This is an updated copy of the version on BadHistory. I plan to update it in accordance with the feedback I got.
I'd like to thank two people who will remain anonymous for helping me greatly with this post (you know who you are)
Three years ago a festschrift for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri was published by Shubhra Chakrabarti, a history teacher at the University of Delhi and Utsa Patnaik, a Marxist economist who taught at JNU until 2010.
One of the essays in the festschirt by Utsa Patnaik was an attempt to quantify the "drain" undergone by India during British Rule. Her conclusion? Britain robbed India of $45 trillion (or £9.2 trillion) during their 200 or so years of rule. This figure was immensely popular, and got republished in several major news outlets (here, here, here, here (they get the number wrong) and more recently here), got a mention from the Minister of External Affairs & returns 29,100 results on Google. There's also plenty of references to it here on Reddit.
Patnaik is not the first to calculate such a figure. Angus Maddison thought it was £100 million, Simon Digby said £1 billion, Javier Estaban said £40 million see Roy (2019). The huge range of figures should set off some alarm bells.
So how did Patnaik calculate this (shockingly large) figure? Well, even though I don't have access to the festschrift, she conveniently has written an article detailing her methodology here. Let's have a look.

How exactly did the British manage to diddle us and drain our wealth’ ? was the question that Basudev Chatterjee (later editor of a volume in the Towards Freedom project) had posed to me 50 years ago when we were fellow-students abroad.

This is begging the question.

After decades of research I find that using India’s commodity export surplus as the measure and applying an interest rate of 5%, the total drain from 1765 to 1938, compounded up to 2016, comes to £9.2 trillion; since $4.86 exchanged for £1 those days, this sum equals about $45 trillion.

This is completely meaningless. To understand why it's meaningless consider India's annual coconut exports. These are almost certainly a surplus but the surplus in trade is countered by the other country buying the product (indeed, by definition, trade surpluses contribute to the GDP of a nation which hardly plays into intuitive conceptualisations of drain).
Furthermore, Dewey (2019) critiques the 5% interest rate.

She [Patnaik] consistently adopts statistical assumptions (such as compound interest at a rate of 5% per annum over centuries) that exaggerate the magnitude of the drain

Moving on:

The exact mechanism of drain, or transfers from India to Britain was quite simple.

Convenient.

Drain theory possessed the political merit of being easily grasped by a nation of peasants. [...] No other idea could arouse people than the thought that they were being taxed so that others in far off lands might live in comfort. [...] It was, therefore, inevitable that the drain theory became the main staple of nationalist political agitation during the Gandhian era.

- Chandra et al. (1989)

The key factor was Britain’s control over our taxation revenues combined with control over India’s financial gold and forex earnings from its booming commodity export surplus with the world. Simply put, Britain used locally raised rupee tax revenues to pay for its net import of goods, a highly abnormal use of budgetary funds not seen in any sovereign country.

The issue with figures like these is they all make certain methodological assumptions that are impossible to prove. From Roy in Frankema et al. (2019):

the "drain theory" of Indian poverty cannot be tested with evidence, for several reasons. First, it rests on the counterfactual that any money saved on account of factor payments abroad would translate into domestic investment, which can never be proved. Second, it rests on "the primitive notion that all payments to foreigners are "drain"", that is, on the assumption that these payments did not contribute to domestic national income to the equivalent extent (Kumar 1985, 384; see also Chaudhuri 1968). Again, this cannot be tested. [...] Fourth, while British officers serving India did receive salaries that were many times that of the average income in India, a paper using cross-country data shows that colonies with better paid officers were governed better (Jones 2013).

Indeed, drain theory rests on some very weak foundations. This, in of itself, should be enough to dismiss any of the other figures that get thrown out. Nonetheless, I felt it would be a useful exercise to continue exploring Patnaik's take on drain theory.

The East India Company from 1765 onwards allocated every year up to one-third of Indian budgetary revenues net of collection costs, to buy a large volume of goods for direct import into Britain, far in excess of that country’s own needs.

So what's going on here? Well Roy (2019) explains it better:

Colonial India ran an export surplus, which, together with foreign investment, was used to pay for services purchased from Britain. These payments included interest on public debt, salaries, and pensions paid to government offcers who had come from Britain, salaries of managers and engineers, guaranteed profts paid to railway companies, and repatriated business profts. How do we know that any of these payments involved paying too much? The answer is we do not.

So what was really happening is the government was paying its workers for services (as well as guaranteeing profits - to promote investment - something the GoI does today Dalal (2019), and promoting business in India), and those workers were remitting some of that money to Britain. This is hardly a drain (unless, of course, Indian diaspora around the world today are "draining" it). In some cases, the remittances would take the form of goods (as described) see Chaudhuri (1983):

It is obvious that these debit items were financed through the export surplus on merchandise account, and later, when railway construction started on a large scale in India, through capital import. Until 1833 the East India Company followed a cumbersome method in remitting the annual home charges. This was to purchase export commodities in India out of revenue, which were then shipped to London and the proceeds from their sale handed over to the home treasury.

While Roy's earlier point argues better paid officers governed better, it is honestly impossible to say what part of the repatriated export surplus was a drain, and what was not. However calling all of it a drain is definitely misguided.
It's worth noting that Patnaik seems to make no attempt to quantify the benefits of the Raj either, Dewey (2019)'s 2nd criticism:

she [Patnaik] consistently ignores research that would tend to cut the economic impact of the drain down to size, such as the work on the sources of investment during the industrial revolution (which shows that industrialisation was financed by the ploughed-back profits of industrialists) or the costs of empire school (which stresses the high price of imperial defence)

​

Since tropical goods were highly prized in other cold temperate countries which could never produce them, in effect these free goods represented international purchasing power for Britain which kept a part for its own use and re-exported the balance to other countries in Europe and North America against import of food grains, iron and other goods in which it was deficient.

Re-exports necessarily adds value to goods when the goods are processed and when the goods are transported. The country with the largest navy at the time would presumably be in very good stead to do the latter.

The British historians Phyllis Deane and WA Cole presented an incorrect estimate of Britain’s 18th-19th century trade volume, by leaving out re-exports completely. I found that by 1800 Britain’s total trade was 62% higher than their estimate, on applying the correct definition of trade including re-exports, that is used by the United Nations and by all other international organisations.

While interesting, and certainly expected for such an old book, re-exporting necessarily adds value to goods.

When the Crown took over from the Company, from 1861 a clever system was developed under which all of India’s financial gold and forex earnings from its fast-rising commodity export surplus with the world, was intercepted and appropriated by Britain. As before up to a third of India’s rising budgetary revenues was not spent domestically but was set aside as ‘expenditure abroad’.

So, what does this mean? Britain appropriated all of India's earnings, and then spent a third of it aboard? Not exactly. She is describing home charges see Roy (2019) again:

Some of the expenditures on defense and administration were made in sterling and went out of the country. This payment by the government was known as the Home Charges. For example, interest payment on loans raised to finance construction of railways and irrigation works, pensions paid to retired officers, and purchase of stores, were payments in sterling. [...] almost all money that the government paid abroad corresponded to the purchase of a service from abroad. [...] The balance of payments system that emerged after 1800 was based on standard business principles. India bought something and paid for it. State revenues were used to pay for wages of people hired abroad, pay for interest on loans raised abroad, and repatriation of profits on foreign investments coming into India. These were legitimate market transactions.

Indeed, if paying for what you buy is drain, then several billions of us are drained every day.

The Secretary of State for India in Council, based in London, invited foreign importers to deposit with him the payment (in gold, sterling and their own currencies) for their net imports from India, and these gold and forex payments disappeared into the yawning maw of the SoS’s account in the Bank of England.

