[Reader-list] doubt about what, javed.?
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
shuddha at sarai.net
Sat Nov 8 18:52:26 IST 2008
Dear All,
The pathetic piece of political theatre featuring saliva and smashed
window panes that was enacted by as yet unidentified 'cultural
nationalists' and ABVP activists at Delhi University a few days ago,
involving an assault on the dignity and person of SAR Geelani, ( a
lecturer in the university who has every right to participate in the
discursive life of the university as an institution) continues to
occupy this list, distracting us from many other more urgent
discussions.
Once again, Pawan Durani and Aditya Raj Kaul have abused the freedom
of the Reader List (and yes, I agree with Shivam that the time has
come now for us to eject them from this list, we have been patient
enough) to point fingers at a man who the highest court of law in
this country could not convict, simply because the prosecution could
not furnish the court with any evidence, or basis in law to convict
him with. There was not an iota of evidence against him that could
withstand the scrutiny of a rigourous legal process.
I might add here that many of us, myself included, refrain from
commenting on the so called 'guilt' of the individuals who have been
detained under suspicion of being involved in the Malegaon, Modasa
and Nanded bombings, because I at least do not believe that the
brandishing of allegations made by policemen before trials begin, as
if there were proven truth, is healthy. I might strongly disagree
with a person, or even suspect an individual or individuals and
networks of being involved in terror, but to take names and bandy
about confessions made in police custody as if they were revelations
is deeply unethical. My reticence on this matter stems from the same
reason as the outrage and anger I feel when the police goes to town
with allegations about episoded like the so called Jamia Nagar
encounter. The 'Hindu' or 'Muslim' identities of the alleged
terrorists, in either case, is irrelevant. Whether it is Sadhvi
Pragya Thakur or Zia ur Rahman both should be entitled to free and
fair trials. I do not believe in endorsing the pillorying of those I
do not agree with means that are unfair.
Having said that, let us now turn to the matter that has caused this
post. Since Durani and Kaul do not shy away from repeating their
allegations regarding Geelani ad nauseam on this forum in the
Goebbelsian hope that the accumulation of untruth will somehow
magically endow their calumny with credence, I find myself compelled
to post material that I have posted before. I would ordinarily not
have done this. I do this for the sake of the record on this list,
because I count SAR Geelani as a friend and as a decent human being
and because there are many new subscribers who may not know that
Durani and Kaul's arguments with regard to Geelani and 13 December
have been dealt with before here, by me, as well as by others.
Please see below a modified and edited excerpt from a longer post by
me on this matter titled 'Translation, Guilt, Innocence and Two Cups
of Coffee'. This post appeared on the Reader List on the 1st of
August, 2007.
see - <http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-August/
010068.html> for the complete, earlier version of this text.
Let me say one more thing, in passing. While re-reading this post, my
interest was piqued at the appearance made within this narrative by
none other than the now 'martyred' police officer Mohan Chand Sharma.
Strengthening once again my suspicion that the circumstances
surrounding his death may not have been as simple as many would have
us believe. With Rajbir Singh (the other key police officer involved
in the 13 December case, who, incidentally, we are told, was
'martyred' to real estate speculation) and Mohan Chand Sharma
disposed of, and Mohammad Afzal's fate hanging in balance, the cast
of characters who really know what happened on the 13th of December,
2001 is rapidly shrinking.
This fact may be of great comfort to those whose political ambitions
require the combination of a hard posture against 'terrorism' in
public together with a real effort to destroy or contaminate evidence
about what has actually happened when spectacular cases of
'terrorism' have actually occurred. Now why would this be necessary,
we might ask. Perhaps because the truth about December 13, may (and
here, I am unashamedly speculating) be far more disturbing than every
narrative we have been offered till now. I do not know what the Truth
about December 13 is. What I do know is that the versions that we
have been given by the security apparatus, which are now repeatedly
touted by the BJP and about which the Congress and every other
political party is silend, is not the truth.
For us to get to the bottom of December 13 (and perhaps more) at
least some ghosts would have to talk. And ordinarily, dead men tell
no tales.
Meanwhile, the theatre of bombings, spittings and televised
indignation can continue.
best,
Shuddha
___________________________________________
UPDATED And EDITED Excerpt from 'Translation, Guilt, Innocence and
Two Cups of Coffee'.
