(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Notes From South Asia: Unjust Judiciary, India, Election and Economy, Pakistan, Election, Bangladesh [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-14 Hello everyone. Welcome to this week’s edition of Notes from South Asia. You can find the previous edition here. Today, we will cover the unjust judiciary in India, elections and economy in Pakistan, and election repression in Bangladesh (the entire subcontinent minus Nepal and Afghanistan is going to polls in 2024: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka). India The Unjust Judiciary Well, there are two stories on the judiciary. No, multiple, but some I may share in comments in the form of tweets. The two main ones included here are a story about corruption from last week that I couldn’t share then and a judgement from Monday on the abrogation of article 370 that gave special autonomous status to Kashmir. First up, Saurav Das, right to information activist and independent journalist reports for the Article-14 about bending of the assignment processes at the Indian Supreme Court: Contrary To SC’s Rules Of Assignment, At Least 8 Politically Sensitive Cases Moved To One Judge In 4 Months Abstract: An analysis of eight politically sensitive cases shows they were moved to Justice Bela M Trivedi of the Supreme Court over the past four months, even though the rules of assignment say they should remain with the senior judge or before a judge hearing a similar case. Close to six years after four Supreme Court justices raised the issue of cases being assigned before a specific judge, senior lawyers have now questioned the manner of moving cases by the ‘master of the roster’, the Chief Justice of India. Piece A few days after his swearing-in in November 2022, the Chief Justice of India and master of the roster, Dhananjaya Chandrachud, remarked that he is keeping a “close watch on the listing of cases”. The privilege and the administrative power of the Chief Justice of a court to constitute benches and allocate cases at their absolute discretion is called the ‘master of roster’ system. Without any transparency or guidelines to keep a check on the misuse of this discretionary power, concerns and speculations arise about potential government influence whenever bench assignments align with government interests. Our analysis of eight cases before benches either consisting of Justice Bela Madhurya Trivedi or presided over by her reveals violations of the 2017 Supreme Court Handbook on Practice and Procedure And Office Procedure, which says cases should be retained before the senior judge before whom the case was first listed or listed before a judge hearing a similar case. These are Umar Khalid’s bail plea, petitions challenging provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)1967; petitions challenging dismissal of a fresh investigation against former Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami for alleged involvement in a highway tender scandal; two petitions connected to a skill development scam in which former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu is a co-accused; a petition connected with the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) probe in a disproportionate assets case against deputy chief minister of Karnataka D K Shivakumar; a medical bail plea filed by jailed Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji; and a bail plea of Bhima-Koregaon violence case co-accused Mahesh Raut. Senior lawyers have protested the change but to no avail. The article goes on to give reactions from lawyers and details of the cases that have been shifted. For a comparison, this would be similar to listing politically sensitive cases to a specific junior judge in contravention of conventions. And all by the hand of the CJI. Please read the rest of it if you are interested. There is no paywall. The Chief Justice of India gives talks about democracy and freedom and right to bail on different venues. However, the practice leaves much to be desired. An example would be the Umar Khalid bail plea hearings on which Betwa Sharma of Article-14 rights: 2023: The Year Imprisoned Political Activist Umar Khalid Was Not Heard By The Supreme Court Abstract: The Supreme Court has repeatedly called for expeditious bail hearings to safeguard the fundamental right to life and liberty, but three years and three months after he was arrested, political activist Umar Khalid is incarcerated without bail or trial. His bail petition has been bouncing between different judges of the country’s highest court with no hearing of arguments despite the case being listed 10 times over seven months. In addition to delaying tactics by the State, adjournments and scheduling conflicts, violation of the rules on how cases are assigned to judges further delay the proceedings. He has not done anything to warrant an arrest, never mind arrest under India’s draconian anti-terrorism law. But he has been accused of inciting the Feb 2020 Delhi riots based on a speech of resistance he made in college (he was studying for PhD). And finally, you have the SCI judgement on the abrogation of Article 370 that gave semi-autonomous status to Jammu & Kashmir. Samar Harlarnkar of article-14 interviews Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of Kashmir Times, and the author of A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir after Article 370. Abstract: On 11 December 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the