South Asia Citizens Wire | December 6-9, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2674 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

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[1]  Bangladesh: Dealing with fatwa - Human rights activists' role is
crucial (Editorial, Daily Star)
[2]  Afghanistan: Keep Promises to Afghan Women (Human Rights Watch)
[3]  Nepal: Peace Process Heading South (Gautam Navlakha)
[4]  Pakistan: State Response to The Crisis Balochoistan - Reflections
   (i) Balochistan: A test of resolve (I. A. Rehman)
   (ii) The Balochistan Package: Band-Aid on a Bullet Wound (Alia
Amirali)
   (iii) The AfPak apparition (Kamila Shamsie)
   (iv) Balochistan: too small an olive branch (Qurratulain Zaman)
[5] A Transnational Platform To Take on the Fundamentalists Calls :
International Bureau for 'Laicite' (Sign on statement)
[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists on >
communalism.blogspot.com and sacw.net
    - Under the rubble (Harsh Mander)
    - The dialects of Ayodhya and Manmohan Singh (Jawed Naqvi)
    - Liberhan Commission; Painful wait for Justice (Ram Puniyani)
    - Incomplete Catharsis (Mahesh Rangarajan)
    - Little men re-enact Ayodhya chaos inside Parliament (Siddharth
Varadarajan)
    - Concerned Citizens of Gujarat for Prosecution of architect of
demolition of Babri
    - Indian American Muslim group demands immediate civil and
criminal action against all accused in the Liberhan Report
    - British Indian Muslims urge British Government to declare the 68
terrorists persona non grata
[7] Book Reviews:
     - Economy, Culture, and Civil War in Sri Lanka edited by Deborah
Winslow and Michael D. Woost (Alex Argenti-Pillen)
     - A Grand Daughter's Tribute (Rita Manchanda)
[8] Announcements:
     (i) The Play “Dekh Tamasha chalta Ban” by Ajoka (Islamabad, 10
December, 2009)
     (ii) Seminar on India-Pakistan Relations (Bombay, 10th December
2009)
    (iii) Join UNI workers union March to Parliament (New Delhi, 14
December 2009)
    (iv) Announcement of Health and Human Rights Course 2010

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[1] Bangladesh:

The Daily Star, December 8, 2009

EDITORIAL: DEALING WITH FATWA: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS' ROLE IS CRUCIAL

FATWA or an edict, that self-anointed rural adjudicators issue in
collaboration with influential locals, is ruining the lives of many
women in rural areas. Most of the victims are not in a position to
fight for their rights as such decrees are passed in the name of
religion. The image of religion itself is undermined in the process.

President Zillur Rahman has urged the National Human Rights
Commission to work for elimination of the practice which is based on
misinterpretation of religion and exploitation of religious
sentiments of people. Obviously, the commission has to make some
determined efforts to banish it and make sure that it does not remain
a potent weapon in the hands of village headmen and mullahs.

Such decrees actually create misunderstanding and confusion in the
public mind and in most cases the perpetrators are blamed for the
punishment, often inhumane, meted out to the victims. However, the
issue is definitely more complex than it looks. The victims are
mostly women poorly represented in the rural power structure. There
is nobody to plead their cases and the verdict passed often goes
unchallenged. Regrettably, the arbitrator plays into the hands of
vested groups, instead of taking a stand in favour of the victim.
Nothing could be a more serious violation of the rights of women,
that Islam protects as a matter of principle, than such crude
application of judgment.

No less damaging for women is the social condition tilting heavily in
favour of men. The male domination of rural society is so absolute
that the crimes committed by men are often condoned or overlooked in
arbitration meetings. The poor women have to suffer silently for the
wrongs done to them by mischievous elements having a powerful
position in society. The mock trial of some rapists in Barguna
recently is a case in point.

So, blunting the force is inextricably linked to empowerment of
women. The religious leaders also have a very important role in
protecting women from being harassed, tortured or pilloried publicly
by the exponents of so-called fatwa. They have to make a point of
opposing the elements who have neither the competence, nor the legal
authority, to issue fatwa. Their attempts to set up a parallel
justice system amounts to a punishable offence.

The human rights activists have to organise a social movement against
such manipulative tactics which allow religion to be used by self-
seekers.

_____


[2] Afghanistan

Human rights Watch

AFGHANISTAN: KEEP PROMISES TO AFGHAN WOMEN
Extremist Threat to Women Increasing, Government Failing to Protect

December 6, 2009

The Full report is available at:
      “We Have the Promises of the World”
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/12/03/we-have-promises-world


      The situation for Afghan women and girls is dire and could
deteriorate. While the world focuses on the Obama administration’s
new security strategy, it’s critical to make sure that women’s and
girls’ rights don’t just get lip service while being pushed to the
bottom of the list by the government and donors.
      Rachel Reid, Afghanistan researcher

(New York) - Eight years after the fall of the Taliban, women and
girls suffer high levels of violence and discrimination and have poor
access to justice and education, Human Rights Watch said in a new
report released today.  The Afghan government has also failed to
bring killers of prominent women in public life to justice, creating
an environment of impunity for those who target women.

The 96-page report, "We Have the Promises of the World: Women's
Rights in Afghanistan," details emblematic cases of ongoing rights
violations in five areas: attacks on women in public life; violence
against women; child and forced marriage; access to justice; and
girls' access to secondary education.

"The situation for Afghan women and girls is dire and could
deteriorate," said Rachel Reid, Afghanistan researcher at Human
Rights Watch. "While the world focuses on the Obama administration's
new security strategy, it's critical to make sure that women's and
girls' rights don't just get lip service while being pushed to the
bottom of the list by the government and donors."

While the plight of women and girls under the Taliban was used to
help justify the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, women's rights have
not been a consistent priority of the government or its international
backers. With fundamentalist factions in government gathering
strength, the insurgency gaining ground, and some form of
reconciliation with Taliban factions firmly on the horizon, the gains
made by Afghan women and girls since 2001 in areas such as education,
work, and freedom of movement are under serious threat.

"Women are not a priority for our own government or the international
community," Shinkai Karokhail, a member of Parliament, told Human
Rights Watch. "We've been forgotten."

Women in public life are subject to routine threats and intimidation.
Several high profile women have been assassinated, but their killers
have not been brought to justice. When Sitara Achakzai, an outspoken
and courageous human rights defender and politician, was murdered in
April 2009, her death was another warning to all women who are active
in public life.

High profile women interviewed for this report say that they feel
they are not taken seriously when they report threats. One member of
parliament who, like some others, spoke anonymously because of the
danger they face, told Human Rights Watch:

"I've had so many threats. I report them sometimes, but the
authorities tell me not to make enemies, to keep quiet. But how can I
stop talking about women's rights and human rights?"

A woman police officer who has received death threats said:

"They told me that they will kill my daughters. Every minute I'm
afraid. I can never go home - the government cannot protect me there.
My old life is over."

One nationwide survey of levels of violence against Afghan women
found that 52 percent of respondents experienced physical violence,
and 17 percent reported sexual violence. Yet because of social and
legal obstacles to accessing justice, few women and girls report
violence to the authorities. These barriers are particularly
formidable in rape cases. Although women activists and members of
parliament pushed hard and succeeded in putting rape on the statute
books this year for the first time, the government has shown little
willingness to treat each case as a serious crime or to engage in a
public education campaign to change attitudes.

The lack of justice compounds women's vulnerability. One woman who
was gang raped by a well connected local commander found that after a
long fight to bring her rapists to justice, they were freed by a
presidential decree. Soon after in 2009, her husband was
assassinated. The woman told Human Rights Watch that he was killed
because he had battled for her rights:

"I have lost my son, my honor, and now my husband," she said. "But I
am just a poor woman, so who will listen to me?"

Surveys suggest that in more than half of all marriages, the wives
are under age 16, and 70 to 80 percent of marriages take place
without the consent of the woman or girl. These practices underlie
many of the problems faced by women and girls, as there is a strong
correlation between domestic violence and early and forced marriage.

A 13-year-old girl who was forced into marriage explained to Human
Rights Watch that after she dared to escape she was hunted by her
husband's family: "They came and asked for me to come back. I said
no; they kept coming. I always say no... I can't go back. They want
to kill me." Women activists who gave the girl shelter were denounced
in parliament. Years later, the young woman is still fighting for a
legal separation from her illegal marriage.

This case is just one in the report that illustrates the fundamental
problem faced by women and girls of lack of access to justice.
Studies suggest that more than half the women and girls in detention
are being held for "moral crimes," such as adultery or running away
from home, despite the fact that running away from home is not a
crime in Afghan law or Sharia. But whether it is a high-profile woman
under threat, a young woman who wants to escape a child marriage, or
a victim of rape who wants to see the perpetrator punished, the
response from the police or courts is often hostile.

"Police and judges see violence against women as legitimate so they
do not prosecute cases," Dr. Soraya Sobhrang of the Afghanistan
Independent Human Rights Commission told Human Rights Watch.

Law reforms that protect women's rights are important, but leadership
is also required to help shift attitudes and prevent abuses, Human
Rights Watch said.

"The government needs to take its responsibility to protect women and
girls seriously," Reid said. "President Hamid Karzai has a lot of
work to do to restore his reputation as a moderate on women's rights."

After the destruction of many girls' schools by the Taliban,
education for girls became the most symbolic element of the
international donor effort in Afghanistan. Despite significant gains,
stark gender disparities remain. The majority of girls still do not
attend primary school. A dismal 11 percent of secondary-school-age
girls are enrolled in grades seven through nine. Only 4 percent of
girls make it to grades 10 through 12. While the number of both boys
and girls attending school drops dramatically at the secondary school
level, the decline is much more pronounced for girls.

The diminishing status of women's rights in Afghanistan was forced
back onto the agenda in March when the discriminatory Shia Personal
Status law was passed by parliament and signed by Karzai. Faced with
national and international protests, Karzai allowed the law to be
amended, but many egregious articles remain that impose drastic
restrictions upon Shia women, including the requirement that wives
seek their husbands' permission before leaving home except for
unspecified "reasonable legal reasons," and granting child custody
rights solely to fathers and grandfathers.

"We welcomed the international community's words on the Shia law -
really - they said many beautiful things, as they did in 2001" said
Wazhma Frogh, women's rights activist. "We have the promises of the
world. But still we wait to see what more they will do."

Karzai should revise the law to protect women's rights fully and
appoint women who have been active defenders of women's rights to
positions of power, Human Rights Watch said.

"The Shia law provided a timely reminder of how vulnerable Afghan
women are to political deals and broken promises," Reid said. "Karzai
should begin his new presidency with a clear signal to women that his
will be a government that wants to advance equality."

Key Recommendations of "We Have the Promises of the World: Women's
rights in Afghanistan"

      * The government and donors should make the promotion and
protection of women's rights a main priority of the country's
reconstruction and a central pillar of their political, economic, and
security strategies.

      * The government, with the support of donors, should embark on a
large-scale awareness campaign to ensure that rape is understood to
be a crime by law enforcement agencies, judges, parliament, civil
servants, and the Afghan public. The campaign should also aim to
reduce the stigmatization of victims of rape.

      * The government should make marriage registration more widely
available and compulsory.

      * The president should order the release of, and offer an
apology and compensation to, all women and girls wrongfully detained
on the charge of "running away from home."

      * The government, with the support of donors, should increase
the number and geographic coverage of girls' secondary classes by
building more girls' secondary schools, and ensure the recruitment
and training of female teachers is accelerated.

      * The government, with the support of the UN and other donors,
should prioritize security for women candidates and voters in
planning for the 2010 parliamentary elections.

      * International donors and the United Nations, in conjunction
with the Ministry of Women's Affairs, should conduct a full gender
audit of all spending in Afghanistan.

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[3]   NEPAL: PEACE PROCESS HEADING SOUTH

by  Gautam Navlakha

With the peace process increasingly getting scuttled, what with India
and the two main political parties opposing the Maoist agenda of
civilian supremacy and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement of 2006, the chances of non-violent, progressive
transformation of the Nepali state and society seem increasingly dim
in the near future. The Maoists have now gone back to the people to
launch a mass protest movement. As the contradictions intensify, will
there be a takeover of power by the president with the backing of the
army, akin to a Bangladeshi-type coup? Will there be an Indonesia-
like massacre of the Maoists, as some fear? Or, will a national
government led by Maoists materialise?

FULL TEXT AT: http://www.epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/14204.pdf

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[4] Pakistan: State Response to The Crisis Balochoistan - Reflections

(i) BALOCHISTAN: A TEST OF RESOLVE

Why the Baloch are angry
No student of history will deny that the Baloch have taken up arms as
a last resort and not the first one

by I. A. Rehman
(The News, 6 December 2009)

Few things irritate the Balochistan nationalists more than the
question by many interlocutors from outside the province as to what
makes them angry with the central government and drives them towards
armed struggle every few years. Such queries, in their view, betray a
feigned ignorance of what has been done to them for six decades and
an effort to deny the questioner's share of responsibility for it.

Throughout the country's history the people of Balochistan have
complained of the failure of the custodians of state power to make a
sincere effort to understand, or even acknowledge, their plight. As a
result their lament has grown lengthier and lengthier and their
bitterness at being abandoned deeper and deeper.

Although the whole population of Balochistan has been agitating
against their deprivations, the Pushtuns and the Baloch have
different sets of grievances and it is only the latter that have been
taking up arms in support of their cause. We are at the moment
concerned only with the Baloch's alienation form the state as it is
the main cause of the present crisis in that region.

The Baloch have never got over their shock and anger at the way the
accession of Kalat state was manipulated. What hurt the nationalists
more than the military operation against the Khan of Kalat was their
feeling of betrayal.

Unlike the Indian Congress that viewed the future of the princely
states after the British departure from the subcontinent wholly in
terms of the political rights of their populations, the Muslim League
leaders persisted in a purely legalist interpretation of the end of
British paramountcy. As a result, the Khan of Kalat and the state's
relatively young radicals could not reconcile themselves to a
negation of the Kalat brief that the Quaid-i-Azam himself had
presented before the Cabinet Mission.

The result was that Prince Abdul Karim gave a call to arms. He failed
because the people in general had been taken into confidence, or
considered worthy of being approached even, neither by the Kalat Khan
nor the leaders of Pakistan. The latter thought the matter ended once
Abdul Karim was put in a jail in Lahore. No attempt was made to
explain to the people why matters followed a particular course.

Balochistan was promised something like provincial status on the
morrow of independence. In February 1948 Quaid-i-Azam recognised the
right of the Balochistan people to have the same rights as were
allowed to their compatriots in the rest of the country. A reform
committee set up in 1949 recommended a provincial legislature, adult
franchise and some regard for tribes' unity while demarcating
electoral constituencies. But the people of Balochistan were made to
wait till 1970 to attain provincial status.

Between 1949 and 1970 the centre's policy of ignoring the Balochistan
people's opinion forced them into confrontationist politics,
especially during 1954–70 when most of the time they had to agitate
against the One-Unit. One of the offshoots of the One Unit scheme was
the revolt of Sardar Nauroze Khan. The way the 80 years old chieftain
was treated makes the Baloch angry to this day.

In 1972, the Baloch believed their rights had begun to be recognised
but their representative government was dismissed and the central
government chose to deal with the Baloch youth's resistance through a
military operation instead of the democratic way of negotiation. The
impasse ended only when Gen Ziaul Haq pretended a change of heart and
acting contrary to the advice he had given to Mr Bhutto and PNA
leaders he stopped military action. But there was no meeting of the
hearts, no political discourse, and the Baloch were left to sulk and
nourish their grievances.

The Musharraf era has been the darkest phase for the Baloch because
in this period the government excesses started directly affecting the
common citizen. The grabbing of the Gwadar land hit a large number of
people who were not sardars. The exclusion of the Baloch from the
beneficiaries of development projects radicalised the educated and
jobless youth. The Baloch were humiliated in unprecedented ways. None
of the politicians who crossed Gen Musharraf's path was humiliated
the way Sardar Akhtar Mengal was. The ordinary Baloch were insulted
on account of the hair on their face and for wearing their
traditional shalwar. (As a reaction the young sardars and students
who had switched over to jeans resumed wearing their shalwar and
keeping long hair with a vengeance.) The Baloch have reached their
present state of alienation because the centre has proved to be
unworthy of their trust.

No student of history will deny that the Baloch have taken up arms as
a last resort and not the first one. More often than not they have
reacted to use of force against them.

Writing from his death cell to his favourite child (Ms Benazir
Bhutto) Mr Bhutto observed that a settlement of the Balochistan
crisis had been made difficult by the fact that much blood had been
shed. His successors did not study his finding and continued to bleed
Balochistan (i.e. Nawab Akbar Bugti, Ballach Marri, Ghulam Mohammad,
Rasool Bakshsh, et al) and make the political tangle more and more
intractable.

The present government started making gestures of goodwill towards
Balochistan but it has been found wanting in capital to deliver on
its promises. Its latest package is unlikely to generate a meaningful
debate.

There were many occasions in the past when open-hearted dialogue
could lead to healing of the Baloch's wounds. But killing Nawab Akbar
Bugti was preferred to negotiations with him and Nawab Khair Bukhsh
Marri was kept in prison instead of talking to him. Now that the
Baloch youth have been alienated Islamabad wants to talk to any
Marri, any Bugti, any Mengal or any Bizenjo, but neither the senior
nor the younger leaders of the Baloch resistance are listening. They
will not respond positively so long as their support among the youth
continues to grow.

The real problem Islamabad faces today is that it lacks both the
intellectual strength and the authority needed to establish a
discourse with the Baloch youth. The situation will not improve till
a fresh election is held in Balochistan but elections cannot be held
until the Baloch people's over-riding concerns about missing persons
and displaced people are addressed and decision-making powers are
restored to civilian, elected representatives of the people.

o o o

(ii)

The Friday Times, Lahore, 4 December 2009

THE BALOCHISTAN PACKAGE: BAND-AID ON A BULLET WOUND

by Alia Amirali

      “We’ve seen this before. They say sorry. Then the military
operation intensifies. More deaths, more disappearances, more
destruction. I wish they’d stop apologizing. Whenever they do, it
means something bad is brewing.” This is what a young Baloch writer
said to me last year in the wake of Zardari’s apology to the Baloch
people. I was skeptical. Wait and see, he said.

      The events that unfolded in Balochistan after the apology – a
long list which includes an unabated series of abductions,
disappearances, harassment, and torture of students and political
workers; intensification of “security operations” in the eastern
districts; deployment of the FC in Makkuran; the hair-raising
treatment meted out to political leaders Ghulam Mohammad, Lala Munir,
and Sher Mohammad (and months later also to Rasool Baksh Mengal) –
proved the young man right.

      Many would jump in here to say: “But the package calls for an
inquiry into their murders…” Yes, Aghaaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan-
the name given to the recently-announced ‘package’ for
Balochistan- does call for a judicial inquiry into the murders of the
three Baloch leaders whose bodies were found thrown in the wilderness
some miles from Turbat, mutilated beyond recognition, in April this
year. But alas, in the package they messed up the names! (Instead of
Sher Mohammad, the package mistakenly says ‘Munir Ahmed’). While
the government may pass it off as a ‘typing mistake’, it is
telling of the center’s utter lack of familiarity- indeed its
disconnect - with the Baloch context, their leaders and their
aspirations.

      Considering Pakistan’s unflattering record with regards to
parliamentary committees, inquiry commissions and apologies, the
government must have been cognizant that this ‘Balochistan
package’ must make a break from history and that it must go beyond
apologies and promises. Sadly, this package does not do so. The
language flits between ‘should’ and ‘will’ (with the former
dominating), which belies that the ‘package’ is in fact a set of
proposals made by individuals in the government rather than a series
of measures being taken by the government. Why does the government
need to ‘suggest’ or ‘urge’; why does it not act? Either it
does not want to act, or it cannot; and the truth is probably a mix
of both. The authors of the package argue that all issues must go
through parliament before they can be implemented (hence the
‘proposal-like’ nature of the package). That is fair. But
considering the history of broken promises, particularly in the
Baloch context, the ‘package’ should have been announced only once
the government was in a position to act on the committee’s proposals.

      Lets move to the content. A glaring flaw in the package- and one
of the main reasons for its unanimous rejection by Baloch
nationalists- is the refusal to declare or even propose a complete
halt to military operations in the province, which is tantamount to
ignoring the ‘elephant in the room’. Viewed from another angle,
the suggestion that the role of “federal agencies” in Balochistan
be “reviewed” and “all operations not related to the fight
against terrorism” be stopped is at least an admission – coming
forth for the first time from official quarters - that there are
“operations” being conducted in Balochistan (even though the
word ‘military’ is conspicuously absent). Considering that
government and military officials have consistently denied the
existence of military operations in Balochistan, this is an
important- even if inadvertent- admission. However, linking military
operations in Balochistan to “the fight against terrorism” or- as
can be seen in other ambiguously phrased clauses of the package-
continuing to brand the Baloch guerrillas as ‘terrorists’ will
only inflame the Baloch and mislead the Pakistani public. The Baloch
guerrillas and independence-seeking nationalists reflect popular
sentiment: that is a fact that Islamabad must accept. This package
shows that we are still in denial.