As someone who happens to have followed the trial that is being
referred to ('The Parliament Attack/13 December' Case) quite closely
over the last several years, as regular readers on this list will no
doubt recall, I think that I can lay a claim to more than a casual
interest in the matter.
The Geelani-Baiters' interpretation of a fragment of the trial
proceedings, makes for interesting reading. But a word of caution, we
would do well to dwell a little on the relationship between what was
recorded, what was said in court, what was reported, and how it is
now being interpreted by the 'forensic linguistics' division of
Geelani-Baiters, before we jump to any conclusions, either about
Sanjay Kak's purported dissimulation (the Geelani Baiters accuse him
of mistranslating the key 'telephone intercept' that we discuss
below) or about the Geelani-Baiters's motives in making these
seemingly infinitely expanding series of allegations. I get a liitle
concerned, perhaps even a little suspicious when I see allegations
begetting allegations with such velocity aand with such with
remarkable, and self-congratulatory, promiscuity.
Let me first take the newspaper reports and articles that were quoted
recently on a Geelani-Baiting blog post, titled 'A Lie Which Cheated
the Courts' in a blog titled 'The Kashmir' - which Pawan Durani, and
then Aditya Raj Kaul refer to, more than once - in their postings.
http://thekashmir.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/a-lie-which-cheated-the-
courts/
The blog entry (and accompanying comments) basically say that -
Sanjay Kak (and Sampath Prakash) 'mistranslated' the phrase that they
render as 'Yeh Kya Korua' which occured in the conversation between
SAR Geelani and his brother. The court, they say, was misled by their
'mistranslation' and hence, SAR Geelani was acquitted.
Nested within this blog entry are four hyperlinks, two of which are
relevant to the question at hand -
1. A report in the Hindu, Friday, May 02, 2003 ' Parliament attack
case: HC questions prosecution version of arrests'
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/05/02/stories/2003050202871300.htm
and
2. Basharat Peer's essay in the Guardian - 'Victims of December 13',
July 5, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/kashmir/Story/0,2763,990901,00.html
(It is in the contents of Basharat Peer's essay that the Geelani-
Baiters theory of 'mistranslation' finds its ammunition. Mind you, I
am saying contents, not argument, because Basharat's argument runs
entirely counter to the Geelani-Baiters version of the question of
SAR Geelani's guilt or innocence, but that is not immediately important.
I will analyse each of these stories in turn, examine how they are
being read in the blog under discussion, look at some additional
material, and then, I will turn to the publicly available court
records of the case, to try and see if there is any sense in what
Geelani-Baiters are saying.
Let's get a few facts right first. The depositions made by Sanjay Kak
and Sampath Prakash did not get SAR Geelani his acquittal. These
depositions were made at the appelate proceedings at the High Court,
and the High Court confirmed the sentence of death awarded to Geelani
by the trial court. Sanjay Kak has pointed this out himself, in his
posting on this list - the one in which he reprimands me for spoiling
the party we are all having in watching the Geelani-Baiters hydra
expose itself. The High Court confirmed the death sentence, even
though it found the prosecution's arguments with regard to this
particular phone intercept severely wanting (see below), while
simultaneously dismissing the value of Sanjay Kak and Sampath
Prakash's testimonies, not on the grounds of inadequate or faulty
translation, but on the ground that they, being members of the All
India Defence Committee for SAR Geelani, were not disinterested
witnesses. SAR Geelani's acquittal at the Supreme Court too was not
based on the testimonial contributions of Sanjay Kak or Sampath
Prakash, but on the failure of the prosecution (including in the
instance of the phone intercept) to show that they in fact had any
concrete evidence against him. Perhaps the Geelani-Baiters are
unaware of the fact that the Indian legal system (with the aberrant
exception of the now repealed POTA) works with the assumption that it
is guilt that needs to be proved, not innocence.
Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that the Geelani-Baiters now
realize their factual error in stating that it was Sanjay Kak's
testimony that 'freed' Geelani, and focus next on intention rather
than on consequences. Not in order to win or lose a legal wager, but
in order to retain their terribly difficult and hard won position on
the slippery slope of their self-assumed moral high ground. Then they
would argue that it hardly matters whether or not Geelani was
acquitted on the basis of these statements, what matters is that an
attempt was made to mislead the court, and by extension, the people
of India. This attempt (in their reading of reality) shows that
Sanjay Kak, (and by association, those who stand by him) are
indulging in dissimulation.
