting their livelihoods.

Professor Asis Bhattacharya, former Head of the Department of Zoology at Bankura Sammilani College, told this writer that forest fires harm biodiversity and the ecological system. Many birds that eat the fruits of medicinal plants help those plants regenerate by spreading their seeds through defecation. These birds are dying in the fires, preventing the growth of new plants. Furthermore, increased carbon in the air from the fires can cause respiratory and skin diseases among local residents.

The deep forest created by the people of Bankura has made the district known as ‘Jangal Mahal’ (Forest Palace) in Bengal. However, if the forests continue to be destroyed at this rate, will Bankura still be known as Jangal Mahal?

The writer covers the Jangal Mahal region for Bengali daily ‘Ganashakti’ in West Bengal.

Image credit: Madhu Sudan Chatterjee

 

Experts Call for Early Warning as Hindu Kush Himalaya Region May Face Extreme Weather Events

Mohd. Imran Khan | 16 May 2024 | NEWSCLICK INDIA

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A new climate outlook report says Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan may witness above average temperatures and higher rainfall than normal this year.

Patna/Kathmandu: Though the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast the onset of monsoon on time this year, after a scorching summer, experts have warned that the countries, such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region should brace for what might be a difficult monsoon season ahead. They have warned that these countries are likely to witness above average temperatures and higher rainfall than normal this year.

Scientists at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) have said that the weather outlook for June to September comes after a heatwave broke temperature records across the region last month, forcing schools to close, impacting crops and sparking forest fires.

While pre-monsoon showers have provided relief to parts of South Asia this month, the climate outlook published recently suggests that any respite may be temporary.

The consensus from technical experts at the 28 sessions of the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF-28) held on April 29, 2024 in Pune, India is that the El Niño (it refers to a warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures) conditions prevailing over the equatorial Pacific region are likely to weaken, giving way to neutral El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions during early part of the monsoon season. (ENSO has a significant impact on monsoon variability.)

During the second half of the southwest monsoon season, La Niña (periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures) conditions are likely to develop: conditions commonly associated with above normal rain.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan are all expected to receive higher rainfall. And this rainfall will happen in a context of an overall warming trend: of high-than-normal both minimum and maximum temperatures, the scientists have predicted.

“In spite of the fact that last year was a year of below average rainfall in many parts of the HKH countries, we saw catastrophic floods hit region after region, community after community, in the mountains of the Hindu Kush Himalaya,” said Mandira Shrestha, programme coordinator, Climate Services, at ICIMOD, said at the forum.

The climate outlook said that “In that context, this year’s monsoon outlook is worrying. It is also set against an overall warming trend, which we know is linked to greater melting of snow and glacier and the loss of the permafrost – the hidden glue that stabilises many mountain slopes, and whose thawing is often a key factor in the sorts of devastating flash floods and landslides we are now seeing across our region. This forecast is an alert for funders, multilateral agencies and disaster management officials in governments: multi-hazard early warning systems in this hugely populated region of rising risk must urgently be rolled out.”

One Extreme to Another: Record-Breaking Temperatures

While some regions will grapple with deadly downpours, others will face searing heat between June to September 2024.

As per the SASCOF-28 Climate Outlook, maximum temperatures between June to September 2024 suggest that the seasonal maximum temperatures are most likely to be above normal over most parts of the region. Some isolated areas are likely to see normal to below normal maximum temperatures. The current heat wave is also likely to continue through the monsoon with minimum temperatures also likely to be higher than the normal.

The regional climate outlook for the 2024 southwest monsoon season over South Asia was collaboratively developed by all nine National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of South Asia with support from international experts.

Intense Construction Activities Are Weakening Himalayan Region’

Rashme Sehgal | 20 May 2024  | NEWSCLICK INDIA

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Interview with noted seismologist Dr CP Rajendran on his new book ‘The Rumbling Earth- The Story of Indian Earthquakes’.

Noted seismologists Dr CP Rajendran and Dr Kusala Rajendran have embraced earthquake studies as their area of research. Their interest was triggered while doing their post-doctoral research at the University of South California where a mysterious earthquake in 1886 had destroyed the historic town of Charleston. Returning to India, they have focused on the enigmatic mysteries associated with earthquakes in a country where one quake occurs every 1-3 days.

Their research during the past three decades has seen them publish `The Rumbling Earth- the Story of Indian Earthquakes’ (published by Penguin) which explores the history of earthquakes as also raises the question of how prepared we are to face another big earthquake in the country given that during the last decade, 274 seismic events with a magnitude of 4 occurred within 300 km of our borders. Dr CP Rajendran talks exclusively to Newsclick. Edited excerpts:

Rashme Sehgal: This (the book) is probably the first scientific documentation of earthquakes in the country which highlights how India has witnessed some of the most violent earthquakes in the world. Why is that?