      The language regarding the construction of new cantonments is
similarly ambiguous and problematic. The new cantonments in Sui and
Kohlu (only) will be ceased “for the time being” and already
constructed ones will be handed over to the FC – a highly notorious
force in Balochistan which must be withdrawn rather than strengthened
if there is to be peace in the province. There is no mention of
removing controversial military officials from the posts they have
occupied since the Musharraf era. Instead of reducing the number of
existing cantonments – which, according to a January 2007 report,
include four mega-military cantonments, 52 paramilitary cantonments,
five naval bases, and six missile-testing ranges – the package
merely states that proposals for new cantonments not be formulated
“except in frontier regions, wherever required.”

      In some ways, the most disappointing feature of the package is
the proposal of ‘constitutional amendments’ to determine the
“scope, form, and quantum” of provincial autonomy. The 1973
Constitution - which provided for complete provincial autonomy within
ten years of promulgation - does not require amendment, only
implementation. Besides, increasing the province’s ‘share’ of
revenues generated from its own resources will not resolve the center-
province conflict. It is time for the government to bite the bullet.
It must accept that complete provincial autonomy is the minimum
necessary step towards repairing decades-worth of damage and
exploitation. Regardless of who accepts it and who rejects it, the
government must implement it, no strings attached. Over time, this
step will reap fruits. It is the only way the federation can work.

      On the eve of the package’s announcement, I turned on the
television in the hope of hearing some meaningful discussions on
Balochistan. Instead, the anchors were merely pushing their Baloch
guests to point out “something positive” about the package. If we
want to ‘patch up’ with the Baloch, it is about time we stopped
pushing them (besides, they’ve already been pushed to the wall). It
is us – our state and our government and our people – who need to
be pushed. We cannot allow our state to commit another Bangladesh in
Balochistan. If we remain silent now- as we were then- the Baloch
will be right in blaming us for their misery.

      The writer is a student at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.

o o o

(iii) THE AFPAK APPARITION

The Baloch people are paying a very real price for a videogame war on
a phantasmagorical land

by Kamila Shamsie
(guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 December 2009)

Someone in the American government has been reading Borges. This
would explain the creation of a fantastical place called AfPak which
occupies the same place on the map as the nations of Afghanistan and
Pakistan. AfPak has much in common with the shared border region of
the two countries – the same topography, the same militants with
their perverted form of Islam, the same distrust of central
governments. But there are distinctions. AfPak is, after all, an
abbreviated place, so it takes all the complex realities of
Afghanistan and Pakistan, ignores some, distills others – and in so
doing, distorts the picture. And of course, the strategies drawn up
about AfPak are carried out in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

To say that AfPak distils complex realities is not to imply that
AfPak itself is without complications. It is one entity but in two
parts. One part has "good Taliban", with whom US officials are
willing to enter into discussions; the other part has only "bad
Taliban", who must be "taken out" by military force. One part is
approached via troops on the ground; the other via unmanned drone
attacks.

But now it seems troops on the ground are being considered for Pak as
well, unless the Pakistan government, already locked in battle with
the Taliban, also takes on the militants who have fled Afghanistan
for Pakistan. The fact that expanding the Pakistan army's remit might
cause an even greater escalation in suicide bombings is not,
presumably, germane to AfPak strategy. But surely there's a lesson
about opening up too many fronts, even in AfPak world?

Or perhaps all this talk of US escalation is just laying the
groundwork for increasing the scale and scope of drone attacks. This
videogame form of warfare – press a button in Langley! Kill a
terrorist in AfPak! – is at present confined to the tribal regions
of "Pak".

A senior US official recently claimed the drone attacks have killed
400 terrorists and only 20 civilians in Pak. This forms a sharply
contrasting picture to the reality of Pakistan, where figures
reported by both local and international press have placed civilian
deaths in the hundreds. It appears the "Pak" to Pakistan conversion
rate is about 1:50.

The AfPak strategists now want to expand drone attacks to the
province of Balochistan, where many of the Taliban are allegedly
based – having unsurprisingly decided to flee the drone attacks in
the tribal areas. In the world of AfPak, Balochistan is the new safe
haven, and so it must be the new target. Of all the distilled and
distorted complex realities of Pakistan, this is among the most
egregious.

The province of Balochistan has been at odds with the central
government of Pakistan since 1947. During the 70s, the Baloch
separatist movement – both secular and leftist – led to a five-
year military operation, ending with the withdrawal of the army and a
period of martial law. In the succeeding years, nothing was done to
seriously address the political and economic deprivation of the
mineral-rich province. Islamabad controls Balochistan's gas, coal,
uranium and other natural resources, but returns very little to the
province in terms of revenue or infrastructure. The Frontier Corps
(which the United States wants to "strengthen" as part of its AfPak
plans) is viewed as an occupying power; hundreds or, more likely,
thousands, of Baloch are among the "disappeared people" who, in the
last decade, have been picked up by intelligence agencies and never
seen again. It is no great surprise that there are loud demands for
provincial autonomy, and great anger towards the centre.

One of President Zardari's first acts was to apologise to the people
of Balochistan for all they have suffered at the hands of the state.
On 24 November, his government tabled a wide-ranging package of
reform for Balochistan. There is scepticism in Balochistan about the
package, but at least some kind of start has been made to the vital
issue – crucial to Pakistan's hopes of coming through its
nightmarish present – of making Balochistan feel a part of the
federation, with a stake in its future.

What might derail the process? The AfPak videogame. Whether the
Taliban or al-Qaida are welcomed in Balochistan under a "my enemy's
enemy is my friend" way of thinking or not does not alter the
desperate need to prevent bombs raining down. Given the battles being
fought between province and centre, how could the Baloch fail to see
a tacit complicity of the Pakistan military behind every drone?


o o o

(iv) BALOCHISTAN: TOO SMALL AN OLIVE BRANCH

by Qurratulain Zaman,

Open Democracy, 27 November 2009
http://www.opendemocracy.net/qurratulain-zaman/balochistan-too-small-
olive-branch

About the author
Qurratulain Zam is a journalist who has worked with Pakistan’s
leading daily “Daily Times” and Germany’s international
broadcaster “Deutsche Welle”. She is currently working as a
freelancer in Bonn, Germany“

Brutal rule by Pakistan’s security agencies in Balochistan has
radicalised moderate Balochs in this largest and poorest province.
Now Pakistan’s government has offered a conciliation package. But it
looks as if it is too little, too late.

They ordered me to rape her. She was so thin and was crying when they
brought her in the room. I was terrified to look at her, as I thought
she was a spy or an agent”, says Munir Mengal, a 33- year- old
Baloch, living in forced exile in Paris.

Munir Mengal spent 16 months in underground jails of the Pakistani
intelligence agencies. “The low rank officers came back to the room
and started beating me because I didn’t obey their orders. They took
off my clothes by force, and hers too, and left us alone. In her sobs
I heard her praying in Balochi language. She was praying for someone
named Murad. That’s how I got to know she is my fellow Baloch. That
gave me the courage to talk to her.” Munir says that, still sobbing,
she told him her name was Zarina Marri. She used to be a school
teacher. She and her son Murad, who was only a few months old, were
picked up by the intelligence agencies from Kohlu.

Munir said, “Zarina was crying and asking me to kill her. Meanwhile,
3 or 4 low-ranking officers came in the room with a toolbox and told
me that if I refused to rape her they would make me impotent. I
didn’t have a clue why they were doing this to me. I fainted.  In
the morning, before the faj’r prayer they kicked me and took Zarina
Marri with them. I have no idea what happened to her.”

Munir said he was tortured physically, mentally and emotionally every
day. A chartered accountant by education and training, Munir wanted
to open up a Baloch TV channel in Pakistan. He was working on his TV
channel “Baloch Voice”, when he was picked up for the first time
when he flew into Karachi international airport on April 4, 2006.
“After 5 months in an underground jail in Malir (Karachi), one day
they took me to Major Nadeem’s office. He said they hadn’t found
anything against me and wanted to negotiate with me.” The Military
Intelligence (MI) officers informed Munir they had changed their
plans. “They were going to take me to meet President Pervez
Musharraf.  They trained me how to talk to the president. They told
me I had to address him as ‘your Excellency’ and should not tell
him anything about what had happened to me in the torture cell”,
remembered Munir. “On October 26, they gave me a haircut, new
clothes and blindfolded me. Then they took me to some military
barracks to meet the then president, Pervez Musharraf.”
Munir said the president expressed concern about the Balochistan
issue. “He said he would take care of my family’s future now,
although according to him I was becoming more dangerous than the
Baloch rebel leaders Nawab Akbar Bugti and Attaullah Khan Mengal.  He
said it was just a few sardars, tribal leaders, who were making
things bad in Balochistan with foreign aid. “I stayed quiet most of
the time”, says Munir.

“They offered to make me the liberal, educated voice of Balochistan
against the sardars. They said the’d give me and my family full
protection. But I refused to become a part of their game. That is why
in the end I fled Pakistan.”

Munir Mengal’s is not an isolated story.

The largest province of Pakistan, Balochistan is witnessing its 5th
insurgency since 1947. Many Balochs say that their region was annexed
by Pakistan. They believe the centre and the most populous province
Punjab has usurped their resources. It is the most impoverished and
underdeveloped province of Pakistan. Balochs will tell you, for
example, that although vast amounts of gas are extracted from Sui,
Balochistan, there are many parts of the province without gas until
today.

The Baloch nationalists kept demanding autonomy and an equal share in
the resources. However, they never got it. The Pakistan federal
government distributes resources on the basis of population, and
Balochistan accounts for only four percent of Pakistan’s population.

24 year old Shahzeb is a law student. He was picked up by the
intelligence agencies in March this year. In their traditionally
decorated first floor living room in Balochistan’s capital, Quetta,
Shahzeb’s mother said “We were worried about Shahzeb’s life. My
family and I prayed every day for him.” Shahzeb was taking his
sister-in-law to a neighbouring district in Quetta when he was picked
up.  “They tortured me every day”, said Shahzeb Baloch. “During
interrogation, my hands were tied and I was blindfolded. They asked
me questions about the Baloch liberation movement. They kept accusing
me of being an agent of the Indian intelligence agency RAW and
insisted that I had provided weapons to militants.”
Shahzeb was careful not to share details about his three months’
ordeal in the military detention centre in front of his mother. He
switched to English in her presence. “I don’t want to repeat all
these things in front of her. She starts crying.  They released me on
the condition that I won’t get involved in student politics.”
Both Munir and Shahzeb said that they came across many Baloch
detainees in the military-run secret jails  - Munir under the
military dictatorship of Musharraf, and Shahzeb after the civilian
government had taken over last year. According to the Baloch Women’s
Panel and the Baloch Student Organization (BSO), 4,000 Baloch are
still missing. Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik said this
week that the government had a list of 1,011 missing people.
Most observers agree that things became worse in Balochistan during
the Musharraf years, after Musharraf sent the army in against the
Baloch tribes. Nawab Akbar Bugti, head of the Bugti clan, a former
chief minister and governor of the province in his eighties, was
forced to hide in a mountain cave and finally killed in an airstrike
by the Pakistan air force.

Suriya Ameeruddin is a senator from the ruling Pakistan People’s
Party in Balochistan. “A few years ago, we used to live in harmony,
in peace. Pashtuns, Baloch, Hazaras and Punjabis - all of us used to
live next to each other but since the day Pervez Musharraf martyred
our Nawab Sahib, the situation has turned violent”, she said.

Relations between the different ethnic groups have become bitter.
Senator Suriya Ameeruddin is not an ethnic Baloch, but a “settler”
in Quetta. But she lives in a Baloch-populated area. “Every day when
my son and daughter- in- law leave for work I am afraid. Boys come on
motorcycles in busy markets and residential areas, kill and vanish.
Not a single ‘target killer’ has been caught so far. No one has
the courage to catch them. It’s the law of the jungle here.”
Quetta looks like a war-zone, with army checkpoints even in the
markets and parks. The city is clearly divided in two parts. One is
the “cantonment” fully controlled by the army and paramilitary
forces; the other area is a stronghold of Baloch separatist groups –
like Balochistan University.
   A 24- year- old former president of the Baloch Student Organisation
(BSO) said, ‘’you feel you are entering a garrison, not a
university. Pakistan’s security agencies have left us no political
way forward. They have radicalised all the liberal forces by
torturing them.’’
According to him, the BSO serves as a nursery for nationalists who
are in hiding or fighting in the mountains. The student leader’s
father was an active member of the established Balochistan National
Party (BNP), which traditionally stood by Pakistan, while demanding
more rights for the Balochs. But he and his brothers advocate a
“free” Balochistan. ‘’We have convinced our father after long
fights and arguments. Today he is a radical like me.’’
Not long ago, the student was a patriotic Pakistani. He had a poster
of a war hero, Captain Karnel Sher Khan as a teenager. “Pakistan
needs to reflect upon what made me hate Pakistan”, he said. “They
make us feel that we are slaves. I can wear western clothes and move
freely in the city but if I’m wearing my baggy Baloch shalwar,
they’ll strip search me.”
The one and a half year old democratic government has finally tabled
the long awaited Balochistan package named “a beginning of
Balochistan rights” in the national assembly this week. Prime
Minister Gilani promised to bring back the missing people to their
families, to re-integrate exiled Baloch leaders into the political
scene and to withdraw the army and paramilitary forces from the
province.
Balochistan will finally enjoy political autonomy like the other
provinces, and economic development, the government promises.
However, all Baloch parties have rejected this package. They say they
were not consulted, and after sixty years they have lost their trust
in Pakistan.
Malik Siraj Akbar, the bureau chief of the English national paper
“Daily Times” in Quetta, said, “although the democratic
government has taken over, the machinery is run by the security
agencies. The chief minister and governor have no role. There are
more than 50 ministers in the government, but they have nothing to
do.”
Mukhtar Chalgiri, the regional director of the Strengthening
Participatory Organization, one of the few NGOs still working in the
province, added:
“Ordinary people are unhappy. Inflation, poverty and a sense of
deprivation leads to all this violence we see in our society today.
Every cabinet member in this government is corrupt. They are selling
jobs.”
Many Baloch parties are boycotting the political process altogether.
Their demands have become more radical over the years.
Dr Abdul Hakeem Lehri, a senior leader of the Baloch Republican Party
said, “we’re not interested in living with the corrupt Pakistani
elite any more. We want freedom.”
The Baloch Republican Party (BRP) is considered the political face of
the underground, separatist Baloch Republican Armay (BRA). Hundreds
of their activists have disappeared. Party chief Brahamdagh Bugti, a
grandson of the slain leader Akbar Bugti, is in hiding. For many
youngsters, the handsome 28- year- old Bramdagh is a kind of Baloch
Che Guevara. Pakistani officials say he is in Afghanistan, and have
accused India of supporting him through its consulates there. But
party leader Lehri rubbished all claims that the separatist movement
is run by a “foreign hand”:
“If Pakistan had any real evidence that India supports us, would
they have spared us? Every Baloch household has a reason to fight
with them. This version is just to satisfy the Pakistani elite.”
  From his forced exile Munir Mengal too rejects the economic package
proposed by the Pakistani government. He pointed out that many Baloch
nationalists are socialists and abhor religious fundamentalism.
“There is no solution with packages, and our problem can’t be
solved with dialogues either. Our ideology is different from
Pakistan’s. We can’t live under an imposed and fake religious
identity. We are secular people.” And he added a question: “Do you
really think these economic packages will satisfy Zarina Marri’s
mother?“

Former school teacher Zarina Marri is still missing, and no official
record exists about what happened to her after she was last seen by
Munir Mengal in Karachi.

_____


[5] A Transnational Platform to Take on the Fundamentalists : Call
and Sign on Statement

(i)

Press Release

For Immediate Release
9 December 2009

The Formation of an International Bureau for Laicite* Announced

A wide number of non governmental organizations and individuals from
across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas have signed a common
public statement affirming the nefarious role of fundamentalist
politics and the need to counter it internationally.

This charter highlights:
    - The flawed ideological bogey of clash of civilizations, the role
of public policies leading to greater inequality, and the impact of
religious fundamentalisms and right wing identity politics in
dividing people locally, nationally and internationally.
   - Fundamentalist movements benefit from - A retreat of the state
from the social domain that leaves the terrain open to the religious-
political outfits to flourish. – Public support from certain groups
on the left, that consider fundamentalists as allies in the name of
fighting imperialism.

In this overall backdrop the signatories propose the formation of an
international initiative called International Bureau for Laicite to
act as a facilitating body to network, support and amplify the
struggles for secularism.

The charter of International Bureau for Laicite has been released in
English, French and Spanish on a day that marks the 104th anniversary
of the legislation separating state and religion in France.

The full text of the charter is available for public consultation and
is open for signatures at the newly created website of International
Bureau for Laicite: www.laicity.info/bli


(* Note: The French term Laicite in the name of our platform was
chosen because the word 'secularism' in English conveys the notion of
equal tolerance of the state vis a vis all religions, rather than the
notion of separation between 'Churches'/religions and the state as
well as the total disinvestment of the state regarding religions,
which is embeded into the French concept of laicite.)


---
[Text of the Charter]

   INTERNATIONAL BUREAU FOR LAICITE*

Considering that:
- The so-called theory of 'clash of civilisations' between a
'Christian West' on the one hand, and a 'Muslim Orient' on the other,
is gaining ground, in total disregard of all people the world over,
who have been fighting in favour of a political model founded on
principles of secularism,

- In the name of defending the 'right to difference', numerous states
are legitimizing differences of rights between citizens depending on
their faith, thereby fueling communalisms,

- With the help of religions, governments try to draw people into
warlike confrontations

- In addition to fighting against existing disparities between men
and women, women have to unceasingly defend their hard won rights,
notably equality in the realm of social and professional rights and
bodily rights,

- That, in many countries, the rise of different fundamentalisms has
come to increase the subordination of women

- Despite a movement towards secularisation and the decline of
religions, globalisation of neoliberal policies (favoured by the
Washington consensus) that emerged in the 80's, stimulated the march
towards privatisation and commoditisation of all human activities,
and exacerbated inward looking communalism (the disengagement of the
state necessitated the recourse to traditional forms of solidarity,
substituing national solidarity with the principle of charity),

- The alliance that a communalized Left does not hesitate to make
with religious organisations, in the name of fighting 'western
imperialism', is damaging, as is the neoliberal disinvestment by the
State from the social sphere  that has allowed religious
organisations to occupy that space

-The current economic crisis has accentuated inequalities and poverty,

- However, there has been a convergence of secularist, feminist and
social struggles, everywhere in the world ;

The organisations and persons  listed below have come together to set
up the International Bureau for Laïcite, based on the present
resolution, in order to promote secularism internationally.

1. We affirm our commitment to secularism. The principle of
secularism, notably the strict separation of State and religion,
guarantees the non interference of religion in the sphere of state
authority; as well as a real independance of religious and faith
based organisations of civil society vis-a-vis the state. Secularism
guarantees to citizens the absolute freedom of conscience: the right
to believe, the right to disbelieve, the right to change faith, as
well as the right to freedom of expression. Consequently, the right
to criticize religions is not to be put into question and it takes
precedence above all moves to institute ' defamation of religions and
their prophets' as a crime.

2. We affirm our commitment to the principle of equality and the
universality of rights. We believe in a republican conception of
citizenship, and we reject all systems which, in the name of
particularisms, segment the body politic, either by privileging one
category of citizens or by excluding it. Therefore we intend to fight
against all forms of discriminations, notably those faced by women
and the minorities.

3. We refuse the globalized predatory and destructive neoliberal
policies which accentuate pauperisation, whose first victims are
women and children;  state disengagement fosters the retreat of
national solidarity in favour of traditional solidarities of
'communal' type. In wake of neoliberalism, we call for the
internationalisation of struggles.

On the 9th of December 2009**, we call on organisations and
individuals who identify with the principles of this statement to
support and sign it, and join us.