Now this would be true if,
a) the crux of SAR Geelani's purported guilt of innocence could
logically be demonstrated to lie in the indisputable meaning of the
words 'Yeh Kya Korua'.
and,
b)if the police/prosecution/Geelani-Baiters version/translation of
the conversation were shown to be perfectly in concordance with and
consistent with the context in which the conversation (of which,
remember, the intercept is an imperfect recording) took place.
Remember this, because this is going to be crucial when we look at
the actual court record of how this was looked at in the Supreme
Court, where the matter was finally decided on.
But for now, let us stick first to the question of the quality of the
telephone intercept as evidence, and secondly to the interpretations
given to the words, 'Yeh Kya Korua'
This is what the report on the Hindu (which is a report on the
appelate trial proceedings in the High Court, not on the POTA Trial
Court) that the 'Lies that Cheated the Courts' posting links to, has
to say on the first of these two questions (the evidentiary quality
of the intercept). This report, which Geelani-Baiters invoke but
never detail, merits quotation at length, in fact, in its entirety.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
Parliament attack case: HC questions prosecution version of arrests
The Hindu, Friday, May 02, 2003
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/05/02/stories/2003050202871300.htm
By Our Special Correspondent
[ NEW DELHI MAY 1. The two-judge bench of the Delhi High court,
hearing appeals in the Parliament attack case, today closely
questioned the Prosecution on its version of the arrests made in the
case and the contradictions that it throws up.
The Special Prosecutor, Gopal Subramanium, had told the court,
quoting Delhi police's Investigating Officer, Inspector Mohan Chand
Sharma, that the telephones of S.A.R. Geelani and Afsan Guru/Navjot
Sandhu, had been tapped on December 13. Calls recorded on December 14
— between Geelani and his brother at 12.12 p.m. and between Afsan and
her husband at 8 p.m. — pointed to their connection with the attack
and suggested that Shaukat Hussain and one other person were in
Srinagar.
Geelani's house was put under surveillance on December 13 and
December 14. He was arrested at around 10 a.m. on December 15 and
Afsan Guru at 10.45 a.m. Information received from Afsan Guru about
the registration number of the truck in which her husband was
travelling was sent to Srinagar. On the basis of this, the truck was
located at 8 a.m. on December 15 and Shaukat Hussain and Mohammed
Afzal were arrested by 11.45 a.m.
The Srinagar police officer, who made the arrests, stated in evidence
that he received information about the truck's registration number at
5.30 a.m. on December 15.
The defence has maintained that Geelani was arrested on December 14
at around 1 p.m. and Afsan between 6 and 6.30 p.m.
Justice Usha Mehra asked Mr. Subramanium to explain the discrepancy
in the evidence of the Delhi police (that the arrests were made after
10 a.m. on December 15 and information sent to Srinagar) and of the
Srinagar police (that it acted on information received at 5.30 a.m.).
``If you go only by the clock, then the prosecution is not telling
the truth'', Mr Subramanium said. The question related to the
credibility of the witnesses. ``Your Lordships would have to be
assisted to see which witness is believable''.
Justice Mehra suggested that ``a lesser explanation'', such as the
one offered by the defence that Geelani and Afsan were arrested on
December 14, better suited even the prosecutions version of the
arrests. She told Mr. Subramanium that if the court were to believe
his witness, Mohan Chand Sharma, it would have to disbelieve the
story of the arrests in Kashmir.
Justice Mehra also pointed to other gaps in the Prosecutions story.
Why did the police, which apparently acted with speed to ascertain
phone details, intercept calls and mount surveillance on Geelani on
December 13, not go to the evening college where he taught, even if
only to get his description to help in his arrest? Given that the
identity cards on the dead militants suggested a Kashmiri connection,
why had the police, when intercepting calls, not considered that
these might be in Kashmiri and engage a Kashmiri interpreter? How did
the investigating officer who did not know Kashmiri and had admitted
that the translation of the call involving Geelani was done after it
was recorded, decide that it was the ``relevant''
one ? ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
Fortunately, unlike their lordships, we do not need much 'assistance'
to see whether or not the Geelani-Baiters cohort, in their new found
role as witness, prosecutor, judge and executioner combined are
indeed 'credible'.
Let us see why I think we don't need much assistance.