It should be noted that India having two heads was beneficial, and encouraged investment per Roy (2019):

The fact that the India Office in London managed a part of the monetary system made India creditworthy, stabilized its currency, and encouraged foreign savers to put money into railways and private enterprise in India. Current research on the history of public debt shows that stable and large colonies found it easier to borrow abroad than independent economies because the investors trusted the guarantee of the colonist powers.

​

Against India’s net foreign earnings he issued bills, termed Council bills (CBs), to an equivalent rupee value. The rate (between gold-linked sterling and silver rupee) at which the bills were issued, was carefully adjusted to the last farthing, so that foreigners would never find it more profitable to ship financial gold as payment directly to Indians, compared to using the CB route. Foreign importers then sent the CBs by post or by telegraph to the export houses in India, that via the exchange banks were paid out of the budgeted provision of sums under ‘expenditure abroad’, and the exporters in turn paid the producers (peasants and artisans) from whom they sourced the goods.

Sunderland (2013) argues CBs had two main roles (and neither were part of a grand plot to keep gold out of India):

Council bills had two roles. They firstly promoted trade by handing the IO some control of the rate of exchange and allowing the exchange banks to remit funds to India and to hedge currency transaction risks. They also enabled the Indian government to transfer cash to England for the payment of its UK commitments.

​

The United Nations (1962) historical data for 1900 to 1960, show that for three decades up to 1928 (and very likely earlier too) India posted the second highest merchandise export surplus in the world, with USA in the first position. Not only were Indians deprived of every bit of the enormous international purchasing power they had earned over 175 years, even its rupee equivalent was not issued to them since not even the colonial government was credited with any part of India’s net gold and forex earnings against which it could issue rupees. The sleight-of-hand employed, namely ‘paying’ producers out of their own taxes, made India’s export surplus unrequited and constituted a tax-financed drain to the metropolis, as had been correctly pointed out by those highly insightful classical writers, Dadabhai Naoroji and RCDutt.

It doesn't appear that others appreciate their insight Roy (2019):

K. N. Chaudhuri rightly calls such practice ‘confused’ economics ‘coloured by political feelings’.

​

Surplus budgets to effect such heavy tax-financed transfers had a severe employment–reducing and income-deflating effect: mass consumption was squeezed in order to release export goods. Per capita annual foodgrains absorption in British India declined from 210 kg. during the period 1904-09, to 157 kg. during 1937-41, and to only 137 kg by 1946.

Dewey (1978) points out reliability issues with Indian agriculutural statistics, however this calorie decline persists to this day. Some of it is attributed to less food being consumed at home Smith (2015), a lower infectious disease burden Duh & Spears (2016) and diversified diets Vankatesh et al. (2016).

If even a part of its enormous foreign earnings had been credited to it and not entirely siphoned off, India could have imported modern technology to build up an industrial structure as Japan was doing.

This is, unfortunately, impossible to prove. Had the British not arrived in India, there is no clear indication that India would've united (this is arguably more plausible than the given counterfactual¹). Had the British not arrived in India, there is no clear indication India would not have been nuked in WW2, much like Japan. Had the British not arrived in India, there is no clear indication India would not have been invaded by lizard people, much like Japan. The list continues eternally.
Nevertheless, I will charitably examine the given counterfactual anyway. Did pre-colonial India have industrial potential? The answer is a resounding no.
From Gupta (1980):

This article starts from the premise that while economic categories - the extent of commodity production, wage labour, monetarisation of the economy, etc - should be the basis for any analysis of the production relations of pre-British India, it is the nature of class struggles arising out of particular class alignments that finally gives the decisive twist to social change. Arguing on this premise, and analysing the available evidence, this article concludes that there was little potential for industrial revolution before the British arrived in India because, whatever might have been the character of economic categories of that period, the class relations had not sufficiently matured to develop productive forces and the required class struggle for a 'revolution' to take place.

A view echoed in Raychaudhuri (1983):

Yet all of this did not amount to an economic situation comparable to that of western Europe on the eve of the industrial revolution. Her technology - in agriculture as well as manufacturers - had by and large been stagnant for centuries. [...] The weakness of the Indian economy in the mid-eighteenth century, as compared to pre-industrial Europe was not simply a matter of technology and commercial and industrial organization. No scientific or geographical revolution formed part of the eighteenth-century Indian's historical experience. [...] Spontaneous movement towards industrialisation is unlikely in such a situation.

So now we've established India did not have industrial potential, was India similar to Japan just before the Meiji era? The answer, yet again, unsurprisingly, is no. Japan's economic situation was not comparable to India's, which allowed for Japan to finance its revolution. From Yasuba (1986):

All in all, the Japanese standard of living may not have been much below the English standard of living before industrialization, and both of them may have been considerably higher than the Indian standard of living. We can no longer say that Japan started from a pathetically low economic level and achieved a rapid or even "miraculous" economic growth. Japan's per capita income was almost as high as in Western Europe before industrialization, and it was possible for Japan to produce surplus in the Meiji Period to finance private and public capital formation.

The circumstances that led to Meiji Japan were extremely unique. See Tomlinson (1985):

Most modern comparisons between India and Japan, written by either Indianists or Japanese specialists, stress instead that industrial growth in Meiji Japan was the product of unique features that were not reproducible elsewhere. [...] it is undoubtably true that Japan's progress to industrialization has been unique and unrepeatable

So there you have it. Unsubstantiated statistical assumptions, calling any number you can a drain & assuming a counterfactual for no good reason gets you this $45 trillion number. Hopefully that's enough to bury it in the ground.
^{1. Several authors have affirmed that Indian identity is a colonial artefact. For example see Rajan 1969:}

^{Perhaps the single greatest and most enduring impact of British rule over India is that it created an Indian nation, in the modern political sense. After centuries of rule by different dynasties overparts of the Indian sub-continent, and after about 100 years of British rule, Indians ceased to be merely Bengalis, Maharashtrians,or Tamils, linguistically and culturally.}

^{or see Bryant 2000:}

^{But then, it would be anachronistic to condemn eighteenth-century Indians, who served the British, as collaborators, when the notion of 'democratic' nationalism or of an Indian 'nation' did not then exist. [...] Indians who fought for them, differed from the Europeans in having a primary attachment to a non-belligerent religion, family and local chief, which was stronger than any identity they might have with a more remote prince or 'nation'.}

