Election season in the Maldives and Pakistan, economic boycotts in Haryana, increased pressure on Pushpa Kamal Dahal and more
Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here.
In this episode, we talk about upcoming elections in the Maldives and Pakistan, an economic boycott of Muslim traders in Haryana in the aftermath of communal violence, as well as communal violence targeting Christians in Pakistan's Faisalabad.
In "Around Southasia in Five Minutes", we talk about how unpaid electricity bills are revealing corruption among the political establishment in Sri Lanka, even in the aftermath of economic crisis; the capsizing of a boat carrying Rohingya refugees off the coast of Myanmar; Manipur's ongoing internet ban and Narendra Modi's recent statement on the crisis in the state; continued calls to release lhotshampa political prisoners in Bhutan; fractures in Nepal's ruling coalition amid corruption scandals; The Indian government's attempt to impose Hindi-language bills on non-Hindi speaking states; and the funeral of the controversial Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee in Bangladesh.
For "Bookmarked", we discuss the second season of the Amazon Prime series Made in Heaven.
This podcast episode is now available on Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Youtube
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This is a machine-generated, unedited transcript of the episode and may contain inaccuracies. For exactness, please refer to the recording.
This episode was recorded on 22 August 2023.
Raisa Wickrematunge: Hi everyone, and welcome to Southasiasphere, our fortnightly roundup of news events and regional affairs. I'm Raisa and I'm joined by my colleague and assistant editor Shwetha Srikanthan. Hi Shwetha!
Shwetha Srikanthan: Hi Raisa!
RW: So for this episode, we're going to be talking about the kickoff of election season in the Maldives and Pakistan, and Islamophobia in North and Northeast India. For Around Southasia in Five Minutes we'll be talking about unpaid electricity bills and corruption in Sri Lanka, the recent capsizing of a boat carrying Rohingya refugees in the Bay of Bengal, Manipur's internet ban and Modi's statement, fractures in Nepal's ruling coalition after a Supreme Court ruling, calls to release Bhutan's Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa prisoners, protests around the funeral of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee, and how three recently introduced bills on criminal laws in India's parliament amounted to imposing Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states.
Let's start off with talking about elections.
RW: Now the Maldives is slated to kick off presidential elections on 9 September, with 8 names put forward for candidacy. Part of the reason for this higher number of candidates might be because of splits in former political coalitions. Most prominently, the former president Mohamed Nasheed created a new party, the Democrats, as a result of splits within the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party. They've put forward Ilyas Labeeb as a candidate, and this is likely because Nasheed is aiming for the role of prime minister. A key omission from the list is Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, who received an 11 year sentence on corruption and money-laundering charges. The supreme court has ruled that as a result, Yameen is barred from contesting. Now, he's been urging his Progressive Party of the Maldives as well as other parties in the opposition coalition to boycott the elections. This was a proposal which was rejected by the Progressive Party and coalition partner People's National Congress. Instead they've put forward Malé City Mayor, Mohamed Muizzu as a candidate. Initially Yameen reportedly rejected this decision, which lead to tension within the coalition, but he has since apparently changed his stance and said he will back Muizzu, and he is already speaking about his intent to free Yameen if he is elected.
There's also a few independent candidates, including business tycoon and leader of the Jumhooree, Party Qasim Ibrahim, and Faris Maumoon, who is Yameen's nephew and son of former president Maumoon Abdul Qayoom. Both these candidates used to back president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, but have opted to run independently this time around. All of this points to Maldives' fractured political landscape and indicates that a contentious election is in the offing. Do read our February 2023 Himal Brief on the presidential race, linked in the episode notes.
[Pakistan news clip audio]
RW: In Pakistan, president Arif Alvi dissolved the lower house of parliament, which paved the way for general elections under a neutral caretaker administration, and a caretaker prime minister, senator Anwar ul-Haq Kakar of the Balochistan Awami Party, has been appointed. This indicates that elections should be held by 8 November, but the outgoing government also approved a new census, which means the election commission has to draw new electoral boundaries before elections, so this is likely to push back that date. At the moment, Pakistan's election commission is saying new constituencies will be identified by December 14.
Political analysts are worried that a prolonged caretaker administration might also allow the military to consolidate control. Meanwhile, Imran Khan has been barred from holding public office for five years, meaning that he loses his member of parliament position as well. He maintains that the charges against him are politically motivated. The announcement of elections is another step towards ending the political instability that has been impacting Pakistan for months, including a crackdown on the PTI party and its supporters. We've been covering this in past episodes of Southasiasphere as well – do revisit those episodes, which we'll link to in episode notes.
SS: In Haryana, there are calls for boycotting Muslim shops and keeping Muslims out of villages, after the outbreak of communal violence in Nuh and Gurugram districts. More than 50 village governing bodies in three districts in Haryana issued statements on 3 August saying they decided to ban the entry of Muslim traders in their areas in the wake of "atrocities committed on Hindus in Nuh".