CP Rajendran: Perhaps, it is the first of its kind reviewing most of the earthquakes that have occurred in India in recent and historical times. There are individual reports and scientific papers on many of these earthquakes. Ours happens to be the first book that collated the information. Perhaps our joint work for the past three decades provided a favourable platform -–for a first-time attempt to compile the science and the impact of a natural force for public understanding.

RS: The largest documented earthquake in history occurred in Northeast India on August 15, 1950. It was called the Assam earthquake. What kind of fallout did this have?

CPR: The Assam earthquake demonstrated that large earthquakes can significantly change the landscape, especially with a large river system. Of course, it was the largest earthquake in Independent India that pushed the idea of studying earthquakes as a part of scientific discipline.

RS: The first historically known large earthquake occurred in the Rann of Kutch on June 16, 1819. You have studied it at some length. What were some of your and Kusala’s findings?

CPR: Ours was the first study that excavated the area to find relics of past earthquakes. The most important finding was that the 1819 earthquake had predecessors of similar sizes and physical impacts, with a recurrence interval of about 1,000 years. These earthquakes raised a low-lying ocean creek and converted it into land. The other contribution was that we could physically map the Allah Bund – generated by the 1819 earthquake -- which was never surveyed before using modern equipment. This is the first modern study of the 1819 earthquake.

RS: Bhuj (Gujarat) was also witness to a deadly earthquake. Was this linked to the earlier Rann of Kutch earthquake?

CPR: In some ways, the 2001 Bhuj earthquake was a surprise as the region where it occurred has not experienced any earthquakes in the historic past. With one earthquake in 1819, which is quite far from Bhuj, no one expected an earthquake in less than 200 years, near Bhuj The most important fallout of our study was the recognition that there are multiple earthquake sources in the Kutch region (which hosted the 1819 earthquake and the 1956 Anjar earthquake) which may have different repeat intervals, of the order of a few thousands of years. The 1819 source seems to have a recurrence period different from the 2001 source near Bhuj.

RS: Did the Koyna dam (in Maharashtra) trigger the massive Killari earthquake in 1993. We are building huge hydro projects along the Himalayas without keeping in mind the ecological consequences in terms of earthquakes, landslides and the formation of glacial lakes. Can you elaborate on the consequences of large-scale construction?

CPR: The Koyna Dam did not trigger the 1993 Killari earthquake. The dam did trigger a similar earthquake in 1967 and it continues to trigger smaller earthquakes near the Koyna Reservoir. Usually, the reservoir-triggered earthquakes occur in response to the filling/recycling cycles and they are confined to a few kilometres, adjoining the dam (maybe about 30 km in the case of Koyna, mostly to the south, extending to the Warna Reservoir). The source of the Killari earthquake is more than 350 km away from the Koyna reservoir and that would not affect this region.

Building large dams in the Himalayan region has several consequences. It is anyway seismically very active and earthquakes are bound to happen. The real threat would come from landslides that can breach the dam, and cause flooding.

The intense construction-related activities are already weakening the Himalayan region. The vulnerability of the region is already high, and construction activities are increasing the risk. So, it is not just the dams, it is the environmental, ecological and structural stress (weakening the slopes etc.) that are creating multiple risks.

The complex relationship between the glacial lake outburst, floods and destruction of dams was evident in the disaster that occurred in Sikkim last year. A major earthquake in the upper reaches of the Himalayas can also result in glacial lake outbursts. Combined with unregulated constructions, hydroelectric projects and related anthropogenic activities, these events lead to massive disasters.

RS: At present, the Geological Survey of India has documented that we have 66 active fault lines, all of which can produce earthquakes. How serious can this problem be given rapid urbanisation and increasing population?

CPR: Most of the active faults are located in areas that have produced earthquakes either historically or in recent times -- like the Himalayas, Northeast India, Gujarat and the Andaman and Nicobar. Earthquakes are bound to happen in these regions, the only question is when.

Accelerated urbanisation, expanding built environment and population density are likely to amplify the effect of the earthquakes by causing more damage and death. Many engineered structures may not pass the stability test during an earthquake and are not designed to minimise the shaking effects. There must be a concerted effort from the disaster management authorities to create awareness among the people and facilitate better construction practices.

RS: While most of these fault lines occur along the Himalayas and in the Andaman- Nicobar region, why then did we witness a deadly earthquake on September 30, 1993 in Killari 42 km south of Latur (Maharashtra) which destroyed 67 villages and took over 10,000 lives, given that this is not regarded as a quake-prone zone?

CPR: It is well-known that most earthquakes around the world are confined to the plate boundaries where tectonic strain is felt most, like the Himalayas (the weak regions where the 100-km-thick plates that form the top part of the earth collide with each other). While the plate boundaries are subject to intense and more frequent earthquakes, regions away from the plate boundaries also produce earthquakes. These are usually moderate (magnitude less than 7.0 and far separated in time. Thus, a region like Latur, with no history of earthquakes, caused one in 1993.