Bibliography

Chakrabarti, Shubra & Patnaik, Utsa (2018). Agrarian and other histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri. Colombia University Press
Hickel, Jason (2018). How the British stole $45 trillion from India. The Guardian
Bhuyan, Aroonim & Sharma, Krishan (2019). The Great Loot: How the British stole $45 trillion from India. Indiapost
Monbiot, George (2020). English Landowners have stolen our rights. It is time to reclaim them. The Guardian
Tsjeng, Zing (2020). How Britain Stole $45 trillion from India with trains | Empires of Dirt. Vice
Chaudhury, Dipanjan (2019). British looted $45 trillion from India in today’s value: Jaishankar. The Economic Times
Roy, Tirthankar (2019). How British rule changed India's economy: The Paradox of the Raj. Palgrave Macmillan
Patnaik, Utsa (2018). How the British impoverished India. Hindustan Times
Tuovila, Alicia (2019). Expenditure method. Investopedia
Dewey, Clive (2019). Changing the guard: The dissolution of the nationalist–Marxist orthodoxy in the agrarian and agricultural history of India. The Indian Economic & Social History Review
Chandra, Bipan et al. (1989). India's Struggle for Independence, 1857-1947. Penguin Books
Frankema, Ewout & Booth, Anne (2019). Fiscal Capacity and the Colonial State in Asia and Africa, c. 1850-1960. Cambridge University Press
Dalal, Sucheta (2019). IL&FS Controversy: Centre is Paying Up on Sovereign Guarantees to ADB, KfW for Group's Loan. TheWire
Chaudhuri, K.N. (1983). X - Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments (1757–1947). Cambridge University Press
Sunderland, David (2013). Financing the Raj: The City of London and Colonial India, 1858-1940. Boydell Press
Dewey, Clive (1978). Patwari and Chaukidar: Subordinate officials and the reliability of India’s agricultural statistics. Athlone Press
Smith, Lisa (2015). The great Indian calorie debate: Explaining rising undernourishment during India’s rapid economic growth. Food Policy
Duh, Josephine & Spears, Dean (2016). Health and Hunger: Disease, Energy Needs, and the Indian Calorie Consumption Puzzle. The Economic Journal
Vankatesh, P. et al. (2016). Relationship between Food Production and Consumption Diversity in India – Empirical Evidences from Cross Section Analysis. Agricultural Economics Research Review
Gupta, Shaibal (1980). Potential of Industrial Revolution in Pre-British India. Economic and Political Weekly
Raychaudhuri, Tapan (1983). I - The mid-eighteenth-century background. Cambridge University Press
Yasuba, Yasukichi (1986). Standard of Living in Japan Before Industrialization: From what Level did Japan Begin? A Comment. The Journal of Economic History
Tomblinson, B.R. (1985). Writing History Sideways: Lessons for Indian Economic Historians from Meiji Japan. Cambridge University Press
Rajan, M.S. (1969). The Impact of British Rule in India. Journal of Contemporary History
Bryant, G.J. (2000). Indigenous Mercenaries in the Service of European Imperialists: The Case of the Sepoys in the Early British Indian Army, 1750-1800. War in History

It was a lot of fun reviewing the Hugo nominated short stories last year, so I decided to do it again for the Nebulas. This time, I’m getting in before winners are announced (you know, when it’s relevant).
So the stories, in order of appearance on the Nebula announcement page:
   
Give the Family My Love by A. T. Greenblatt
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Earth has been destroyed. A lone astronaut is humanity's last hope of restoring what’s left of our homeworld back into a livable planet, with the aid of some nebulous alien technology. While on her mission, the astronaut is sending voicemails back to her brother on Earth, letting him know what she’s going through.
On the one hand, the execution is top-notch: the emotional beats hit hard, the protagonist is believable, and you want to read on to see what she’ll find out. On the other hand, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve read similar stories a hundred times before. Everything from the way the earth is destroyed to Hazel’s secret to the conclusion of the journey is going to feel extremely familiar to anyone with even a fleeting interest in SFF literature.
I’ve always thought that originality is not a necessity for success. In writing, as is in most things, it is more important to do something well than it is to do it first. And Greenblatt does a lot of things well here. However, I can’t help but be a little bit disappointed that there wasn’t any attempt to twist some of the more well-used conventions that this story embraces. So full marks for execution, but maybe just a D for originality.
Final remark: you can and SHOULD listen to this on audio via the Clarkesworld podcast. This story is really meant to be heard rather than read.
   
The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power by Karen Osbourne
What happens when you take Children of Time, remove the spiders, and add in some heavy-duty, Gaiman-when-he-was-writing-sandman level darkness(™)? Well… this. There is a single original Sci-Fantasy type of idea at the heart of the story that takes the generation ship narrative and gives it a new viewpoint. There are death and gore, but not in a fetishized way, and it’s all in the service of the plot.
However, it is a bit lacking in emotional punch. While the descriptions of violence and a mind tearing itself apart are all righteously visceral, the conclusion leaves the reader somewhat apathetic. Whatever emotion Osbourne was going for in those last paragraphs, I didn’t feel it.
   
And Now His Lordship is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas
I once had a Reddit discussion with someone over the question of whether it was worthwhile to seek out writers of different cultures and backgrounds if more often than not, the same tropes are being used by almost everyone. Well, And Now His Lordship is Laughing is exactly the type of story that will convince you that it’s worth the effort to find more works from different walks of life.
Everything about this story is steeped in Bengali lore, in a place, time, and culture that will probably be completely foreign for most of you reading this. This writing does a great job transporting the reader, painting a very vivid picture of Bengal and its unique magic. It is dark (the list of content warnings is twelve items long), but it’s all in the service of the story, and not just for shock-value. It works really well.
What doesn’t work well is the conclusion. Without wishing to spoil it’s… too easy. From a narrative standpoint, that is. I kept on thinking, “well why didn’t you do this earlier, where it could have helped?” Of course, these stories are rarely meant to be taken at face value, so you might not mind as much.
   
Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island by Nibedita Sen
Even though creepypastas have done it to death, I’m always fascinated when someone tries to hide a horror story within something mundane, such as a Wikipedia article, or text messages, or in this case, an annotated bibliography. When done well, it gives just enough of a twist to keep what would have been boring worldbuilding details interesting and sets the reader out to hunt down the narrative on their own, creating better engagement with the story. And Nibedita Sen has done it very well indeed.
What I love about this story is that, much like an ogre, it has layers. On the surface, it tells the tragic tale of a distant tribe of cannibal women and their descendants in the diaspora. But there is also this undercurrent of mysticism, along with a heavy dose of “who are the ones actually committing horrors, exactly?” that gives the whole thing much more depth.
But I think what won me over more than anything is the hint of macabre humor that permeates throughout the text, making the trifecta of being thought-provoking, horrifying, and fun. There are not a lot of authors who are capable of that combo.
   
A Catalogue of Storms by Fran Wilde
This is the antithesis to Give the Family My Love. Lots of creativity on display, but the execution is a bit of a mess. While there are a lot of intriguing ideas, it’s hard to tell what the story is supposed to be about. If you look hard enough, I’m sure you’ll find something that could be called this story subject. Maybe it’s about resilience, or grief, or change; perhaps if you squint hard enough and tilt your head to the side, you’ll decide it’s about war. But all of that is on the reader, and I’m not sure it’s worth making an effort to try and figure it out when there are other stories that are far more coherent.
I can respect that not all stories need to have some sort of hidden meaning, and I can respect an author who’s basically saying “look, I just wanted to write about this cool idea I had of sentient weather, ok?” but I still need something to connect with. With the characters barely given room to evolve, and the world limited to the point of view of a little girl that barely understands it, reading A Catalogue of Storms was a very unsatisfying experience.
   
How the Trick is Done by A.C. Wise
How the Trick is Done has a morbid mystique, intriguing setting, a great interpretation of the afterlife, and it raises some interesting questions regarding certain narratives. And it was an absolute pain in the ass to read.
It’s the writing style. Wise chose to stick with short sentences coupled with mild repetition, which got tiresome real fast. I understand that this is a style choice, and can even think of a reason why it would be justifiable for the story, but it felt like someone was tap dancing on my brain the entire story through.
Beyond that, I couldn’t really buy into one of the key elements of the plot – the magician’s charisma. Here’s a guy that has an entire world revolving around him, and the only characteristic we have of him is that he is a bit of an asshole. I just didn’t buy that all those people are willing to sacrifice for him when we get not a single reason for them to even like him. Maybe he rolled a 20 on charisma before the story started or something.
    …
   
And that’s it! Since the winners won’t be decided for some time, I’d like to throw my hat in the ring and pick my winner and also guess who’s going to take gold:
 
Should Win:
Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island -
It just gets better the more you think of it. It’s the only story of the bunch I went back and re-read because I wanted to see if I might have missed some interesting detail. But beyond appealing to my sensibilities, it’s also well-written and has some relevant questions to pose to the world. Easy pick for me.
 
