Human Rights Certificate Course. Monday 10/1/11.

The following notes were written by Sammitha Sreevathsa of IIJPE.

DAY 3, LECTURE ON HUMAN RIGHTS and UN

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION

The session began with a discussion on human rights violation. HR is considered violated when any individual or an entity breaches any part of UDHR, other International human rights or Humanitarian law. 

Security Council is the appointed authority in UN (United Nations) that determines HR violations. To avoid a direct responsibility, or jurisdiction over its prisons and the HR violation that took place there, US conveniently dealt with their issues by allotting Guantanomo Bay to deal with the prisoners.The conditions were said to be violations of  HR for torturing the inmates of Guantanamo Bay and for not allowing them a fair trial. The charge on the US was withdrawn when it claimed no territorial jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay. 

Unlike UK, (where trials for cases of violation from any part of the world can be conducted), The US continues to have an unstable status of it’s international jurisdiction. The trial for the case of Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, was also conducted in the US district court in Manhattan. But the rebellion that the Guantanamo Bay controversy provoked indicates the inability of (even) the powerful states like the US to ignore the Human Rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp

In order to get a place in UN security Council, India have had to condemn the violation of HR in other parts of the world, which once resulted in the loss of all contracts with Burma. This becomes the reason why India did not vote against Burma and abstained from voting for North Korea and Iran for the violation of Human Rights in November, 2010.http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-does-not-vote-against-Myanmar-and-Iran-in-UN/articleshow/6953529.cms

UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

DISCLAIMER: Only the text in the Italics is self-written in this section.

UDHR has 30 articles. Following are the articles that were majorly discussed-

Article 1.

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (Not sisterhood, because such a terminology did not emerge due to the absence of feminism for a long period).

Article 2.

• Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.(In ancient Greece, during the time of Socrates, when a large number of slaves existed, only people with property ownership were entitled to the citizenship of the city-state).Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person

Article 4.

• No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. (Many problems that India has claimed to have were, by definition, not  prevalant. Eg. “Slavery” was only a term that was adopted, to a similar condition in India. Similarly a mystic is understood to have a private mystic experience in the west, but who we understand as Indian mystics today ; such as Basavanna, Akkamahadevi and Namdeo; are known so for their radical social works, which is far  from private experience).

Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person (assuming that person is a neutral word; without any  social, economic and political connotation)

Article 9.

• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. (Police force cannot arrest arbitrarily unless they are arresting under certain provisions such as TADA , CSPS Act etc.. Eg. Binayak Sen who was found guilty of sedition and allegedly supported the outlawed naxalites  was arrested under the provisions-CSPS Act 2005 and Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act 1967) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binayak_Sen#Allegations_of_Naxalite_links

Article 10.

• Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

• (1) Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. (“presumed innocent”-Ajmal Kasab, accused of involvement in terrorism activities, was provided with a lawyer by the government in order to conduct a fair trial. Similarly the Dandupalya gang;arrested in Bangalore for committing murders ; was given death sentence. But, a lawyer has volunteered to take them for defence to the high court. This indicates that everyone is entitled to the right to defence). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajmal_Kasab#Legal_issues
• (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at  the time the penal offence was committed.(Similarly a college or a university which very much functions within the framework of the law is not supposed to impose a different figure of compulsary attendance on a student batch previously exposed to different conditions in the course of the same programme).

Article 12.

• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

(Radia tapes were tapped by the Indian Income-tax department for 300 days in 2008-09, only after getting an authorization from the Home ministry. All the mobile messages and the e-mails are also recorded under an agreement with the service providers. The tag “cached”, in google, contains the recorded mails. These recored messages and mails are retained for a span of 4 years before being finally wiped. Although recorded, no individual or organization has the right to access it without a prior permission from the Home ministry). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niira_Radia

Article 16.

• (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.(The Indian constitution under the clause of national interest prohibits every Indian citizen from marrying a Pakistani and Bangladeshi citizen. Adnan Sami's divorce case became an issue because he happened to be a Pakistani who has married an Indian. The property which was claimed by her was confiscated by the government. )
• (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
• (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.

