'To Kill a Tiger' and it's legal violations, and more – Southasia Weekly #04

This week at Himal

This week, Anna Vetticad writes about the Canadian documentary To Kill a Tiger, which is in contention for an Oscar award on 10 March. Directed by Nisha Pahuja, the film tells the story of a 13-year-old survivor of a gang-rape in Jharkhand, and her father’s fight for justice. While it is pitched as an entry-point to discuss sexual violence in India, Vetticad writes, the film violates India’s child-protection laws, and commits numerous ethical lapses. 

Rayan Naqash writes about the long history of evicting people – especially Muslims – from lands regularised under the now-repealed ‘Roshni’ Act in Jammu and Kashmir, which helped thousands of landless families. Naqash traces how the undoing of the Act coincided with shifts in the political landscape after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ascendance to national power, leading to the normalisation of bulldozer (in)justice. 

On 6 March, we held a Q and A with Sikuma Rai, the director of Come over for a drink, kanchhi’, as part of Screen Southasia, our monthly online screening of Southasian documentaries in collaboration with Film Southasia. We discussed misperceptions around the Rai community in Nepal, as well as the role of migration and the impact of caste discrimination on Rai women.

This week in Southasia

This week saw big shifts in the political landscape for two countries, albeit for different reasons. 

In Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif was declared the country’s prime minister on 4 March after the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) aligned with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The National Assembly announced that Sharif won 201 votes in the recent general elections, enough to form a majority, ending weeks of political limbo. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) won the most seats in the elections, despite being unable to contest under its own symbol. The PTI’s strong electoral performance was a surprise, given the broader crackdown on the party and the military’s support for former prime minister (and Shehbaz’s brother) Nawaz Sharif. The results indicate that Pakistan’s voters did not approve of the military’s continued intervention in politics – but this did not change the outcome. Pakistan’s new prime minister can expect to see continued challenges to his regime from the PTI, which claims that the results were rigged. 

Also on 4 March, in Nepal, the ruling alliance collapsed as Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) once again switched allegiance from the Nepali Congress to the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified-Marxist Leninist). The rift between the CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress occurred after disagreements over the appointment of the chairman of the National Assembly, and also over budgetary allocations. A power-sharing deal paving the way to a new ruling coalition was struck on 5 March – but the new coalition will likely be as fragile as its predecessor, given that the sudden shifting of loyalties is normalised in Nepal’s politics. 

Elsewhere in Southasia  📡

• The Taliban allows Radio Nasim to resume recording after a five-month suspension after the new chief editor agrees to comply with the Taliban’s media policy, while the station’s former manager remains in detention on propaganda and espionage charges

• A Bangladesh court extends bail for the social entrepreneur Muhammed Yunus in a case involving alleged labour-law violations, even as tension between Yunus and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina escalates

• Talks between Myanmar’s military junta and the Brotherhood Alliance end in stalemate with armed groups refusing to withdraw from border trade zones, while the junta loses three strongholds in three days between 1 and 3 March

• Police arrest all eight accused in the  of Brazilian-Spanish travel influencer in the Indian state of Jharkhand, in a case that has sparked discussion on India’s struggle to curb sexual violence against women

• India’s navy bolsters its presence on the Lakshadweep islands, a site of escalating tensions between India and the Maldives, while the Maldives signs a defence pact with China ahead of Indian troops being asked to leave the island country

• The government of Sri Lanka will absorb USD 512 million worth of debt owed by the national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines, in a bid to attract more investors as Sri Lanka continues to grapple with its economic crisis

• The Bombay High Court acquits Delhi University professor G N Saibaba and five others serving life sentences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for alleged links to Maoists

Only in Southasia!

This week, all eyes were on Jamnagar, in Gujarat, where Anant Ambani, son of the tycoon Mukesh Ambani, hosted lavish pre-wedding celebrations. Among those in attendance were a bevy of celebrities, including Shah Rukh Khan, Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg and the popstar Rihanna, who came out of retirement to perform for Anant and Radhika Merchant – in return for at least USD 5 million, by some estimates. 

Many pointed out the irony of Rihanna, who drew global attention to India’s farmers protests in 2021 and so faced accusations of anti-Indian propaganda from the government, being flown in at the behest of the Ambanis, while the British Indian academic Nitasha Kaul was recently denied entry to the country for supposedly sharing anti-India propaganda. The Ambanis were also criticised by farmers for standing to benefit from the proposed farming laws, and for their close links to India’s prime minister Narendra Modi.

Photos of Rihanna embracing fans also went viral, sparking discussions about the power held by business magnates like the Ambanis and the inequality and caste discrimination entrenched in Indian society. At the end of the day, all we see are dollar signs.

From the archive

The fast food frontier (April 2013)

An article about the battle between local entrepreneurship and multinational chains in Nepal caught my eye this week. Deepak Adhikari writes about the rise and fall of the first international fast food chain in the country, Wimpy’s, given the high cost of importing ingredients and issues around storage. This mirrors the journeys of fast food chains like Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken, which opened to much hype in Nepal but were unable to keep customers. Instead, local entrepreneurs who rely on word-of-mouth to draw in hungry customers beat the international chains at their game.