Would Probably Win:
Give the Family My Love -
Look, I don’t know much about the voting process for the Nebulas, but from what I’ve seen, a big difference between it and the Hugos is that it’s much more likely that those making the decision have read all entries. As such, I think the vote is going to come down on writing competence, and Give the Family My Love is easily the most competently written. It’s joy to read from start to finish, and it’s even more of a joy to listen to. I think that will push it over the top.
 
Feel free to let me know how you guys liked this year’s batch of Nebula nominees.

This is a question that comes up for all humans at some point in their lives; “why am I suffering?” So of course it will arise as an important question in all religions. In this essay I will look at how two great personalities, from two of the world’s great religions, dealt with suffering; Kunti from Hinduism and Job from Judaism. Initially I think we will find some disagreement, which on second look, seams to disappear.
If you would like to read a more colourful version, you can find it here: https://essenceseekers.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/the-purpose-of-suffering-queen-kunti-and-job/KuntiQueen Kunti appears in the great epics; the Mahabharata and the Bhagavat Purana. She was the wife of the emperor of the world, Pandu, and she suffered many calamities in her life; starting with her husband dying young; leaving her with five young sons to raise – the famous Pandavas. Kunti became dependent on her brother in-law, Dhritarastra, and his envious sons, the Kauravas. On several occasions the Kauravas attempted to cheat and murder Kunti’s family. Her calamities were many."My dear Kṛṣṇa, Your Lordship has protected us from a poisoned cake, from a great fire, from cannibals, from the vicious assembly, from sufferings during our exile in the forest and from the battle where great generals fought. And now You have saved us from the weapon of Aśvatthāmā." Queen Kunti, Bhagavat Purana 1.8.24 Pandavas and Kauravas clashed throughout the duration of their lives and the culmination of these clashes led to the Battle of Kurukshetra, during which the Bhagavad Gita was sung by Krishna.The war was not the end of Kunti’s suffering. Afterwards, a warrior named Aśvatthāmā was so bitter that his father, the martial teacher of the Pandavas, was killed by the Pandavas in the battle. The Pandavas loved and respected their martial guru, Dronācharya. But kshatriya dharma (warrior code) had them placed on opposing sides. Many of the great warriors who were extremely favorable to the Pandavas were placed on the side of the Kauravas due to their having long-standing positions in the Kaurava monarchy.Aśvatthāmā first assassinate five of Kunti’s grandsons while they were sleeping. He then attempted to kill, with a sonar nuclear weapon, the last descendent of Pandu, Pariksit Maharaja, while Pariksit was in the womb of his mother. It was precisely at this time, that Krishna appears, again, and saves her grandson by defusing the weapon; and Kunti begins to offer prayers to Krishna regarding her sufferings (Bhagavat Purana canto 1, chapter 8).JobIn the Torah (aka The Old Testament) we find the book of Job. Similarly to Queen Kunti, Job, experienced many calamities, even though he, and many others, considered him to be a good man of God. So important a personality was Job, that God and the Devil had a bet to test his loyalty. Book of Job: 8. "The the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." 9. " Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied." 10. "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." 10. The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Job had wealth, family and health, and he lost them all. Initially he did not blame God, but eventually he started questioning whether or not he was deserving of such punishments, and whether God actually cares about His creation. Conversations proceeded between Job and his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, and between Job and God.In their attempts to console Job, all three of his friends stick with the theme that Job must have sinned somewhere along the line; with Eliphaz adding that “no one suffers for no reason”, and that “in the end, the righteous do not lose and the wicked do not gain”. We find this same teaching in the Svetasvatara Upanishad where the analogy of two birds, of the same plumage, residing in the same tree. The first bird is tasting the fruits of past activities; some tasting sweet and other tasting bitter, and the other bird is the Supreme-Self, not tasting; just observing. Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.6-7 “ Like two birds of golden plumage, inseparable companions, are perched on a branch of the same tree. One of them tastes the sweet and bitter fruits of the tree; the other, tasting neither, calmly looks on. On the same tree, the individual self (jiva), deluded by forgetfulness of his identity with the divine Self, bewildered by his ego, grieves and is sad. But when he recognizes the other as the Lord worshipped by all and His glory, he becomes free from grief.”Job is not satisfied with this answer, because he believes it does not account for the case in which a person who is suffering has not committed any sin, or has committed insufficient sin to match their suffering. This is the classic problem of, "why do bad things happen to good people?”. Job feels like there must be another reason for his suffering. This question is important to many. I have personally seen people make or break their relationship with God based on this very question. Given that the Jewish people were chosen by God... Torah, Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 14, “For you are a holy people to Hashem your God, and God has chosen you to be His treasured people from all nations that are on the face of the Earth.” ...and therefore many of them must have lived very pious lives, when we hear of the horrible atrocities Jews have suffered throughout history, it is a great service for us all that Job is asking this question.The Logical Problem of EvilThis problem of seemingly unjustified suffering is commonly known as the problem of evil. The claim is that a tri-omni God (all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving) cannot exist in the same world that contains evil and suffering. Another way of putting it is that, if evil exists in the world, then God either doesn't exist at all, or at a minimum, is lacking one or more of the tri-omni potencies. Maybe He is all-knowing and all-loving, but He cannot do anything about it; He is not all powerful. Or, maybe God is all-knowing and all-powerful but not all-loving; maybe He just doesn't care about His creation. The philosopher Alvin Plantinga put forward what I believe is a sound response to the problem of evil with his free will defense... First, Plantinga pointed out that God, though omnipotent, could not be expected to do literally anything. God could not, for example, create square circles, act contrary to his nature, or, more relevantly, create beings with free will that would never choose evil. Taking this latter point further, Plantinga argued that the moral value of human free will is a credible offsetting justification that God could have as a morally justified reason for permitting the existence of evil. ...but, in sticking with the theme of this essay, I want to look at Job’s situation from the perspective of Hinduism, and firstly, I would like to point out that Job’s challenge only arises if one does not accept reincarnation. If reincarnation is true, that would explain how someone reaps the fruits of “good” and “evil” acts unexpectedly because these acts could have occurred in a previous lives.ReincarnationOne might disagree with the idea of reincarnation, and to them I would ask, “can you stop breathing?” If you can, you will either die or take on a new body. If you die, you do not exist, so you cannot stop breathing; you cannot stop doing anything if you do not exist! But you reading this means you do exist; therefore you will never stop breathing. When you receive a new body, you will still be breathing. When the breath leaves this body, it goes to a new one. This is the idea of prana; that all life is breath and breath is eternal. Prana - Kaushitaki Upanishad 3.3, “Man lives deprived of speech, for we see dumb people. Man lives deprived of sight, for we see blind people. Man lives deprived of hearing, for we see deaf people. Man lives deprived of mind, for we see infants. Man lives deprived of his arms, deprived of his legs, for we see it thus. But prana alone is the conscious self (pragnatman), and having laid hold of this body, it makes it rise up. Therefore it is said, Let man worship it alone as uktha. What is prana, that is pragna (self-consciousness); what is pragna, that is prana, for together they (pragna and prana) live in this body, and together they go out of it.” --- If you didn't quite catch the argument I just made, try listening to prana -life airs on prana and see if it gets any clearer. --- Indeed this also is confirmed by Bhagavn Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, in the Bhagavad Gita also when he says... “As the embodied soul continuously passes in this body from boyhood, to youth, to old age, similarly the soul passes into a new body at death.” ~ Bhagavad Gita 2.13 Krishna further explains that, according to ones consciousness at the time of death, that kind of body one will attain... “Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, O son of Kunti, that state he will attain without fail.” ~ Bhagavad Gita 8.6 ...This means it must be possible to attain a spiritual body at death, if we are in the appropriate state of consciousness.State of consciousnessThe question now arises, ”what is the appropriate state