So far, police have arrested over 393 people and have taken at least 118 into preventive detention. Much of these calls for boycotts are coming from Hindu rightwing groups like Bajrang Dal, with Bajrang Dal member Krishna Gurjar issuing ultimatums to local traders to fire any Muslim employees they had or face a boycott. At another demonstration on 6 August in Haryana's Tigra village, Hindu protesters demanded the release of men arrested for killing the deputy imam of the Anjuman Jama mosque in Gurugram district.
Meanwhile, Assam's chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma while speaking at an Independence Day event in Guwahati said the state would bring a strong law to end polygamy and child marriage in Assam by 2026. While Sarma framed his comments as an attempt to improve women's empowerment in the state, his thinly-veiled Islamophobic comments are meant to appeal to his constituents. All these incidents add up to heightened structural violence targeting Muslims in North and Northeast India.
Across the border in Pakistan, there was violence targeting the Christian community in Jaranwala in Faisalbad, sparked by claims that two Christian men had torn pages from the Quran. According to a fact-finding report by the Human Rights Focus Pakistan, based on interviews with over 150 survivors, at least 19 churches have been destroyed and 89 Christian houses set on fire. Around 100 people have been arrested and the provincial government has ordered a full inquiry.
And now for our next segment, Around Southasia in 5 minutes.
Around Southasia in 5 minutes
RW: In Sri Lanka, unpaid electricity bills have been in the news. The JVP member Nalin Hewage recently filed an RTI request and found that the former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's son Namal had not settled an electricity bill amounting to 2.6 million Sri Lankan rupees, which is from his wedding reception in 2019. The younger Rajapaksa asked for a clarification, which the CEB promised to provide.
In another incident, electricity to the sacred grounds of the Mihintale temple was disconnected after they had not paid their electricity bills in several months. They had accumulated as much as 4.1 million Sri Lankan rupees in unpaid bills. In another twist to this story, the leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, Sajith Premadasa, then settled the bill and said the disconnection was mistreating a place of worship.
These incidents only underscore how despite Sri Lanka's economic crisis and sustained public protest calling for cleaner governance, corruption continues to persist within Sri Lanka's established political class. Premadasa's act of settling Mihintale's unpaid bill also highlights the prominent place that the Buddhist clergy has always received in political affairs in Sri Lanka, and can be seen as him pandering to would-be Sinhalese voters, although slated elections have been indefinitely postponed by the current president.
SS: At least 23 people drowned and over 30 more are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Malaysia capsized off the coast of Myanmar. Eight people have been rescued. In total there were believed to be at least 58 people on board when a storm hit. According to the UNHCR, more than 3500 Rohingya attempted the crossing over the Andaman sea and the Bay of Bengal in 2022, while Human Rights Watch reported that around 350 of those attempting the crossing drowned in 2022.
We hosted an edition of Southasian Conversation on the Rohingya crisis at sea in March. Do watch that via the link in our episode notes.
RW: In Manipur, an internet ban imposed after the outbreak of communal violence on May 3 has only partly been lifted, with mobile internet, VPNs and social media websites remaining suspended and connection only allowed through static IP addresses. On August 11, the Manipur High court asked the state government to selectively allow internet access through whitelisted phone numbers and also called for a report from the state government outlining their approach. There has been much criticism of the ban given that it limits the flow of information around human rights violations, including sexual violence in the aftermath of the May 3 violence.
The Indian prime minister Modi was compelled to speak about Manipur despite easily defeating a no-confidence-motion filed against him by opposition parties, vowing to bring peace to the state at the earliest and adding that the incidents in Manipur were "saddening" and that wrongdoers would be punished. He also took potshots at the Congress saying that Indira Gandhi's government used the air force to attack Mizoram in 1966. The opposition said that Modi avoided talking about Manipur in much of his 2-hour speech. Meanwhile on August 18, the supreme court passed orders to facilitate the functioning of a three-member panel set up to oversee relief and rehabilitation for the victims of the violence.
SS: In Bhutan there are continued calls to release political prisoners who have been held in poor conditions for decades, after unfair trials in Bhutan since 1990. In a joint statement, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said around 37 prisoners have been serving long sentences, many of them sentenced to life without parole. Most of the prisoners are accused of opposing discriminatory policies targeting Bhutan's Nepali-speaking lhotshampa community, which faced persecution in the 1990s. The advocacy groups called on King Jigme to grant clemency. The prisoners reportedly have endured torture and had no access to defence lawyers at the time of trial, and are receiving inadequate food, heating and bedding and are denied visits from friends and family.
RW: In Nepal there are continued fractures in the ruling coalition leading to the prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal calling an emergency meeting, after a supreme court decision paved the way for two former prime ministers to be put on trial over corruption allegations. Now, Madhav Kumar Nepal, who is a key coalition partner, said that there would be consequences if action was taken against him, which may have prompted Dahal to call the meeting. Nepal, who is a former prime minister, and another former prime minister, Baburam Bhattarai, are both implicated in a fraudulent land transfer case, which allowed around 15 hectares of land, including the prime minister's residence, Nepal Rastra Bank central office and some other residences of key government officials, to be transferred to private individuals. Previously, both the former prime ministers escaped accountability for their role in the case, but the recent verdict has lifted the 13-year immunity enjoyed by Nepal's ministers from being probed by government agencies.