Similar earthquakes have occurred in Australia, Canada and other places that are several thousand kilometres away from any active plate boundary. Because they are so infrequent, and their predecessors must have occurred much before recorded human history, they are unexpected and communities living in those areas are thoroughly unprepared to face such eventualities.

RS: Your book mentions how 90% of the world’s earthquakes occur along the rings of fire that are spread along the Pacific Ocean belt. But these earthquakes do not seem to have caused the kind of damage to lives and property caused by the earthquakes in India. Your comments.

CPR: The statement that 90% earthquakes occur along the plate boundaries (especially the Ring of Fire) includes all earthquakes, even those originating in the ocean. The real issue is that earthquakes kill more people in densely populated and economically backward countries, where preparedness is low.

The 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake reportedly killed more than 50,000 people and levelled the cities. However, casualties and the level of destruction for a similar magnitude earthquake (magnitude 7.4) in Taiwan in April 2024 were limited. The low death toll is attributed to the country’s preparedness. Taiwan’s performance in reducing earthquake-related loss is a lesson for countries like India -- one of the most populous countries, but least prepared for natural hazards, including earthquakes, going by the previous performances.

RS: Earthquakes often result in dramatic changes to the earth’s structure. Please elaborate.

CPR: The changes are observed on the surface of the earth (not exactly the earth’s structure, which is a term used to describe the internal structure). One of the classic examples that demonstrate the changes caused to the earth’s surface is the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that occurred on the San Andreas Fault. It caused a lateral shift of about 6 meters visible on the railway tracks, fences and pavement.

RS: How far can seismology be considered a science when it cannot predict the occurrence of an earthquake?

CPR: Seismology is not just about predicting earthquakes. It is about imaging the interior structure of the earthquake, quantifying the size of earthquakes; predicting their effects and relating them to the causative faults, and much more. It is the study of the spatial distribution of global earthquakes that led to the theory of plate tectonics – a fundamental theory that provides the basis for all earth processes.

Unlike cyclonic storms, tornadoes and similar weather processes that can be monitored using measurable parameters, earthquakes originate several tens of kilometres below the surface, beyond the realm of observation and as the result of many emergent feedback processes that are not easily quantifiable or observable. Yet, there is hope that modern computational techniques will be able to take us closer to that goal.

RS: The earth’s mantle has two layers that are in constant motion and this provides the basic mechanism for the movement of the tectonic plates. How much is this movement affecting the Himalayas as a whole?

CPR: The Himalayas are the outcome of the collision of the India-Eurasia tectonic plates – an event that happened about 40 million years ago. The process is still ongoing. The grinding movement of these plates continues at about 20 mm per year along the Himalayas. This plate movement is what causes the build-up of tectonic stress along the Himalayas. When the strain increases on the fault to the point of failure to overcome the rock strength, it leads to the fault break and the earthquake. The strain release that causes the earthquakes occurs somewhat periodically and that also contributes to the rising of the mountain. Thus, the mountain owes its origin to the earthquake activities along the numerous faults.

Rashme Sehgal is an independent journalist.

CLIMATE CHANGE: THE CLIMATE MIGRANTS

Umar Bacha 

DAWN

Published May 19, 2024

Aerial view of a village in the Dubair Valley after the floods in April this year | Photos by the writer

For 22-year-old Barkat Ali, the floods of 2022 might have washed away his home, but not his dreams of a better future.

The eldest of five siblings, Barkat was among the at least seven million Pakistanis who were displaced in the ‘biblical’ floods of two years ago. An October 2023 report of the International Office of Migration (IOM) said that over a million of those displaced were yet to be resettled.

Barkat’s family, which hails from Lower Kohistan in the country’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, is among those unfortunate ones. They had to leave their homes in Baneel — a small village surrounded mostly by pine trees in the Dubair Valley — with “only the clothes on their back,” he tells Eos.

Before moving to the town of Oghi in nearby Mansehra, Barkat and his family spent over a year in a relative’s field nearby, sleeping under the open sky.

During this time, continues Barkat, the family was hopeful of returning to their land and rebuilding their house. “While we had lost our home and cattle, we still had land,” he says, adding that they grew enough wheat and maize as well as fruits and vegetables to not have to worry about food.

While the 2022 floods caused mayhem nationwide, such climate-induced calamities are happening more frequently in Pakistan’s mountainous north. In a once prosperous and scenic valley in Kohistan, forced migrations are turning into an exodus

But the slow pace of reconstruction — the public health facilities in Dubair that were damaged during the flood have not yet been reconstructed, while the hydroelectric power station on the Dubair River in Ranolia also remains offline — compelled them to seek refuge elsewhere.

“Everything is gone,” he continues wistfully, as he takes a break from his work as a daily-wage labourer in Oghi, Mansehra. “It was not easy to leave our home,” says Barkat. “Everyone cried a lot. My father was constantly turning back to have another look at his village, not knowing whether he would ever be able to return.”

