Kafkaland: Prejudice, Law and Counterterrorism in India by Manisha Sethi from Three Essays Collective.
Kafkaland explores the grisly underbelly of counterterrorism, where prejudice and lawlessness are the standard operating codes. From Mumbai to Bangalore, to Delhi to Madhya Pradesh, it examines some of the most prominent terror cases to show that the hallmark of terror investigations is not simply a casual subversion of norms but cynical prejudice and brutal violence inflicted in the knowledge of absolute impunity.
It also examines the disquieting trend of judicial abdication, wherein the courts indulgently ignore signs of torture, lack of evidence and absence of procedural norms, while trying terror cases.
Kafkaland challenges the dominant narratives of counterterrorism and the emerging security-industrial complex. Kafkaland is where impunity, bias, suspicion are sustained by laws, where erosion of constitutional guarantees is advertised as internal security, where corporate greed masquerades as national interest.
In our Politics section, Rs. 350, in paperback, xii+216 pages, ISBN : 9789383968008
On Their Watch: Mass violence and State apathy in India Examining the record by Surabhi Chopra And Prita Jha from Three Essays Collective.
In 2005, India passed a law giving individuals the right to information on the State’s acts and decisions. Using this law, the authors in this edited volume applied for official records about four of the worst episodes of mass violence in independent India. These traumatic events had not previously been scrutinised using the recently-minted law on this scale. The authors filed over 800 applications for information; the results of their unusual endeavour led to this book.
Sifting through hundreds of government documents on criminal justice, administrative discipline, commissions of inquiry, emergency relief and monetary compensation, the authors examine the State’s response to sectarian violence in Nellie in 1983, Delhi in 1984, Bhagalpur in 1989 and Gujarat in 2002. Hundreds of people, most of them religious minorities, were killed, injured, displaced from their homes, and stripped of their livelihoods in these episodes of mass violence. In each instance, violence was encouraged by the politically powerful and tolerated by the police.
This book examines official records and shows how State apathy in the wake of violence thwarted attempts to rehabilitate survivors and punish perpetrators. These failures are not simply an unfortunate coincidence. The State’s own records reveal that national and state governments have been negligent in recurring, systematic ways. By detailing how State processes have failed, this disquieting book demonstrates that the State could have pursued justice and reparation for victims of mass violence in the past, and could, in substantial measure, still do so.
In our Politics section, Rs. 750, in hardback, xx+374 pages, ISBN : 9788188789870
Kafkaland explores the grisly underbelly of counterterrorism, where prejudice and lawlessness are the standard operating codes. From Mumbai to Bangalore, to Delhi to Madhya Pradesh, it examines some of the most prominent terror cases to show that the hallmark of terror investigations is not simply a casual subversion of norms but cynical prejudice and brutal violence inflicted in the knowledge of absolute impunity.It also examines the disquieting trend of judicial abdication, wherein the courts indulgently ignore signs of torture, lack of evidence and absence of procedural norms, while trying terror cases.
Kafkaland challenges the dominant narratives of counterterrorism and the emerging security-industrial complex. Kafkaland is where impunity, bias, suspicion are sustained by laws, where erosion of constitutional guarantees is advertised as internal security, where corporate greed masquerades as national interest.
In our Politics section, Rs. 350, in paperback, xii+216 pages, ISBN : 9789383968008
On Their Watch: Mass violence and State apathy in India Examining the record by Surabhi Chopra And Prita Jha from Three Essays Collective.
Sifting through hundreds of government documents on criminal justice, administrative discipline, commissions of inquiry, emergency relief and monetary compensation, the authors examine the State’s response to sectarian violence in Nellie in 1983, Delhi in 1984, Bhagalpur in 1989 and Gujarat in 2002. Hundreds of people, most of them religious minorities, were killed, injured, displaced from their homes, and stripped of their livelihoods in these episodes of mass violence. In each instance, violence was encouraged by the politically powerful and tolerated by the police.
This book examines official records and shows how State apathy in the wake of violence thwarted attempts to rehabilitate survivors and punish perpetrators. These failures are not simply an unfortunate coincidence. The State’s own records reveal that national and state governments have been negligent in recurring, systematic ways. By detailing how State processes have failed, this disquieting book demonstrates that the State could have pursued justice and reparation for victims of mass violence in the past, and could, in substantial measure, still do so.
In our Politics section, Rs. 750, in hardback, xx+374 pages, ISBN : 9788188789870
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