• (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (With the exception of Goa, Kashmir, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, in India, which have become a part of the country only with certain conditions) .
• (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 20.

• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
• (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.

• (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
• (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
• (3) The will of the people (not God; unlike the divine rights system wherein a King or a Queen was considered to be a representative of God and the people were bound to obey them irrespective of all odds.) shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 23.

• (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
• (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
• (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
• (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. (The Mahatma Gandhi Right to Work Act and the Minimum Wages Act emerge, in their essence, from this Article. The current minimum wage in India is Rs.100, last amended in 2009).  http://www.paycheck.in/main/officialminimumwages

Article 26.

• (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.(The right to education was guaranteed by the Indian Constitution in the year 1950. Every Indian has the right to free elementary education) http://education.mapsofindia.com/
• (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
• (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.

• (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
• (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. (Refers to the right to collect Patent).

(One would observe that the UDHR, which began with Human rights moves on to Political rights and Economic rights. This is because every individual requires political rights and economic rights to claim and enjoy human rights respectively)

Article 28.

• Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.

• (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
• (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
• (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.

• Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.(This last article of UDHR nullifies the other 29 rights by claiming that no element of UDHR could be used, rather misused, to destroy any right mentioned in it.)

One can find similarities between the UDHR and the Indian Constitution because both are framed and the Indian Constitution is known to have derived many of it’s elements from the UDHR.

INTERNATIONAL BILL OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The UDHR(Universal Declaration of Human Rights), the ICCPR(International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) and the ICESCR(International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) together constitute the International Bill of Human Rights. Unlike UDHR which is a declaration, ICCPR and ICESR are covenants ,ie treaties. A declaration is essentially a notification whereas a treaty is considered as an international agreement between two or more states. 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bill_of_Human_Rights

ICCPR (53 articles) and ICESR (33 articles)

What is a civil society and a political society? (ICCPR)

A society wherein people function as citizens, and can claim to have a fair set of laws is understood as a civil society , i.e. citizens are always referred to as civil and not political. A political society is a sphere of state and power, wherein people not just claim for a fair set of laws but desire to frame the laws for the state and exercise power over it. But before the political power is acquired and civil rights are claimed people need to be economically sound for which economic rights are provided. This is because each individual requires money to satisfy basic drives and needs such as food water and shelter. ICECR gives people labour rights, right to health, right to education and the right to adequate standard of living. Since ICCPR and ICESR are covenants they are obligated to provide the Language(s) that  they consider. It is similar to how the Latin Bible is considered most authentic. The article 53 of IPCCR notifies the covenant in Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish (spoken extensively in Latin America) texts as equally authentic. One can notice that these are the languages that are largely spoken in the States that constitute the Security Council. (Question was raised by a student that Chinese is not a language. It is written either in Mandarin or in Cantonese script. What is referred to as Chinese herein?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Economic,_Social_and_Cultural_Rights

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICCPR

CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women)

It consists of  30 articles. As suggested by the name, it works towards elimination of discrimination against women. This convention considers Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French and English versions of the convention as authentic. The permanent members of the UN included these languages and since there was no language to represent the middle east, Arabic was also added.  Knowing atleast two of these languages is a pre-requisite to be able to work for UN. CEDAW is called the International Bill of Human Rights for Women. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDAW US has not signed CEDAW. India has signed but only partially. In India, many universities and work places do not encourage women because of the lack of promise of return after the maternity leave. But South Asian countries (barring China) have seen a decent women representation in comparison with the US. India has seen a woman president, a woman prime minister and a number of women politicians. Sri Lanka also has had a woman president-Chandrika B. Kumaratunga. Benazir Bhutto has twice been elected as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Chief Justice is one position that a woman has not occupied in India but has in US.

Question by a student- What is the difference between Acts and Rules?

Response given- When a Bill which is passed , gets approved by two thirds majority of the parliament it becomes an Act. Rules are the provisions of the Act..