of consciousness?” And this, I believe, is where the paths of Kunti and Job unite. Job got to speak with God. If God is the greatest, and your suffering brought God in front of you, how can you call your suffering bad? Indeed, Queen Kunti displays her example of this strongly when she prays to Krishna... “I wish that all those calamities would happen again and again so that we could see You again and again, for seeing You means that we will no longer see repeated births and deaths.” ~ Queen Kunti, Bhagavat Purana, 1.8.25 And, when Job saw the Lord standing in front of him, he realised his mistake because I'm seeing the Lord he gained full knowledge of his position and boundless fortune. With sober humility he said to God... Job 42:1-6"I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."Aspects of selfHinduism sees the totality of selfhood in separate parts; aspects of which some are material and temporary, and others eternal and spiritual. The temporary aspects are the subtle body, and the physical body, and these are facilitated by the false ego. The subtle body is known as the linga-sharira and consists of the material; mind (manas), intelligence (buddhi) – the ability to distinguish and make decisions, and the senses (indriyāṇi) – smelling, touching, tasting, seeing and hearing. The physical body is known as the karya-sharira and is made from the natural elements; earth, water, fire, and air - atoms. And, finally the false ego is known as ahaṅkāraḥ. Ahaṅkāraḥ means literarily the “I-maker”, and is what gives the false sense of separation from the highest Self - God. The senses come in contact with the physical world (the sense objects) using the mind. The physical body is also a sense object. The physical world is made up of elements; as we have come to understand in the scientific field of chemistry... “Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego – all together these eight constitute My separated material energies.” ~ Krishna, Bhagavad Gita 7.4 But these sub-atomic particles, which are fundamentally energy in fields (Einstein's E = MC^2), are always in flux, and our ability to perceive them depends on categories ordered by something more subtle than the physical world; intelligence... Buddhi coming from God – Bhagavad Gita 15.15 “I am seated in everyone’s heart and from me comes remembrance, knowledge, and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas I am to be known. Indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.” ...And, amongst all this energy in fields, something about us remains still. That fixed point of perception is the self (atma) who resides in the causal body; the eternal and most important aspect of selfhood; being the house of desires and will. The causal body - karana-sharira. From Sanskrit, karana translates to “causing,” “making” or “muscle”; and sharira means “body.” Karana sharira is thought to be the portal to entering higher consciousness, as well as the cause of the existence of the gross and subtle bodies. It connects both the individual and cosmic consciousness together, and is believed to store information from past lives.PerspectiveGiven that matter is ultimately just energy, there really is no reason to categorize it as material. Ultimately reality is all one thing. There are only different perspectives and perceptions of the same thing. The difference between seeing the world as spiritual or material depends on our attitude towards it, which is expressed by our causal body. To see reality spiritually is to see everything in connection with its source; Purusha – God. "A person in full consciousness of Me, knowing Me to be the ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods, and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attains peace from the pangs of material miseries.” ~ Krishna, Bhagavad Gita 2.29 With this advanced vision there is no material suffering. To see it materially is to see everything separate from its source, as "I, me and mine", and this vision is the cause of our suffering. It is the causal body, our desires, that drive our perceptions. “Good” and “bad” are only constructs of the mind; as illustrated nicely in the ancient Eastern story – The Farmer and his Horse. The Farmer and his Horse: One day his horse runs away. And his neighbour comes over and says, to commiserate, “I’m so sorry about your horse.” And the farmer says “Who knows what’s good or bad?” The neighbour is confused because this is clearly terrible. The horse is the most valuable thing he owns. But the horse comes back the next day and he brings with him 12 feral horses. The neighbour comes back over to celebrate, “Congratulations on your great fortune!” And the farmer replies again: “Who knows what’s good or bad?” And the next day the farmer’s son is taming one of the wild horses and he’s thrown and breaks his leg. The neighbour comes back over, “I’m so sorry about your son.” The farmer repeats: “Who knows what’s good or bad?” Sure enough, the next day the army comes through their village and is conscripting able-bodied young men to go and fight in war, but the son is spared because of his broken leg.On the absolute level there is only ananda (bliss)My claim is that suffering is fundamentally a construct of the mind, caused by the false idea of separation from God, and its function is to wake us up to what is temporary and what is eternal.Krishna tells this to Arjuna, "O son of Kuntī, the non-permanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.” ~ Bhagavad Gita 2.14Wake up, Jiva Jago Jiva Jago, a song by the Bengali Vaisnava saint and philosopher, Bhaktivinoda Thakura, “Lord Gauranga is calling, ‘Wake up, sleeping souls! Wake up, sleeping souls! How long will you sleep in the lap of the witch called Maya (illusion)?'"I think that both Kunti and Job understood this; we see that in the end Job did not waver and waited patiently for his redeemer. "I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” ~ Job, 19:25-27 Both of them (Kunti and Job) deepened their meditation on God through their suffering. Understandably, humans would like to avoid suffering as much as possible, but I believe that there is something even more pertinent available for the living being. The next step of commitment, for the genuine seeker of God, would be to voluntarily accept suffering on behalf of God; just as Shiva, Jesus and Caitanya did. Sukadeva Goswami, when describing how Lord Shiva took poison to save humanity, said "It is said that great personalities almost always accept voluntary suffering because of the suffering of people in general. This is considered the highest method of worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is present in everyone's heart." ~ Bhagavat Purana 8.7.44 Luke 9 , “Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Mathew 10:39 “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” Caitanya "I know no one but Krishna as my lord and He shall remain so, even if he handles me roughly by his embrace, or makes me brokenhearted by not being present before me. He is completely free to do anything and everything, for he is always my worshipful lord, unconditionally.”~ Siksastikam verse 8 Y'all know who Jesus is already. Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the great 15th-16th century Bengali saint and philosopher who is considered by Gaudiya Vaisnavas to be God (Krishna) appearing in the mood of a devotee. I was raised in the Gaudiya Vaisnava line myself, in a Western country, and I highly recommend you check out the bhakti yoga movement.ConclusionSuffering is built into the fabric of existence for good reason. Indeed this is how Kunti sees it when she says... “My Lord, Your Lordship can easily be approached, but only by those who are materially exhausted. One who is on the path of [material] progress, trying to improve himself with respectable parentage, great opulence, high education and bodily beauty, cannot approach You with sincere feeling” ~ Kunti, Bhagavat Purana, 1.8.26 And, we see with Job, after he lost everything and God appeared in front of him, giving him a big chastisement (Job 38-41), he realised his mistake and unlimited fortune for the mercy the Lord had showed him. Happiness for a person in proper knowledge of themselves in reality is achieved by pleasing, or acting in consciousness of, the Cause of all Causes – God. Suffering according to Hinduism and Judaism has a similar cause and purpose; although Hinduism does have an intellectual advantage with the doctrine of reincarnation. The cause of suffering is our own desires, perspectives, and activities. The purpose is to remind us of what we have forgotten; we are eternal, full of knowledge and bliss (sat-cit-ananda); and, one who remembers God is with God. Let me leave you with on poem from the Upanishads, which gives us glimpse into sat-cit-ananda... Sat-cit-ananda Tejobindu Upanishad, 3.1-3, “I am of the nature of consciousness. I am made of consciousness and bliss. I am nondual, pure in form, absolute knowledge, absolute love. I am changeless, devoid of desire or anger, I am detached. I am One Essence, unlimitedness, utter consciousness. I am boundless Bliss, existence and transcendent Bliss. I am the Atman, that revels in itself. I am the Sacchidananda that is eternal, enlightened and pure.”Bibliography1. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, “Teachings of Queen Kunti”, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Singapore, 1978.2. Bible: New Testament.3. Bhagavad Gita.4. Bhagavat Purana.5. Book of Deuteronomy, Torah.6. Job, Torah.7. “Jiva Jago Jiva Jago”, song by Bhaktivinod Thakura.8. Leaman, O., Evil and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy, Cambridge, 1995.9. Plantinga, A., God, Freedom, and Evil, Eerdmans, 1989.10. Siksastakam, by Caitanya.11. Svetasvatara Upanishad.12. Tejobindu Upanishad.13. Yoga Sutras, by Patanjali

