Saturday, September 5, 2020

#IfWeDoNotRise: Gauri Lankesh’s Legacy Lives On

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Vanshita Banuana

Article Title

#IfWeDoNotRise: Gauri Lankesh’s Legacy Lives On

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Global Views 360

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September 5, 2020

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Image of Gauri Lankesh

Image of Gauri Lankesh | Source: Twitter

In the late evening hours of 5th September, 2017, journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh was unlocking the door to her house after a long day at work. However, she was never destined to set foot inside again, as armed assailants fired seven shots before fleeing, some of which hit Lankesh and led to her death at the scene.

Lankesh was an outspoken critic of right-wing and Hindutva ideologies, and it is widely believed that this was the reason she was targeted. This corresponds with a lot of the arrests that have been made in the case, most of whom—including the people who shot her—were people who belonged to Hindutva groups.

Lankesh was one of three children born to poet and journalist Palya Lankesh who established the weekly Kannada-language Lankesh Patrike. Lankesh followed in her father’s footsteps, starting out in the Times Of India and then working with Sunday magazine for close to a decade. She married, and later divorced, opinion columnist Chidanand Rajghatta, after which she remained single.

Lankesh had been a journalist for 16 years when her father passed away. She and her brother Indrajit initially planned on ceasing the publication of Lankesh Patrike, but was convinced by the publisher to continue. Gauri became the editor, while Indrajit handled the business side of things. However, due to creative and ideological differences, the siblings had a falling out, leading to Gauri establishing her own Kannada weekly called Gauri Lankesh Patrike.

In the last few days before her death, Lankesh and her team were in the process of reshaping her magazine, Gauri Lankesh Patrike. After her death, the staff of Gauri Lankesh Patrike published the last edition of the magazine before shutting it down for a few months.

A year after her death, the staff released the first edition of Nyaya Patha (Way Of Justice), a weekly Kannada-language tabloid. Currently, they also run two websites, Gauri Lankesh News in English and Naanu Gauri in Kannada.

Lankesh’s death was described by the BBC as the most high-profile journalist murdered in recent years. A Karnataka Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed in 2018 to probe the murder case. The charge sheet for the 18 arrested for their involvement in the case runs thousands of pages long and supposedly provides damning evidence, but similar to cases of other murdered journalists, the case is slow to move forward in court, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lankesh’s family, along with the families of journalists like M.M. Kalburgi have been appealing to the state government for a special fast-track court to be set up to ensure speedy justice, especially after special measures such as SITs and length investigations to ensure an in-depth probe into the cases.

In light of the third anniversary of Lankesh’s death, activists all over the country are organising a campaign by the name of #IfWeDoNotRise, to speak out against the crackdown on dissenting journalists and activists. Many journalists have been murdered in manners similar to Lankesh and others are arrested under laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which has been accused of being misused to clamp down on freedom of speech.

Those protesting against rightward shift in governance look up to figures like Gauri Lankesh who paid for their activism with their life, but are also raising their voices to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Forgetting Lankesh and the circumstances of her death means forgetting the constant threat of Hindutva indoctrination and its violence, which is only increasing under the present ruling dispensation.

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February 4, 2021 5:01 PM

Qatar’s Crucial Role in the US-Taliban Deal

After more than eighteen years of war in Afghanistan, on 29 February 2020, the United States and Taliban signed a peace deal which was the first step in ending the war. The agreement was signed in the Qatari capital Doha between Talibani political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad.

Speaking prior to the signing, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his appreciation for Qatar’s hosting of talks which led to the agreement and said "So the nation of Qatar has been an enormously important partner to get us to this very moment. When we have hit bumps in the road, they have helped smooth them out. They have agreed to host a significant piece of the conversations that have taken place that have built out on the set of agreements. We appreciate that and we thank them."

Head of the Political Office of the Afghan Taliban Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar expressed gratitude to the Emir of Qatar and the Qatari officials who supported these negotiations for a long time. He specially thanked them for providing a place to set up a representative office for the Taliban team which negotiated with the US team.

Qatar although was not much involved in the direct negotiation between Taliban & US as this was mostly done by Pakistan, however it played equally, if not more important role by hosting the political office of Taliban for almost two years. It was also able to win the confidence of Taliban, USA, and Pakistan for its impartiality during the eighteen month long negotiation process. Without this support there was no way that US-Taliban negotiations could have reached an agreement.

Qatar at one point helped to salvage the deal when it was about to collapse after the negotiations were already wrapped and the deal was about to be signed. A Qatari official who was also involved in the process said that Doha looked for a “face-saving” way to restore talks when Trump cancelled a meeting in September with Taliban leaders owing to the attack by the group which killed a U.S. soldier.

“We thought about two things to do. Number one a hostage release or swap and the second one to work on a reduction in violence. We thought if we succeeded in those two points we can save the process and bring the parties to the negotiating table again, and that’s what we did in November.” said Mutlaq Al Qahtani, Qatar’s foreign ministry representative for counterterrorism and mediation of conflict resolution.

James Dorsey of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Middle East Institute in Singapore said, “The Qataris have essentially tried to make themselves crucial to the United States in being mediators where the Americans need mediators and of course post-2017... positioning Qatar that way was very important.”  

The Taliban deal could also place Qatar in a position which could help decrease tensions between Washington and Iran. This is because Qatar hosts the largest U.S. military base in the region and also shares a giant gas field with Iran which sided with Doha during the Saudi led boycott of Qatar.

Recommended Readings:

  1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-taliban-qatar/u-s-taliban-deal-puts-qatar-on-stronger-footing-with-washington-idUSKBN20O1RL
  2. https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2020/03/taliban-deal-peace-finally-afghanistan-200306070535568.html
  3. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/resurrected-taliban-peace-talks-open-qatar-191207105319486.html
  4. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/taliban-early-discuss-resuming-talks-191129090959411.html
  5. https://www.gulf-times.com/story/657317/Qatar-wins-praise-for-its-role-in-US-Taliban-deal
  6. https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2020/3/3/pakistan-and-qatars-key-role-in-afghan-peace-deal
  7. https://www.dawn.com/news/1537093
  8. https://www.trtworld.com/asia/us-taliban-sign-peace-deal-in-qatar-to-end-america-s-longest-war-34207
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