Joint Statement on the Barbaric Assault in Mangalore (please add your names)

Editor’s Note: Please leave your name and location / affiliation in the comment space if you want to be added to the signatories and we will collect them and send them to Sumi Krishna, the coordinator.

JOINT STATEMENT ON THE BARBARIC ASSAULT IN MANGALORE

Bangalore: 9 p.m., 29 January 2009

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the horrific and unprovoked assault by a group of 40 hooligans, reportedly members of the Sri Rama Sene, on young women in a pub in the coastal city of Mangalore, Karnataka, during the afternoon of Saturday, 24 January 2009. We are saddened by the inaction of the public who looked on as the brutal attack unfolded.  But we appreciate the attitude and actions of the staff of the pub, who tried to intervene, and the young man who stood up to the attackers.

We are shocked by the tardy action of the State administration, police, and political leadership, some of whom have dismissed this is as a “minor incident”. We believe that violent threats to the democratic freedoms and human rights of citizens, whether women or religious minorities, cannot be trivialised as “unfortunate”.

Interview with Madhu Bhushan (cont…

THIS IS Part 2 of the two-part interview with Madhu Bhushan of Vimochana.

UB: The feminist movement has always been very critical of militarism and war. Can u tell us more about your involvement with these issues?

MB: While Vimochana’s specific concern was and is the socially sanctioned personal forms of violence perpetrated on women within the home and outside (dowry tortures, murders and other forms of marital violence, sexual harassment and rape of women, trafficking and commodification of women), our wider preoccupation has always been with the larger forms of violence in society. So our engagement is also with the more public and political forms of violence stemming from ideologies like that of communalism, fundamentalism, nationalism and militarisation which are leading to greater human insecurity, institutionalised intolerance and the increasing brutalisation of patriarchies both within the home and outside.