The chronology spelt out by the above quoted report, which 'Lies that
Cheated the Courts' unhesitatingly invokes, is very clear. When
Geelani was arrested, (according to the prosecution) on the morning
of December 15, no one in the Delhi Police, least of all Inspector
Mohan Chand Sharma, knew what the contents of this infamous phone
call was. Even though it is on this that the prosecution built so
much of their argument. It had simply not yet been 'translated' for
the police .In other words, if the meaning of 'Yeh Kya Korua' in this
conversation was unambiguously - 'What did you all do' - and if it
is true that this phrase referred to the attack on the Parliament - a
fact on which hinged the suspicion that Geelani was involved in the
December 13 incident, then, the police, while arresting him, had no
clue as yet that this was indeed the case. They were arresting him
for saying something that they had not yet known at that time that he
had said. They had no other grounds for arresting him. His cell phone
number was found on the phones recovered from the body of some dead
men. That was all.
[Aside: Consider this - it is possible that in some hours, I might
be able to get Aditya Raj Kaul's cell phone number from somewhere,
and feed it in the directory of my cell phone, or that in some hours,
someone will key in Aditya's number into my cell phone. It is also
possible that I am in fact a terrorist who is, in a few days,weeks,
months, hours, who knows when - about to lead a suicide attack on a
Cafe Coffee Day outlet because I really do not like the way they brew
their coffee. It is possible, indeed more or less sure that I will
die in this attempt. It is possible that my cell phone will then
yield Aditya Raj Kaul's mobile number, (because I have either been
dying to talk to him all along, or because someone has keyed in this
number and put that phone on my dead body) and that then, Aditya Raj
Kaul (who, it is true, I have been in regular touch with as a fellow
subscriber on the Reader List, something my laptop will surely yield,
and who is a 'Facebook Friend' of some of my 'Facebook Friends') will
then be arrested and held for five years in solitary confinement, and
be sentenced twice to death on the grounds that he was the terrorist
mastermind of the 'All India and J&K Coffee Liberation Squad', of
which I was a mere zombie underling, sent out to court death for the
sake of better aroma for us all You get my drift: End of Aside]
The depositions of the investigating officer in the case at the trial
court are to the effect that there were other conversations, other
intercepts. The depositions of the prosecution witness who translated
the intercept, the fruit vendor Rashid Ali, and the man who actually
did the interception both indicate that there was a great deal more
that was said, and that again - there were other conversations. But
the investigating officers chose to zero in on Geelani on the basis
of these two minutes and sixteen seconds alone of a recording where
the signal drops not once, but twice, without taking into account the
intercepts of the other calls. But the fact remains that none of
these intercepts were 'translated' or available in any form for the
police to understand when the arrests were made. So how, then, did
the police know which 'segment' of which recording of which intercept
was relevant to their theory that Geelani was guilty, that he was in
fact the mastermind?
Secondly, the police officer concerned, was clearly not speaking the
truth about the timing of the arrests, because if we are to believe
his chronology of when Geelani and Afshan were arrested in Delhi, we
have to disbelieve the actual time of arrest of Shaukat Hussain and
Muhammad Afzal in Srinagar. If the Delhi police is truthful (Geelani
suspect and arrest justified) then the Srinagar police is lying (thus
Afzal innocent). Yet Afzal and Shaukat are the only key suspecst who
have actually been found guilty. And if the Delhi police is lying
(about the timing of Geelani and Afshan's arrest (because they get to
Afshan only through Geelani) then the entire story falls apart. This
is why, the phone intercept, is a basically a flawed piece of
evidence. If we take it very seriously, then everything else falls
apart in the case.
Further, if we take the contents of the conversation to be a tacit
admission of complicity, then something even more interesting occurs.
If 'Yeh kya korua' can only mean 'what did you/you all do in Delhi'
which in turn can only mean 'what did you/you all do, as in try to
attack the Parliament in Delhi' then, the person who asks the
question, that is Feizal, is clearly aware of what is going on. He
would not be in a position to make a reference to an event that had
just unfolded if he had not been aware of its imminent unfolding in
advance. In other words, in order for Feizal to have asked a question
which can only be read as a reference to the attack on Parliament,
Feizal needs to have been in on the conspiracy. And yet, Feizal, who
was investigated and questioned at length by the police has never
been charged. There is no attempt to make a case against him. If
Geelani is guilty because he 'knew', (and that is all we can surmise
if we accept this postion, that he 'knew' because there is nothing
else that can be said with regard to the man) then, according to the
argument of the defeated prosecution case and the renascent forensic
expertise of Geelani-Baiters, so must Feizal be guilty. Yet, no one
has ever been able to pin anything on him. And yet the 'needle of
suspicion' continues to quiver in the direction of SAR Geelani, at
least in the arguments that Geelani-Baiters are making.