Subjectivity - Notes of Anup Dhar's Lecture

Following is are the lecture-notes prepared by Nikita Naresh of II Yr JPEg based on Anup Dhar's interactive lecture on Subjectivity delivered on 8 January 2011 between 2 and 6 pm at Christ University. The lecture was organised by Padmakumar to orient the students and the faculty to forthcoming conference on Subjectivity in the University.

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The session began with questions from the audience about the nature of subjectivity and various other concepts related to it. The most prominent ones were:

What is subjectivity?

What is inter-subjectivity?

What is agency and does the subject have it?

What is the self/identity/individual/body (as opposed to the subject)?

What is structure?

Who is a subject?

Is there a free subject?

What role does experience or personal narratives play in subjectivity?

Is subjectivity ideal-dependent?

Subjectivity in law

Can a judge be neutral? Can we legally take into account the subjectivity of the perpetrator? What is objective evidence?

In the case of rape, the law requires evidence of forced penetration and also resistance from the ‘victim’. But traces of penetration are virtually impossible to find, and the examination involved to find it could be regarded the second rape of the woman. There could also easily be situations where under duress she could not resist the attack. In such cases then, the court turns to the subjective narrations of the woman and her personal experience of the rape. A true ‘narrative’ is one which goes against all odds, one that comes with a strong emotional attachment. This narrative is understood by the judge by virtue of his comprehension of the language, or the ability to hear. Subjective narrations can only be known through inter-subjectivity.

If the woman was experienced in sex, or was a sex worker, what differentiates this experience from any other? If we combine this situation with an inability to resist the advances of the perpetrator and there is no evidence of penetration, then according to objective law, there was no rape.

But the subject (the woman) knows that she has in fact been raped. How does she know this? How does she distinguish her experiences and provide her narrative? She must have had some prior knowledge of sexual violence. How does she identify herself with the role of victim?

Another case of rape was mentioned where the woman claimed that she did not resist the attack because the very act of been stripped of her clothes was indignity enough. She claimed that she knew that she had been raped even before there was penetration, there was no need for her to resist after this initial ‘rape’ had already been committed? Her experience then is different from that of other women, by cracking the basic ‘ideal’ of rape which is penetration. But if her experience of being stripped is in fact the same as that of a woman being penetrated forcefully, then should that qualify as rape? Her consciousness of sexual violence comes before that of the court (which ruled against her). Her agency ended when she was stripped and her free-subject essentially died at the point when she was subjected to rape.

Understanding this from an I/me/mine position of this woman,

I was raped.

My me was raped.

My mine was not in my genitals but in my clothes.

The mix of subjective and objective in law is a difficult one. Neutrality of a court is impossible, because there is no way of eliminating the subjectivity of the judge. Law itself is framed on the pervading morals of society. The court can only ever pretend to be objective, but cannot at any point provide a judgement which is not influenced by subjectivity. On the other hand the subjectivity of the defendant and prosecutor are never taken into consideration. The subjectively created constitution is upheld objectively regardless of the specific experience or narrative of the subjects involved.

Subjectivity and the body

In the case of a dead person, whom does the body belong to? The body exists without the subject, or without an ‘I’. We all have two bodies-the live body with the I and the dead body without it.

Our many subject positions all share one anatomical body of which we are not consciously aware of. We cannot feel our internal organs, the firing of neurons, the chemical reactions taking place within us. Only if there is injury or or a malfunctioning of the organ, can we sense its presence-through the subjective experience of pain. The depths of our anatomical body is known to us through pain, while the surface is known through pleasure.

The anatomical body is universal to all people (with a structuralist understanding), the lived body however is subjective to each of us. They do not arise on their own, but only through their relationship with others and the sensorial world. These relationships determine our own life-worlds, our choices and individual ‘destinies’.

The woman mentioned earlier faced an indignity at the surface of her body itself, before it reached the depths. At the moment she felt she was raped, it was her subjective body that had been attacked, not her anatomical one, which is why the court could not recognize it for rape.