Barkat’s 65-year-old father, like his son, works as a daily-wage labourer to help the family in their struggle for survival and to help his son continue his dream of getting an education.

Barkat is enrolled in a distance learning programme at an Islamabad university, studying digital media marketing and broadcasting, using only his smartphone.

With paths and pavements washed away in the floods, villagers use rope to cross Ranolia and reach their homes in Dubair


COMPOUNDING PROBLEMS

Maulana Fazal Wahab, the chairman of Ranolia tehsil, says more than 60 percent of the roughly 100,000 people of the area have migrated to other areas since 2010.

The migrations took place in the wake of floods in 2010, 2016, 2019, 2022 and, most recently, in April this year, following heavy rainfall and flooding that, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) KP, claimed 63 lives in the province.

It is not just torrential rains that disrupt and imperil life in these areas. Landslides are known to cause fatal accidents and, in the wake of rising global temperatures, the threat of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) has also emerged in KP and Gilgit Baltistan (GB).

The ministry of climate change says glaciers in the country’s northern mountain ranges (the Hindu Kush, Himalayas and Karakorum) are melting rapidly. A total of 3,044 glacial lakes have developed in GB and KP. While glacial lakes may have been forming over geological timescales, their rapid proliferation and expansion in Pakistan are more closely associated with the past century or so, particularly as global temperatures have risen.

“Of these, 33 glacial lakes have been assessed to be prone to hazardous GLOF,” the ministry writes on its website. It claims more than seven million people, in the two regions, are vulnerable to the dangers posed by GLOF.

This compounds the concerns of the locals, including in various areas of Lower Kohistan — such as Ranolia, Dubair Bala and Dubair Khas — where flash floods have become more frequent. The flooding also damages bridges and river crossings, disconnecting the valley from the Karakoram Highway and greatly limiting access and the mobility of the local population.

Wahab, the tehsil chairman, says a 37-kilometre stretch of the Ranolia-Dubair main road and the roads in the Ranolia valley have been completely washed away by the floods several times. “People have no choice but to leave the area, because life comes to a complete standstill [in the wake of such disasters],” he tells Eos.

Barkat says that, during such situations, the locals are often left with no choice but to reconstruct and repair the roads and bridges on a self-help basis.

“However, it is unfair to expect from people — who have lost everything including their home, land and livelihood — to contribute to road repair under such circumstances,” he says.

Villagers carry food items, other essentials on their shoulders while walking to their village in the Dubair Valley

UPENDED LIVES

Muhammad Riaz, a teacher, lived a happy life with his wife and eight children. He had a 12-room house on a terraced mountain along the Dubair River. During the floods in April, the torrential rains triggered landslides and his house caved in in a matter of minutes.

“My world has completely collapsed,” he tells Eos. “It wasn’t just a house for me. It was the centre of my dreams.” He says his family has no option but to leave.

But with exits from the village, including pedestrian paths, yet to be repaired, he has chosen to stay in the area for the time being and not risk “the treacherous terrain” with his young family.

Riaz says that, in order to buy essentials, he has to walk for seven hours to the market in Ranolia — with the journey including parts that require a steep upward climb.

He says the situation is desperate, with food and water shortage rampant. He is also worried about his children and the uncertain future facing them. “They want to go to school, but there is no means of getting there,” he says. “Every day I tell them that everything is going to be okay. But deep down, I know that we are all on a long and hard road, and that this road has no end in sight.”

Healthcare is the other major casualty, particularly during calamities in far-flung and smaller areas. The public health centres, including the rural health centre and basic health units, were damaged last month and are out of commission.

Patients from across the valley have to be carried — mostly on makeshift wooden stretchers locally known as dangai — to the sole privately operated hospital in the main town of Dubair. At a large number of points, the path is narrow and zigzags a lot. Sometimes, it can take hours to get the patient, in need of timely medical care, to the hospital.

Yar Gul, from a nearby village, had brought a patient to the hospital. He says it took him and nearly 20 other relatives around 12 hours to get to the hospital.

A teenage boy, who was hit in the head by a stone, wasn’t so lucky, says Gul. “He died during the trip and the family had to return midway.”

NOT UNUSUAL APATHY

The assistant commissioner (AC) of Ranolia, Iqbal Hussain Khattak, says the biggest challenge for people, particularly in villages in the Dubair Valley, is the loss of their crops and the inundation of their agricultural lands.

While crediting his employers, the state, for doing “its part” for the rehabilitation work in Dubair, the bureaucrat acknowledges that more resources and funds are needed, as well as alternative settlements and funds for a road that is constructed at a distance from the river.

The AC says the administration had shifted vulnerable families to government buildings in 2022 and claimed that some of those families were still living there.