Still, let us for form's sake, continue to try and take their
position seriously. Let us actually go into the language of what is
being said, and the context in which the conversation takes place.
Basharat Peer's excellent article in the Guardian, the second and
more apparently 'damning' revelation dredged up by the diligent
Geelani-Baiter blog-soldiers actually says the following -
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
"Giving evidence in court, Kak said, "The Kashmiri equivalent of
'What's happened?' is 'Yeh Kya Korua'. It is a generic term used for
a range of ordinary circumstances, such as when a child spills a
glass of milk or when there is snowfall or a marital dispute." The
younger brother of the accused teacher had called simply to get a
syllabus and a prospectus. He translated that portion of the call as:
Receiver (accused teacher): "Tell me what you want?" Caller (his
brother): "Syllabus and prospectus." (from Basharat Peer's article,
cited and linked above)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------
Remember, Kak does not say that 'What's happened' is a *translation*
of 'Yeh Kya Korua'. He says it is an *equivalent*. The word
equivalent connotes a similarity of valence or value, not an
identity. Equivalent is not identical. Equivalent means 'something
approximating to another thing' not 'something identical with another
thing'. But Kak does not stop here. He locates the phrase rendered as
'Yeh Kya Korua' in the context of how people might talk about events,
idiomatically - as 'a generic term used for a range of ordinary
circumstances'.
Just as in Bengali, we might say 'E ki kando' (what's been done/'Oh,
what happenned') or 'E ki korlen' ('what did you do') to express -
surprise, delight, pain, pleasure, irritation, wonder, astonishment
and a whole gamut of expressions. Idiomatic language often contains
expressions that might have a different import from their 'literal'
meaning, and that may or may not refer to personalized interactions,
but could even extend to general comments on nature and the cosmos,
as a way of 'greasing' the levers of conversation. Such that a
Bengali like me could say, very easily, to another Bengali 'e ki
korlen' while looking up at the thundering sky, in a difficult to
translate idiomatic move that includes in its ambit, not just the
other person, but also the sky god Indra as well . Sampat Prakash's
testimony in the trial court also includes several examples of the
diversity of ways in which the phrase, "Yeh Kya Korua' might be
deployed in ordinary conversation between two Kashmiris who were on
familiar but respectful terms with one another.
But I digress, it is not references to natural phenomena that we are
discussing here. The question of context becomes all the more
important if we look at the entire contents of the conversation -
which is about a syllabus, a prospectus and a host of other humdrum
matters, some of which are referred to not explicity, but
implicitly.. Actually, it is interesting to read the entire
conversation. And you can read it as a downloadable pdf, in romanized
Kashmiri and English, in no place other than Sarai Reader 04 - Crisis
Media (page 158) on the page facing the beginning of Nandita Haksar's
article 'Tried by the Media': The SAR Geelani Trial.
The pdf file is available for free download, like the entire contents
of all Sarai Readers at http://www.sarai.net/publications/readers/04-
crisis-media
Read it carefully, and you will see that on line 15 there is a
statement (after static noise) by Faizal, Geelani's brother which
reads, in mixed Kashmiri and Hindustani - "meh vonmus 'hota hai' " -
which translates as "I said it happens (hota hai)". This is preceded
by polite, near phatic preliminaries of a totally casual nature, and
followed by an enquiry about a prospectus, at the end of which,
Faizal asks, "Yeh kya korua". To which Geelani responds by asking
"Kya?Dilli ha" ('What?In Delhi?) and Faizal asks again, "Dilli Kya
Korua". it is here that the words "Kya Korua" are located. Indeed,
they can mean 'what did you do', or 'what happenned' depending on how
you choose to read them, because neither reading is incorrect or
antagonistic, even if one is more exact and the other is
idiomatically apposite. In fact, if you do read them as 'what did you/
you all do' too, there is room for ambiguity, because the query could
be about people in the plural, or as correctly hinted at, even in
part by Rashneek, as a - second person singular respectful, (not
plural) past perfect continuous question. Whichever way you choose to
read it. it must be read in conjunction with the "hota hai" that has
preceded it by second. And once you do that, there is no getting away
from the fact that the query refers to a situation, a general state
of being, rather than to a concrete event.