At this point, the mind-body relationship was brought up as an erroneous western idea. One cannot exist without the other. When we discuss subjectivity, we are discussing both the mind and the body. There is no/can’t be any distinction between the two, because at any point there are several bodies which could be referred to. The mind is in a way transcendental over each of these bodies, brought together by human anatomy. There is a mental pole and a bodily pole which coexist in the lived body in a sort of continuum. A dead brain means a dead body.

In the case of phantom limbs (a sensation experienced by someone who has had a limb amputated that the limb is still there), the subjective body experiences and is conscious of the missing limb, even though the anatomical body or the objective body is not. The limb then is on the cusp of real-unreal.

In an ideal-driven world and a structural world, subjectivity will cause disruptions. Knowledge systems are wary of subjectivity because it contests their basic principles. But if we give free reign to it, there would be a proliferation of subjectivities which would not be compatible with each other and a functioning world would not be possible.

The thermometer (Subjectivity of beliefs)

If A claims to have a fever and B wants to verify this, then how would s/he do so?

Through her senses of touch, vision (of symptoms), hearing (A’s narration), by use of a thermometer and relating these findings to her own experience of fever.

After this analysis, if B agrees that A has a fever, there is a common inter-subjective result. If B comes to the conclusion that A does not actually have a fever then how do we reach a consensus?

The thermometer provides an objective measure of temperature, but at what temperature one is said to have a fever is again a subjective decision. These are the objective standards that we have today. before thermometers however, people measured fevers in different ways, the standards used change over time (as the notion of rape changes over time) which is why subjective understandings across cultures are so different.

There are only two possibilities in the earlier scenario. A either has a fever or doesn’t. In a Newtonian world, there are always only two options. The world is divided into binaries and the subject must choose between them. Good and bad, right and wrong etc. are conundrums, which cannot likely be solved because Dharma is uncanny.

The story of Mahabharata is essentially about the violation of Draupadi. But we often forget Duryodhana’s earlier humiliation, when Draupadi laughed at him. His order to strip her in the court was intended to humiliate her in return. In Ramayana, Ravan kidnaps Sita but treats her unlike any other woman in his life, with kindness and respect with the hope that she would eventually fall in love with him and would then turn down Ram’s hand in the same way that Ram turned down Soorpanika. An eye for an eye seems fair, in the sort of the objective world that we have created today, but right and wrong in these stories is difficult to clearly pin down. To understand subjectivity or the conundrums of right and wrong, we need to abandon Newton’s world and go inwards or antharmukhi according to Hindu philosophy.

It is difficult to deliberate over objective universals, especially when we acknowledge subjectivity. Universals of the thermometer kind may not always suffice. Then what do we do?

After reading A’s temperature, the mark on the thermometer will remain for millions of years, unchanged until an external subject shakes it back to normal. The thermometer requires human agency to revert back. The reading is created from A, but exists thereafter without any need of the world.

Coming back to A and B, the dialogue between them takes place in 3 stages:

I A has fever and a thermometer measure her temperature

II B says that A doesn’t have fever

III A says that she does in fact have fever, it’s her experience of fever.

The first stage is that of a third person and therefore objective. The second stage is one of inter-subjectivity with a need for a hyphen between the two. The third is one of intra-subjectivity and one of loneliness. This point, of acknowledging your own experience is the point of creation. It is the primal loneliness of god, which is present in all of us. This loneliness exists despite the fact that at any given time a subject is both speaker and listener within his/her own mind, because language functions in such a way that speaker and listener are always coexistent. The subject then is never ‘alone’ but lonely.

Newton and Identities

Western cultures were impoverished cultures because they were incapable of abstract thought, especially in numbers. The idea of 10, with a zero after one to depict a higher number required an immense amount of abstract thought and inter-subjectivity to symbolically represent 10 in this way.

Newton began as a lover of alchemy and with a secret affair with a great alchemist at the time. He stifled these passions with the aim of getting into the Royal Society and since then could only think straight and mechanistic, ignoring the subjective, as opposed to Einstein’s bent space and relativity.