“But the majority have migrated to bigger cities and towns in search of a better life, and to create a distance between them and the areas susceptible to climate-induced disasters.”g

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Shangla, KP.
X: @umar_shangla

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 19th, 2024

EU staff sign letter expressing concerns over its handling of Gaza crisis

Exclusive: More than 200 signatories cite union’s ‘continued apathy’ to plight of Palestinians and seek official call for ceasefire


Ashifa Kassam 

European Community affairs correspondent

THE GUARDIAN

Fri 24 May 2024 

More than 200 staff members of EU institutions and agencies have signed a letter expressing “growing concern” over the union’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, arguing that it runs contrary to its core values and aim of promoting peace.

The letter, signed by 211 people in their personal capacity as citizens and addressed to the EU’s top three officials, begins by condemning the 7 October attacks “in the strongest terms”.

Citing the January ruling by the international court of justice that suggested a credible risk to Palestinians under the genocide convention, the letter warns that the EU’s “continued apathy to the plight of Palestinians” risks normalising a world order where the sheer use of force, rather than a rule-based system, determines state security, territorial integrity and political independence.

“It was precisely to avert such a grim world order that our grandparents, witnesses of the horrors of World War II, created Europe,” the letter reads. “To stand idly by in the face of such an erosion of the international rule of law would mean failing the European project as envisaged by them. This cannot happen in our name.”

The letter, shared exclusively with the Guardian, was written by a small group of staffers, said Zeno Benetti, one of the organisers.

“We couldn’t believe that our leaders who were so vocal about human rights and who described Europe as the beacon of human rights were suddenly so silent about the crisis unfolding in Gaza,” he said. “It’s like suddenly we were asked to turn a blind eye on our values and on the values that we were allegedly working for. And for us, this was not acceptable.”

Organisers had hoped to reach 100 signatures – a figure that was swiftly surpassed as word of the letter spread. A version of the letter made public on Friday does not include the names of those who signed as they were promised confidentiality by the organisers.

The letter highlights the many NGOs that have repeatedly called for a ceasefire, adding: “The EU’s inability to respond to these increasingly desperate calls is in clear contradiction with the values that the EU stands for and that we stand for.”

It urges the EU to officially call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, adding this to a list of requests that include officially calling for the release of all hostages and to ensure that member states halt direct and indirect arms exports to Israel.

Benetti emphasised that the initiative was not meant to be pro-Palestinian, nor was it aimed at taking a partisan stance on the conflict. “Rather, we signed because we think that what’s happening is jeopardising principles of international law that we deem important and that we take for granted,” he said.

The letter is expected to be delivered on Friday to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, as well as Roberta Metsola, the president of the European parliament, and Charles Michel, who heads the European Council.

It comes weeks after more than 100 EU staffers marched through Brussels to protest against Israel’s war in Gaza. “We’re coming together in a peaceful assembly, to stand up for those rights, principles and values that the European institutions are built on,” the European Commission staff member Manus Carlisle told Reuters at the time.

WHY THE STUDENT PROTESTS MATTER

Do these protests across US and Europe signal a change in Western grassroots sentiment about Palestine and can they make a difference?

Kamran Asdar Ali | Shafaq Sohail 

DAWN

Published May 19, 2024

“Free, Free, Palestine”, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free”, and other slogans against the continuing Israeli war in Gaza have echoed through more than 150 campuses in the United States for the last three weeks. It may be one of the largest protests since the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s, which were led mostly by students at US universities.

This protest movement, which has incorporated students, faculty, staff and other supporters, has been germinating since Israel invaded the Gaza strip in October of last year. The nationwide simmering anger in cities and universities against the genocidal violence has, over the months, led to many teach-ins, rallies and civic actions by groups such as Peace and Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

At universities across the US, the administrations have reacted with hyper surveillance of student groups and faculty members. Pro-Palestinian student groups were suspended in places such as Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and other colleges. In the first few weeks of the war, all criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza was deemed ‘anti-Semitic’ and, in some cases, disciplinary actions were brought against faculty in various universities, including the University of Virginia, Muhlenberg College, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Arizona.

PROTEST ORIGINS AND REPERCUSSIONS

The current series of protests that spread like wildfire across the country started when students set up an encampment at Columbia University’s south lawn the same day — April 17 — the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, testified to the US Congress.

Shafik was attacked by Republican legislators, who accused her of tolerating ‘anti-Semitism’ on Columbia’s campus by not doing enough to counter those opposing Israel’s war on Gaza. Her testimony came four months after a similar combative congressional hearing that led to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Perhaps learning her lesson from her colleagues, who had tried to defend freedom of speech on their campuses, Shafiq denounced anti-Semitism, saying it “has no place on our campus.”

The last few weeks have seen tumult across a large number of universities in the United States and also Europe, as students protest Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza and demand their educational institutions divest from companies funding Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians. Do these protests signal a change in Western grassroots sentiment about Palestine and can they make a difference?