'
Even the prosecution has never really challenged the reading of 'Kya
Korua' as a reference broadly suggesting 'What;s happenned'. This is
clear from another report in the Hindu. One which Geelani-Baiters
neglect to invoke, but I am quite happy to pull out of my archive of
news reports of the 13 December trial.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------
Dec. 13 case: tape of phone intercept played in court
The Hindu, Tuesday, May 06, 2003
By Our Special Correspondent
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/05/06/stories/2003050604181200.htm
NEW DELHI MAY 5. The tape-recorded telephone intercept, which was the
mainstay of the prosecution's case against S.A.R. Geelani during the
trial of the Parliament attack case, was today played for the Delhi
High Court bench hearing the appeals.
The prosecution has maintained that the tape contains the question,
put to Mr. Geelani by his brother, "what happened in Delhi'' to which
he laughs and replies "yeh che zaroori (this was necessary)''. Having
heard the tape, Justice Nandrajog said that he had not heard "yeh che
zaroori''.
Justice Usha Mehra asked the Special Prosecutor, Gopal Subramanium,
if this evidence was the core of the evidence against Mr. Geelani. "I
am not putting all my eggs in the basket of that intercepted call,''
he replied.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
Things get a little complicated for the Geelani-Baiters theory here.
This newspaper report seems to suggest that even the prosecution
refers to the question 'Yeh Kya Korua' as 'What's happenned in
Delhi'. The judge does not disagree. Since according to Geelani-
Baiters, rendering 'Yeh Kya Korua' as anything like 'What's
happenned' is a sure sign of the fact that the person found doing so
is in cahoots with terrorists, and must be a paid agent of JKLF, we
have to arrive at the conclusion that not only Sanjay Kak and Sampath
Prakash, but also the Special Prosecutor Gopal Subramaniam who tried
so hard to get Geelani to hang, as well as the honorable justices
Nandrajog, Mehra and Dhingra, must be, according to this theory, in
league with terrorism and the paid mercenaries of JKLF or some other
'tanzeem'.
If Geelani-Baiters had the patience to go through the trial
proceedings they would know that shortly after the hearing in which
the whole telephone intercept argument is explored, the court calls
upon Defence Witness #5, Aarifa Geelani, SAR Geelani's wife, who
tells the court that the telephone conversation conains delicate and
discreet references made between the brothers ('hota hai', 'yeh kya
korua') to the fact that Geelani and his wife were at that time
quarrelling about when they should be visiting Kashmir. That Aarifa's
mother in law, Geelani's mother, had asked her son, Feizal, Geelani's
brother, to enquire about why Aarifa was not coming up to Kashmir to
visit them as was planned and to ask if everything was all right at
home in Delhi, and so on.
Of course, Geelani-Baiters don't do boring things like detailed
reading of court transcripts, because they would then know that
Aarifa's testimony passes without adverse comment in the court room.
Doing that requires more than punching messages and scoring points on
Blackberries, and then giving each other virtual congratulary back-
slaps. it requires slow, patient reading. It requires hard work at
the careful knitting together of an argument before even daring to
make the hint of an accusation. But Geelani-Baiters wouldn't waste
their time doing that, would they, becasue that would inhibit their
capacity to post rapid fire slander. They would much rather spend
their time making random links to newspaper reports and articles that
they haven't read or digested, and then, on the basis of these links,
scream 'murder' on our list. It is so much more exciting to deceive
yourself and the world, acquiring in the process a momentary flash of
internet fame, than it is to actually undertake a patient reading of
a judicial record.
Things actually get a lot more complicated for Geelani-Baiters if we
realize that the real controversy in the testimony as it unfolds
through the depositions of defence and prosecution witnesses is not
about the meaning of 'Yeh Kya Korua' at all (about which there is no
real debate in the court room) but about whether or not an expression
rendered as "yeh che zaroori" in the police transcript of the
recording is actually audible or not in the tape.
The edifice of the police and the prosecution's case is actually
entirely built on the purported presence of the words "yeh che
zaroori" immediately following the exchange between the two brothers
that are rendered as "yeh kya korua"..."dilli ha", ..."dilli kya korua"
The police, in its deposition maintained that the words "yeh che
zaroori" translated in the charge sheet as "yeh kabhi kabhi zaroori
hota hai" or, "this becomes necessary at times"( accompanied by
laughter) is indicative of the fact that Geelani was somehow
justifying the attack on the parliament.