Newton’s world is a billiards table, with a hard, even surface, solid balls and definite pockets. Einstein messed up this table by imagining the table made of a rubber sheet, that would bend under the weight of the balls and rock them of its own accord. Heisenberg messed this up even further by imagining each ball to be as small as an electron, so small that any attempt to look at it, would shift its position.

Today quantum theory still does not know if electrons exist, because it is impossible to see them. They believe that they exist because the physics involved suggests that there is a particle of negative charge present in the orbits around the nucleus of an atom. The structure of logic in a newtonian world is + and -, binary opposites.

“It is a numerical world of 9 and 10, but our subjective mind can create a platform 9 3/4 between them.”

The electron in quantum physics lies somewhere between this 9 and 10.

The Jains in contrast believed in a 7-fold world of logic (positively negative, really unreal, cause as well as effect etc.) It went between the binaries and beyond them. This is where subjectivity lies.

The subjective world is an intimate world. A pen is bent in water. This information may not be true, but it is still relevant. Lifting it out of water is like lifting it out of context/history/society. It is a phenomenal experience.

Who am I?

Answering this question requires self-reflection/ knowledge. In Hinduism to answer this question would again call upon antharmukhi.

Kunti was giving Karna an identity by telling him that he was a Pandava. But he could not just pick himself out of his ‘water’ and join a new context. His life and struggles had brought him to Duryodhana and he chose to fight alongside him even though it meant death. it is based on what you see inwards that tells you how to live your life. Karna chose death.

There is always an other or mirror upon which you ‘bounce off’ your reflections. Arjun had Krishna through the pages of the Bhagavad Gita. This is subjectivity, a dialogue. A dialogue cannot have morals or Newtonian logic. Definite identity frames cannot cater to the real identity. This universal world cannot be enough as it tries to label and categorize us. It attempts an objectivity which is not compatible with our multiple subjective bodies.

Reference:

Dhar, Anup. 'Subjectivity'. Bangalore: Christ University. 8 Jan. 2011. Lecture.

Class sessions — Open Yale Courses

Class sessions — Open Yale Courses

Online Video Lectures and Course Materials — Open Yale Courses

Online Video Lectures and Course Materials — Open Yale Courses

The Unknown Blogger Who Changed WikiLeaks Coverage - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic

The Unknown Blogger Who Changed WikiLeaks Coverage - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic

zunguzungu

zunguzungu

Pressthink

Pressthink

Bhoomi Conference

There is a conference on Sustainable Living organised on the 21st and 22nd of January in St Johns Auditorium by The Bhoomi Network.

For more information visit their website www.bhoomiconference.org

From their website:

This conference is a space to ask questions about the Connections between our notions of a good life and relationships, happiness, economics and ecology. It is also a space to explore leads and directions offered by various thinkers, scientists and philosophers.

* What is the Good Life we really want for ourselves?
* How do we decide what is too much consumption?
* Is our drive to succeed as individuals harmful to our civilization and planet earth?
* Climate change is also a global, political issue – does individual change matter then?

Keynote addresses by Vandana Shiva, Gopinath Menon, Meera Shiva, Devinder Sharma, Nandita Shah, and V S Shreedhara.

Human Rights Certificate Course. Wednesday 5/1/11.

Reading session and discussions

1.     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

2.     http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

Why Wikipedia?

The collaborative editing process followed by Wikipedia allows frequent verification of facts and approaches an issue from various angles giving an understanding from different contexts. This method of regular updating and rechecking by different people ensures quick correction of errors. Other useful elements of Wikipedia include the Criticism/Reception section for most articles where the topic’s negative and positive criticism is acknowledged and discussed. Furthermore, the nature, quality and process of the editing and writing of the article itself is evaluated to give the reader an idea of the way the article has been written and by whom and what the reader should keep in mind while using the article as a reference.

For more on the process of editing at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

What is a declaration?