The encampments started to be put up on the lawns of Columbia University that very day. These encampments are temporary communities, consisting of tents and shelters and occupy a particular area as a form of political resistance. They are like the tents (called shanties) put up during the movement for divestment from South Africa in the 1980s (see companion piece by Hasan Zaidi).

In solidarity with the tents at Columbia, and despite being constantly threatened by university administrations with disciplinary action, the protests have now spread throughout the country. Protestors have erected and maintained camps to disrupt ‘business as usual,’ accusing their administrations of complicity in financing the continuing genocide in Gaza by Israel. In setting up “liberation libraries” and medical clinics, supplying free food, and encouraging exchange of cross-cultural resistance histories and art, they also envision and enact solidarities crucial in the pursuit of a more egalitarian future.

At Columbia, armed police were used to rout protesting students out of an occupied campus building on May 1 (Hamilton Hall, that was also occupied in 1968 and has, ironically, become part of the university’s lore that celebrates its history in the civil rights movement), and to dismantle the camps. There were more than 100 arrests on that day.

Similar tactics were used at numerous universities across the US. For example, on the night of April 30, a pro-Israeli mob of more than 100 attacked the pro-Palestine encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with rods, fireworks and pepper sprays. Faculty and students in the camp reported that the police arrived after much delay and then did not intervene to stop the mob of attackers for a couple of hours, nor did they provide protection to those barricaded in the tents. Many were seriously injured.

These various confrontations with the police at universities have led to more than 2,500 arrests (mostly on misdemeanour charges) across the country, and the repercussions against the students may continue over the long term — suspension, denial of diplomas and degrees, and more serious charges.

These actions have been largely condemned as the curtailment of free speech (an American constitutionally guaranteed right against any government action that may restrict speech) and the principle of academic freedom, which has been strongly defended during the past few months by the American Association of University Professors.

SHIFTING THE MEDIA FOCUS?

This said, there is also a palpable risk. The legitimate concerns over violence universities and states are unleashing upon their students and citizens may divert focus from the demands of the student protestors themselves

In this charged atmosphere, the US media has pushed discussions on whether calling for an end to Israel’s aggression can be construed as anti-Semitic, while also discussing the legalities of First Amendment rights and free speech concerns. These debates, although well meaning, ironically continue to centre the US as the site of political debate and change and, at times, deflect attention from the major catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.

These media representations, at times, may reduce the politics of protest and encampments to an opportunity to reveal the hypocrisy, degeneration, or criticism of America’s domestic politics. In the process, it undermines the protest organiser’s historical and transnational political orientation. It may shift focus away from their most central demands of ceasefire, decolonisation and divestment. Instead, it entraps the discussion, both by those who are for and against the movement, as a form of US exceptionalism.

For example, in recent weeks, when international media reported on mass graves being discovered in Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals in Gaza, mainstream American media outlets were saturated by protest coverage. As the beheaded, zip-tied, and decaying bodies of Palestinians were being uncovered in regions repeatedly bombarded using US supplied weapons, the more important question for US primetime television remained whether democratic freedoms and rights that the US prides itself on were under threat, due to either protestors ‘disrupting’ the educational process or by the police responding to them.

Interestingly, it is a privilege America has historically enjoyed; to maintain its illusory freedom from the violence and oppression that it itself in many cases orchestrates in countries across the world. This perceived separation, and its underlying rhetoric of exceptionalism, clearly shifts our focus from US complicity in devastating wars to arguments primarily on US political freedoms ‘at risk.’

However, while the media, politicians and university administrations seek to recreate this narrative of exceptionalism, student protestors have persisted in their efforts to re-centre Palestine as the source of their motivation and subject of their demands.

All distracting questions reporters have posed to protestors in these past weeks are responded to with utmost clarity of political stance and purpose. The students pivot the conversation back to demands of halting the genocide in Gaza.

Pro-Palestine activists protest outside Columbia University in New York City: the series of protests across the country started when students set up an encampment at Columbia University’s south lawn on April 17 | AFP

CALLS FOR DIVESTMENT

Within this context, one major demand by student protestors in all locations is to make transparent all university financial holdings and to divest from those companies that assist Israel in its war effort. This has been succinctly conveyed in the slogan “Disclose, divest: We will not stop! We will not rest!”

The demand is linked to the long-term Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which has been systematically attacked by US politicians, while anti-BDS Laws have been passed by many state legislatures.

For example, in demanding “divestment from death” by ending contracts with companies supplying the Israel Defence Force’s (IDF) war in Gaza, the student group Palestinian Solidarity Committee at the University of Texas, Austin (a place we know better) has called upon the UT system to sell off its stock in US weapons manufacturers such as the Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon, Northrop Corporation, Boeing, General Dynamics and others that sell arms to the IDF. Further, the State of Texas has its own investments, which include nearly $100 million in Israeli bonds.