At the same time, the Nepali Congress is also upset with Dahal over investigations into a scam involving Bhutanese refugees, which has implicated the Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba's wife, Arzu Rana Deuba, and they are pressuring him to transfer out the investigating officers in the case. These incidents put increased pressure on Dahal who now has to attempt to appease key coalition partners in order to maintain stability in the ruling alliance.
SS: On 11 August, the India home minister Amit Shah introduced three new bills aimed at replacing colonial era legislation – namely the Indian Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Evidence Act. However the bills have been met with protests by legislators in South India who pointed out that the titles of the bills presented were in Hindi, effectively imposing the Hindi language on non-Hindi speaking states. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Wilson went so far as to term the move "unconstitutional" while the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin had on Friday said the centre's move "reeks of linguistic imperialism".
[Bangladesh news clip audio]
RW: In Bangladesh, the funeral of a senior Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee, who was sentenced to death in 2013 for rape, murder and the persecution of Hindu Bangladeshis during the country's war for independence in 1971, which was later commuted to life imprisonment, was attended by over 50,000 people. There was heavy police presence at the funeral but at least one person died in clashes with police, after supporters attempted to hold a remembrance ceremony for Sayedee. The high attendance signals growing support for the conservative Jamaat-e-Islami party, despite the ruling Awami League initiating war crimes trials against the party and generally working to clamp down on political opposition. We recently discussed the resurgence of Jamaat-e-Islami in a previous edition of Southasiasphere, so do listen to that which we'll link to in the episode notes.
And now for our next segment, Bookmarked. Shwetha, do you have any recommendations?
Bookmarked
SS: Yes, this week, we'll be talking about the second season Amazon Prime series Made in Heaven, of the directors Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti.
[Audio from Made in Heaven season 2 trailer]
The show traces the story of a group of wedding planners who go to great lengths to help Delhi's elite plan their dream weddings"while navigating their own problems along the way. Now the show has been widely discussed for spotlighting customs and prejudices that impact marriages but usually are not discussed, let alone shown in mainstream television. The first season of Made in Heaven addressed topics like dowry, ageism and sexual assault. This time, it adds colourism, caste prejudice, polygamy and domestic violence to the list. The show has also been praised for prominent featuring queer characters and also for the depiction of a Dalit wedding. But the show has also met with critcism on some fronts.
Raisa, have you seen the show?
RW: I have. Full disclosure, I've watched only a couple of episodes. But so far I've been seeing what you've been saying that it does touch on issues like colourism, caste, class and issues like that, and it does portray queer intimacy as well, which has received a lot of praise. But the show has also received some criticism for several reasons, one of the criticisms levelled, which I agree with, is that the kind of complexity of the characters is only given to the wedding planner protagonists and we only see them navigating through their internal issues, whereas the couples who feature in each episode are more cookie cutter and we don't gain much insight into their lives outside of the issues they discuss.
It does also remind me of shows like Indian Matchmaking in that there's this almost kind of a check list of issues they're trying to check off, not necessarily delving deeper into any of them and deeply criticising issues like caste for example. Apart from that, it has of course gotten quite some criticism because of Yashica Dutt who commented saying that at least one episode, the one that deals with caste and the Dalit wedding seems to have been at least partly inspired by her life and her book, which is called Coming Out as Dalit, and the episode also refers to coming out as Dalit throughout as well. So she said that she had not been credited and had not received compensation despite her life clearly being the inspiration for this episode.
The directors for their part put out an initial statement saying that they "categorically deny any claim that Ms Dutt's life or work was appropriated". Subsequently one of the directors, Neeraj Ghaywan said in an interview "Art is subjective. Art is reflecting reality, and if it won't, it will be hollow," and asked the question whether a lot of things that are depicted in art come from reality and "you have to see things from that lens of art". This is slightly different to the initial statement where they are simply denying that there is any connection with Yashica Dutt, and he has also claimed that the character is based on his life because he himself used the name Kumar to hide his Dalit identity and has now reclaimed his last name.
Apart from that, I would say that it is an entertaining watch but it kind of gives you the feeling that it's just going down a checklist and trying to tick all the boxes in terms of social issues to talk about. But if you want a lighthearted watch or just want to understand what people are arguing about on Twitter, then I'd recommend you give it a watch.
SS: And I also wanted to give a quick shoutout for this month's Screen Southasia film, Perween Rahman: The Rebel Optimist. This is an intimate portrait of a Pakistani architect and urban planner, Perween Rahman, and her life and work. Click the link in our episode notes to register for the screening from 1-4 September. And join us for a Q & A session with the director Mahera Omar on 4 September.
RW: Thanks Shwetha. And on that note, that's it for this edition of Southasiasphere. See you next time. Bye!
SS: Bye!
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