To sign up : http://laicity.info/bli/?cat=22

*After consultation, we finally resolve to use the French concept/
word ‘Laicite’ in the name of our platform. The reason for it is
that the word 'secularism' in English conveys the notion of equal
tolerance of the state vis a vis all religions, rather than the
notion of separation between 'Churches'/religions and the state as
well as the total disinvestment of the state regarding religions,
which is embeded into the French concept of laicite. Rare scholars
have of late started to use the neologism ‘Laicity', but we feel
that it is not known to activists and to public at large.
** On the 9th of December 1905, France voted the Law of Separation of
Churches and State

The founders of the BLI :
Coalition for a Secular State, Serbia
Collectif citoyen pour l'égalité et la laïcité (CCIEL), Montréal
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain
Development Alternatives with Women for A New Era (DAWN),
international network
Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in
Iran
Iran Solidarity
Iranian Secular Society
MAREA, feminist journal, Genova, Italy
Parti pour la Laïcité et la Démocratie (ex MDSL), Algérie
Protagoras, Croatia
One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain
Organization for Women’s Liberation (OWL), Iran
Secularism Is A Women's Issue (SIAWI), international network
Union des Familles Laïques (UFAL), France
Women's Initiative for Citizenship and Universal Rights (WICUR)
international network
Women in Black - Belgrade (WIB), Serbia
Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), international network

Zarizana Abul Aziz, lawyer, human rights activist, Malaysia
Samia Allalou, journaliste, Algérie/France
Hakim Arabdiou, militant laïque, Algérie/France
Soheib Bencheikh, théologien, spécialiste des religions et de la
laicité, ancien mufti de Marseille, France
Djemila Benhabib, auteure de Ma vie à contre-Coran, récipiendaire du
Prix des écrivains francophones d'Amérique et finaliste pour le prix
du gouverneur général 2009, Québec
Codou Bop, journaliste, Dakar, Sénégal
Caroline Brancher, co-responsable du secteur féminisme et laïcité
de l'UFAL, France
Ariane Brunet, co-fondatrice de Urgent Action Fund, Montréal,Québec
Sonia Correa, co-coordinator of Sexuality Policy Watch and Research
Associate at ABIA (Brazilian Interdisciplinary Association for AIDS
(Brazil)), Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Yvonne Deutsch, feminist peace activist, Jerusalem
Lalia Ducos, présidente de WICUR, Algérie/France
Aldo Facio, Feminist Human Rights Activist and Lawyer, Costa Rica
Gigi Franscisco, coordinator of the DAWN international network,
Manila, The Philippines
Pierre Galand, président du Centre d'action laïque (CAL), Belgique
Nadia Geerts, initiatrice du R.A.P.P.E.L. (www.le-rappel.be/FR)
Laura Guidetti, President and co-founder of MAREA, Genova, Italy
Marieme Helie Lucas, Fondatrice du WLUML et coordinatrice de SIAWI,
Algérie/France
Hameeda Hossein, co-chair of South Asians for Human Rights and
Chairperson of Ain o Salish Kendra, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Ayesha Imam, Sociologist, human rights activists, Nigeria
Harsh Kapoor, founder of South Asia Citizens Web (sacw.net), India/
France
Sultana Kamal, lawyer and human rights activist, Executive Director
of Ain O'Salish Kendra, former Advisor to the Caretaker Government of
Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh,
Cherifa Kheddar, présidente de l'association " Djazairouna" des
Familles Victimes du Terrorisme Islamiste, Algérie
Catherine Kintzler, philosophe de la laïcité, Paris, France
Monica Lanfranco, journalist, co-founder of MAREA, Genova, Italy
Azar Majedi, Présidente de l’OWL, Iran/U.K
Maryam Namazie, Campaigner, Iran/U.K
Fariborz Pooya, Iranian Secular Society, Iran/U.K
Venita Popovic, Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mary Jane Real, lawyer and human rights activist, Manilla, The
Philippines
Rhoda Reddock, feminist scholar, Trinidad and Tobago
Henri Pena Ruiz, philosophe de la laïcité, France
Nina Sankari, Présidente de l’Initiative Féministe Européenne
(IFE), Pologne
Aisha Shaheed, historian and women’s rights activist, Canada/
Pakistan/UK
Mohamed Sifaoui, journaliste, Algérie/France
Fatou Sow, sociologue au CNRS, Dakar, Sénégal
Gila Svirsky, Women In Black, Jerusalem
Lino Veljak, Professor of philosophy, University of Zagreb, founder
of PROTAGORAS, Croatia
Vivienne Wee, anthropologist and women’s rights advocate, Singapore
and Hong Kong, China
Stasa Zajovic, founder of WIB-Belgrade, coordinator of the Coalition
for a Secular State, Serbia


_____


[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists on >
communalism.blogspot.com / sacw.net

Under the rubble (Harsh Mander)
http://tt.ly/1d
The dialects of Ayodhya and Manmohan Singh (Jawed Naqvi)
http://tt.ly/19
Liberhan Commission; Painful wait for Justice (Ram Puniyani)
http://tt.ly/1a
Incomplete Catharsis (Mahesh Rangarajan)
http://tt.ly/17
Little men re-enact Ayodhya chaos inside Parliament (Siddharth
Varadarajan)
http://tt.ly/18
Concerned Citizens of Gujarat for Prosecution of architect of
demolition of Babri Mosque
http://www.sacw.net/article1270.html
Indian American Muslim group demands immediate civil and criminal
action against all accused in the Liberhan Report
http://tt.ly/1c
British Indian Muslims urge British Government to declare the 68
terrorists persona non grata
http://tt.ly/1b

_____


[7]  Book Reviews:

(i)

American Ethnologist, Volume 36 Issue 4 (November 2009)

Book Reviews
Economy, Culture, and Civil War in Sri Lanka edited by Deborah
Winslow and Michael D. Woost

Alex Argenti-Pillen (University College London)

Economy, Culture, and Civil War in Sri Lanka . Deborah Winslow and
Michael D. Woost , eds . : Indiana University Press , 2004 . xiv +
242 pp., map, tables, references, index .

This is an exceptional collection of chapters, which makes a major
contribution to the anthropology of war and conflict. The volume
emerged from a multidisciplinary workshop held at the New England
Center, University of New Hampshire in 2000 where the links between
developments in the post-1977 Sri Lankan economy and the interethnic
conflict were explored. The debate is articulated around Newton
Gunasinghe's seminal article "The Open Economy and Its Impact on
Ethnic Relations in Sri Lanka" (1984, reprinted in the reviewed
text). Gunasinghe's piece, published in the aftermath of the anti-
Tamil riots of 1983, maps the complex connections between open
economic policies and the increase in interethnic violence. Multiple
perspectives on the economy are the entry point for this study, which
the editors define as a postethnicity argument. The originality of
this study lies in its lack of dependence on discourses about
ethnicity and nationalism, and its focus on the new socioeconomic
formation that developed under conditions of liberalization and
chronic civil war.

Winslow and Woost clearly mark this move toward an economic analysis
of Sri Lanka's civil war as differing from the stereotypical focus on
conflict entrepreneurs and greed as a sustaining principle of civil
war. In fact they denounce the policy recommendations of Paul Collier
—director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank—as
"dangerous, possibly leading to more conflict rather than less" (p.
16). Such recommendations fail to take political grievances or human
rights into account and, instead, focus on economic liberalization
and growth to reduce poverty and placate greedy rebels without a
cause. Contributors to this volume provide a nuanced antidote to such
discourses, which circulate within a World Bank and IMF keen to
reintegrate war-ravaged economies into the global market.

What is most striking about this volume is its predictive value, a
rare commodity within social science research. Contributors define
the new socioeconomic formation of violence that emerged during three
decades of civil war in terms of people's everyday survival
strategies. The debate on economics and interethnic warfare thereby
becomes triangulated and developed as a tension between adaptation to
open economic policies, wartime economic survival strategies, and
participation in civil warfare itself. Violence continues to emerge
at this articulation between a further developing open economy and a
war economy on the ground. The chilling predictive quality of this
work is based on a comparison of the economic direction taken since
1977 and its role in fuelling ethnic violence, on the one hand, and
current planning documents by the government of Sri Lanka and the
World Bank (the Country Assistance Strategy), on the other. As
liberalization and privatization played a crucial role in the
articulation of spaces of death and atrocity in Sri Lanka, a social
formation of No War–No Peace emerged (a term the editors borrow from
Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu). However, the aid packages used to
lubricate current peace negotiations reveal striking similarities
precisely with the post-1977 economic policies linked to the
emergence of ethnic warfare in Sri Lanka. The editors conclude: "A
peace pact and concomitant influx of aid may make the formations of
violence invisible but not inactive" (p. 202). They thereby challenge
a key cornerstone of World Bank and IMF views on the role of
development and opening up markets in war-torn societies: "Peace is
not a matter of promoting forgiveness or reconciliation and then
making it possible to get on with economic growth" (p. 204).

Contributors collaborated to highlight that economic growth and the
format in which it is prescribed by global institutions was not only
a root cause of interethnic war in Sri Lanka but also continues to
fuel violence in its current format of postwar international
development initiatives. Moreover the authors make the reader engage
in a serious consideration of the fact that the situation of No War–
No Peace might have no end in sight. Such work challenges the current
optimism that many social scientists project into texts about
resistance, experiences of violence, suffering and coping,
reconciliation, and conflict resolution. Such a critical stance is
made possible on the basis of this volume's exceptional
multidisciplinary grounding: a macroview of the relationship between
policy and conflict (by political scientists John M. Richardson and
Amita Shastri), a consideration of the class and ethnicity based
experience of open economic policies (by sociologists Newton
Gunasinghe and Siri T. Hettige), and finally an extremely engaging
view from below (by anthropologists Francesca Bremner, Michele R.
Gamburd and Caitrin Lynch).

o o o

(ii) A Grand Daughter's Tribute (Rita Manchanda)

Islam, Women and Violence in Kashmir by Nyla Ali Khan Tulika Books, 2009
http://www.epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/14211.pdf

_____


[8] Announcements:

(1)  “Dekh Tamasha chalta Ban”

CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF AJOKA
Ajoka Theatre In collaboration with PNCA and Mehergarh invites you to
“Dekh Tamasha Chalta ban”
Written By: Shahid Nadeem
Directed by: Madeeha Gauhar
On the occasion of Human Rights Day 10th December, 2009 at 6:00pm
VENUE: National Art Gallery PNCA Auditorium, Islamabad

The theme of this play is persecution of religious minorities in
Pakistan, a problem which unfortunately is shared by many countries
in South Asia and has been become a major political question because
of the rise of religious fundamentalism in the region. In a bold and
direct manner, the play exposes the rational for such persecution and
challenges the audience, who are silent spectators of this long-
running show. The play is very scathing about the government
connivance, & arguments given by the religious establishment to
deprive religious minorities. In fact it touches a very raw nerve in
today’s Pakistan, where armed violence has become the order of the
day among religious fanatics. It refers to the discriminatory
blasphemy laws and sectarian violence.
   For Further Information
Ajoka: 042-36682443, 36686634 / PNCA: 051-9205273-4, 9205268 /
Mehergarh:  051-2252203
Krishna
Mehargarh Hyderabad

o o o

(ii)

Seminar on India-Pakistan Relations & distribution of prizes &
certificates to the participants of an essay competition India-
Pakistan Joint Statement & Way Forward

   Speakers:
Karamat Ali (tradeunionist & peace activist, Karachi)
Prof. Pushpa Bhave
Chandra Krishnamurthy, VC, University of Mumbai to Chair.
Mrudul Nile, director of Students Welfare & Foreign Students Advisor

   Date & Time:
   Thursday, 10th December
   2009 / 3.00 pm

Venue:
   Press Club, Mumbai

Do attend and spread word.

o o o

(iii)    AN APPEAL TO THE MEDIA FRATERNITY AND SUPPORTERS OF THE
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN INDIA
Come and join March to Parliament on 14 December 2009. Assemble at
UNI at 10 AM.

December 5, 2009
Dear colleagues and comrades,

The UNI Workers Union is organising a March to Parliament on Monday,
December 14, 2009 to highlight the plight of 800-odd employees of
United News of India, the news agency which has just survived a
illegal and obnoxious take-over bid of a corporate giant.

The deal would have changed the ownership structure and neutral
character of the news agency, hitherto a co-operative of newspapers,
and turned it into a private shop.

Following the Company Law Board’s verdict against the conspiratorial
attempt of handing the UNI over to the media baron, the sinister
design got defeated. However, this premiere news agency’s problems
continue to persist. For last two years, the workers of UNI are
reeling under a salary crisis. For last three years, they have not
been paid their fringe benefits including bonus, LTA, Casual Leave
Encashment, etc and they have yet to get Interim Awards of Justice
Kurup Wage Boards duly notified by the Central Government way back on
January 24, 2008.  Be it the question of human resource crisis or the
financial needs for agency’s expansion and modernisation,
appropriate government intervention is essential. We are convinced
that if remedial steps are not taken immediately, the news agency may
fall into an abyss beyond retrieval.

The economic recession has further worsened the situation for the
UNI. Although the Union government has been generous in providing
bailout packages to profit making private media establishments by
increasing the DAVP rates by 25 percent, its not coming forward to
rescue the finance starved news agency, running on no profit no loss
basis and catering to small and medium newspapers. We demand a relief
package from the Govt. to cope up section 25 company’s current crisis.

Dear comrades, The UNI has sought from the government a soft loan of
Rs 30 crore which could prove pivotal for its survival and there is a
precedence too. There is a precidence too. In 1992, the union
government had extended soft loan of Rs 10 crore to the other news
agency, Press Trust of India (PTI), which was then facing a financial
crisis. We have also been requesting the national leadership to
intervene in the matter of revision of Prasar Bharti’s subscription
rates for both the news agencies. It has not been revised for more
than last five years.

We would appreciate your participation as well as those of your
members in the march as the current crisis strikes at the very roots
of a free press and democratic traditions of the country as the
existance of UNI is paramount for the multiplicity of sources of news
to small and medium newspapers. Sir, the other news agency—Press
Trust of India (PTI) was there, when UPI collapsed in 1958 due to
severe financial crunch and anticepating a danger of monopolistic
behaviour, our first Prime Minister thought it fit to create this
second one for the nascent nation. The danger is real even now.
Moreover, as India integrates itself with the global community, a
free, independent and robust second news agency alone can ensure
competition in the flow of news as well as help preserve the
sovereignty of the nation and focus on the interest of all stake
holders in a democracy.

Sir, the UNI workers Union would like you to come and join our
endeavour to save the existance of the agency, which would have
definitely succumbed to the corporate onslaught, had you all not
joined the first phase of our agitation to save its independence and
autonomy. The marchers would assemble at lawns of UNI (9, Rafi Marg,
New Delhi-110001) at 1000 AM and proceed towards Parliament House at
1200 hrs. Several prominent media personalities have already extended
their support to our struggle.

Regards,
(Rajesh Kumar)
General Secretary

o o o

(iv) Announcement of Health and Human Rights Course 2010

Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT) in
collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences is organizing an
intensive course on Health and Human Rights exploring linkages
between health and human rights to build skills in rights based
monitoring and use of international and national instruments,
designed for health and human rights activists.
   Attached herewith is the detailed prospectus and application form
for your perusal. The course will be from 18th January to 27th
January 2010 at FIAMC Bio-Medical Ethics Centre, St’ Pius College,
Aarey Road, Goregaon East, Mumbai -400063.

We would request you to send in your duly filled application forms
with course fee by cheques (for Mumbai participants) and demand
drafts (for outstation participants) in favour of ANUSANDHAN TRUST -
CEHAT.

For more details visit http://www.cehat.org/go/HhrCourse09/Home

Last date for receiving application is 23rd December 2009.

Please send your application form on cehatcourse@...


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | December 3-5, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2673 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1] Bangladesh: 12 Years of CHT Peace Accord
          +  Dithering over implementation of CHT treaty regrettable
(Editorial, New Age)
          +  Implementing CHT peace accord: A consensual approach
needed (Editorial, The Daily Star)
          + Peace lies in roadmap
[2]  An Island Tragedy: Buddhist Ethnic Cleansing in Sri Lanka (A.
Sivanandan)
[3]  The Pakistani Taliban's War on Schoolchildren (Christopher
Allbritton)
[4]  India Administered Kashmir: Burried Evidence on Unmarked Graves
(International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in
Kashmir)
         + Editorial : Noise about 'quiet' diplomacy (Editorial,
Kashmir Times)
[5] India: The Bhopal Disaster, 25 years on - an sacw.net compilation
[6] India: Nuclear Safety and Public Accountability
        (i) Kaiga: Question mark over nuclear safety (Praful Bidwai)
        (ii) Our Atom State (Ramachandra Guha)
        (iii) Some Questions Raised by the Contamination Incident at
Kaiga (Surendra Gadekar)
[7]  India: Resources For Secular Activists
        (i) Can we stop the carnage carnivals? by Javed Anand
        (ii) Liberhan Commission Report: Better Late than Never by Ram
Puniyani
       (iii) Karnataka govt. machine used by Hindu right to violate
status quo on the Bababudan giri hills
       (iv) Interview with D.N.Jha, eminent historian.
[8] Announcements :
       (i) Dharna Against Atrocities on Dalits in Madhya Pradesh (New
Delhi, 5 December 2009)
       (ii) Memorial Meeting for Professor Mohammad Nauman (Karachi, 5
December 2009)
       (iii) Remembering Ayodhya (New Delhi, 6 December 2009)
      (iv) Book Release and Discussion: Praful Bidwai's New Book on
Climate Change (New Delhi, 7 December 2009)
       (v) Buddhist Warfare, edited by Michael Jerryson and Mark
Juergensmeyer

_____


[1] Bangladesh:

New Age, December 3, 2009

EDITORIAL : DITHERING OVER IMPLEMENTATION OF CHT TREATY REGRETTABLE

IT IS regrettable that the Chittagong Hill Tracts peace treaty has
not yet been completely implemented although 12 years have passed
since the previous Awami League government signed the agreement with
the Parbatya Chhatagram Jana Sanghati Samiti, the political umbrella
of the now-defunct Shanti Bahini on December 2, 1997. The treaty not
only heralded the end to 22 years of guerrilla warfare but also
marked, for the first time, the state’s theoretical recognition of
the conflict of interest between the majority Bengalis and the
minority ethnic communities and thus gave rise to the possibility of
natural peace in the war-ravaged hill tracts. Subsequently, however,
a combination of political opportunism of the AL government and
political chauvinism of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance
government has stalled the process of its implementation.
     Indeed, the treaty has its own drawback. At least two of its
provisions, both related to voter registration, are untenable and run
counter to the constitution and the spirit of democracy. While a
separate voter roll for the hill tracts is in direct contravention
with the constitution, the suggestion that land ownership is a
necessary precondition for registration as voters is completely
unacceptable in a democratic polity, which does not discriminate
between the landed and the landless with regard to their right to
exercise their adult franchise. Yet, in spite of such drawbacks, the
treaty offers a realistic chance to establish sustainable peace and
harmony in the hill tracts. Even the United People’s Democratic
Front, which has thus far opposed the treaty and marked December 2 as
a ‘black day’, now believes ‘restoration of peace in the hills
is possible through full implementation of the hills.’
     Overall, these are auspicious times to let the seed of peace, so
to speak, bloom in the hill tracts. However, to this end, the ruling
class belonging to both sides of the political divide has a crucial
decision to make. They have to decide whether they want to see
Bangladesh as a nation-state shaped up by Bengali nationalism alone
or recognise that the country is home to not only the Bengalis but
also people of different ethnicities who have their own aspirations
– political, economic, social and cultural. Global experience and
our recent history teach us that deprivation and suppression of any
ethnic group ultimately results in adverse impact on a state’s
territorial integrity. The ruling class need also to realise that the
nationalistic chauvinism of the majority Bengalis, may have, in the
first place, stirred resentment in the minority ethnic communities
and prompted them to resort to violent actions prior to the signing
of the peace treaty. If the minority ethnic communities continue to
feel deprived of their rights as a citizen of the people’s republic,
the simmering discontent in the hills might once again erupt into a
sustained conflict with grave ramifications for the territorial
integrity of the state. Moreover, if such a conflict were to emerge,
foreign powers would be only too happy to fish in the muddy waters,
just as a neighbouring country did during the guerrilla wars in the
hills for more than two decades.
     The prime minister’s assertion that her government is determined
to implement the CHT treaty is indeed welcome. However, the people in
general and the ethnic communities of the hill tracts in particular
have had enough of assurances and reassurances; they want action
commensurate with such promises. The people also expect the
opposition camp led by the BNP to extend the government a helping
hand and not become a barrier to implementation of the peace treaty
merely for partisan mileage.

o o o

The Daily star, December 3, 2009

Editorial : IMPLEMENTING CHT PEACE ACCORD: A CONSENSUAL APPROACH NEEDED

Twelve years of Chittagong Hill Tracts accord provided an occasion
for not only stocktaking as to where we stand in terms of realisation
of its provisions but also for some hard thinking on the part of
people who have a stake in accelerating the process of its
implementation. The observance of the twelfth anniversary of the
signing of the accord has therefore served a useful purpose by
providing an in-depth reappraisal of the CHT situation. Practically,
it has been as much a matter of commemorating an auspicious turning
point in the history of Bangladesh in that it ended 25 years of
insurgency, conflict and bloodshed in Chittagong Hill Tracts through
political means as one of regrets and soul searching over why some
major provisions of the accord remain unimplemented even to this day.

While taking heart from the AL-led Mahajote government's efforts to
push the process of implementation forward by means of a national
committee and the task force, we would urge the government to try a
new approach in materialising some important provisions set out in
the accord. There has been talk of a review of the agreement in a bid
to remove the weaknesses of the accord. We think, this suggestion
should be heeded to respond to contemporary ground realities,
strengthened in the fundamental belief that the accord brought peace
in the region and upon its full implementations benefits would accrue
to all sides.

Let's not forget, land disputes between the indigenous people and the
settlers from plain land are at the heart of implementation problems.
By all means, the land commission which has done very little since
its inception in 2001, should be revitalised and its modus operandi
determined in consultations with all the stakeholders. Importantly,
the question relating to constitutional guarantee may be addressed.
The powers of the CHT regional council should be clearly laid down.
It is important from the representational and participatory points of
view that elections be held to the regional and district councils.

We endorse the suggestion from the civil society that the existing
CHT regional council, the land commission and the CHT accord
implementation committee should deliberate among themselves as well
as with the leaders of the indigenous communities and the Bangalees
to resolve the problems of implementation.

o o o

SEE ALSO:

Peace lies in roadmap
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=116039

_____


[2] Sri Lanka:

New Left Review 60, November-December 2009

AN ISLAND TRAGEDY:  Buddhist Ethnic Cleansing in Sri Lanka

A. Sivanandan recounts his country's long road to ethnic cleansing,
from the social engineering of colonial Ceylon to Colombo's anti-
Tamil campaigns. Marginalization, displacement and destruction of a
people, in a communal onslaught fanned by Buddhist chauvinism.