A declaration is an acknowledgement. UDHR is not a law but a declaration. International covenant on women’s rights is still not sighed by India and so can’t impose sanctions.

Eleanor Roosevelt mentions the need for the UDHR as a declaration as opposed to a treaty, because treaties as an agreement on an issue, give space for revolt, debate and retaliation and like rules, are eventually broken. For example, Sati became more widespread after it was banned. After Sati was noticed in 1700s it was debated over for 50 years, as the British did not want to interfere in a religious practice. Its root in the Hindu religion was questioned and researched into, leading to the translation of Hindu scriptures. After the British translated the Bhagvad Gita, that was announced as the Holy book of the Hindus as the Bible was to the Christians, they could not find the religious root to back the practice of Sati and thereby banned it, as they could track no religious grounds. Ironically, the ban resulted in a wider spread of Sati. It was first banned in 1829 but after resurgence, it had to be banned again in 1956. There was another revival of the practice in 1981 with another prevention ordinance passed in 1987. (Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Sati-Belief-beyond-the-law/Article1-345245.aspx )

The Age of Enlightenment and Immanuel Kant

The Age of enlightenment and the works of European philosophers during this time are vital while tracing the origin of the idea of human rights and the drafting of UDHR. Documents include; Bill of Rights of England, Bill of Rights of United States and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in France.

One of the men to be immediately associated with this age is Immanuel Kant. The division of human knowledge into disciplines like Arts, Commerce, Humanities, Social Sciences etc was an idea propagated by him and is used in Universities today. He also explores and states the purpose of a University and its role in the development of a student.

Practicality and application of Human Rights

Why is Human Rights part of our Holistic classes?

It is mandatory for the Supreme Court to take the responsibility of teaching the citizens human rights. All UGs must essentially teach HR.

“Items once purchased cannot be returned”Such a practice is illegal. There is a law in India that protects the consumer such that compensation can be demanded if a store doesn’t refund your money on return of a purchased item.

Julian Assange and Afzal Guru, whose works involved huge controversies, could not directly be arrested, as their actions do not violate any law. Being arrested for Assange’s contribution to Wikileaks would go against the UDHR and the right to freedom. So instead, Assange and many others are being charged on account of rape, sexual harassment and spam mail with obscene content and in spite of lack of evidence and unfair trials are being held in custody.

More on Afzal Guru and Julian Assange arrests:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/india.kashmir
http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=2480
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Allegations_of_sexual_assault

Marxism and Labor

One of Marx’s biggest contributions is considered to be his theories on “Labor”. Readers of Marx today are Feminists and Environmentalists. Feminists explore the relevance of labor and its association in the fields of child bearing (woman in labor, labor room etc)

Environmentalists approach Marx’s concept of labor with the question, where did capital come from? Their argument extends to nature being the primary source of capital. 

Brief of Marx’s contribution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Marx.27s_contribution

What is Slavery?

Slavery is an economical concept, not social. It is covered under economics and not sociology, as an economical phenomenon.

Capital does not suggest the richest, but simple small activities like a roadside tea stall also involve dealing with capital. Capital primarily involves ownership not money; Ratan Tata paid  1 for acres of land, Infosys in Mysore was given the land for its campus for close to nothing, it is the process of owning the land that gives capital.

The Material that comes from Capital is labored upon to form the final product. This laboring upon which transforms the capital into a product with higher utility value is rewarded with wages. A slave in this process can be located at the end of the laboring process, minus the wage payment; a slave is one who is not paid for his/her labor.

A mother cooks a stew; the raw vegetables are labored upon to produce the stew. She is not paid for this labor. Is mother a slave?

Child labor in India when put into this context cannot be termed as slavery because the children are paid, however minimally.

Further reading:

·      Kant- What is enlightenment?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22001690/Emmanuel-Kant-What-is-Enlightenment

·      Right to refuse to kill and conscientious objection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_Objector#United_Nations

Reference:
Pinto, Anil. Introduction to Human Rights. Jan 5^th 2011. Lecture.