The Government Refused To Believe This Asylum Seeker Was Gay Because He Has Learning Disabilities
Exclusive: After a six-year fight, with one judge accusing the Home Office of being "absurd", "feeble" and ignoring key medical evidence, Kabir, 23, still lives in fear.
Posted on September 8, 2018, at 5:06 a.m. Patrick Strudwick Patrick Strudwick BuzzFeed UK LGBT Editor
The British government did not believe that an asylum-seeker who was fleeing homophobic persecution in Bangladesh was gay because he had learning disabilities, BuzzFeed News can reveal.
A cache of legal documents show that the Home Office rejected an application from the 23-year-old — whom we will call Kabir to protect his anonymity — because, the department told him: “You have failed to explain how you, at the mental age of 6, would be sexually active.”
The Home Office also refused to accept how Kabir, who is also physically disabled, has a mental illness, has been disowned by his family, blackmailed, assaulted, and threatened with murder, could go to an LGBT charity for help if he had the cognitive abilities of a 6-year-old.
Therefore, officials concluded, “You have failed to show that you are a homosexual man.”
The government continued to fight Kabir’s application for asylum over six years, including two appeals and a judicial review. The Home Office’s decision to reject his claim was finally overturned in July. In a scathing ruling, the judge said officials had used “absurd” and “feeble” arguments and failed to take key medical evidence into account. These included two psychological reports identifying his intellectual and emotional capacities.
Kabir had cited his sexual relationship with another boy at school as evidence of his homosexuality — which is illegal in Bangladesh. People seeking refugee status on the grounds of sexual orientation must prove that they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. And, although he had also described the abuse, violence, threats, ostracism, and extortion he had endured because of this relationship, both a judge and a Home Office representative ruled that “inconsistencies” in his accounts of these events rendered them unbelievable.
This was despite Kabir having significant cognitive impairments that can inhibit his ability to understand questions, retain facts, and recount events — and which are so severe that an IQ test could not be performed on him. At one asylum hearing an interpreter was employed throughout who used words that were not in Kabir’s mother tongue. And his barrister, Allan Briddock, told BuzzFeed News that when Kabir does not understand, he simply agrees with whatever is being said.
In a case that exposes the government’s handling of learning disabilities and the multiple barriers for an individual with cognitive impairments trying to navigate the asylum system, Briddock said it also raises questions about officials’ attitudes towards homosexuality — eight years after the government promised change.
In 2010, when Theresa May was home secretary and David Cameron was prime minister, the government pledged to stop deporting gay asylum-seekers back to countries where they would be in danger. Just weeks later, the Supreme Court ruled that the Home Office had to stop telling asylum-seekers they could return to their country of origin by hiding their sexual identity. This cemented the right of LGBT people to seek refugee status.
But Briddock said his client’s case reveals a deepening flaw in the immigration system: that despite the theoretical improvements, increasing numbers of people are being blocked from justice, as legal aid cuts since 2013 hamper their chances of decent legal representation.
“This is a really good example of a system really failing,” he said.
In January, as public anger at the government’s “hostile environment” strategy on immigration was mounting as a result of the Windrush scandal, the Home Office refused Kabir’s application for the final time, having already threatened to deport him back to Bangladesh where, according to his legal papers, he faced being the target of an “honour killing” for being gay.
Briddock said Kabir’s eventual victory in the case, which was fought by three successive law firms and with the help of a clutch of individuals supporting Kabir — carers, interpreters, and charity workers — was not an endorsement of the system but rather “a matter of luck”. Were it not for one worker at an organisation for LGBT asylum-seekers who realised that Kabir needed extra help — and found it for him — Kabir “would have been removed”.
Following months of discussions with Briddock during the case — he obtained consent from Kabir, his professional organisation, and Kabir’s solicitors and carers — BuzzFeed News visited Kabir at his home in south London. With the help of an interpreter and his carer and landlady, Maria, Kabir spoke about what he has suffered and why he still lives in fear.
Along with the political and legal implications that arose during his account, his story also poses a fundamental question about how sexual orientation is perceived: If people are assumed to be heterosexual until proven otherwise, if children are deemed incapable of knowing they are LGBT, and if sexual behaviour alone is how the authorities judge someone’s sexual identity, how do you prove you are gay if you have the mental age of a child?
Kabir grins as BuzzFeed News enters Maria’s house, thrusts out his hand, and fetches us a glass of water. He is thin, short-haired, and clean-shaven with boyish, even features. His smile reveals a gap where his tooth was knocked out from a punch. He wears jeans, a shirt, and a hearing aid: He is deaf in one ear.
He laughs often — a brief giggle whenever he is nervous, particularly when describing something that frightens him. Even now after being granted asylum, he is afraid much of the time. Or, as he puts it in the few English words he can say, “worry lots”. His mother tongue is not Bengali — the predominant language of Bangladesh — but Sylhet, also the name of his hometown’s nearest city in the east of the country.
As we talk, sitting in a circle in the living room with his landlady, his lawyer, and his interpreter, Rubina, Kabir leans forward throughout, his left index finger vibrating back and forth. When not doing this, he fiddles with a lolly stick he has broken in two, twisting the pieces round and round. He drinks tea. Maria says he drinks it all the time because he is often too anxious to eat.
“Much happy,” says Kabir when asked how he feels about the government’s recent decision to grant him asylum. “Surprise,” he adds, because it took a “long time”. He looks down. “So tired now.”
Questions that involve relaying or calculating information prove less fruitful, so most of the rest of his story can only be gleaned from documents supplied to or by the court. When asked, for example, he does not know how long has he been staying with Maria. (She says it has been on and off, along with another woman nearby, for around 18 months.)
This first indication, beyond his linguistic abilities, that he is not like most 23-year-olds comes within the first two minutes of speaking to him. It is, in other words, not difficult to realise that he has learning disabilities. Yet as his story unfolds it is this precise lack of understanding that would come to define what happened to him.
Kabir was raised Muslim in a small, rural village several miles outside Sylhet. His father is a mullah (a religious cleric) and his brother runs a restaurant nearby, where after madrasah — school — Kabir would work until 10pm twice a week for £1.
In his early adolescence — perhaps at 12, or 13, or 14; he does not know — Kabir met Riad, another boy at school. They became friends. As they grew closer, they would meet up outside school, on a small side road, away from everyone. They would hug and kiss. They swore each other to secrecy.
Rebecca Hendin Share Pin Kabir felt more and more for Riad and told him he loved him. But one day, they kissed in school and a third boy, Torit, saw them and took a photograph. When Kabir asked him why he did that, Torit hit him so hard his tooth fell out, leaving the gap that remains today.
It was just the beginning of the humiliations. Torit threatened to show the photograph to Kabir’s father unless he gave him money, and so, terrified of the repercussions, Kabir acquiesced to the blackmail and began giving Torit the wages he earned from the restaurant. But in 2011, aged 16, on a trip to Britain with his mother to visit his grandmother, who was terminally ill, Kabir was unable to keep up the payments.
Torit showed the photograph to Kabir’s father.
By this time, Kabir’s mother had returned to Bangladesh, leaving him with an uncle, aunt, and cousin who also lived in Britain. After seeing the photo, Kabir’s father told the uncle that he had cancelled Kabir’s plane ticket home and that Kabir was no longer welcome.