Could you tell us about your origins and background?

I was born in Colombo in 1923, but my father's  family were tenant
farmers from the village of Sandilipay in Jaffna Province. The north
of the island is flat and arid‚ there are no trees, no rivers, no
mountains. My grandfather had so little land, and such poor land,
that the only thing he grew was children: he had thirteen in all, but
seven died in childbirth or very young. He was so fertile that he was
known locally as the farmer with a green penis. My father was the
second-youngest of thirteen. He was very bright, did very well at the
local school, and won a scholarship to a Catholic school in Colombo.
Education was the only route to jobs and social advancement for
Tamils. Under British colonial rule, many Tamils were sent to fill
bureaucratic posts in one or another malarial station in the
interior, to open up the country, as it were. My father, who was
educated at primary school in Tamil and English, joined the postal
service at the age of sixteen, to support his family. By the time I
was born, he was a sub-postmaster in Kandy, but throughout  my
childhood he was often transferred from one place to another. So when
I was ten or eleven, I was sent to Colombo, to attend St Joseph's
College. It was a big Catholic school in the middle of the city, but
surrounded by narrow streets and slums, through which rich people
travelled to attend classes.

http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2812

_____


[3]   Pakistan:

THE PAKISTANI TALIBAN'S WAR ON SCHOOLCHILDREN
by Christopher Allbritton

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/
0,8599,1943639,00.html#ixzz0Ymk0VVkp


–––––


[4]  Kashmir:

(i) BURRIED EVIDENCE

International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in
Kashmir (IPTK)

For Immediate Release

December 2, 2009

Announces the release of its report

BURIED EVIDENCE: Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-
administered Kashmir

At a press conference on Wednesday, December 02, 2009, in Srinagar,
Kashmir.

Report, photographs, video clips available at: www.kashmirprocess.org

BURIED EVIDENCE documents 2,700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves,
containing 2,943+ bodies, across 55 villages in Bandipora, Baramulla,
and Kupwara districts of Kashmir, based on applied research conducted
between November 2006-November 2009.

BURIED EVIDENCE is authored by Angana P. Chatterji, Parvez Imroz,
Gautam Navlakha, Zahir-Ud-Din, Mihir Desai, and Khurram Parvez.

[Dr. Angana P. Chatterji is Convener IPTK and Professor,
Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies.
   Advocate Parvez Imroz is Convener IPTK and Founder, Jammu and
Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.
   Gautam Navlakha is Convener IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic
and Political Weekly.
   Zahir-Ud-Din is Convener IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society.
   is Legal Counsel IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High Court and Supreme
Court of India.
   is Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society.]

Findings

The graveyards investigated by IPTK entomb bodies of those murdered
in encounter and fake encounter killings between 1990-2009. These
graves include bodies of extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary
executions, as well as massacres committed by the Indian military and
paramilitary forces.

Of these graves, 2,373 (87.9 percent) were unnamed. Of these graves,
154 contained two bodies each and 23 contained more than two
cadavers. Within these 23 graves, the number of bodies ranged from 3
to 17.

A mass grave may be identified as containing more than one, and
usually unidentified, human cadaver. Scholars refer to mass graves as
resulting from crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide. If
the intent of a mass grave is to execute death with impunity, with
intent to kill more than one, and to forge an unremitting
representation of death, then, to that extent, the graves in
Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara are part of a collective burial by
India’s military and paramilitary, creating a landscape of "mass
burial."

Post-death, the bodies of the victims were routinely handled by
military and paramilitary personnel, including the local police. The
bodies were then brought to the "secret graveyards" primarily by
personnel of the Jammu and Kashmir Police. The graves were
constructed by local gravediggers and caretakers, buried individually
when possible, and specifically not en mass, in keeping with Islamic
religious sensibilities.

The graves, with few exceptions, hold bodies of men. Violence against
civilian men has expanded spaces for enacting violence against women.
Women have been forced to disproportionately assume the task of
caregiving to disintegrated families and undertake the work of
seeking justice following disappearances and deaths. These graveyards
have been placed next to fields, schools, and homes, largely on
community land, and their affect on the local community is daunting.

The Indian Armed Forces and the Jammu and Kashmir Police routinely
claim the dead buried in unknown and unmarked graves to be "foreign
militants/terrorists." They claim that the dead were unidentified
foreign or Kashmiri militants killed while infiltrating across the
border areas into Kashmir or travelling from Kashmir into Pakistan to
seek arms training. Official state discourse conflates cross-border
militancy with present nonviolent struggles by local Kashmiri groups
for political and territorial self-determination, portraying local
resistance as "terrorist" activity.

Exhumation and identification have not occurred in sizeable cases.
Where they have been undertaken, in various instances, "encounter"
killings across Kashmir have, in fact, been authenticated as "fake
encounter" killings. In instances where, post-burial, bodies have
been identified, two methods have been used prevalently. These are 1.
Exhumation; and 2. Identification through the use of photographs.

The report also examines 50 alleged "encounter" killings by Indian
security forces in numerous districts in Kashmir. Of these persons,
39 were of Muslim descent; 4 were of Hindu descent; 7 were not
determined. Of these cases, 49 were labelled militants/foreign
insurgents by security forces and one body that was drowned. Of
these, following investigations, 47 were found killed in fake
encounters and one was identifiable as a local militant.

IPTK has been able to study only partial areas within 3 of 10
districts in Kashmir, and our findings and very preliminary evidence
point to the severity of existing conditions. If independent
investigations were to be undertaken in all 10 districts, it is
reasonable to assume that the 8,000+ enforced disappearances since
1989 would correlate with the number of bodies in unknown, unmarked,
and mass graves.

Allegations

The methodical and planned use of killing and violence in Indian-
administered Kashmir constitutes crimes against humanity in the
context of an ongoing conflict. The Indian state’s governance of
Indian-administered Kashmir requires the use of discipline and death
as techniques of social control. Discipline is affected through
military presence, surveillance, punishment, and fear. Death is
disbursed through "extrajudicial" means and those authorized by law.
These techniques of rule are used to kill, and create fear of not
just death but of murder.

Mass and intensified extrajudicial killings have been part of a
sustained and widespread offensive by the military and paramilitary
institutions of the Indian state against civilians of Jammu and
Kashmir. IPTK asks that the evidence put forward in this report be
examined, verified, and reframed as relevant by credible,
independent, and international bodies, and that international
institutions ask that the Government of India comply with such
investigations.

We note that the international community and institutions have not
examined the supposition of crimes against humanity in Indian-
administered Jammu and Kashmir. We note that the United Nations and
its member states have remained ineffective in containing and halting
the adverse consequences of the Indians state’s militarization in
Kashmir.

We ask that evidence from unknown, unmarked, and mass graves in
Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir be used to seek justice,
through the sentencing of criminals and other judicial and social
processes. As well, the existence of these graves, and how they came
to be, may be understood as indicative of the effects and issue of
militarization, and the issues pertaining to militarization itself
must be addressed seriously and expeditiously.

The violences of militarization in Indian-administered Kashmir,
between 1989-2009, have resulted in 70,000+ deaths, including through
extrajudicial or "fake encounter" executions, custodial brutality,
and other means. In the enduring conflict, 6, 67,000 military and
paramilitary personnel continue to act with impunity to regulate
movement, law, and order across Kashmir. The Indian state itself,
through its legal, political, and military actions, has demonstrated
the existence of a state of continuing conflict within Indian-
administered Jammu and Kashmir.

Queries may be directed to:
   Khurram Parvez
   E-mail: kparvez [at] kashmirprocess [dot] org
   Phone: +91.194.2482820
   Mobile: +91.9419013553

o o o

(ii)

Kashmir Times
4 December 2009

EDITORIAL : NOISE ABOUT 'QUIET' DIPLOMACY
Symbolic reduction of troops will not make any difference in the
ground situation

Neither the Union Home Minister's announcement about the Centre's
willingness to take, what he described as a "risky step" of
withdrawing "significant" number of armed forces from Jammu and
Kashmir nor his claim that there has been "positive response" to New
Delhi's offer for talks "with every shade of opinion" in the State
will bring any cheers to the beleaguered people caught in a devil and
deep sea situation for the past two decades. In no way it generates
hopes for an early, peaceful and lasting solution of the over six
decade old Kashmir dispute. The merciful gesture of withdrawing some
troops from the State is certainly not going to any change in the
ground situation. On P. Chidambram's own admission level of violence
in the state has been lowest this year and it has been repeatedly
stated by the official spokesmen of the Union government that the
number of militants operating in J&K has come down from several
thousands to just a couple of hundreds. It is also officially
conceded that the infiltration from across the Line of Control has
considerably gone down. The number of armed forces deployed in the
State to deal with militancy at present is much more than what it was
during the peak period of militancy with official statements putting
the figure at 5,000 and even more. In addition a number of para-
military forces have been deployed in the State to assist the Armed
Forces. The strength of the State police has increased menacingly
with the manifold step up in the budget allocations for this force.
In addition a large number of dreaded "Ikhwanis" are at the command
of the security forces, resorting to grave human rights abuses.
Contrary to the Prime Minister's promise of "zero tolerance" to the
human rights abuses there has been no let up on that account, as the
recent events have shown. Nothing has been done to strengthen
mechanism for dealing with the cases of human rights abuses and not a
single culprit has been brought to book. While in most cases no
independent probe has been ordered, the reports of some of the
inquiry commissions have remained unimplemented. The armed forces are
armed with the blanket powers, enjoying impunity for their acts,
under the notorious Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and other
similar draconian laws. It is now nearly two years that the working
group of the mainstream political parties headed by M.H. Ansari, at
present Vice President of India, on Confidence Building Measures, set
up by the Prime Minister himself, had in its report recommended the
repeal of AFSPA, Disturbed Areas Act and other laws which impinge the
fundamental rights of the citizens. But so far nothing has been done
in this regard. Unless these laws or repealed and the situation is
tackled through normal laws the symbolic reduction of armed forces is
not going to make any difference. Such a step alone can neither
overcome trust deficit nor can it reduce the level of people's
alienation from New Delhi.

Chidambram's claim of "encouraging response" to New Delhi's offer for
talks with every shade of opinion too is contrary to the reality. The
dialogue process for a Kashmir solution has to go beyond the
diplomatic jargon, bureaucratic hassles and misplaced sense of
national security, if it has to reach its logical end. It has also to
be based on mutual trust among the negotiating parties. Any process
of dialogue must be meaningful, credible, transparent and all
inclusive. The manner in which the present process of dialogue is
going on does not raise hope of any early breakthrough, not to talk
of a final and lasting solution of the vexed problem. The policy of
divide and rule or to use one section against the other has proved
counter-productive in the past and its result can be no different
now. The proclaimed "quiet diplomacy" being pursued by New Delhi has
already created doubts in the separatists camp about the genuineness
of New Delhi in reaching out a negotiated settlement. Instead of
uniting them to speak with one voice it has further divided them.
Without bringing all shades of opinion in J&K and Pakistan, which is
a party to the dispute in view of its controlling a part of the
State, no lasting solution is possible. New Delhi is still not
willing to resume composite dialogue with Pakistan not to talk of
involving the neighbouring country in finding an agreed solution of
the Kashmir problem. For creating a conducive climate for dialogue
the Confidence Building measures are necessary. Nothing is being done
in this regard.

_____


[4]   India: The struggle for justice for people of Bhopal

The Bhopal Disaster, 25 years on - A Dossier
an sacw.net compilation on the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster

Contents:

     1. Letter to India’s Prime Minister by Bhopal Survivors
Organisations (Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Saghathan, Bhopal Gas
Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti) 9 November 2009
     2. Memorandum to the Prime Minister (Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila
Udyog Saghathan, Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti) 16
November 2009
     3. A video by Amnesty International
     4. 25 Years After Bhopal Disaster, Survivors Still Seeking
Justice (A Democracy Now Audio)
     5. December 1984 (Sathyu Sarangi)
     6. Bhopal: 25 years of shame (Praful Bidwai)
     7. A quarter century of unnatural gas (Antara Dev Sen)
     8. Poisoned and shut (Indra Sinha)
     9. A Cloud Still Hangs Over Bhopal (Suketu Mehta)
    10. Bhopal: Generations of Poison (Nityanand Jayaraman)
    11. Bhopal Gas Tragedy: All papers in order, but denied their due
(Suchandana Gupta)
    12. Bhopal water still toxic 25 years after deadly gas leak, study
finds (Randeep Ramesh)

http://www.sacw.net/article1264.html


_____


[5] India: Nuclear Safety and Accountability

(i)

rediff.com, December 04, 2009

KAIGA: QUESTION MARK OVER NUCLEAR SAFETY

To investigate the Kaiga episode, we need an independent committee,
composed of external experts, radiation biologists, safety
specialists and representatives of workers. We cannot afford to be
cavalier about nuclear safety, writes Praful Bidwai.

The poisoning of more than 90 workers with radioactive tritium at the
Kaiga nuclear power station is a serious safety violation, which
calls for a critical look at India's nuclear power programme. The way
the episode came to light, and the manner in which the authorities,
from plant managers to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, to top
officials of the Department of Atomic Energy, responded to it is a
disturbing tale in itself.

The tritium ingestion was noticed on November 24 only after its
effects had become manifest in abnormal levels of the isotope found
in the urine of 92 plant workers, of the 800 tested. The plant
managers admitted to the incident only after it caused public concern
and the media reported it. Although they called this a "malevolent
act", they didn't report it to the police for a week. The police
aren't convinced this was the first occurrence of its kind at Kaiga.

We still don't know precisely how and for how long the workers'
internal exposure to tritium occurred, what was the concentration of
tritium in the water-cooler (which was allegedly deliberately spiked
with tritium), and how many people drank the water. All that the
Nuclear Power Corporation, which operates the Kaiga reactors, said is
that two workers received a dose exceeding the 30 millisievert
maximum limit stipulated by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. This
is a general limit for radiation, not specific to tritium, a highly
toxic substance for which different measures such as Curies or
Bequerels per litre are usually prescribed the world over.

AERB and DAE officials have denied safety lapses and blamed the
mishap on internal 'sabotage' or 'mischief-making' by unidentified
employees: these employees, 'it appears', added tritium-contaminated
heavy water to a drinking-water cooler. The officials claim the
cooler was properly sealed and the 'mischief-maker' poured the
tritiated water into it through its 'overflow tube'.

This raises many awkward questions. Did the affected workers involved
belong to the Kaiga power reactor? How frequently and rigorously are
their urine samples tested? If the testing is not done daily, the
tritium ingestion could have occurred many days before it was
detected. If so, the heath effects would be far worse than claimed.
If, on the other hand, the workers belonged to a special facility to
produce tritium for military purposes by separating it from tritiated
heavy water -- as some reports suggest -- then the incident points to
a grave safety vacuum or violation.

In the second case, only the best-trained and security-cleared
employees should have been allowed to extract tritium-containing
water, put it into vials and handle or transport it -- and too only
under strict supervision. Evidently, this wasn't ensured. In any
case, it doesn't make sense to allow anyone to handle a dangerous and
expensive material like tritium without stringent oversight. The
estimated costs of producing tritium vary from $30,000 (about Rs
13.88 lakh) per gramme in Canada [ Images ] to $100,000 (about Rs
46.27 lakh) in the US. Strategically, tritium is an extremely
sensitive material used in nuclear weapons as a booster

The AERB and the DAE are wrong to counterpose 'mischief' by
'disgruntled' employees to safety lapses. Good regulation and sound
safety procedures must reckon with the possibility of mischief,
irresponsible conduct or sabotage, and prevent or limit harm from
them. The possibility that employees' discontent should reach such
extremes as deliberately inflicting harm upon their colleagues speaks
of a poor working culture and calls for introspection on the DAE's part.

The DAE's hypothesis that a worker inserted the tritium into the
water cooler through its overflow tube sounds dubious. Given the
weight of the water column inside the overflow tube, the tritium
would have to be pumped into it with considerable force. This at
minimum would require some planning and prior collection of equipment
like pumps.

This needs thorough investigation by an independent body. That body
cannot be the AERB. The board is a subsidiary of the Atomic Energy
Commission, without its own staff, budget or equipment. The DAE is
the operator, planner, licensor, builder and manager of all nuclear
projects -- without independent regulation or safety audit. The DAE
secretary is also the AEC chairman. The AERB, as former board
chairman A Goapalakrishnan puts it, is the DAE's 'lapdog'.

To investigate the Kaiga episode, we need a truly independent
committee, composed of external experts, radiation biologists, safety
specialists and representatives of workers and citizens liable to be
affected by nuclear mishaps. Parliament must demand such a committee
which is empowered to examine all the relevant records and practices
and recommend compensation to the affected workers and corrective
action. The truth about the tritium exposure must be fully established.

The DAE has tried to trivialise the hazards posed by tritium and
treated it as a non-toxic substance. But tritium is a beta-ray
emitter and can cause extensive, irreversible damage. Scientific
studies indicate that tritium in living creatures can produce effects
including cancer, genetic defects and developmental abnormalities. It
can cause mutations, tumours and cell death.

Tritiated water is associated with significantly decreased weight of
brain and genital tract organs in mice and can cause irreversible
loss of female germ cells in both mice and monkeys even at low
concentrations. Lower doses of tritium can cause more cell death,
mutations and chromosome damage per dose than higher doses. Tritium
can impart damage which is two or more times greater per dose than
either X-rays or gamma rays.

There is no evidence of a threshold for damage from tritium exposure.
Even the smallest amount can have negative health impacts. Tritium
bound in animal or plant tissue can stay in the body for 10 years or
longer. Tritiated water may be cleared from the human body in about
10 days. But if a person lives in an area where tritium contamination
continues, s/he can experience chronic exposure. Tritium from
tritiated water can become incorporated into the DNA, the molecular
basis of heredity for living organisms. DNA is especially sensitive
to radiation.

The DAE and AERB have a cavalier attitude to tritium safety. They
have failed to evolve adequate exposure standards for tritium, whose
maximum dose has been reduced in many countries by about 1,000 times
over the past two decades. Physicist and nuclear safety researcher
Surendra Gadekar narrates a frightening episode at the DAEs heavy
water plant at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan [ Images ] in July 1991:
'Drums of tritiated heavy water were stored in a room that needed a
whitewash. Outside labourers were hired to do the whitewash and found
that the taps were (as usual) not working. They mixed the lime with
the water in the drums, did the whitewash, then cleaned their brushes
and faces with the same water and went away. All this without any
supervision from plant authorities.'

Says Gadekar: 'It was only later when the radiation counters started
screaming that these worthies surmised that their rooms had the
costliest whitewash in history and instituted a search for the
'errant' labourers who… decided to remain incognito and suffer the
injuries to their health in silence. Since they were only 'casual'
outside labourers and since the incident did not cause any ripple in
the English language media, the nuclear establishment was able to
laugh the matter off.'

The DAE's history is replete with safety breaches, accidents,
hundreds of cases of occupational workers' exposure to radiation well
in excess of the officially stipulated maximum limits. At least 350
such cases were documented by this writer in 1982 in The Times of
India [ Images ] from the Tarapur power station alone. The then DAE
secretary H N Sethna didn't deny the overexposure, but blithely
declared that it posed no danger to the workers!

DAE accidents include a fire in the turbine room (Narora), collapse
of a containment dome -- a concrete shell meant to protect the
environment against leaks from the reactor -- during construction
(Kaiga), flooding of a reactor building (Kakrapar), and a recent 14-
tonne radioactive heavy water spill (Chennai) Not enough is known
about the DAE's safety procedures because it operates under a veil of
secrecy thanks to the Atomic Energy Act, 1962. This allows it to
suppress any information it doesn't wish to disclose. However, what
is known about safety lapses in its uranium mines, transportation of
nuclear materials and waste storage practices should raise alarm.

These safety failures are compounded by the absence of transparency,
independent oversight, safety audit and public accountability. The
true social, health-related and environmental costs of nuclear power
in India will only be known if the Atomic Energy Act is amended and
an independent licensing and safety regulatory agency is created,
which reports to Parliament and exercises full authority over the DAE.

Such an agency must formulate transparent rules, procedures and norms
on the basis of expert advice and state-of-the-art understanding of
the best practices prevalent in the nuclear industry. It must subject
them to public debate. It must make a serious environmental impact
assessment based on transparent public consultation and hearings
before approving a project site. And it must conduct health surveys
both before project construction and periodically thereafter. We
cannot afford to be cavalier about nuclear safety.

o o o

(ii)

The Telegraph, December 5 , 2009

OUR ATOM STATE
- India’s nuclear industry is neither profitable nor accountable

by Ramachandra Guha

The most secretive institution in India is the Atomic Energy
Commission. Although its power plants profess to produce goods for
the benefit of the public, they are not judged by the standards of
profitability and accountability that the market imposes on other
industries. Nor, like other government-owned and managed firms, do
they have to report to the parliamentary committee on public
undertakings. In fact, by an act of Parliament they have been made
exempt from the scrutiny of the Parliament itself.