Even if we accept, theoretically, that "Yeh kya korua" refers to a
concrete occurence, that is the attack on the parliament, we have no
way of knowing what Geelani thinks about that occurence unless we
have in hand something like "yeh che zaroori". We are not, in other
words in a position to form a reliable theory of mind vis a vis
Geelani and his response to the attack on the parliament. We are not
in a position where we can know anything about guilt, innocence or
complicity unless we know what Geelani's explicitly expressed opinion
on the occurence. This is possible only if we can pull out an
expression like "yeh che zaroori" from our bag of tricks. The problem
is, no one, till date, neither prosecutor, nor defence, nor judge,
nor expert technical witness brought in by the prosecution, has ever
been able to hear anything remotely like the words "yeh che zaroori"
in the recording.
This is what the High Court commented found necessary to say in
paragraph 346 of its ruling while discussing whether or not it heard
the words "yeh che zaroori".
"During the hearing of the appeal, we had called for the tape from
Malkhana and in the presence of the parties played the same. Indeed
the voice was so inaudible that we could not make head or tail of
the conversation. We tried our best to pick up the phonetical sounds
where there was a dispute as to what words were used, but were
unable to do so. Testimony of Prosecution Witness # 48 reveals that
he could not analyse the talk as it was highly inaudible.
Prosecution Witness # 48 is a phonetic expert. If he could not
comprehend the conversation in a clearly audible tone, the
probability of ordinary layman picking up the phonetic sounds
differently cannot be ruled out. The prosecution witness, PW #71,
Rashid, who prepared a transcript of the tape is fifth class pass
and it was not his profession to prepare transcript of taped
conversation. The possibility of his being in error cannot be ruled
out. Benefit of doubt must go to the defence."
And the reason why they have not been able to hear the recording is
the fact that the sounds that make up those words are simply not
there. What we have instead is digital noise, a dropped signal,
auditory degradation - something quite common in recordings of
cellular phone taps, which always suffer in audio recording quality
in comparison to the signal level of the actual conversation.
We might recall at this time that throughout the POTA trial court
proceedings, which preceded the High Court trial, the police and the
prosecution did not find it necessary to produce the actual audio-
recording as evidence, even though they declared from every media
roof top, that they had conclusive evidence about Geelani's
complicity in the contents of that very recording. They produced
instead a transcript of a translation, done after the arrest, days
after the recording, by a person, who happenned to be a Kashmiri
fruit vendor whose working knowledge of Hindi or English was
demonstrably not adequate to the task of translation.
Geelani has insisted in every statement made by him, at every stage
of the trial, that the words "yeh che zaroori" represented an
interpolation in the transcript of the recording. But it took the
inability of anyone to hear the words in the judges chamber during
the trial in the high court for it to be admitted that the three
crucial words, were in fact, simply not said.
It is not surprising therefore that the public prosecutor was candid
in saying that he 'did not want to put all his eggs in the intercept
basket'. But clearly, the Geelani-Baiters division of forensic
linguistics and spin doctoring possess a far higher level of legal
acumen than the special prosecutor who tried so hard to get Geelani
the death penalty. They want to put their eggs, their chicken, the
vegetable matter between their ears and all their rhetorical heavy
spices into the basket of the telephone intercept - a piece of
evidence that everyone acknowledges as being degraded by
confabulation. They are not content at doing just that, they are also
able to shift the weight of evidence from a statement whose existence
is found to be wanting to a statement whose interpretation actually
provokes no controversy. And so, the translation, interpretation or
rendition of 'Yeh Kya Korua' which establish nothing either way,
become, in their eyes, (or should I say ears) more important than the
lynchpin of the prosecution's argument.
Geelani-Baiters deserve to be recognized not just as champions in
wasting this lists time and energy in the pursuit of one red herring
after another, but also as highly creative, wildly imaginative legal
analysts. Their abilities in this regard surpass the best brains of
the Special Cell of the Delhi Police, which has provided us with such
a shining example of probity and integrity throughout the course of
the 13 December trial.