While the student protestors at US universities see the issue of divestment as a practical way to pressure Israel from continuing the war, they are also attacked for being ‘anti-Semitic’ because these protestors, according to pro-Israel forces in US politics, do not seek divestment from other countries of the world that are also guilty of human rights abuses. Further, the issue of divestment itself has become complicated due to the very nature of investments in today’s economy.

In the 1980s, at the height of the South Africa campaign, Columbia University, one of the first to respond to student pressure, sold stocks it held in companies such as Coca Cola, Mobil Oil or Ford Motors, for doing business with the apartheid regime. Today, universities in general do not openly disclose their investments and invest through complicated financial mechanisms. Brown University, for example, holds more than 90 percent of their funds through outside asset managers who, in turn, invest in general index funds, private equities and hedge funds.

These new forms of holdings make the challenge for the protestors even greater. Yet they have still succeeded in convincing some universities, such as Brown, to bring the issue to their board to vote on the divestment issue. Similarly, some universities, such as Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard and the University of Minnesota, have negotiated an arrangement that clears the camps (without violence) while obliging the university to consider the request for divestment from Israel. In small but sure ways, the movement is gaining traction.

This move toward divestment to pressurise Israel to commit to a ceasefire is also reflected in a shift in contemporary US popular politics. The strength of the current movement, echoing protests in the US in earlier decades (civil rights, anti-Vietnam War, South African divestment), is also based on coalition building by students who support the Palestinian cause.

Since the 1990s, the broadly connected group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has consciously worked with other activists in the environmental movement, with groups against US intervention in Latin America, with those supporting indigenous rights, with critics of the Gulf War, and with civil rights groups defending African American and minority rights. More specifically, in the past few years, SJP developed a strong working coalition with the Black Lives Matter movement.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

This solidarity work, which is manifested in more than 200 SJP chapters across the US, now has the support of many such groups during the recent protest. It is a form of intersectionality that is described by participants as the coming together of a range of political causes, may it be to protect the climate, anti-racism, to critique capitalism or against settler colonialism (indigenous communities).

Hence, during demonstrations, rallies or encampments, people of different ethnicities, racial heritage, cultures and identity groups have come together to protest the war in Gaza — they are certainly not monochromatic. This is a major success of the movement, as it speaks to young people across race, religion, gender identity and class background, those who want to raise their voices for social justice and provide a critique of global power structures that discriminate against the Palestinian people.

Student action continues through the commencement/graduation ceremonies period, typically organised around this time of the year. Universities such as Columbia and USC have cancelled university-wide ceremonies fearing student protests. Other places have increased security and threatened dire actions against those disrupting events.

ECHOES OF ANOTHER STUDENT MOVEMENT

Hasan Zaidi 

DAWN/EOS

Published May 19, 2024

Anti-apartheid student protestors display a banner atop Dartmouth's Baker Tower 

| Dartmouth Library

When the protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza broke out across US campuses, a friend suggested that they were perhaps similar to the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s. I disagreed, simply because, at the end of the day, US forces are not directly involved in the fighting in Palestine and American kids are not being conscripted to go fight in the war and are not coming back in bodybags, so the emotional investment is entirely different.

But the discussion did take me back to the anti-South African apartheid and pro-divestment protests on American campuses in the 1980s, of which I was also once a part. I suggested that the current protests bore more similarity to that movement which, it should be recalled, did indeed achieve its aims eventually. It would be instructive to look at exactly what happened more than 30 years ago.

I arrived at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in the fall of 1987 to study for my undergraduate degree. A year and a half earlier, an incident had taken place at the college that had been seared into the collective memory of campus activists.

As the global opposition to the apartheid regime in South Africa had gathered pace, student activists at Dartmouth had constructed ‘shanties’ on the main college lawns (like today’s ‘encampments’), to draw attention to the living conditions of black South Africans under the brutal white regime and to call for the college to divest from all companies doing business in South Africa.

Obviously, these ramshackle shanties with activists camped out in them were an eyesore for those used to looking at the pristine beauty of the campus. But while the college administration threatened to remove them, it dithered on taking action because using force against peaceful protestors would have also created a PR disaster.

Two months after the shanties were established, a group of right-wing students attacked them in the middle of the night — on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, no less — with sledgehammers.

The resulting outcry against the vandalism and violence led to the faculty of the college shutting down classes for a day to conduct teach-ins about prejudice and racism, the administrative block being briefly occupied by protestors and to the vandals being expelled or suspended from college.

By the time I joined the college, the story of the shanties had become part of the lore of student activists but the movement for full divestment from South Africa continued to remain strong. The original Dartmouth Community for Divestment had strengthened alliances with other groups on and off campus — including one titled the Committee on Palestinian Rights — to form the Upper Valley Committee for a Free South Africa. And acts of protest continued off and on.

It all came to a head in November 1989, when the administrative Parkhurst Hall was once again occupied by pro-divestment protestors and a group of us barged in on a trustee meeting. The college trustees, who managed the college endowment and investments, were forced to meet with the protestors and give a hearing to our demands.