No ordinary citizen can get anywhere near an atomic installation, and
even the most well-connected historian cannot get anywhere near the
records of the AEC or its associated bodies. But by a stroke of luck
I once stumbled upon snatches of correspondence connected with this
otherwise closed and inward-looking organization. When I found these
documents, a decade ago, I xeroxed and filed them away. They bear
exhuming today, since they speak directly to the controversy relating
to the recent leak in the Kaiga nuclear plant.

The documents date to the year 1967, when the Congress had just won
its fourth general elections in a row. Among the new entrants to the
ministry was M.S. Gurupadaswamy, who was appointed the minister of
state for atomic energy. Gurupadaswamy had previously been a member
of the Praja Socialist Party, an organization known for cultivating
both intelligence as well as independence of mind. In keeping with
this tradition, he took his new job rather seriously.

He visited the plants then in operation, and spoke to a cross-section
of scientists and staff. What he found was not altogether to his
liking. He wrote to the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, that the work
of the AEC “appears to be on [a] low keel”; that there were
serious delays; and that there was a loss of morale among the staff.
He recommended that a set of procedures “be evolved to achieve
greater accountability [as] to the time-schedule, production, cost,
technical performance, etc” of our nuclear power plants.

Having alerted the prime minister to the deficiencies within the AEC,
the new minister of state then took up the matter with the chairman
of the commission, the physicist, Vikram Sarabhai. He asked him to
supply details of project costs, expenditure incurred over the past
few years including the foreign exchange component, the reasons for
delays, and the impediments faced in the execution of their work.
These details were important in themselves, but Gurupadaswamy further
added that they might be used in “a comparative study of the Atomic
Energy Commission, the Railway Board, and the P&T Board”. (That he
thought of these comparisons is testimony to the minister’s
intelligence, for the railways and postal service were the two
government agencies that provided tangible and mostly positive
services to the citizens of India.)

These (very reasonable) suggestions provoked panic and paranoia in
the AEC. The chairman wrote to the prime minister insisting that he
report only to her, since there was “no provision in the
constitution [of the AEC] for a Minister of State for Atomic Energy
to concern himself with the formulation of policy or with the
implementation of decisions”. He believed that “it would be most
unfortunate” if the “existing relations between the Commission,
its Chairman and the Prime Minister” were to be altered “through
the nature of information and consultation that is required at the
Ministerial level and the frequency of reporting” that Gurupadaswamy
had asked for.

In a handwritten note to her secretary (a copy of which I possess)
Mrs Gandhi enclosed this correspondence with the comment: “Shri
Gurupadaswamy is full of zeal. Dr Sarabhai thinks it is misplaced
zeal!” Four decades on, I think that we can safely conclude that the
zeal was in fact well directed. For studies by independent
researchers strongly suggest that our atomic energy programme is an
economic failure as well as an environmental disaster. Nor does the
charge-sheet end here, for, by the very nature of its functioning,
the AEC has undermined the democratic ideals of the nation.

Take the environmental question first. The construction of nuclear
installations often involves the loss of green cover — in the case
of Kaiga, the loss of some of the best rainforests in the Western
Ghats. In the extraction of thorium and uranium, health hazards are
imposed on the communities which live near the mines. In the normal
operations of these plants further health costs are borne by
surrounding communities. (A study by Sanghamitra and Surendra Gadekar
demonstrates that those living near nuclear installations in India
are exposed to very high levels of radiation.) Then there is the ever-
present threat of nuclear accidents. Finally, there is the question
of the disposal of the wastes, which remain radioactive for thousands
of years.

On the economic side, work by the distinguished energy scientist,
Amulya Reddy, has shown that nuclear power in India is more costly
per unit than coal, hydel, solar or other available options (see
http://www.amulya-reddy.org.in/Publ_427_E_NE.htm). Reddy based his
calculations on official statistics, those contained in the annual
reports of the AEC (the only information about the organization that
ever becomes public). However, if one was to take into account the
hidden subsidies that the commission enjoys, the comparison would be
even more damaging to its interests. Remarkably, despite contributing
a mere three per cent of the country’s energy needs, more than 60
per cent of the total research budget on energy goes to this sector.
How much better served would we and the nation be if the priorities
were reversed, with clean technologies like solar and wind power
provided the assistance that nuclear energy currently obtains?

Finally, nuclear energy is a technology that is inherently anti-
democratic. It erects a wall of secrecy between itself and the
ordinary citizen. It is not subject to the scrutiny of elected
legislators. It refuses even to submit itself to the peer-review of
the scientific community. In response to public pressure exerted over
a number of years, the government set up an Atomic Energy Regulatory
Board, only to staff it with former employees of the AEC. No credible
or independent scientist serves on it. Naturally, the AERB sees its
job as merely being to whitewash the errors of its paymasters.

To these very serious limitations has now been added a new and
perhaps still more serious one — that the industry is peculiarly
vulnerable to terror attacks. In seeking to deflect criticism of the
recent accident at Kaiga, the chairman of the Nuclear Power
Corporation of India Limited told a television channel that this may
have been sabotage by a “foreign hand”. The claim only dropped
more egg on his face, for if, despite all the secrecy and security,
the AEC or NPCIL cannot prevent contamination of a single water
tower, who is to say that they can ever thwart a suicide bomber or a
plane flying low into one of their plants?

The Atomic Energy Commission in India is both a holy cow as well as a
white elephant. Because it can, in theory, deliver atomic weapons to
the State, successive prime ministers are loath to interfere with its
workings. As a result, the taxpayer has been forced to sink billions
of crores into an industry that has consistently under-performed,
that after six decades of pampering still produces a niggardly
proportion of our energy requirements, and this at a higher cost and
at a far greater risk than the alternatives. It is past time that the
industry and those who control it were made to answer for their
actions. The Kaiga accident may yet help in reviving, albeit 42 years
too late, M.S. Gurupadaswamy’s public-spirited demand that we seek
to “achieve greater accountability [as] to the time- schedule,
production, cost, technical performance, etc” of our much cossetted
and grossly overrated nuclear industry.

o o o

[SEE ALSO]

SOME QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE CONTAMINATION INCIDENT AT KAIGA

by Surendra Gadekar  (30 November 2009 | http://www.sacw.net/
article1260.html )


_____


[7] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i) CAN WE STOP THE CARNAGE CARNIVALS? by Javed Anand
http://www.sacw.net/article1265.html

(ii) LIBERHAN COMMISSION REPORT: BETTER LATE THAN NEVER by Ram Puniyani
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/12/liberhan-commission-report-
better-late.html

(iii) KARNATAKA GOVT. MACHINERY IS USED BY SANGH PARIVAR TO VIOLATE
THE SUPREME COURT ORDER TO MAINTAIN STATUS QUO ON THE BABABUDAN GIRI
HILLS
Deccan Herald
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/12/karnataka-govt-machinery-is-
used-by.html

(iv)

Frontline, December 05-18, 2009

‘STATE SHOULD RELY ON HISTORIANS’ : INTERVIEW WITH D.N.JHA,
EMINENT HISTORIAN.

by Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta

D.N. JHA: "Historians who come in proximity to power change their
secular lines, too."

DWIJENDRA NARAYAN JHA, an eminent historian, has campaigned
extensively against the communalisation of history. His book Myth of
the Holy Cow,wherein he dispelled popular misconceptions that Muslims
introduced beef-eating in India, created ripples in political
circles. An ardent critic of the Hindu nationalist ideology, Jha,
along with three other historians, sought to prove in a report,
“Ramjanmabhoomi–Babri Masjid: A Historians’ Report to the
Nation”, that there was no evidence of the existence of a Ram temple
under the Babri mosque and that the controversy was created by the
Sangh Parivar for political gains. In an interview to Frontline, he
talks about his findings in Ayodhya and the role of professional
historians in countering hate politics for a better nation-building
process. Excerpts:

With the Liberhan Commission’s report indicting several top and
second-rung leaders of the Sangh Parivar, what will be the status of
the original Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute?

Well, in my view, this has no bearing on the original dispute. I have
seen the ATR [Action Taken Report] and I didn’t find anything there
that has any implication for what will happen to the dispute. The
Liberhan report doesn’t talk about the original dispute. That matter
is still pending in court. I think there should be a day-to-day
trial, and the judiciary should expedite the whole matter now that
the report is out. Those who have been named should be brought to
court; but my own feeling is that the Government of India does not
seem enthusiastic about taking action against any of those who are
named in the list of 68 people.
Justice M.S. Liberhan has also said that the Muslim organisations
failed to protect the interests of the people they claimed to
represent. How valid is this opinion?

That would be a very remote conclusion one can draw. You see
fundamentalism of all sorts. Maybe some Muslim organisations have
heightened the consciousness of the community to protect the
monument, but that’s about all. But if you say that these
organisations gave implicit instigation to convert people to
fundamentalism, I don’t think so.
Could you briefly tell us about the findings of the independent
report prepared by M. Athar Ali, Suraj Bhan, R.S. Sharma and you?

The Babri Masjid was built by Mir Baqi, a military officer in the
kingdom of the Mughal ruler Babur, in 1528-29. The main contention of
the Sangh Parivar is that the mosque was built by demolishing a Ram
temple and that it was the birthplace of Rama. But it was only in
1948-49 that you see a miraculous appearance of idols under Gobind
Ballabh Pant’s chief ministership [of the United Provinces] and
Nehru’s prime ministership. Between then and the mid-1970s, one does
not hear of this controversy at all. It was only after the VHP
[Vishwa Hindu Parishad] came into being that it started talking about
Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya as pilgrimage centres. Gradually in 1986,
you see the opening of the locks [of the masjid] and, subsequently,
the shilanyaas.

All these developments coincided with the emergence of the VHP as a
strong force and other organisations such as the Bajrang Dal and the
RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh] in the Hindutva camp. They made
political use of it.

I think the dispute is really an artefact created by the Hindutva
camp for fundamentalist purposes that culminated in the demolition of
the mosque in 1992. Before 1992, slogans like “Mandir wohin
banayenge”, and “this is Ram’s janmabhoomi [birthplace]” rent
the air in North India. But if you look at the historical texts and
evidence, Ram Janmabhoomi does not find prominence.

For instance, a very important text, Skanda Purana, speaks of Ayodhya
mahatma [greatness]. Only 100 verses are devoted to the ascent of
Rama to heaven from a place called Swargadwar at the confluence of
the river Ghaggar and the river Saryu. It exists even now. But only
10 verses are devoted to his birth. This shows that his birthplace
was not important but what was important was the place from where he
went to heaven. Only Swargadwar was a tirtha (centre of pilgrimage).
In the 11th century text Tatvachintamani by Bhatta Lakshmi Dhar, the
list of pilgrimages is detailed extensively. It is a very long list.
The author was a minister in the Gahrwal kingdom, which ruled even
Ayodhya at that time. He does not mention Ayodhya as a centre for
pilgrimage in “Tirthavivechan Kanda” [a section devoted to
pilgrimage centres in the book].

Now, take, for instance, Tulsidas, the author of Ramacharitamanas. He
writes about Rama and Ayodhya but never says that a Rama temple was
demolished. I don’t understand why these people made so much of
hullabaloo about the temple.

Other types of archaeological evidence also show that in the whole of
North India, there were no temples exclusively devoted to Rama until
the late 17th-early 18th century. In South India, you find them since
the Chola period (10th-12th century) but not in North India. Two or
three temples of Rama belonging to the 12th century are found in
Madhya Pradesh but not in Uttar Pradesh, not in Bihar, not even in
Orissa. Ram temples became common in North India only in the 17th
century.

The famous temple devoted to Sita at Janakpur in Nepal Tarai came up
only in the late 18th-early 19th century. I don’t think there is
enough historical evidence about the temple. In fact Ayodhya was
important for other religions, such as Jainism and Buddhism. The
Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zhang [who toured the subcontinent during the
Gupta period, around A.D. 630] recorded that there were around 100
Buddhist monasteries and only 10 abodes of devas [brahmanical gods].
Vishnu Smriti also lists 85 pilgrim centres very early in 3rd-4th
century A.D. but it does not name Ayodhya. What I am trying to say,
even for argument’s sake, is that if there was a temple so important
at Ayodhya, it should have existed in the literary and archaeological
evidence before 1528 when the mosque was built.

At least, it should have existed in the 11th-12th century.
Before the demolition of the masjid, Professor B.B. Lal of the
Archaeological Survey of India had claimed to have found ‘evidence
of pillar bases’ of a mandir beneath the Babri Masjid. Indologist
Koenraad Elst also writes about the [existence of a] temple. Some
have said that the mosque was called Masjid-e-janmasthaan. What is,
then, the basis of such claims?

B.B. Lal in his first report on Ayodhya did not mention any temple.
He says that the upper-most layers are represented by Kankar [stone]
and other things. In 1985-86 he retired from the ASI and began to
change his tune. He began to say that the pillars of the mosque might
indicate a pre-existing temple. But that was all tongue-in-cheek.
Then, subsequently, in a paper he presented [at a seminar] in Patna
he said that he had not found any evidence of a Rama temple at
Ayodhya and urged Mother Earth to forgive him for this. Later on, at
another seminar in Vijaywada, he said that the only way to solve the
problem was to excavate the area, which meant demolishing the mosque.
He and his camp started saying that something should be done to
demolish the mosque. There was already the PWD’s [Public Works
Department] levelling work and kar seva going on there.

Archaeology is a scientific activity and cannot be done like this.
The pillars are, in fact, 1.70 metres in height and the experts who
went with us to visit the site said that these pillars could not be
load-bearing pillars. The mosque had three big domes and the height
of the 16 pillars did not suggest that they were part of a temple.
What may have happened is that they could have been brought from
outside for decorative purposes. What is important is that the area
does not have that kind of pillar stone. The art historians whom we
consulted said that these pillars could be from Bengal and must have
been brought by the Palas who ruled the area.

Even the word janmasthaan does not exist in any of the texts. Skanda
Purana is an amorphous text and its composition stretches over
centuries, from the 14th century to the 18th century. It is only in
the last stage [around the 18th century] that janmasthaan is
mentioned in passing. So, the whole idea becomes important only in
the 19th century. There were conflicts, of course, but there is no
evidence to support them. It is important to see that in the earlier
period, we do not get any sculptures from Ayodhya. There are two or
three catalogues in museums in Uttar Pradesh. One in Lucknow, one in
Allahabad and one in Faizabad, which is Ayodhya. None of the
catalogues mentions Rama.
The VHP movement around the Ram temple started only in the 1970s
after the Paramhans vs Wakf Board case. How did Ayodhya become a
centre of contention? Does colonial knowledge formation play a part
in the controversy a s some historians try to suggest?

The British might have had something to do with this. But in Ayodhya,
there were around 6,000 temples in the 19th and the early 20th
century. It is likely that there were property disputes like the Wakf
Board and the Paramhans court case. Such court cases might be a
legacy of the past. Even if the Britishers played a role, how does it
matter? It could have been their method of governance, instigating
the existing conflicts. The point is that there was no temple.
The VHP and leaders like Pravin Togadia have given an estimate of
around 30,000 temple sites where mosques came up in India. Temple
politics such as the Ayodhya case has had a calamitous impact on
national contemporary politics, leading to killings and riots in the
past two decades. The American historian Richard M. Eaton’s
“Essays on Islam and Indian History” is probably the only book
that studies the temple desecration issue and pegs the number of
desecrated temples at 80 between 1192 and 1760 as a consequence of
political compulsion and not because of religious righteousness. As a
historian, do you see the need for more such studies to counter the
growing fascist influence on history writing?

Yes, of course. This will ultimately help to unite different
religious communities and help in nation building. How do people like
Togadia come up with such a figure? If historians take up such
studies it will reduce the much-hyped hostilities. Togadia and others
speak of Muslim hostility towards Hindus. But what happened in
Karnataka? Lingayats occupied Jain temples. They put their tilak [a
Hindu symbol] on Jain statues, appropriated other religious places of
worship. In fact, Jains were so much oppressed by the Lingayats that
they had to seek protection from the Vijaynagara rulers. In Tamil
Nadu, 8,000 Jains were impaled at a Madurai court, as mentioned in a
historical text. It is not only Muslims who did it. This has been
done by all religions. Similar things happened in Europe also.
Churches were damaged by Muslims. Sects within Christianity fought
against each other. We always say that Hinduism is the most tolerant.
If there is anything like the Hindu, there is a streak of intolerance
in all historical texts. Vaishnavas and Saivites have fought all the
time.
As was understood in Ayodhya and now at many other places in India, a
disputed structure has many meanings and emotions attached to it –
religious, territorial, property, class and caste. In your view what
is a disputed structure and what are its political implications?

The common people are not bothered about these disputes. There is a
class understanding to it. When we went to Ayodhya, we didn’t find
any Muslim or Hindu living there who was interested in the
controversy. Kar sevaks were mobilised from outside and used for
political purposes. What I am saying is that if there is a disputed
structure anywhere and the local people are not bothered, the state
should see to it that it does not flare up. Only those who belong to
the elite and who are likely to gain something out of the conflict
are interested. How does the state function? They are talking of Rama
now. In Delhi itself, there are thousands of Hanuman temples that
have come up on illegally occupied government land and the state is
not playing any role in stopping it.

Our Constitution identifies religion while defining secularism but it
doesn’t say that a state official can identify himself as belonging
to one religion while doing his duty. When the first President of
India, Rajendra Prasad, went to take a dip in the Ganga at Prayag
[Allahabad], there was a controversy. People objected to his
performing the religious ritual with the presidential paraphernalia.
But today, no one objects to such things when the Prime Minister goes
to a gurdwara. People are against giving any subsidy for Hajj
pilgrimage. But no one questions the huge amount of state money spent
at the Vaishno Devi temple [Katara, Jammu and Kashmir] or for the
Amarnath Yatra and the Kumbh Mela.
Ayodhya is a clear case of politics that relied heavily on the study
of historical ‘facts’. What is a historical fact and how should
the state look at it in the methods of governance? Even the state is
following different secular trajectories. Liberhan has quoted Amartya
Sen while pushing the values of secularism, in a way keeping in line
with the ‘facts’ that have come out of your school of history. In
2003, the same judicial machinery within a nation state implicitly
validated the facts of the school of history represented by the likes
of B.B. Lal when the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) ordered a
probe to find out about the existence of the temple. How, as a
professional historian who is in a position to critique both the
state and the communal forces, do you locate yourself in society and
how do historians participate in these complexities through history
writing, given the complex nature of historical interpretations?

I think historians and social scientists have to come out very
clearly and say that there cannot be a state religion, and a nation
state cannot be built on the basis of religion. The state should rely
on historians and not on what the courts say.

The Allahabad High Court order of excavation was not in good taste
because the court doesn’t have any academic credentials. Even the
ASI’s findings are awful. It takes help from Tojo Vikas
International, which has no archaeological expertise. It uses the GPR
[Ground Penetration Radar], which has nothing to do with archaeology.

Their conclusions are that there are certain anomalies and
disturbances under the ground. What does that mean? It is a site
2,000 years old and there can be anomalies for anything like
earthquakes or conflicts between different groups or hundreds of
reasons.

Archaeological evidence becomes important in their context of
physical relationship to the surroundings in a certain material culture.

In order to resolve the dispute over fact, the best thing is to have
B.B. Lal and other historians sit in front of the court and debate.
The court could then decide on what convinces it on the basis of
rationality. That is one of the ways.

There was a system of vaad-vivaad (debate) and shaastrath
[interpretation of shastras] in ancient times. The court should take
into account the patron-client relationship, like the one B.B. Lal
has with the BJP. The Liberhan Commission has recommended setting up
a national commission to look into the masjid-mandir dispute, but the
Government of India refused to have that, citing the existence of the
ASI. My point is: Where was the ASI when the mosque was demolished? I
participated in the series of deliberations that took place between
the Babri Masjid group and the VHP group, and I always found that the
ASI’s stand was equivocal. We were given access to antiquities, but
the ASI didn’t give us the site notebook of Trench 4, which was the
crucial evidence for judging whether there was anything underground.

The site notebook is the only record of day-to-day excavation detail
as after excavation the ground is filled with earth. There should be
an autonomous national commission constituted by historians and
archaeologists both from India and outside.

The ASI should be taken away from the Culture Ministry and made a
part of the national commission, and, perhaps, statutory if it is
required. The ASI should be made accountable to the commission.
There seems to be a gap between history in classrooms and popular
historical notions, as is clearly reflected in the Ram Janmabhoomi
case. Similarly, the state tries to create its own history as part of
nation building and the political parties teach another kind of
history for indoctrination. How do you assess the role of a
professional historian in engaging with popular history to reshape
historical understanding among the masses? Do you see any space in
between from where history writing is possible in order to create a
harmonious society instead of a divisive one?

I think, in this regard, historians are at fault to a certain extent.
If professional historians write for the people that will ultimately
have some impact.

In Gujarat, what happened in 2002 can be attributed to the kind of
history that was being taught in the State for the past 40 years. In
North India, schools like Sishu Mandir and Vidya Bharati are teaching
non-history in the name of history.

Ninety per cent of professional historians are the most secular
people in the country, but the state has to play a greater role in
unifying the education system. Anything that is not borne out by
rationality and evidence should be stopped altogether by the state.