Epilogue: Stray Thoughts on Audio Recording and Translation
...I spent this evening (this refers to the evening before I wrote
this on the 1st of August 2007) talking separately to two friends,
very different people, before sitting through the night to write this
posting. One was a sound recordist and engineer with a special
interest in the auditory qualities of mobile phone devices, an
inventive, cheerful and curious person who is passionate about the
properties of of sound and the craft of sound recording. The second
was a person who teaches a foreign language in Delhi university,
someone whom I have known for the last six years, and whom I have had
several regular but occasional conversations that I always find
personally rewarding.
I asked the first person whether a set of significant sounds, say
three words, could be retrieved from the auditory black hole of
digital noise in a recording of a mobile phone conversation. She said
"no, a digital auditory black hole is a digital auditory black hole.
Once a signal passes below the threshold of audibility and
recognition due to the interference of noise, it cannot be retrieved
by 'cleaning up' the recording". In other words, there are next to no
chances of the recovery of words that might or might not have been
said from under the patina of digital noise in a recording. Ambient
noise can be cleaned, provided there is a sufficient sample of
ambient noise available for a detailed acoustic analysis to be done,
which in turn would help in eliminating the interfering frequencies,
and so 'recover' the lost sound. But a mobile phone conversation is a
digital signal, and a phone intercept of a mobile phone conversation
is a degraded digital signal, and with a less than quality signal to
noise ratio, in other words, more noise, less signal. These
degradations are usually irreparable. For all practical purposes, we
might as well assume that whatever may be underneath the corroded
patch of signal, is non existent. The words 'yeh che zaroori' will
never be found, even if we look for them.
Unfortunately, words let loose in spite, or in anger, on an
electronic list, rarely if ever go into a digital black hole. They
stay orbiting the ether for a long time, bouncing across continents
in forwards, replies and rejoinders. Everything Geelani-Baiters said
on this list is going to stay, and it is their problem as to how they
will live with the endless google searches that will turn up their
fabrications, time and time again. Archived lists have cruel and
unforgiving memories, I hope that before the next time anyone hits
'send' on a mail written in undue haste, they remember this simple fact.
After I met the sound engineer friend, who is by nature shy and
reticent, and wishes to remain nameless, I went to another
rendezvous,this time with the language teacher. We talked of many
things, and one of the things we talked about, was the fact that
while the narration of an offence or a misdemeanour always translates
easily in a courtroom, and then in society at large, as guilt, it
remains very difficult to translate innocence. When someone does
something wrong, or is seen as doing something wrong, you can always
find words to give form to what they have done, or to what you think
they have done. On the other hand, when someone has done nothing, it
becomes very difficult to find words to give substance to this
absence of an action. How can you sculpt a form and a shape out of
the negation of a form or a shape? That is why innocence is difficult
to translate in any language. That is why it is so easy for us to
point fingers at others. Words of accusation fall off the tip of our
tongues, or our fingers, like acid rain.
We spoke in a comfortable mix of Hindustani and English, switching
from one language to another as if they were playmates. I gave
examples about how one might say 'E ki kando' in Bengali, he talked
about the occasions when one might say 'Yeh ki Korua' in Kashmiri. We
had several cups of coffee. We talked about the difficulty of
translating silences in any language. We parted promising to lend
each other books that we had talked about in the course of the
conversation.
This friend speaks Kashmiri at home, teaches Arabic in the
university, and has had to think, due to a continuing set of
circumstances, long and hard, harder than anyone I know, about truth,
translation, guilt and innocence. His name is Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani.
---------
P.S. : For reasons of convenience and contextual consistency, I have
replaced the unfortunate abbreviation 'A.R.K.P', which featured in
the earlier expanded version of the above text with the generic term
'Geelani Baiters' standing for all those who continue baiting us (and
SAR Geelani) with the spectre of his apparent culpability in the '13
December' case.
A.R.K.P was a portmanteau expression coined by me, (admittedly not in
the best of taste, in hasty response to another unfortunate acronym
hurled in my general direction) from the first names of four list
members, who were taking a strong line adversarial to my
understanding on issues to do with Kashmir at that time. Much water
has flowed down the Reader List since the time that this was written,
and I am happy to say that I no longer need to use the expression
A.R.K.P, especially as I no longer find it either just, or necessary
to club K with A, R and P. Hence, I have replaced the term 'A.R.K.P'
with the expression 'Geelani-Baiters' for reasons of textual
convenience.
Shuddha
---------------
END
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