After a small group of activists also disrupted another trustee cocktail gathering, the college finally had had enough. A day later, the college president announced a full divestment from all companies doing business with apartheid South Africa.

What’s interesting to note is that, by this time, only two percent of Dartmouth’s investments remained in companies that continued to operate in South Africa. Yet the college found it simpler to divest totally than to deal with the bad press the protests continued to bring to it. Similar protests were happening on many other campuses around the US as well.

A few months later, Nelson Mandela had been freed from jail in South Africa after 27 years in captivity. A year after that, apartheid South Africa was no more.

I recall all this history for two reasons. One, it is important to not underestimate the power of collective action. Obviously, there were plenty of other factors influencing South Africa’s trajectory, especially the resistance movement within, and the apartheid regime stood isolated in most of the world from an ongoing cultural and state boycott.

But every little bit of action — even in privileged US colleges thousands of miles away from the reality of South Africa — helped create the conditions for the final dismantling of apartheid. Eventually, it became just too costly in perceptual terms for multinational companies and states (such as the US) to continue to do business as normal with the apartheid regime.

Two, for young student activists currently involved in the global protests against Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime, it is important to keep chipping away at it. There will inevitably be setbacks and change may not come immediately, but eventually critical mass will be reached. Despite the pressures (from institutions wielding power), despite the mischaracterisations of the movement (by the media and vested politicians), and despite the reactionary resistance to change (from those who stand to lose), the real power of moral clarity remains with those refusing to accept a genocide.

It’s also instructive to remember that Nelson Mandela — and his African National Congress — was labelled a ‘terrorist’ for the longest time by precisely those complicit Western powers that now refer to him as a saint. And that he never backed down from hitching the liberation of South Africa to the liberation of Palestine. Israel was a big supporter of the white apartheid regime.

Ironically, the thing that Zionists have always hated the most is a comparison between Israel and apartheid South Africa. With their brutality in Gaza and the rest of Palestine, they have now successfully ensured that no one can ignore this comparison without being on the wrong side of history.

The writer is a journalist and filmmaker and Dawn’s Editor Magazines.
X: @hyzaidi

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 19th, 2024

Some commencement speakers have also withdrawn from their commitment in solidarity with the students. There have been some protest in almost all places during the ceremonies by pro-Palestinian students, may it be a walk-out from arenas, the unfurling of a Palestinian flag, the raising of slogans, or by their turning their backs on deans or university presidents when they speak.

Eventually, perhaps, various kinds of social pressure, suppression of speech and overt violence may slow the movement. Furthermore, with summer approaching, many students and faculty may leave campus. There is also a general fear among the students that discriminatory action may be taken against activists when most eyes are diverted in the middle of the summer months.

As the philosopher Judith Butler reminds us in an exchange on political performances, bodies involved in mass demonstrations experience fatigue, exhaustion and weariness while exposing themselves to police brutality (including exposure to tear gas and rubber bullets) and repression (all of this has been experienced by the students).

Yet, surely through these negative experiences, certain solidarities are also being formed by the act of sharing, empathy, resilience, kindness and alliance.

A tent in Rafah in the Gaza Strip sprayed with a message of solidarity with pro-Palestine protests at universities: with protests spreading to the UK and Europe, it is clear that an international movement has been triggered | Reuters


A TRANSFORMATIVE MOMENT

Based on the above, these past few weeks, and months, should be counted as an extraordinary victory for the students and their supporters, as they have shaken the university administrations and society in general in a major way, and exposed the underlying violence that these universities, the paragons of free speech and academic freedoms, can unleash and are capable of against their own students and faculty.

An international movement has been triggered, with protests spreading to the UK and Europe, and the question of Palestine linked to Israel’s genocidal ambitions is now part of mainstream discussion in the US, because it can no longer be hidden or censored to the same extent.

In a recent article in the New York Times, Charles Homans and Neil Vigdor reported that there has been an increase in sympathy toward the Palestinian cause in the last decade, from 12 percent sympathetic in 2013 to 27 percent now. They argue that the shift is reflective of how pro-Palestinian activists have worked to connect the cause to domestic movements in the US, such as Black Lives Matter.

This shift, according to them, is also generational, as those who are 18-29 years old are three times more sympathetic to the Palestinians than those over 65. How this increasing support translates in the 2024 presidential elections is not very clear.

What is clear, however, is that the US is going through a truly transformative moment, which has major international repercussions. The intensity of this moment may subside, but the students have surely made people aware of the continued colonial and genocidal policy being practised by Israel, with the support and backing of the US government.

The only way to address this impasse is not by silencing the students but to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and, eventually, through a dignified and just solution of the Palestinian cause.

Shafaq Sohail is a graduate student in the department of anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin.
X: @sohail_shafaq

Kamran Asdar Ali teaches anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin. He can be reached at kasdarali@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 19th, 2024