The problem, however, is that education is both a Central and a State
subject. The NCERT brings out model textbooks, but the States do not
adopt them. They make their own changes. Secularisation of education
and promotion of scientific temper should be a state effort.
Otherwise, whatever historians write, it won’t be of any help. I
don’t see any indication of this in the ATR. The state makes its own
compromises according to political pressure, as was seen in the Ram
Setu case recently.

Historians who come in proximity to power change their secular lines,
too. There should be an atmosphere of dialogue in the academic
community. Intellectuals should come out in the open and say that
there was no Ram temple in Ayodhya, which most of them believe. They
should make their assumptions clear to the reader and then be as
objective as possible in writing history. Only then the reader will
judge the writer and historical facts better.


_____


[8] Announcements:

(i)  Dharna Against Atrocities on Dalits in Madhya Pradesh

(2 PM, 5th December (Saturday), at Jantar Mantar, Delhi )

More than 40, 000 Ahirwar Dalits of Gadarwar, Distt Narsinghpur, M.P.
have been facing social and economic boycott by the dominant and
upper castes of the region for the past four months. They have been
denied access to public places like roads, not allowed to use public
transport, and take water from public taps. They have been banned
from buying provisions from local shops and access flour grinding
mills. Dalit women have been threatened with sexual violence if they
use fields of upper/dominant castes. Most of Ahirwar Dalits of
Gadarwar, who are land less and make a living by working on fields
owned by upper/dominant castes, are on the verge of starvation. Like
all Dalits of India, Ahirwars of Gadarwar have faced social and
economic oppression for centuries. The recent spurt in atrocities
against them started when they collectively decided to not perform
their Hindu Caste system assigned role of carrying dead animals. All
upper/dominant castes have banded together and are using their
influence in panchayats and bureaucracy to prevent them from using
social welfare programmes like the NAREGS, Nirashrit Pension Yojana,
and Indira Awas Yojna. Complaints to police and administration have
fallen on deaf ears. No cases have been registered under the SC and
ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

New Socialist Initiative (NSI) is organizing this Dharna in
solidarity with the Dalits of Gardarwar and to express our outrage
against the collusion of the Government of Madhya Pradesh with upper/
dominant castes of Gadarwar.

We invite all organizations and individuals offended by atrocities on
Dalits to join us. Please bring your posters/banners for the Dharna.

Contact : 09868940920/ 09868663932/ 09013074978 /

o o o

(ii) Mohammad Nauman 19 December 1951-14 November 2009

In memory of our beloved Professor Muhammad Nauman we are gathering
at NED City Campus (adjacent DJ Science College near Pakistan Chowk)
at 2.00 pm on Saturday 5th December 2009. [Karachi]

Nauman was professionally an electrical engineer, but more so
remained a man for the cause of social engineering in our society. He
worked hard for the poor and weak and will always remain in the
hearts of those who want to improve this society.

All his friends, comrades, colleagues, students and admires are
requested to attend the Saturday’s meeting to join us in paying
tribute to this noble soul.

The meeting is expected to be addressed by his former colleagues and
his comrades who struggled with him for the rights of our fisher
folk, affected by Taunsa Barrage, Chotiari Dam, Lyari Expressway,
against the privatisation of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation and
Karachi Water and Sewage Board, for the cause of alternate energies
and technologies and so much more.
   If required please contact Mr. Abdul Hai at HRCP, Tel: 35637132/
0333-30466

o o o

(iii) Remembering Ayodhya

          December 6th, 2009, Sunday, 3 PM onwards

          SAHMAT invites you to an interactive afternoon with key
journalist and photographer eyewitnesses to the Babri Masjid
demolition. Also present will be historians who have been in the
forefront of the debates around Ayodhya. SAHMAT’s interventions on
the Ayodhya issue have been ongoing and a major part of its
activities. SAHMAT is re-issuing its classic Ayodhya poster/
broadsheet from 1993 as well as remounting Hum Sab Ayodhya, its
famous exhibition from 1993, attacked by the Sangh Parivar, which
became the center of an 8 year court case. A new collection of essays
written during that period and edited by Sukumar Muralidharan, will
be released. SAHMAT’s 2010 calendar highlighting 21 years of its
anti-communal actions will also be released. Films will be screened
and there will be singing too. In the aftermath of the release of the
long-awaited Liberhan report there will be a discussion on its
import. All the books on the historical and archaeological debates
around Ayodhya will be on display and also for sale.

          We invite you to join us.

o o o

(iv)  You are invited to the launch of Praful Bidwai’s new book on
climate change, international negotiations and India, entitled

AN INDIA THAT CAN SAY YES: A CLIMATE-RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
FOR COPENHAGEN AND BEYOND

at The Indian Women’s Press Corps

5, Windsor Place (between the Meridien and Shangri-La Hotels)

New Delhi 110001

   at 4 p.m. on Monday, December 7

The launch function features a Panel Discussion led by Navroz Dubash
(Centre for Policy Research), Aditi Kapoor (Oxfam India) and Rohan
D'Souza (Jawharlal N ehru Univrsity).

It will be followed by High Tea.

o o o

(v)

H-ASIA, Dec. 4 2009

Member's New Book: Buddhist Warfare

Mark Juergensmeyer and I would like to announce the publication of
our co-edited volume next month:

BUDDHIST WARFARE, edited by Michael Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). ISBN: 978-0-19-539483-2

  From OUP's website:

Though traditionally regarded as a peaceful religion, Buddhism has a
dark side. On multiple occasions over the past fifteen centuries,
Buddhist leaders have sanctioned violence, and even war. The eight
essays in this book focus on a variety of Buddhist traditions, from
antiquity to the present, and show that Buddhist organizations have
used religious images and rhetoric to support military conquest
throughout history.
Buddhist soldiers in sixth century China were given the illustrious
status of Bodhisattva after killing their adversaries. In seventeenth
century Tibet, the Fifth Dalai Lama endorsed a Mongol ruler’s
killing of his rivals. And in modern-day Thailand, Buddhist soldiers
carry out their duties undercover, as fully ordained monks armed with
guns.
Buddhist Warfare demonstrates that the discourse on religion and
violence, usually applied to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, can no
longer exclude Buddhist traditions. The book examines Buddhist
military action in Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Sri Lanka,
and Thailand, and shows that even the most unlikely and allegedly
pacifist religious traditions are susceptible to the violent
tendencies of man.
REVIEWS
“Anyone with idealized notions of Buddhism as a religion fully
committed to peace and non-violence will benefit from this fine
collection.  Outlining how a range of Buddhists have participated in
war and justified this apparent violation of their ethical
principles, these essays shed new light on sacred violence, just-war
discourse, religious nationalism, and religious institutions’
collaboration with the state.
This is a rich and timely book.” ---Christopher Ives, author of
Imperial-Way Zen

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Michael Jerryson
Buddhism and War
Paul Demiéville
Making Merit through Warfare According to the
Arya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upayavisaya-vikurvana-nirdesa Sutra
Stephen Jenkins
Sacralized Warfare: The Fifth Dalai Lama and the Discourse of Religious
Violence
Derek F. Maher
Legalized Violence: Punitive Measures of Buddhist Khans in Mongolia
Vesna A. Wallace
A Buddhological Critique of “Soldier-Zen” in Wartime Japan
Brian Daizen Victoria
Buddhists in China during the Korean War (1951–1953)
Xue Yu
Onward Buddhist Soldiers: Preaching to the Sri Lankan Army
Daniel Kent
Militarizing Buddhism: Violence in Southern Thailand
Michael Jerryson
Afterthoughts
Bernard Faure

Anyone who wishes more information may contact me off list, or visit
Amazon.com to view more of the volume:

http://www.amazon.com/Buddhist-Warfare-Michael-Jerryson/dp/0195394844/
ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259727039&sr=8-1

best,

Michael Jerryson
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Eckerd College - Letters Collegium
4200 54th Ave. S.
St. Petersburg, FL 33711
jerrysm@...


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | December 1-2, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2672 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1] Sri Lanka: The president and the general (Himal)
[2] Pakistan - India: Let's start with Siachen (Dr. Saleem H. Ali)
[3] Pakistan: Balochistan - too small an olive branch (Qurratulain
Zaman)
[4] India: Resources For Secular Activists
         (i) 17 Years since 6 December 1992 (Editorial, EPW)
         (ii) The Liberhan Report: What Should It Mean? (Badri Raina)
         (iii) Read Babri report right (Rajeev Dhavan)
         (iv) Going Soft On [Hindutva] Terrorism [in Goa] (Vidyadhar
Gadgil)
[5] Miscellanea:
- Book Review: The Religion of Capitalism (Dilip Simeon)
- Announcements:
    (i) Bhopal Gas Tragedy 25th Anniversary Commemoration 01-03
December 2009
   (ii) 2010 Daniel Pearl Awards for cross-border investigative
journalism

_____


[1]  Sri Lanka:

Himal SouthAsian, December 2009

THE PRESIDENT AND THE GENERAL

The Sri Lankan military won the war against the Tamil Tigers over six
months ago. But since that time, the island has been steadily losing
the peace that the people � Muslim, Tamil and Sinhalese � so deserve.
The main hurdle towards lasting peace has been the continuing war
mentality and ultra-nationalism on the part of the Rajapakse regime �
for this is what we have to call it. Those elements that had been the
regime�s main strengths in fighting the war � the dangerous mix of
militarisation and Sinhala Buddhist mobilisation � are now not only
undermining peace, but also creating instability in the government
hallways of Colombo.

In the single-minded pursuance of the war, President Mahinda
Rajapakse and his brother, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya, with full
support from the military, put together a broad and formidable
coalition. This was made up of the ultra-nationalist Jathika Hela
Urumaya (JHU), the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and then its
breakaway faction, sections of the left parties, as well as Tamil
paramilitaries, including the breakaway faction of the LTTE. Yet just
weeks after the last shot was fired, that coalition began to unravel,
with increasing anti-government mobilisation by the JVP, criticism
from sections of the JHU and, finally, the need felt by the president
for a full overhaul of the armed-forces leadership.

The latest in these twists and turns has been the alienation and
vocal opposition of the former army commander, General Sarath
Fonseka, who is popularly credited with winning the war. Gen Fonseka,
even more a militarist and Sinhala Buddhist nationalist than the
president, is now expected to contest Rajapakse in the next
elections. And with the opposition United National Party (UNP)
backing the general�s candidature, there appears to be little hope of
a credible or strong or strong opposition.

Within weeks of the end of the war, the Rajapakses changed the entire
high command of the armed forces, giving the top military brass
different assignments, from secretaries of other ministries to
ambassadorial appointments. Gen Fonseka�s control over the army was
severely clipped, by �promoting� him to a symbolic position as chief
of defence staff. The general, in his recent resignation letter,
claimed that it was widely understood that he was sidelined because
various agencies misled the president regarding the possibility of a
military coup.

The sidelining of Fonseka is not very surprising, given that the
Rajapakses have been clear that they have no �friends� � only their
large clan. Brothers, cousins and nephews are thus being put into key
political positions without any sense of embarrassment. Initially,
they seemed certain that with the war victory they could entrench the
family in power for the foreseeable future. Very quickly, however,
that future began to seem uncertain, with the challenge posed by
Fonseka.

Over the last three years, both Gen Fonseka and Defence Secretary
Gotabhaya Rajapakse have considerably politicised the military, by
making Sinhala nationalist and anti-minority statements. Now, an open
challenge between the general and the president could further
deteriorate the situation. As Himal went to press, the president
announced  early presidential elections, almost two yers ahead of the
end of his term. Analysts expect this to take place in late January
2010. The president wants to hold elections before he loses momentum
from the war victory, but with Gen Fonseka running against him the
Sinhala-nationalist vote stands likely to be split. Yet while the
minorities� vote could become significant, given that both Rajapakse
and Fonseka are seen as Sinhala chauvinists it will be hard for the
minority communities to choose.

Trumping militarism

With international pressure mounting, the 300,000 people interned in
camps at the end of the war are finally being resettled. While close
to 150,000 displaced individuals have apparently been allowed to
return home (or elsewhere), and Basil Rajapakse announcing that all
IDPs will finally have freedom of movement starting in December,
their full access to humanitarian agencies in the north continue to
be of concern. Moreover, it must be accepted that rehabilitation and
development alone are not sufficient unless accompanied by
demilitarisation and genuine political devolution.

Indeed, the regime�s lingering war mentality remains amply clear. The
signals are not only in the exalted status accorded to the
president�s brother as defence secretary; nor in the numerous
checkpoints in Colombo, and continued militarisation of the
internment camps for displaced peoples in the north and east of the
country. Such indicators can also be seen in the regime�s ongoing
flirtation with the Burmese junta, whose guest President Rajapakse
saw fit to be soon after winning the war � a visit recently
reciprocated by General Than Shwe himself. Just as the LTTE dug its
own grave through a totally military mindset, the Rajapakse regime
could now be weakening itself irrevocably. For the country and its
people, a dangerous instability could ensue.

Emergency rule and the Prevention of Terrorism of Act continue to be
the primary supports of authoritarianism and corruption, with
parliamentarians lacking the fortitude to repeal them and thus take
the Rajapakses head-on. As the Tamil minority suffocates in the north
under the military jackboot, police brutality is on the rise in the
south. Meanwhile, the media, which should have learned the dangers of
authoritarianism over the decades of war, continue their
irresponsible projection of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and
opportunistic support of the government.

Job losses and increasing unemployment propelled by the global
economic downturn are creating conditions for social unrest and
disenchantment among labour, and the unemployed are already pushing
many onto the streets. Alongside, Sri Lanka�s aggravated relations
with the European Union are putting more jobs at risk. The political
tightrope that President Rajapakse has been walking between the East
and West � mobilising India, China, Pakistan and Iran to counter
pressure from the EU and the US on human rights and conduct of the
war � is looking increasingly difficult to manage, as allegations of
war crimes in Sri Lanka are presently under consideration by the US
State Department and Congress. Incredibly, the president�s brothers �
Gotabhaya as well as Basil, who is in charge of development � are
both US citizens, and could thus become the subject of greater US
pressure.

Yet on the ground, the challenge remains the same: the need for sane
voices for peace and co-existence � democratic voices that can take
up the decades-long grievances of the minorities, and the rising
economic questions and inequalities that plague Sri Lanka�s post-war
future. In the end, it is neither the moorings within Colombo�s
militarised elite nor the megaphone diplomacy of the international
actors that will change Sri Lanka�s future. To take a leaf from Sri
Lanka�s three decades of war, the UNP�s authoritarian regime � first
under J R Jayawardena and then Ranasinghe Premadasa � though
seemingly entrenched, was dislodged after 17 years following the
unleashing of democratic forces and peoples movements. Can peace and
democracy trump authoritarianism, militarism and nationalism one more
time and deliver peace?


_____


[2] Pakistan-India:

LET'S START WITH SIACHEN

by Dr. Saleem H. Ali

The News International (Pakistan, December 1, 2009).

The Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh was given a warm
reception in Washington DC last week. Clearly both the United States
and India have much to share in terms of trade ties and a mutual
tradition of democratic institutions. However, despite his
intellectual pedigree and celebrated reputation as a moderate on
matters of war and peace, Dr. Singh has shown little leadership in
resolving any territorial disputes with Pakistan. Mr. Obama is
reputed to have tried to exert some pressure on India in this regard
but to no avail. The Indian-American lobby has succeeded in
marginalizing Pakistan and getting it lumped together with
Afghanistan as an "Af-Pak" phenomenon. The acronym appears to have
some media appeal more for phonetic sound bites than for any real
substance. Indeed, tying the problems of Pakistan�s tribal areas with
Afghanistan has created a self-fulfilling prophecy for the "Af-Pak"
adherents since this conflation fuels the fire of conspiracy
theorists who keep insidiously suggesting that the US has an interest
in destabilizing Pakistan.

Sadly on the eastern frontier, the Mumbai attacks have served the
goal of the terrorists and the military hawks on either side by
stalling the peace process. However, Dr. Singh could still show some
mark of statesmanship and move towards a resolution of the long-
standing territorial disputes between the two countries. Kashmir is
certainly an intractable problem because it can lead to a slippery
slope for India�s myriad other sectarian conflicts. Providing some
further measure of autonomy in Kashmir could further strengthen other
separatist movements that are simmering in Assam and other parts of
the country. Since a comprehensive dispute settlement strategy has
eluded both countries for sixty two years, perhaps the best way to
approach Kashmir is incrementally resolve some of the other
territorial disputes. First on the list should be a resolution to the
Siachen conflict.

Several pragmatic solutions have already been proposed and with very
little loss in political capital both countries can make a huge
cognitive jump in resolving this dispute.  For the past several
years, various constituencies in South Asia and beyond have been
attempting to establish a jointly managed conservation area, or
�peace park,� in the Karakoram mountains, which divide the hostile
nations of India and Pakistan. Researchers, mountaineers, and
conservationists have joined forces to promote their vision of using
environmental cooperation to make the magnificent Siachen Glacier
region � militarized since 1986 � safe for geographers, tourists, and
wildlife. This is an uninhabited region which military leaders on
both sides agree has little military importance and yet soldiers are
dying of hypothermia at elevations exceeding 18,000 feet above sea
level.

�Peace parks� are transboundary conservation areas that seek to
mitigate conflict through environmental cooperation between
neighboring countries. The idea can be traced back to the time-tested
tradition of postwar memorials aimed at healing wounds between
adversaries.  However, they can also be used in zones of active
conflict as a conflict resolution strategy. For example, the
establishment of a peace park in the Cordillera del Condor region,
mediated by the United States and Brazil, was key to resolving the
decades-long war between Ecuador and Peru; the 2004 treaty between
the two nations explicitly used environmental conservation as a
conflict resolution strategy by establishing a jointly managed
protected area between the two countries.

The Siachen Peace Park, while unlikely to bring peace to India and
Pakistan singlehandedly, may be a catalyzing variable that not only
hastens the peace-building process but also makes it more durable.
Those of us who have worked on this proposal for the past several
years will continue to move forward with our efforts and our efforts
are to address all questions that may be raised by skeptics. For
example, what would be the role of the militaries in the peace park?
As absolute demilitarization is unrealistic in this case, the project
is considering encouraging the militaries to act as rangers and
assist in managing the park, which would allay fears about security
and allow the two armies to work together for a constructive purpose.

Another issue facing the project is delineating the park�s border, a
task that would have to be undertaken in phases to develop trust
between the countries. Visitor access, too, poses a problem: do
tourists visiting the park need visas for both countries? More
realistically, visitors from either India or Pakistan could be
allowed to enter the peace park on their entry visas from either
country�but not permitted to cross over the park�s boundary into the
other country.

To begin the process, both countries must overcome their
institutional inertia and sign an agreement in principle. In 2004, a
unified grassroots campaign, combined with a strategic push from
influential groups, sought to usher in the fiftieth anniversary of
the first ascent of K-2 (a mountain in the Karakoram range that is
the second-highest peak in the world) by pushing the effort forward.
The Italian government, which facilitated this process, established a
meteorological measurement site near K-2. The proposal was submitted
to both Pakistani and Indian governments, and during his 2006 visit
to Siachen, Dr. Singh stated that he hoped the area would some day
become a �peace mountain.� Since then, the project has focused on
using science as the conduit for peace building, as does the
Antarctic treaty. In March 2008, Indian and Pakistani glaciologists
met in Kathmandu with support from the US National Science Foundation
for the first time and established a detailed plan for research
partnerships that might ultimately reduce tensions and pave the way
for a peace park.

The framework for moving forward in this is clearly evident and this
is a pragmatic proposal rather than an idealistic one. There have
even been joint reports by Indian and Pakistani brigadier generals as
well as the retired Air Marshall of the Indian armed forces K.C
Cariappa on the strategic salience of such a common-sense solution.
All that remains is leadership to move forward. With the Copenhagen
summit on climate change approaching, the prospects for using the
Siachen peace park as a measure of conflict resolution in the name of
science is even stronger. Since Indian forces are in control of the
glacier itself, the initiative must come from them to move ahead with
this effort. Dr. Singh, you have it within your power to leave a
lasting legacy and resolve this senseless dispute in the name of
science and environmental conservation once and for all.

(Dr. Saleem H. Ali is associate professor of environmental planning
at the University of Vermont (USA). His books include �Treasures of
the Earth� (Yale University Press, 2009) and the edited volume �Peace
Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution� (MIT Press, 2007).
www.saleemali.net)


_____


[3] Pakistan:

BALOCHISTAN: TOO SMALL AN OLIVE BRANCH
by Qurratulain Zaman

27 November 2009
Open Democracy
http://www.opendemocracy.net/qurratulain-zaman/balochistan-too-small-
olive-branch

(Qurratulain Zam is a journalist who has worked with Pakistan�s
leading daily �Daily Times� and Germany�s international broadcaster
�Deutsche Welle�. She is currently working as a freelancer in Bonn,
Germany�)


Brutal rule by Pakistan�s security agencies in Balochistan has
radicalised moderate Balochs in this largest and poorest province.
Now Pakistan�s government has offered a conciliation package. But it
looks as if it is too little, too late.

They ordered me to rape her. She was so thin and was crying when they
brought her in the room. I was terrified to look at her, as I thought
she was a spy or an agent�, says Munir Mengal, a 33- year- old
Baloch, living in forced exile in Paris.