end of special constitutional privileges instituted 74 years ago for Jammu & Kashmir, ruling that the former state had no claim to sovereignty after accession to India in 1947 and that the union government’s removal of Article 370 on 5 August 2019 was not “malafide”. Anuradha Bhasin, author of a book on the subject and editor of one Kashmir’s oldest English newspapers, tells us why she disagrees. And the intro to the interview. Bengaluru: A 11 December 2023 Supreme Court verdict confirming the end of special constitutional privileges to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) “glosses over many legal explanation and is full of ambiguities”, according to Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of The Kashmir Times, one of the former state’s oldest English newspapers and author of a book on the subject. “It is a classic case of ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them,’” said Bhasin, 55. The Supreme Court of India held that J&K had no claim to sovereignty, only “asymmetric federalism”, after accession to India in 1947, the J&K Constitution was redundant, and that there was no prima facie case that the union government’s abrogation of Article 370 on 5 August 2019 via the President’s orders was “malafide” or an “extraneous exercise of power”. A five-judge Constitution bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices S K Kaul, Sanjeev Khanna, B R Gavai and Surya Kant said the reorganisation of J&K into the union territories of J&K and Ladakh was valid but temporary and ordered the union government to restore statehood and hold state elections by 30 September 2024. Bhasin said the Supreme Court had “let down the people of J&K”. The judgement, delivered even as local politicians and former chief ministers were locked up at home—which the J&K government denied—said that constitutional order 272, which the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi used in August 2019 to change the definition of the J&K Constituent assembly to a legislative assembly, was invalid but that it made no difference since the Supreme Court held that the President did not need a recommendation from the Constituent assembly. Bhasin said that even before the verdict, the government had been creating grounds for irreversible changes. “New laws, especially those related to lands & jobs, signal that the decks have been cleared for gradually changing [J&K’s] Muslim-majority status,” she said. “When everything else fails in a democracy, we look up to the court,” said Bhasin, a journalist for more than three decades and now a John S Knight fellow at Stanford University in the US. “So, there were some expectations from the court.” When the J&K government suspended the Internet for more than 500 days, the longest shutdown reported in a democracy, it was Bhasin’s petition before the Supreme Court that led to a January 2022 ruling that the right to freedom of expression included a right to use the Internet. In October 2020, the J&K government sealed the State-allotted Srinagar office of The Kashmir Times, which was started in 1955 by her father Ved Bhasin and over the years has been a target for both militant groups and the State, which stopped advertisements to the newspaper in 2010. Bhasin questioned the Supreme Court’s view that the abrogation of Article 370 was valid because it was not malafide. “How did they arrive at this conclusion?” asked Bhasin, citing how the government sent tourists home, suspended the Amarnath yatra, a popular Hindu pilgrimage, described the deployment of additional troops as “routine exercises” and snapped communciation links. “On the night before 5 August 2019, the Internet and phones were switched off, and the entire political leadership was arrested,” said Bhasin. “Were these not signs of deception?” The interview: There is no paywall. So, you can read the interview. For the history and context, read this piece by Anuradha Bhasin at Kashmir Times (it was written before the verdict). Jammu and Kashmir was one of the 562 States under the suzerainty of British Crown after the independence of India and its partition on the basis of religion which was left to decide its future. All these states automatically regained full sovereign and independent status, free to join either of the two dominions or remain independent. The underlying principle for the choice before the states was the will of the people and the geographical location, even though these principles were not binding on the princely states. According to legal expert, Faizan Mustafa, technically, the Instrument of Accession was like a treaty between two sovereign countries that had decided to work together. The maxim of pacta sunt servanda in international law, which governs contracts or treaties between states, asks that promises must be honoured. It is a very good piece: summarises a history with the relevant issues at hand with respect to Kashmir. And for the very last of this section, Toufiq Rashid writes about Kashmiri’s silence in face of the verdict for The Wire. Was the second Monday of December any different? Or did it have something new to offer? Well not for me, and I believe not for the millions of fellow Kashmiris, who live in Kashmir or like me, outside of it. Most of us showed no shock, no surprise, just a little ‘I told you so’ or ‘what else did you expect?’ Because this is what was expected, nothing better, nothing newer. Our homes were not chained this time. We were free to lodge protests. Did we take out grand protests? We did not. But does it mean we have reconciled collectively? Are we reconciled to the fact that we no longer have a say in things that define our political future? Reconciled that we have lost our voice and our voice does not matter, that we have no representation in the world’s largest democracy? We certainly have reconciled to the fact that for the last four and half years, our downgraded erstwhile state and now a Union territory has had no elected assembly. We are reconciled to the fact that the last elections happened in Jammu and Kashmir nearly a decade ago. This is the longest ever stretch. The last time it happened was at the peak of militancy, when 1987’s famously rigged elections were followed in 1996. We are reconciled to the fact that we may not see a functional democracy in many more years to come. We are reconciled to the fact that people can lose their jobs on mere charges of abetment of terrorism, stone pelting or any other family member being involved – even though the charges would not be strong enough to try them in courts of law. Social media posts can open the doors to jail. We are reconciled to the fact that every voice raised is ‘treachery’, every right asserted is ‘anti-national’. We know that we can pray for people of Gaza in our hearts but not utter a word on the same in gatherings and mosques. Pakistan Nawaz Sharif gets acquitted in cases against him As the Dawn editorial says, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif is getting his way paved for a new stint at premiership. However, hurdles remain says Dawn. After his prompt acquittal in the Avenfield reference just days earlier, the nullification of the Al Azizia conviction has paved the way for Mr Sharif to contest polls and hold public office again, his lawyers say. But a final hurdle may still be standing between him and the coveted chair. The Supreme Court this week raised a timely question: how can the apex court’s interpretation of the ‘sadiq and ameen’ clause — which, it has upheld, deems a politician ineligible to contest polls for their lifetime — and recent amendments to the Elections Act, which limit disqualification to five years, coexist? It bears recalling that Mr Sharif had been disqualified from ever holding public office in the Panama Papers case after being found ‘unfit’ under Article 62(1)(f). To counter that, the PDM government amended the Elections Act earlier this year in order to limit the period of disqualification to a more ‘suitable’ length of time. While the incumbent chief justice has vowed to settle the lifetime disqualification issue “once and for all”, he has also warned that the court’s review of the matter should not be used as a pretext to delay elections any further. This could mean that the matter may continue to be heard even beyond Feb 8. In such a scenario, Mr Sharif could remain vulnerable to challenges against his qualifications for holding public office before and maybe even after he is elected — not an ideal scenario for someone who has seen his career as chief executive interrupted again and again. It will be interesting to see how the PML-N strategises for the worst-case scenario in this regard. There is, of course, a hopeful waiting in the wings in case things do not pan out as planned by the elder Sharif. For now, the PML-N is celebrating the courts doing ‘justice’ by acquitting Mr Sharif. Whither Economy As for the economy, there is a Dawn edit on that too (sorry for sharing edits but they usually have concise information about news that you would need to know to understand context). STUCK in a protracted cycle of stagflation, Pakistan’s economy faces numerous challenges. Some of these pertain to long-standing structural issues such as low tax revenue, a large energy-sector debt, the massive losses of SOEs and low exports. Others are of a more immediate nature and relate to a weakened balance-of-payments position amid few foreign, private and commercial inflows; they persist despite the new IMF programme. The continuing political discord is not helping either. No wonder Fitch, one of the three biggest global rating agencies, has emphasised high external funding risks, despite some stabilisation and a strong performance on the Stand-by Arrangement with the IMF, as well as uncertainty regarding the near-term political outlook. While it upgraded Pakistan’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating from ‘CCC-’ to ‘CCC’ in July, following the approval of the $3bn IMF loan, the current rating still indicates significant country credit risk. As the Dawn says, elections would determine what happens to Pakistan economy after. The underlying message Fitch has sent across is clear: Pakistan’s political conditions post elections will determine its economic trajectory. The concern is not without valid reason. We have a long history of ditching and reversing reforms agreed with the IMF and other lenders. Political consensus on measures crucial to ensuring sustainable growth dissipates once economic and external conditions start to show improvement in the wake of rising foreign inflows. However, political discord and volatility arising from a vote sans credibility will likely increase the chances of the next government digressing from the path of reforms long before the economy stabilises. That would be disastrous for the country. Patriarchy in Action Finally, Nisar Ahmad Khan writes about honour killings in Kohistan. CLAD in her bridal attire, she was radiant with