The next month, fearing that he would outstay his visitor’s visa, Kabir’s aunt and cousin booked him a new flight home. Kabir phoned his father, who told him that he would be beat him and cut him up if he returned, and that he had already reported Kabir to the Rapid Action Battalion.
The RAB, as it is known, is a notorious armed unit within the Bangladeshi police force, which is partly composed of military personnel and ostensibly deployed for counterterrorism and drug control. But it has been accused of over 1,000 extrajudicial killings, alongside forced disappearances, framings, and torture. Some call it a “death squad”.
As well as homosexuality being illegal in the mostly Muslim country, LGBT people are subjected to harassment, arrests, and violent crackdowns from police, including the RAB, which has enabled the press to publish photographs of arrested LGBT people. The few activists who began operating in recent years have been subjected to death threats and attacks. In 2016, one of the country’s few prominent LGBT people, Xulhaz Mannan, who founded the only LGBT magazine, was stabbed to death in his home along with a friend. It quashed the emerging shoots of activism.
Bangladesh’s law against homosexuality — Section 377 of the penal code — means even oral sex between men is punishable by life imprisonment. The British imposed this in 1861, when the South Asian country was under its colonial rule. It remains part of the Commonwealth.
When asked by BuzzFeed News what it is like being gay in Bangladesh, Kabir motions across his throat in a horizontal line. “People kill,” he says. When he goes into the kitchen, BuzzFeed News also asks Rubina, the interpreter, who knows the country well. If someone reveals they are gay, “people don’t want to know this person,” she says. “Book closed. They can’t be socialising. They can’t go places. They do get killed and tortured. No one is allowed to be gay or lesbian.”
The day Kabir was due to fly home, in September 2011, his aunt phoned his father in a final attempt to solve the situation. He told her only one thing: Kabir had wronged Islam. At this time, none of his relatives in Britain new Kabir was gay.
Soon after, Kabir’s legal fight for refugee status began.
With help from a solicitor, Kabir claimed asylum, which was denied, although he was granted “discretionary leave” until 2013 because he was under 18. But he did not tell his solicitor he was gay, preventing him being able to apply on the grounds of sexual orientation. He did not even know this was possible.
The following year, a new law firm who now knew Kabir was gay, applied for leave to remain, which was also refused; a decision that his lawyers appealed. The appeal was heard in March 2016, a first-tier tribunal at which Kabir had to give evidence as a witness. What was that like?
“Very bad. Scared,” says Kabir. “Too scared… Not my language also. Difficult.”
Judge Moxon’s determination — the document often referred to as the judgement — reveals what happened that day.
Kabir’s solicitor had not requested full psychological assessments and therefore could not prove the extent of his learning disabilities. She asserted that he was “vulnerable” and although a document supplied by the college he was now attending showed that Kabir’s educational progress was “slow” and much less than the average, it was insufficient to convey how much this needed to be taken into account.
So when when Kabir’s lawyer told the judge that the interpreter was using Bengali words that Kabir did not understand, as Bengali is his second language, it had no effect.
Sylhet, Bangladesh Munir Uz Zaman / AFP / Getty Images Share Pin Sylhet, Bangladesh
Moxon said in his determination that Kabir “did not present as vulnerable”, that any instances in which he did not understand the words his interpreter was saying were “exaggerated”, and that he rejected “the subsequent assertions that the Appellant was not confident enough to express when he did not understand”. Instead, said Moxon, these claims of misunderstanding were an attempt to “insulate” Kabir from “any identified inconsistencies in his evidence”.
He added that the evidence before him contained multiple “material inconsistencies”. One of these was that, in his statement, Kabir said his relationship with Riad began when he was 15, but in court he said 12–13 and neglected to correct his prior mistake.
In total, the five inconsistencies were, said Moxon, “extremely damaging” to Kabir’s “credibility”. The judge also didn’t believe Kabir's father would prevent Kabir from returning to Bangladesh “if he sought to kill him to restore his honour”.
In conclusion, Moxon said, “I do not accept that the Appellant is homosexual and I do not accept that he is in danger of harm if returned to Bangladesh.” Therefore sending him back would “be lawful and necessary … in the interests of immigration control and the economic well-being of the United Kingdom”.
It was not to Kabir’s wellbeing, however.
When asked now about that first tribunal, he looks frightened and says, “I didn’t know I mix up… I didn’t know… I didn’t know rule in this country, what it was.” What was it like to have a judge not believe you, not believe you are gay and not believe your story?
“I also upset,” he says. “Angry.”
There would be another two years to go. “Waiting, waiting, that’s too hard,” he says about this time. “Worry. Family I didn’t see. And my friend is dead. And the Home Office didn’t care.”
The friend he mentions is Riad, the boy over whom he was blackmailed. Kabir believes he has been murdered, because his cousin in England produced a letter apparently from Kabir’s family in Bangladesh saying he had been beaten to death. BuzzFeed News was not able to verify this, but for Kabir the fear of it seems to cling to him. Along with the verbal threat from his father, it also led Kabir to believe that this was a warning: that he would be killed if he returned.
Kabir’s lawyers at the time of the Moxon ruling tried to appeal. But because one can only do so if there has been an error of law, the request was denied. At this point, in summer 2016, his appeal rights had been exhausted.
The Home Office told Kabir in July 2016 to leave the UK “without delay”. But Kabir did not understand the letter officials sent him informing him he had to leave.
“I show teacher,” he says, referring to one of the staff at his college. “Teacher said, ‘One moment, I’m going to look up everything.’” The teacher explained what it meant. “The letter said go back.” Kabir describes what happened when she told him this.
“I was vomiting and sick and she’s phoning the doctor,” he says. “One week I was vomiting in the college. Every day. Every day.” It is hard to follow what he says after this, but it seems this was when the doctor prescribed anti-anxiety medication. “Take tablet. Better.”
At this point, Briddock, his lawyer, says to him: “You thought the police were coming for you, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” says Kabir, with his brief, nervous laugh. He looks embarrassed by his own fear.
Rebecca Hendin Share Pin The only hope of challenging the previous decisions was to make what is known as a “fresh claim”. This requires new evidence. By 2017, Kabir’s college had put him in contact with the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, where one of the workers could see how much he was struggling — that he had learning disabilities — and helped him find new solicitors, the Southwark Law Centre.
This firm ordered psychiatric and clinical psychology reports and submitted them as new evidence. But despite now having the full medical reports detailing Kabir’s learning disabilities and mental age, the Home Office granted neither asylum nor a new hearing.
The Southwark Law Centre had to bring a judicial review to have this decision overturned. It proved successful, but only in enabling Kabir’s lawyers to bring a new appeal, and for that to happen the Home Office had to, yet again, refuse the claim.
The reasons the Home Office cited in January for this final refusal, despite now having all the medical evidence, further revealed what barriers were facing Kabir and other LGBT asylum-seekers.
The Home Office said it did not accept the contents of an expert report by Dr Ashraf Hoque, from University College London’s anthropology department, about the dangers facing Kabir in the event of deportation. The academic, himself from that part of the country, said that out gay men are “ostracised and prone to disadvantage at every level of social life” and “high levels of violence” and that if Kabir were to return it would be “in his interests, for his safety and wider wellbeing, to keep his sexuality discreet”.
But the Home Office dismissed his report as mere “opinions”, despite Hoque having supplied a full academic bibliography with all his evidence.
The Home Office also said, “it is not accepted that you [Kabir] are unable to internally relocate away from your home area of Sylhet as you have previously shown that you were able to begin to build a life in the UK.”