Munir Mengal spent 16 months in underground jails of the Pakistani
intelligence agencies. �The low rank officers came back to the room
and started beating me because I didn�t obey their orders. They took
off my clothes by force, and hers too, and left us alone. In her sobs
I heard her praying in Balochi language. She was praying for someone
named Murad. That�s how I got to know she is my fellow Baloch. That
gave me the courage to talk to her.� Munir says that, still sobbing,
she told him her name was Zarina Marri. She used to be a school
teacher. She and her son Murad, who was only a few months old, were
picked up by the intelligence agencies from Kohlu.

Munir said, �Zarina was crying and asking me to kill her. Meanwhile,
3 or 4 low-ranking officers came in the room with a toolbox and told
me that if I refused to rape her they would make me impotent. I
didn�t have a clue why they were doing this to me. I fainted.  In the
morning, before the faj�r prayer they kicked me and took Zarina Marri
with them. I have no idea what happened to her.�

Munir said he was tortured physically, mentally and emotionally every
day. A chartered accountant by education and training, Munir wanted
to open up a Baloch TV channel in Pakistan. He was working on his TV
channel �Baloch Voice�, when he was picked up for the first time when
he flew into Karachi international airport on April 4, 2006.

�After 5 months in an underground jail in Malir (Karachi), one day
they took me to Major Nadeem�s office. He said they hadn�t found
anything against me and wanted to negotiate with me.� The Military
Intelligence (MI) officers informed Munir they had changed their
plans. �They were going to take me to meet President Pervez
Musharraf.  They trained me how to talk to the president. They told
me I had to address him as �your Excellency� and should not tell him
anything about what had happened to me in the torture cell�,
remembered Munir. �On October 26, they gave me a haircut, new clothes
and blindfolded me. Then they took me to some military barracks to
meet the then president, Pervez Musharraf.�

Munir said the president expressed concern about the Balochistan
issue. �He said he would take care of my family�s future now,
although according to him I was becoming more dangerous than the
Baloch rebel leaders Nawab Akbar Bugti and Attaullah Khan Mengal.  He
said it was just a few sardars, tribal leaders, who were making
things bad in Balochistan with foreign aid. �I stayed quiet most of
the time�, says Munir.

�They offered to make me the liberal, educated voice of Balochistan
against the sardars. They said the�d give me and my family full
protection. But I refused to become a part of their game. That is why
in the end I fled Pakistan.�

Munir Mengal�s is not an isolated story.

The largest province of Pakistan, Balochistan is witnessing its 5th
insurgency since 1947. Many Balochs say that their region was annexed
by Pakistan. They believe the centre and the most populous province
Punjab has usurped their resources. It is the most impoverished and
underdeveloped province of Pakistan. Balochs will tell you, for
example, that although vast amounts of gas are extracted from Sui,
Balochistan, there are many parts of the province without gas until
today.

The Baloch nationalists kept demanding autonomy and an equal share in
the resources. However, they never got it. The Pakistan federal
government distributes resources on the basis of population, and
Balochistan accounts for only four percent of Pakistan�s population.

24 year old Shahzeb is a law student. He was picked up by the
intelligence agencies in March this year. In their traditionally
decorated first floor living room in Balochistan�s capital, Quetta,
Shahzeb�s mother said �We were worried about Shahzeb�s life. My
family and I prayed every day for him.� Shahzeb was taking his sister-
in-law to a neighbouring district in Quetta when he was picked up.
�They tortured me every day�, said Shahzeb Baloch. �During
interrogation, my hands were tied and I was blindfolded. They asked
me questions about the Baloch liberation movement. They kept accusing
me of being an agent of the Indian intelligence agency RAW and
insisted that I had provided weapons to militants.�

Shahzeb was careful not to share details about his three months�
ordeal in the military detention centre in front of his mother. He
switched to English in her presence. �I don�t want to repeat all
these things in front of her. She starts crying.  They released me on
the condition that I won�t get involved in student politics.�

Both Munir and Shahzeb said that they came across many Baloch
detainees in the military-run secret jails  - Munir under the
military dictatorship of Musharraf, and Shahzeb after the civilian
government had taken over last year. According to the Baloch Women�s
Panel and the Baloch Student Organization (BSO), 4,000 Baloch are
still missing. Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik said this
week that the government had a list of 1,011 missing people.

Most observers agree that things became worse in Balochistan during
the Musharraf years, after Musharraf sent the army in against the
Baloch tribes. Nawab Akbar Bugti, head of the Bugti clan, a former
chief minister and governor of the province in his eighties, was
forced to hide in a mountain cave and finally killed in an airstrike
by the Pakistan air force.

Suriya Ameeruddin is a senator from the ruling Pakistan People�s
Party in Balochistan. �A few years ago, we used to live in harmony,
in peace. Pashtuns, Baloch, Hazaras and Punjabis - all of us used to
live next to each other but since the day Pervez Musharraf martyred
our Nawab Sahib, the situation has turned violent�, she said.

Relations between the different ethnic groups have become bitter.
Senator Suriya Ameeruddin is not an ethnic Baloch, but a �settler� in
Quetta. But she lives in a Baloch-populated area. �Every day when my
son and daughter- in- law leave for work I am afraid. Boys come on
motorcycles in busy markets and residential areas, kill and vanish.
Not a single �target killer� has been caught so far. No one has the
courage to catch them. It�s the law of the jungle here.�

Quetta looks like a war-zone, with army checkpoints even in the
markets and parks. The city is clearly divided in two parts. One is
the �cantonment� fully controlled by the army and paramilitary
forces; the other area is a stronghold of Baloch separatist groups �
like Balochistan University.

   A 24- year- old former president of the Baloch Student Organisation
(BSO) said, ��you feel you are entering a garrison, not a university.
Pakistan�s security agencies have left us no political way forward.
They have radicalised all the liberal forces by torturing them.��

According to him, the BSO serves as a nursery for nationalists who
are in hiding or fighting in the mountains. The student leader�s
father was an active member of the established Balochistan National
Party (BNP), which traditionally stood by Pakistan, while demanding
more rights for the Balochs. But he and his brothers advocate a
�free� Balochistan. ��We have convinced our father after long fights
and arguments. Today he is a radical like me.��

Not long ago, the student was a patriotic Pakistani. He had a poster
of a war hero, Captain Karnel Sher Khan as a teenager. �Pakistan
needs to reflect upon what made me hate Pakistan�, he said. �They
make us feel that we are slaves. I can wear western clothes and move
freely in the city but if I�m wearing my baggy Baloch shalwar,
they�ll strip search me.�

The one and a half year old democratic government has finally tabled
the long awaited Balochistan package named �a beginning of
Balochistan rights� in the national assembly this week. Prime
Minister Gilani promised to bring back the missing people to their
families, to re-integrate exiled Baloch leaders into the political
scene and to withdraw the army and paramilitary forces from the
province.

Balochistan will finally enjoy political autonomy like the other
provinces, and economic development, the government promises.
However, all Baloch parties have rejected this package. They say they
were not consulted, and after sixty years they have lost their trust
in Pakistan.

Malik Siraj Akbar, the bureau chief of the English national paper
�Daily Times� in Quetta, said, �although the democratic government
has taken over, the machinery is run by the security agencies. The
chief minister and governor have no role. There are more than 50
ministers in the government, but they have nothing to do.�

Mukhtar Chalgiri, the regional director of the Strengthening
Participatory Organization, one of the few NGOs still working in the
province, added:

�Ordinary people are unhappy. Inflation, poverty and a sense of
deprivation leads to all this violence we see in our society today.
Every cabinet member in this government is corrupt. They are selling
jobs.�

Many Baloch parties are boycotting the political process altogether.
Their demands have become more radical over the years.

Dr Abdul Hakeem Lehri, a senior leader of the Baloch Republican Party
said, �we�re not interested in living with the corrupt Pakistani
elite any more. We want freedom.�

The Baloch Republican Party (BRP) is considered the political face of
the underground, separatist Baloch Republican Armay (BRA). Hundreds
of their activists have disappeared. Party chief Brahamdagh Bugti, a
grandson of the slain leader Akbar Bugti, is in hiding. For many
youngsters, the handsome 28- year- old Bramdagh is a kind of Baloch
Che Guevara. Pakistani officials say he is in Afghanistan, and have
accused India of supporting him through its consulates there. But
party leader Lehri rubbished all claims that the separatist movement
is run by a �foreign hand�:

�If Pakistan had any real evidence that India supports us, would they
have spared us? Every Baloch household has a reason to fight with
them. This version is just to satisfy the Pakistani elite.�

  From his forced exile Munir Mengal too rejects the economic package
proposed by the Pakistani government. He pointed out that many Baloch
nationalists are socialists and abhor religious fundamentalism.
�There is no solution with packages, and our problem can�t be solved
with dialogues either. Our ideology is different from Pakistan�s. We
can�t live under an imposed and fake religious identity. We are
secular people.� And he added a question: �Do you really think these
economic packages will satisfy Zarina Marri�s mother?�

Former school teacher Zarina Marri is still missing, and no official
record exists about what happened to her after she was last seen by
Munir Mengal in Karachi.

_____


[4] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i) The Economic and Political Weekly, November 28, 2009

Editorial

17 YEARS SINCE 6 DECEMBER 1992
There will never be a closure to the black event that was the Babri
Masjid demolition.

It has taken 17 years for the Justice M S Liberhan Commission set up
to investigate the demolition of the Babri Masjid in  Ayodhya on 6
December 1992, to arrive at what has been known from the time the
mosque was brought down.  The Liberhan Commission has delivered a
searing indictment of the Sangh parivar as the primary culprit for
the demolition. It also names (in the commission's words) the "pseudo-
moderate" leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the
secondary culprit and officials of the state machinery and
administration as tertiary participants in the horrendous act that
stripped the Indian state's claim to be secular.

The Liberhan Commission's report focuses on the ideology, world view
and organising power of the Sangh parivar, and the manner in which it
single-mindedly attempted to create a frenzy among the masses for the
demolition. It details how "the inner core of the Parivar" - the
leadership of the Rashtriya Swaya- msevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad, the B ajrang Dal, the BJP and the Shiv Sena - bears
"primary responsibility" for the crime. It also points out how the
BJP leadership, comprising Atal Behari Vajpayee,  L K Advani and
Murli Manohar Joshi, was privy to the decisions of the Sangh parivar
on the demolition, but pro- tested innocence in order to project a
"moderate" image because it had been tasked to shed the "best
possible light" on the plan of the RSS. And last but not least the
commission indicts officials of the Kalyan Singh government in Uttar
Pradesh for deliberately collud- ing with the parivar in razing the
Babri Masjid.

The one-man commission has no doubt done a painstaking and thorough
examination of the events that led up to the demo- lition - the
intrigue, the subterfuge, the sabotage of law and  order and even the
inter-mixing of religion and politics. But did it have to take close
to two decades to present its findings? Justice Liberhan's original
brief was to conclude its investigations in three months, but he took
40 extensions to finalise his report.  The commission certainly faced
many obstacles in its work. The culprits did everything possible to
delay and stretch out the pro- ceedings. But the commission has taken
an inexcusably long time since 16 December 1992, when Justice
Liberhan was appointed head of the judicial commission, to
investigate the events that led up to the destruction of the mosque
at Ayodhya.

Justice Liberhan points to the failure of many an institution of the
Indian state - including the media and bureaucracy along with the
polity - but he reserves his indictment for the Sangh parivar and is
silent on the Congress Party. Indeed, even as  the commission has
revealed the conspiracy underlying the demolition, what is intriguing
is the clean chit it has given to the then Narasimha Rao government
in New Delhi and the silence it has maintained about the role of
previous Congress governments in fuelling the  "Ram Janmabhoomi"
claim. If there is a contemporary marker in the events leading to the
demolition it is surely the decision taken by the local adminis-
tration in January 1986 to remove the "judicial" locks that had been
placed on the mosque for nearly four decades. This too is common
knowledge, that it was done at the instance of the then Rajiv Gandhi
government, which was anxious to "win" Hindu support to compensate
for its decision to placate the Muslim clergy after the Shah Bano
judgment. The report is also silent about the poor mobilisation of
central paramilitary forces at the Ayodhya site even after the
demolition, where kar sevaks continued to run riot following the
dismissal of the Kalyan Singh government.

The aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition is well known.  As much
as this incident legitimised communal rhetoric in Indian politics,
leading of course to the BJP heading a government at the centre for
six years, it also hugely damaged public administration, the results
of which were immediately evident in the handling of the Bombay riots
of January 1993.

Despite indicting 68 individuals as being directly responsible for
the demolition and pointing fingers at the Sangh parivar and the BJP
leadership, the commission is quiet about pressing charges against
those individuals and organisations who have hitherto escaped
arraignment. Instead the report waxes eloquently on the reforms
needed in the functioning of the bureaucracy, on regulations for the
media and on upholding secularism.  The Action Taken Report also does
not suggest that the central government is thinking of initiating
proceedings against those identified as responsible for the
demolition. Therefore, all the effort taken to lay out the details of
the conspiracy and the failure of the state government of Uttar
Pradesh, and the recommendations and the responses listed in the
Action Taken Report end up as a futile exercise.

Justice Liberhan has described how the Sangh parivar corroded and
shamed the secular image of the Indian state and how officials sworn
to the Indian Constitution were brazenly complicit in this crime that
changed Indian politics and public administration for the worse. But
given how every single institution of the Indian state and polity has
pussy-footed around the Babri Masjid demolition and continues to do
so, there will never be any closure to this shameful event. The BJP
may have been electorally vanquished in two Lok Sabha elections but
the  virus it nurtured in the course of its campaign to destroy the
mosque at Ayodhya remains implanted in India's social and political
fabric.

o o o

ZNet, November 30, 2009

THE LIBERHAN REPORT: WHAT SHOULD IT MEAN?

by Badri Raina

On  December 6,1992, hordes of  right-wing Hindutva extremists
(called karsevaks)  took the town of Ayodhya hostage with the full
and willing connivance of the then state government of Uttar Pradesh
and in physical presence of most of the  top leaders of the Sangh
Parivar (the RSS and its affiliates/fronts like the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, the Shiv Sena, and the Bhartiya Janata
Party).

By evening of that fateful day, the 460 year old mosque built there
by one of Babar's lieutenants, Mir Baqi, was razed to a heap of
rumble on the grounds that the mosque was built over a temple which
enclosed the birthplace  of the god, Ram.

To this day, there is no evidence of any kind that a temple of any
sort pre-existed at the site of the demolished mosque.

Interestingly, the Prime Minister of the day, late Narasimha Rao,
failed/refused to respond to insistent pleas both from some members
of his cabinet and many others from civil society across religious
communities to intervene to forestall that unprecedently brazen
assault on the Constitution and the rule of law.

The local government of Kalyan Singh was to cock a final snook at the
central government  and resign office  after the deed was done, and
in daylong glare of television coverage, preempting  the possibility
of being dismissed from office.

Almost instantly, riots broke out, and Muslims were killed with
impunity by Hindutva draftees who saw no obstacle to their
exertions.  In the city of Mumbai, about a thousand innocent Indians
lost their lives.  (The Justice Srikrishna Commission inquiring into
those Mumbai killings was to squarely hold the Shiv Sena and other
Hindutva bodies responsibe for those massacres, and recommend legal
action including against the Shiv Sena chief, Bal Thackeray.  To this
day, however, no action has followed, although the state of
Maharashtra has been since ruled by the Congress/Natiionalist
Congress Party combine with only an interregnum of Shiv Sena rule.)

Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan was appointed in January of 1993 to
enquire into the sequence of events that led to the demolition of the
Babri mosque, and to fix responsibility.

After seventeen long years, the Liberhan report is in.  Over a
thousand pages long, the Liberhan report concludes that "the RSS was
the author" of the carnage, and all "logistical arrangements" were
"coordinated between RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, and the BJP," calling the
latter "a front of the RSS"-the worst-kept secret of India's modern
political history.

Characterising the event as the result of "tailor made" and
"meticulous" conspiracy rather than a spontaneous outrage, the
Liberhan report draws up a list of 68 names whom it holds culpable of
the same, names that include almost every scion of the Sangh
Parivar.  Significantly, it lists the erstwhile Prime Minister, Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, at number 7, holding him responsible of taking the
"country towards communal discord." A day before the demolition,
Vajpayee had been recorded on video making a public speech in
Lucknow, the Capital of Uttar Pradesh, expressing the need for the
ground at Ayodhya to be "leveled"  inorder to facilitate the karseva
(collective religious activity) the next day.

Justice Liberhan exonerates the then Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao of
responsibility on the ground that he was duped by sworn affidavits
submitted by the chief minister, Kalyan Singh, to the Supreme Court
of India, undertaking to see that no harm would come to the mosque.
Liberhan also accuses the Sangh leaders of duplicity in having
"lulled" him and the central government into complacence through
their misleading pronouncements. While this is true enough, not many
are convinced  that this fact alone forestalled any action on behalf
of the Prime Minister.

There is substantial evidence that one or two of his own cabinet
ministers had warned him of the RSS plans for December 6 well in
advance.  One of those ministers, Makhan Lal Fotedar-a distinguished
Kashmiri Pandit secularist-has revealed how the then governor of
Uttar Pradesh was instructed by Rao not to recommend President's rule
till asked by Rao to do so.  Fotedar claims he was told about this by
the then President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma-another
distinguished secularist Brahmin-- whom he found in tears on the day.

Whereas Justice Liberhan has not recommended any specific action
against anyone, it has noted some correctives, chief among these the
need to have laws in place punishing the use of religion in political
activity.

II

Mysteriously, the Liberhan report was leaked to the media before it
was tabled in Parliament.  Both the Home Minister and Justice
Liberhan deny responsibility for the leak.

The BJP which has been in tatters recently as a result first of its
electoral reverses, then of the most unedifying internecine discord,
and finally of the open and overt take-over of its decision-making
prerogatives by the RSS, its puppet master since inception, has
sought to unite around two issues: a fake outrage at the naming of
Vajpayee (whom both the RSS and Advani have wanted out for long), and
at the leaking of the report.

It has also sought to make much of the report having been submitted
17 years after the event-a detail that in the BJP's view renders it
only of academic interest, warranting no follow up.

That, even as it continues to demand action against the perpetrators
of the Sikh killings of 1984-eight years prior to the Babri
demolition-and even as it admires the Zionists no end for pursuing
Nazi war criminals some half century after the second world war.
Having led the assault on the mosque on the grounds of a four-century
old "dishonouring" of a  "Hindu nation,"  it advises that there is
little point in revisiting the Babri demolition some 17 years after
the demolition! It utters not a word of remorse at the dishonouring
of Muslim sentiments.

Privately the BJP hopes that the submission of the Liberhan report
and the recorded culpability of the Sangh Parivar may help to portray
the Sangh, and with it the BJP, as martyrs and warriors in the cause
of "cultural nationalism," and revive its political fortunes which
stand now at nadir.

III

There are, however, fatal reasons why the demolition of the Babri
mosque by a fascist, Hindutva putsch must never be relegated as just
one communal episode among many in post-independence India.

The controversy whether the Babri mosque site was indeed the
birthplace of the Hindu god, Ram, has for a hundred years or so
remained a matter of localized and legal contention, as  "title"
suites are still being argued in courts to determine whether the
Muslim Wakf Board or some Hindu organization had rightful claim to
possession of the site.

Till as late as 1983, nobody outside Faizabad District in Uttar
Pradesh bothered a great deal about what was going on in those
suites.  And not many did so even in Faizabad and Ayodhya which,
paradoxically, had remained bastions of age-old inter-community
harmony.  Indeed, many of the plethora of temples in Ayodhya were
managed and run by Muslim devotees of Ram.

It was between 1983 and 1992 that the Sangh decided to convert the
Ayodhya issue into a cause celebre of "cultural nationalism," leading
to the assault on December 6, 1992.  That as a ploy to enter
Parliament with some seats more than the humiliating two it had got
in the elections of 1984.

In projecting the issue as they did, the Sangh had a macro-historical
enterprise in mind, something that had little or nothing to do with
the Hindu god, or with the purity of faith.

One, the project was to assert the majoritarian premise that India,
notwithstanding its secular constitution, was first and foremost, a
Hindu nation-state.

So that as the pick-axes rained on the domes of the mosque to the
accompaniment of the grossest communal abuse, the fury of the doing
suggested that it was not a mosque that was being demolished but,
verily, the very body-incarnate of Islam.  The subliminal rage of the
erasers might have suggested that it was not a dome they were bashing
but the head of the Moghul, Babar.  Very much as in demolishing the
Berlin wall, the body of the wall was seen to represent not an entity
that separated two parts of a city but as an entity that  embodied
Communism.

Far from being just one vandalising episode at the hands of sectarian
hordes, the assault on the mosque was constructed and propagated as a
campaign to vanquish the secular Constitution of India and to shame
it once and for all as being at bottom tilted against Hindus, and
violative of racial principles of nationhood-an idea for which the
erstwhile RSS ideologue and President, Golwalker, was to be full of
praise for Hitler and the Nazis.

Never reconciled to the secular Republic, the RSS thought to make of
the campaign an occasion to reverse the principles of secular and
pluralist citizenship that India had chosen to give to herself after
Independence in 1947.

