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I think,
when one looks at the whole thing, this seems to be rather a positive and
creative thing that GOI is doing by allowing the children to live inside the
jail with their mothers. On a negative sense, we may say, like Chandan is doing,
look, they are putting the children also in jail, what a shame. But look at
the alternatives. In the West, where things are looked either as black or
white, such children would have been completely abandoned and would have
been drug addict or something like that.(No wonder, USA has the
highest number of people behind bars). In this creative scheme done by India, the
children are allowed to live with their mothers who are in jail. That has
definitely lessened the pain of the jail term on both the mother and children.
Second the children are getting an education. The children probably would
not feel that they in jail. I am sure they have the freedom to go out with some
guardian. I think the whole experience will pacify the mothers in the end and
will make them rather realize the futility of their mission to die for
their country rather than to live for their children. After all,
when one looks at things philosophically, all missions, whether religion or
patriotism or revolution or revenge, that people often commit themselves to die
for, would seem rather childish. After all the whole thing depends
on basically what type of training or lesson one gets
in childhood, or what type of horrible experience people go through in life
etc. I am not saying that one is good and the other is bad. Both are life,
and people esteem life depending on the value system that they believe. Gandhi
was a revolutionary who fought for the freedom of India. Rabindra Nath Tegore or
Vivekanand or Aurobindo did not, In the end, I really don't know whose
contribution is more for India. Would India would have been bad, if Gandhi
were never born? May be India would have been under British rule ten or twenty
more years. Would it have been bad? Bad for whom? Definitely not for Assam, many
would say.
After all
the Assamese may be right in taking life rather easy without any strong
committment or in as they say, in a Hobo Diok manner. Today Assam may be
lagging, but we cannot ssay that the Assamese are lagging.
RB
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 5:11
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] News from Sentinel -
prisoners' children
I do wish that Assamese NGO take up the task of raising children of
imprisoned ULFA members. Prima -facie from the article it seems that Indian
govt has granted special concession to allow the ULFA members to remain
together .
I my own home -- I look at the case of my poor cousin who was
poisoned by his wife last year and died subsequently. The wife and her
paramour are in jail now. What happened to the children??
Noone in our family wanted to shoulder the burden of raising them.
Ultimately now they are with my father -- who is a distant relative of theirs.
Perhaps similarly noone wants to raise the children of imprisoned ULFA
members.
It is good that this issue has been raised. maybe NRAs can do
something for the children - like opening a residential school in Assam and
providing funds for international level studies.
Umesh
Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
At 9:40 PM +0000 11/8/05, umesh sharma wrote:
C-da,
From the article:
"The jail has seven children. They
are not prisoners, but are inside
the jail by default as their
mothers are prisoners who have no safe
places to keep their children
outside the jail.
*** And the difference from being imprisoned? At best semantic, isn't
it?
The bottom line: These children are being made to pay for their
parents' sins, real or imagined. Do civilized people do that? You tell
us.
But I will take a step back and ask you and others if it is a Hindu
thing: For children to pay for the sins of their parents, and
ancestors? Why I ask is that I am reminded, very vaguely, about
certain rites by offsprings, at the demise of their parents, dealing with
their salvation or something to do with that. Maybe there IS such a thing in
Hindu traditions for the offsprings to pay for their parents' sins. Is
there? If it is so, it might explain this profoundly despicable
practice.
I am going to look into referring the issue to Amnesty International.
If there is anyone in the net who have made contacts with AI in the past,
will appreciate any feedback.
cm
The jail authorities
got in touch
with the Sarba Siksha Mission who in turn provided them
with a
teacher."
Umesh
Chan Mahanta
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 21:15:20 -0600
To:
assam@assamnet.org
From: Chan Mahanta
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Assam] News from
Sentinel
This is the kind of democracy that is running the
country, in which
CHILDREN are in prison along with their parents. Is
this the legacy
of a ten, and why not even 15, thousand year
(un)civilization?
cm
________________________________________________________________________________
Of
ISI teachers and ULFA 'kids'
NAGAON, Nov 7 (UNI): The
teachers are dreaded ISI agents and the
students "ULFA children".
Nothing sinister here but.
This unique school with seven students
and three teachers is inside
a jail of Assam. The students are mostly
offsprings of the jailed
ULFA leaders and the teachers are three
dreaded ISI agents,
condemned for life.
The! ir daily
activities related to schooling have brought in a fresh
air of
expectation and happiness in the entire jail compound which
has been
resounding with nursery rhymes along with the usual sounds
of thick
heavy boots walking on the long verandahs.
The school curriculum
is a healthy mixture of alphabets, English and
games besides the
lively nursery rhymes.
The school, without a name, is housed
inside the Nagaon district
jail, 130 kilometre from Guwahati, where
the three ISI agents and a
group of ULFA detenues, many of whom are
women, are jailed.
The jail has seven children. They are not
prisoners, but are inside
the jail by default as their mothers are
prisoners who have no safe
places to keep their children outside the
jail. The jail authorities
got in touch with the Sarba Siksha Mission
who in turn provided them
with a teacher.
But the three ISI
agents, one each from Karachi and Bangladesh, came
forward and,
according to jail authorities, they are proving to be
good teachers
with children enjoying with them.
The three ISI agents are
Fasiullah (45) from Karachi, Billal Miyan
(35) of Shyllet, Bangladesh
and Mosaha Samsed Khan (30) of
Muzaffarpur of Uttar Pradesh. Of them,
Fasiullah is the dreaded one
and his arrest five years back was
considered as one of the greatest
success of Assam Police as well as
the Central Intelligence Agencies.
Fasiullah was the actual
kingpin of the ISI racket in the North east
India, supplying both
money and material in the fertile land of
Islamist Fundamentalists in
bordering areas of lower Assam.
He, along with other two, were
lodged in the Guwahati jail and only
on August 8 were they
transferred to Nagaon jail as the Guwahati
jail had become
overcrowded.
All the three were lodged at Hospital ward of the
Nagaon jail where
they have opened their school also. The ULFA
detenues are kept! a
little away in the general ward or National Security Act
(NSA)
prisoner's ward.
There is no fixed time for the school
and it all depends on the
children's waking up and getting
ready.
The jail authorities have provided each child books,
pencils and
rough books, besides elementary facilities and the
children are very
happy to be with their teachers.
According
to jail authorities the teachers focus more on English,
which have
made their mothers happier.
Although there is no official record,
in various jails there are
more than 30 such children of ULFA
parents. Most of these young ULFA
boys and girls joined the militant
outfits with romantic illusions
and got married and down the years
were arrested by police.
The maximum number of mothers and
children got arrested when the
Bhutan camp was busted.
The
eldest child of Nagaon jail is Abinav Deka
(6).
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