This is eight years after the Supreme Court ruled that the Home Office could not tell asylum-seekers to go back, hide their orientation, and relocate. Theresa May said at the time that this judgment “gives an immediate legal basis for us to reframe our guidance for assessing claims based on sexuality”.
The Home Office also cited as grounds for refusing the claim its own “fact-finding mission” in Bangladesh from 2017, which stated, “LGBT people would not feel they could approach the police for protection”, but argued: “The police are obliged to take on a case, irrespective of the sexuality of the reporter of the crime.”
Similarly, the Home Office concluded, “although homosexual men may not use the healthcare programmes available in Bangladesh through fear of being targeted by extremists, there is healthcare available.”
Therefore, the Home Office told Kabir: “The available evidence does not establish that LGBT people are systematically targeted and subject to treatment amount to persecution.”
And, “In any case, you have not shown that you are a homosexual male.”
It is further in this refusal that the Home Office accused Kabir of failing to explain how he could have had sexual experiences with another boy when his “mental age is six”. It also referred to inconsistencies in his evidence, relying on the findings of Moxon, the previous judge.
The accompanying letter informed Kabir that he could be deported 72 hours after the date of the letter.
This refusal, however, enabled Kabir’s lawyers to bring the appeal. Six months later, in July 2018, it was heard. He won. The ruling was replete with scathing remarks from the judge about the conduct of the Home Office.
Judge Scott-Baker said the Home Office’s presenting officer — who represented the government department at the appeal — was “not prepared to accept that the appellant [Kabir] should be treated as a vulnerable witness”, even though by this point the “medical evidence had been served”.
During the proceedings, the judge wrote, he told the presenting officer it was “clear and obvious” that Kabir was a “vulnerable witness” and asked her if someone with learning disabilities would be returned to their home country. She replied that there was “no policy relating to persons of limited capacity and return” and that she believed he could be sent back.
The suggestion, therefore, is that although children can be protected from deportation, the Home Office will deport adults with learning disabilities who might have the intellectual age of a child.
Scott-Baker also criticised previous findings of the Home Office, including that Kabir was unbelievable because he did not know where Riad lived, how many siblings Riad had, or what Riad’s parents did for a living and that it was “reasonable to know these details” about “his partner”. The judge described the Home Office’s reasoning as “absurd”.
But it was the fact that the government had "failed to take into account the medical evidence" that prompted Scott-Baker to round on the Home Office. Such medical evidence included the fact that Kabir had “severe panic/anxiety disorder”, migraines, tremor, and back pain, as well as deafness, depression, and cognitive abilities that could, it was described, be lower than a 6-year-old’s: “off the scale”.
It included reports describing how Kabir was not capable of lying, was vulnerable to exploitation, and had a tendency to seek to please.
The Home Office, Scott-Baker said, had given “no consideration” to the impact of his learning disabilities on “either the evidence that been presented at the first hearing and to its reliability, or any consideration as to whether the appellant could be returned to Bangladesh alone without support from his family”.
The judge said that the evidence was clear: Kabir does “not have the ability to deceive”. Because of his learning disability, he also “cannot but help himself in expressing his sexuality” and as such it “would become apparent to all on return”, meaning he was “at risk from the wider community”.
Given that all seven witnesses were in no doubt about his sexuality, the judge was sure that Kabir “is a homosexual man” and that therefore the Home Office’s decisions were “seriously flawed”.
For Briddock, the way the Home Office behaved is “not surprising”. “Refugee cases are very often defended in this way,” he says, although, “this one was particularly bad as [Kabir] has a disability”.
It was only luck that Kabir found the help he needed, Briddock adds — through the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, and his most recent law firm.
There will also be many other similar cases, he says, in large part because of the cuts to legal aid, meaning many lawyers simply will not take on such complex cases or, if they do, cannot devote sufficient time to them. “This means things fall through the cracks, which is what happened in this case.”
LGBT asylum cases therefore have a high chance of not being properly represented in court, says Briddock, with those seeking asylum having “multi-layered marginalisation” putting further barriers in place. The system overall, he says, suffers “institutional ignorance”.
Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images Share Pin “It’s pervasive throughout the whole system, the lack of understanding of sexual and gender identity.” He cites an example from another recent case where again he was representing an asylum-seeker who had to prove he was gay.
“I was trying to persuade the judge that not all gay men are members of LGBT clubs and carry membership cards,” he says. “The judge didn’t think it was a very good point.”
For Briddock, the situation for LGBT asylum-seekers is better than before the 2010 Supreme Court ruling, but what has “crept in” is the “sexualisation” of sexual identity — focusing on sexual behaviour rather than who someone is. “The other day I was in court and the Home Office submitted that my client is not in a relationship and therefore wouldn’t be at risk.”
With Kabir's case resolved, however, life can begin to improve. But for him to live as a gay man in Britain he has to understand what that really means, and learn how to navigate being a gay Muslim. Is he looking forward to being more open with people here?
“Not everyone,” he says. “No Muslim people. So difficult. Worry about sometimes people not like me. When I go outside maybe kill me.”
Maria explains that they are planning a celebration for him after winning his appeal, but because of his fears of rejection from Muslim friends there will be two parties: one for gay friends, one for straight Muslim friends.
She leans over to Kabir and tries to explain the reality of homophobia.
“It’s not everyone that’s Muslim that doesn’t like gay people,” she says. “Only some people. And some people who aren’t Muslim don’t like gay people.”
This does not seem to register with Kabir. Although he has finally won his case after six years fighting, it was with a restricted ability to understand it, and so he also continues to fear deportation. “Still difficult,” he says. “Too nervous all the times.”
He adds, as if in passing, “Last night I saw my father kill me in the dream.”
But it is only when asked what he misses about Bangladesh that he becomes overwhelmed.
“I miss my family and friend,” he says. His head tilts down; he begins to cry and covers his face. He begins to weep and then wail, louder, wheezing, with sudden intakes of breath. He cannot stop. Maria escorts him out the room to put the kettle on. It takes a long time for him to calm and return to the living room.
What the future holds for Kabir is unclear. The Albert Kennedy Trust, an LGBT homelessness charity, is hoping to find more permanent supported housing for him. He sees friends at Metro, the LGBT health charity, every week. He says he wants to work and to study.
What would he say to the judge who finally believed him — believed he was gay and let him stay? He thinks for a moment.
“Thank you,” he says, sweetly, grinning once again. “She very nice. She saved my life.”
A Home Office spokesperson said:
“This Government has a proud record of providing protection for asylum seekers fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity and the UK remains a world leader in its approach to handling asylum claims on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“We are committed to delivering an asylum process that is sensitive to all forms of persecution including those based on sexual identity and orientation. All available evidence is carefully and sensitively considered in light of published country information, which covers country specific issues. We are confident that we have a robust assurance mechanism for all claims based on sexual orientation.”
Some names have been changed in this article.
Patrick Strudwick is a LGBT editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in London. Contact Patrick Strudwick at [email protected].