excitement. The air was filled with the loud, traditional rhythm of drums. Her friends were close by, whispering words of happiness about her new life. It was the Mayun of R*, and she was on the cusp of starting a new chapter in her life. Her dream of marriage was almost a reality. Or so she thought. In a sudden, horrifying moment, the sound of gunfire pierced the air. R, surrounded by laughter and happiness moments ago, lay lifeless. Just a day before her marriage, she was no more. It was the end of a dream. Her killing in Kohistan stemmed from the spread of a video on Facebook featuring her with a boy. A local jirga issued a hasty death decree without properly investigating the authenticity or the underlying motives behind the video. In the neighbouring village, R’s friend, S*, was facing a similar death decree, as she was also featured in the video. However, S still had the luxury of being alive. The wedding ceremonies of both brides-to-be were scheduled for Nov 25 and 26. On Nov 24, R was tragically killed, leading the boys in the video and others to go into hiding. The local police, accustomed to dealing with such cases, were quick to respond and took custody of both the deceased girl’s body and the other girl, whose life now hung in the balance. However, S later told the Kolai-Palas magistrate that she believed her life was not in danger and that she would rather stay with her family than be sent to Darul Aman. Despite being labelled as “stained” by her community, S faced the media, declaring that she had married her fiancé, who accepted her even after the controversial video emerged. A jirga is an assembly of leaders that makes decision as per the Pashtun social code. There is no paywall on any of these pieces. So, please read the articles in full if you have the time to spare. Bangladesh Election repression continues AFP report published in the Hindu says that 1,100 Bangladeshi opposition activists have been convicted since September. Bangladeshi courts have convicted more than 1,100 opposition officials and activists since September, lawyers said Thursday, a day after scores more of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's opponents were sentenced to prison. Opposition parties say thousands from their ranks have been arrested this year after huge protests accusing Ms. Hasina of ruling with an iron fist and demanding her resignation. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has said the cases against its members were politically motivated and aimed at crushing potential alternatives to the premier's nearly 15-year rule. "In the past three months at least 1,093 BNP activists and several dozen activists from other opposition parties were convicted in 69 cases," the party's legal affairs chief Kayser Kamal told AFP. That figure includes 127 BNP activists handed prison sentences of up to three years in courts across Dhaka on Wednesday, Ehsanur Rahman, a lawyer for several of the defendants, told AFP. Some of the defendants were found guilty of violence during Bangladeshi elections in 2014 and 2018. And what do the Bangladeshi youth expect from the elections? Azmin Azran writes for the Daily Star. Less than a month out from the election, as a voter, I'm looking for discourse on the issues that concern me. If I'm going to vote for someone, is it not fair to ask whether or not that individual—or the party they represent—is going to do anything for me and my demographic? The youth horn is tooted at every turn these days. The demographic dividend is here, and the youth must be empowered—we have been hearing so for years now. But are the Bangladeshi youth being put to work? As a working professional in my mid-20s who is trying to make life go his way in an increasingly expensive Dhaka, I wonder what is being done to make sure my employment potential does not diminish in the coming years. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2022 says that 12 percent of individuals with higher education in the country are unemployed, up from 11.2 percent in 2016-17. The situation is bad, the trend seems worse, but this presents a ripe opportunity for any politician to attract the votes of young individuals who are new to the employment race or are just about to enter it. Yet, there seems to be little space left for them when conversations are laser-focused on seeking flaws in the opposition camp. He says that talking about the bad policies of the opposition may work for older people but not for the youth. The 20-year-old of today was born in, say, 2003. The ruling party has been at the helm for as long as this demographic has been socially conscious. While the horror stories of the opposition's actions may be enough to sway older voters, it will never have the same impact on most first-time voters, who were mere children the last time the mantle of power had changed on these shores. On the internet, Gen Z have grown used to the spectacle of Western democracies, wherein public debates take place on the eve of elections. They also see elections taking place in neighbouring India, where one party wins one state but fails to hold on to their majority in another. The young Bangladeshi knows that plurality is important in politics, and plurality of opinions should come to the fore during elections. Yet, so close to the election, it takes more than a thorough look at the news to find a politician saying anything that has anything to do with real issues that citizens face. 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