Two, the campaign was calculated to register the view that the will
of the majority community superceded  all the institutions of state,
an initial gambit towards turning India into a theocracy, or a Hindu
Rashtra in consonance with the well-laid out ideology of the Hindu
Mahasabha and the RSS (see Golwalker's We, Our Nationhood Defined,
and Savarkar's Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?).  A mirror image of the
hardline Islamic idea of nationhood and state!

It should surprise nobody that the Sangh has a standing list of
thousands of mosques which are slated to be demolished and replaced
by temples, some 36,000 at last count.  The question is never asked
as to how many temples stand at sites that used to be Buddhist or
Jain stupas.

And, not the least, to catapult the BJP as being the primary
"nationalist" political formation of India, and relegate the Congress
and the Leftists as essentially "appeasers" of  Babar's progeny, the
Muslims, whose right to Indianness was to be formally damaged by the
construction that they continue to be non-indigenous and  disloyal
progeny of invaders.

IV

India may have come a long way since 1992; yet so long as the BJP
remains a mannequin to the RSS, so long as it fails or is unwilling
to transform itself into an autonomous "political" formation, so long
as, willy nilly, it harks back to "cultural nationalism" as its chief
raison d' etre of political existence, remaining thereby unreconciled
to secular citizenship, minority rights, and equality of opportunity
and equality before the law, so long as, in one word, its chief point
of political reference remains its visceral hatred of Muslims, it
would be fatal to forget the lessons of the Babri demolition.

In that context, the indifferently evolved secular convictions of the
Congress party after Nehru pose no small obstacle to any forthright
firming up of the Constitutional regime.  It cannot be said that many
more than half a dozen top leaders of the Congress hold Nehruvian
secularism to be sancrosanct, especially when votes are in question.

And the Congress has only one way of disproving those reservations,
namely, to  grab Liberhan's injunction about the separation of
religion and politics, and to put in place legislation that may
heretofore brook no heinous mixing of the two.

Legislation, it must be noted, that is then backed up with the legal
resolve never to pussyfoot any instance of communal appeal to the
polity, and to come down with the full majesty of the law and the
state on instances of communal violence instigated by political
agents, whoever they be, or however high or mighty.

Taking a cue from the Liberhan recommendations, the Election
Commission of India, a Constitutional Body beholden to no political
or governmental regime, may consider the time ripe for laying down
that any political use of religion would be ground for derecognition
of the party found culpable.

This must include due and prompt punishment to all those who, in
school, pathshala, madrasa, or wherever else  seek to frame curriculi
around communal perceptions of history and polity, calculated to
undermine the rights and prerogatives of secular citizenship or to
instill antagonism towards other religions, and a ruthless denial of
all attempts to grab public spaces for unauthorized communal/
religious use/propagation (something that the Supreme Court has
recently enjoined) as well.

Even if the current UPA dispensation forgave all the designated
culprits of the Babri crime (very few believe that the state has the
will to do otherwise)  but made the long-lasting  redressals
suggested by Liberhan and listed above, the generation of Indians to
come might inherit  a worthwhile democracy in regard at least to the
matter of a non-negotiable secular citizenship and a country free of
"internal dangers" far worse and debilitating than pockets of
insurgency floated around issues of livelihood.

And if none of that were to be done, the Liberhan exercise would
indeed have been a criminal waste at tax-payer's expense.  And,
worse, an incentive to further depredations along the lines of the
Babri crime.

o o o

Mail Today, 30 November 2009

READ BABRI REPORT RIGHT

by Rajeev Dhavan

Those indicted culpably by the Liberhan panel must not hide behind
procedure or the leak of the report

AT LAST after 17 years, 399 settings, 48 extensions, a cost of Rs 17
crores, embarrassing differences between the Commission�s counsel and
Chairperson, litigation in court to delay it, the Liberhan Report on
the destruction of Babri Masjid has arrived. Submitted on 30th June
2009, Home Minister P Chidambaram held on to it until, it was leaked
on 23rd November 2009 amidst accusations of conspiracy and finally
tabled on 24th November.

First, the leak. It was a coup for a newspaper. If anyone knows about
the leak, surely it is that newspaper which stole a march to make a
coup. In fact, what was wrong was the archaic law of non- disclosure.
It is an absurd relic from English practice. There is no reason why
reports should be disclosed to parliament first.

On one occasion in 1960 or so, Pandit Nehru was accused of breach of
parliamentary privilege because he pre- disclosed to the press a
comment he was to make in Parliament. This part of parliamentary
privilege should be removed by legislation. An Act should be enacted
which simply says � All reports to Parliament shall be submitted to
the Speaker and Chair of each House; and simultaneously published
straightaway; ( 2) Any Action Taken Report ( ATR) shall be declared
to Parliament within one month�. This cat- and- mouse game of
publication will disappear consistent with RTI principles of
transparency. No report should be withheld from the public by either
the government or parliament.

Precedent

Second, the spat between the Chairperson and Liberhan Counsel Anupam
Gupta was unnecessary.

Self- advertisement is not unknown to Gupta who acquired notoriety in
other controversies over judicial corruption in 1993. Liberhan
appointed Gupta.

There is no reason to doubt Liberhan�s integrity. Making media
capital out of personal recriminations is not right morally, under
lawyerconduct rules or otherwise.

Everytime a report comes out, we do not have to wail that all
commissions are useless and designed to gather dust.

Reports are of many kinds: on corruption, riots, events or people.
Corruption reports on Kairon and TT Krishnamachari were given to
Nehru who took action. Today, Prime Ministers and all political
parties tolerate corruption.

Parliament�s own Joint Committee Report on Bofors, on Rajiv Gandhi�s
involvement, has never been accepted as true or convincing.
Commission reports should not become political toys. The Babri Masjid
report explores a damning event of our history.

It is easy to dissolve its findings in acerbic party- political acid.
But this should not happen.

Let us look at the Report and the political antics designed to
obfuscate its message. This is a people�s paredness of the Karsevaks,
there was a well planned conspiracy to destroy the Masjid; ( 3)
Financial support came from Sangh Parivar funds including bank
accounts operated by various named persons; ( 4) The, then, Chief
Minister Kalyan Singh and his handpicked bureaucrats were involved in
the conspiracy to destroy the Masjid and allowed a � parallel
government� and � cartel� to facilitate the campaign which
infiltrated the government; ( 5) The state ( of UP) had become a
willing ally and co- conspirator in the joint common enterprise�( of)
demolishing the structure; ( 6) The conspiracy arose from the single-
minded efforts of the RSS and VHP ideologues and theologians to
manipulate ordinary people into a frenzied mob; ( 7) The campaign had
nothing to do with a popular mandate from the people who were
manipulated to support it; ( 8) The police fell in line with this
conspiracy; ( 9) The union government was crippled by failure of
intelligence and the � all- is- well reports by its rapporteur Tej
Shankar�; ( 10) Not a single video camera was put in place; ( 11) The
media � and report for the people to find their way around a people�s
issue on an event that divided India. 6th December 1992, when the
Masjid fell, is a watershed in India�s contemporary history. Through
the demolition, the Sangh Parivar legitimised the politics of
destructive communal hate. Hitherto, communal tension was regarded as
an evil in governance.

Conclusions

After Babri Masjid, BJP leaders and the Parivar set a new political
standard which declared that the destruction of masjids, killings of
people, destroying of art works were a legitimate pursuit of a
communal pseudo- Hindu nationalism advancing the cause of the � true
Aryan� people.

Liberhan was not examining a � who- done- it�. He was looking at a
phenomenon that shook India�s secular, multicultural people and
polity. What Liberhan found was what we already know but need to know
better. His conclusions in chapter 14 were ( 1) Babri Masjid was not
an unintended spontaneous event except for � self- serving
hyperbole�; ( 2) Logistically, given the total pre journalists were
subjected to systematic harassment�; ( 12) Leaders like Vajpayee, MM
Joshi and L. K. Advani, and Govindacharya knew of the designs of the
Sangh Parivar and lent their support in various ways; ( 13) Muslim
leaders � wittingly or unwittingly� did not counter the plans of the
RSS and VHP, effectively to make the latter�s task easier; ( 14) 68
persons are found � culpable�, including Advani, Vajpayee and Joshi,
but not Narsimha Rao.

There are several recommendations for the future on both the
inadequacy of response and the need for new changes. None of the 68
indicted culpably should hide behind procedure ( even if those like
Vajpayee have a genuine grievance of not being called a witness in
his defence) or the leak of the report. Let them replace artful
defence with honesty and candour. The indicted persons face two
alternatives other than criminal proceedings. The first alternative
for them is to candidly state: � I was involved in the destruction of
the Babri Masjid and I am proud of it�; and face the social, legal
and political consequences. Alternatively, if they are innocent, then
each individual in this group of 68 should be prepared to say: � I
never intended or participated in any conspiracy to destroy the
Masjid; I denounce and condemn its destruction as illegal and
unconscionable; I express my regrets over its destruction and promise
never to be involved in any conspiracy and actions to destroy
religious structures or victimise people of other faiths and
religions.� There is no other alternative. It�s truth or nothing.

Nation

India must put this divisive event behind it. The Supreme Court
decisions on the Ayodhya Act and Presidential reference case of 1994
have stated that the vesting of the Babri Masjid area in the Union
Government makes the latter trustees and not owners of the structural
area until the Lucknow court decides this issue. At least court
proceedings have brought temporary peace. But, following the Liberhan
Commission report there should be � truth and reconciliation� in
which statements and regrets are talked through.

The BJP and Sangh Parivar must be truthful. The nation cannot move on
until the truth is told. The Liberhan Commission invites a premium on
truth not for further divisiveness but to heal a nation which was
split open. But if obtaining political power is more important than
governance, these games will continue to infiltrate our psyche. The
most frightening part of the Liberhan report is how the � state� and
� governance� can be hijacked into manipulation and control. Fascism
began in this way.

The writer is a Supreme Court lawyer

o o o

Herald, 30 Nov 2009

GOING SOFT ON TERRORISM

That the Chief Minister isn�t taking firm action against the Sanatan
Sanstha is an ominous sign, says Vidyadhar Gadgil

It is now a month and a half since the bomb blast in Margao on Diwali
eve, which killed two Sanatan Sanstha activists who were allegedly
carrying a bomb in their scooter. One would have expected that after
this incident at least there would have been appropriate action
against the Sanstha, which has long been linked to hate speech,
communal propaganda and terrorist violence. But that has hardly
happened.

Immediately after the incident, there was a knee-jerk reaction of
sorts, with Home Minister Ravi Naik making statements about �strong
action� needing to be taken against the Sanstha. But his target was
clearly his bete noire Transport Minister Sudin Dhavalikar, who has
close links with the Sanstha, rather than the organisation itself.  A
Special Investigation Team (SIT) was set up and the Maharashtra Anti-
Terror Squad (ATS) came in to assist in the investigations. The
investigations have been making slow but steady headway, and a number
of activists of the Sanstha have been arrested for being involved in
the bomb plot. Recent reports in Herald reveal that the police have
unearthed a well-planned conspiracy, where trial runs of the bombs
were carried out at the Talaulim-Ponda hillock and SIM cards had been
obtained on the basis of bogus election photo identity cards (EPIC).
It is to be hoped that these investigations will be carried to their
logical conclusion and all those involved in the bomb plot will be
brought to book.

So far, so good � but what of the Sanstha itself?  After the bomb
incidents, the Sanstha launched a disinformation campaign, in an
attempt to wash its hands off the whole incident. The line was
initially that its activists had been framed and that the activists
who died in the bomb blast were actually the victims of a bomb
planted in their scooter by others.
Since such an obvious cover-up carries little conviction, the Sanstha
simultaneously took the line that these activists were �misguided�
persons who had taken the wrong path. The same argument had been made
by the Sanstha when some of its activists were arrested for violence
against Christians in Ratnagiri and after the Gadkari Rangayatan bomb
blasts in Thane.

As noted rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar asked in a public meeting
in Panjim, how is it that the Sanstha�s activists so often take the
same kind of �wrong path� � and more pertinently, how is it that this
unconvincing argument is accepted at face value and the Sanstha gets
away without any action being taken against it as an institution? It
also defies belief that a few rogue activists of the Sanatan Sanstha,
a tight-knit, secretive organisation, independently carried out the
blasts without the knowledge or involvement of any of the senior
persons in the organisation.

It is not as if there were not enough indications, even before the
incidents in Thane and Goa, that the Sanstha�s propaganda was of the
type that justified violence in the �defence of religion�. Much has
been written about the nature of the literature that the Sanstha
produces and distributes, the kind of hate speech and communal
propaganda that takes place in its Dharma Jagruti Sabhas, and the
�defence training� that it provides to selected cadre.  And then we
had the logical culmination of all this in the blasts in Thane and
Goa. Despite all this, the state governments, both in Maharashtra and
Goa, continue to take a soft stance towards the Sanstha. The
Maharashtra government has long been delaying banning the Sanstha,
and a recommendation last year by then ATS chief Hemant Karkare to
ban the organisation was rejected.  In Goa, there have been repeated
demands to ban the Sanstha, the most recent one coming from the
Congress Legislature Party (CLP). Yet nothing has been done. Masterly
inaction is the USP of Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and his
government in Goa. A ban may not necessarily be the best way to
tackle the problem, but the soft attitude displayed by the government
defies understanding.

The BJP has, of course, been trying to soft-pedal the issue, given
that it is a direct electoral beneficiary of the kind of propaganda
carried out by the Sanatan Sanstha and its offshoots like the Hindu
Janajagruti Samiti.

Manohar Parrikar made distinctly double-faced statements immediately
after the bomb blasts, demanding foolproof evidence of the
involvement of the Sanstha in the Margao bomb blasts � this coming
from a man who, without any evidence whatsoever, blamed SIMI for the
temple desecrations in Goa. Other BJP politicians, like BJP
spokesperson Laxmikant Parsekar, have been making similar statements
and trying to defuse the whole issue.

And then we have the Congress. While the CLP has demanded a ban,
Chief Minister Digambar Kamat still takes a soft stance, despite the
fact that had the plot succeeded, it would have set off a huge
communal conflagration in his constituency of Margao, given that the
intention of the Sanstha�s activists was clearly to direct suspicion
towards the Muslim community.

Does Digambar Kamat have sympathies for the Sanatan Sanstha? His
actions (and lack of them) seem to suggest that. He had had no qualms
about tacitly supporting the rabidly communal and provocative
exhibition of photographs of Kashmir by Francois Gautier, organised
by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. The Sanstha and its offshoots have
only had to say �boo� for him to get terrified and bow to their
unreasonable demands, whether it is to order an M F Husain film to be
withdrawn from IFFI 2008 or to curtail the exhibition of Ganesha
paintings by Subodh Kerkar from 11 days to 2 days!
Apart from the indecisiveness and saffron-friendliness of our Chief
Minister, the Congress has always taken a soft stance towards
Hindutva, under the misguided impression that stern action may
alienate the Hindu community. While firm action may sometimes lead to
temporary electoral damage, in the long term it can only strengthen
the secular base of Indian politics, on which the Congress depends to
survive. Allowing politics to become communalised is bound to hurt
the party very badly in the long run.

The situation in the Congress is complicated by the fact that it has
always been a hold-all party, and has always accommodated communal
elements within its fold. This was seen in the 2007 elections, when
it admitted hardcore RSS activist Mohan Amshekar into its fold.
Digambar Kamat himself has an RSS background, and joined the Congress
after defecting from the BJP, having been the Deputy Chief Minister
in the Manohar Parrikar government. Is that why he is going soft on
the communal forces? If not, what is the explanation?

Going soft on religious extremism is not a problem limited to Goa. In
Maharashtra too, the Congress has shown little inclination to come
down hard on Abhinav Bharat, the Bajrang Dal, the Sanatan Sanstha and
the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, all of which have been implicated in
setting off bombs in the state. Of all holy cows, religion is the
holiest.

But if Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and his cabinet colleagues do
not realise the danger in not taking action against the Sanatan
Sanstha, someone in the Congress High Command should understand that
their state governments are sending out the wrong signals; and
strengthening the ground for communal forces that have terrorists in
their ranks.


_____


[5] Miscellanea:

Outlook Magazine, 7 December 2009
Book Review:

THE RELIGION OF CAPITALISM
A book that exhorts India�s planners to see its poor as human beings,
not as �factors of production�

by Dilip Simeon

The Face You Were Afraid To See: Essays On The Indian Economy
By Amit Bhaduri
Penguin,  208 pages | Rs 250

This small and readable book is a layperson�s introduction to India�s
economic catastrophe. Since many people believe in an ongoing
economic miracle, such views are often dismissed as doomsday talk.
But it is better to be aware of reality than to live in an illusion.
The title is apt�Bhaduri offers us an unsettling vision of what
awaits us if we continue along the current path. He alerts us to the
ideological assumptions underlying the scientific detachment of our
growth-obsessed economists, who operate as metaphysicians of
capitalism rather than as acute observers. That is why they will not
address the fact that �the market as an institution has no
accountability except for the largely make-believe ideology of self-
regulation�.

For the past two decades, India has undergone a transformation.
Celebrated by an elitist media, the ongoing economic changes have
acquired political endorsement across a spectrum ranging from the CPI
(M) to the BJP and Congress. In a country where over three-fourths of
the population has a daily income of less than Rs 20; some 61 million
of whose children are stunted by malnutrition (the world�s highest
figure); and over 90 per cent of whose labourers work in conditions
of informality, what sense does it make to adhere to a growth
strategy that systematically punishes the poor, destroys their
livelihood and makes a mockery of democratic citizenship? Bhaduri
points to the reality in Indian agriculture, where a farmer commits
suicide every 30 minutes; where vast tracts of tribal-inhabited land
in mineral-rich areas of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh
(protected by Schedule 5 of the Constitution) are being acquired by
fair means and foul�mostly the latter. Intimidation, police shootings
and corruption accompany the transfer of lands for mining and
industrial allotments. Forcible acquisition and dispossession amounts
to nothing less than violent internal colonisation. And that�s
official: a review of land reforms by the rural development ministry
describes this as �the biggest grab of tribal lands after Columbus�.

	 The strategy so far can be called �developmental terrorism� where
state governments are agents of corporate interests.

Reigning common-sense talks in glib assertions about development and
growth. It stubbornly refuses to consider the question: development
for whom and at whose cost? At what cost to the environment and to
the country�s resources? The strategy adopted thus far, says Bhaduri,
can only be described as developmental terrorism. This is a blatant
assault on Indian democracy by state governments that have become
agents of corporate interests. When the central government fails to
protect India�s weakest citizens, when peaceful struggles and
repeated attempts at legal redress fail, when all political parties
fawn on capitalists as the messiahs of growth, the impression is
bound to grow that the Indian State itself is rapidly on the way to
possession by a mafia. The climate is ripe for extremist ideas to
flourish�especially as vested interests and political leaders have
thrown the Constitution to the winds.

There is a way out, one that steers between the extremes of a
bureaucratic state-controlled economy and untrammelled corporate
rapacity. Medha Patkar joins Bhaduri in the last essay, which deals
with feasible solutions. They do not oppose industrialisation�that is
another glib assertion of an establishment that remains deaf to far-
reaching criticism�rather, they ask for an industrialisation that can
tap �the enormous productive potential of the people�. They call for
growth led by the need for employment rather than corporate profits,
growth with a focus on agriculture, domestic demand of ordinary
people, the fiscal empowerment of panchayats and devolution of
development initiatives�all within the constitutional framework.

It would have been useful if the essays, written over the past few
years, had been revised more extensively. Yet its many repetitions do
not irritate, for these themes bear repetition. Above all, this is a
book about India�s poor as human beings, not as �factors of
production�. That is why it could contain more on people�s movements
that are not insurgent, but continue to resist the new industrial
regime. An excellent introduction to a burning issue, it deserves to
be widely read, and made compulsory reading for bureaucrats,
policemen and politicians. And, lest we forget, economists.

o o o

Announcements:

(i)  Remember Bhopal

Bhopal Gas Tragedy 25th Anniversary Commemoration 01-03 December 2009
http://www.sacw.net/article1235.html

(ii)

Daniel Pearl Awards for cross-border investigative journalism

The 2010 Daniel Pearl Awards competition, which honors the worlds
best cross-border investigative journalism, is now accepting entries.

Deadline: January 15, 2010

The contest is open to any journalist or team of journalists of any
nationality working in any medium. Entries must involve reporting in
at least two countries on a topic of world significance.

There is no entry fee. Submissions from Latin America, Asia, Africa
and the Middle East are especially encouraged.

Granted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
(ICIJ), the awards include two $5,000 first-place prizes, along with
five additional $1,000 prizes. The awards will be presented at the
6th Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva,
Switzerland, in April 2010.

Formerly the ICIJ Awards, the prizes were renamed in 2008 in honor of
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was slain by militants
in Pakistan in 2002.

For more details go to: http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/
icij/awards/


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 28-30, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2671 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1]  Nepal: Proposed actions against security forces is a ploy to
promote General Toran Singh (ACHR)
[2]  A militarised Sri Lanka on an uneasy path to peace (Sutirtho
Patranobis)
[3]  Pakistan and India Must Resist the Hawks:
        - India & Pakistan: case for common defence  (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
        - Mediation and South Asia (A.G. Noorani)
        - Uncalled for remarks (Editorial, Daily Times)
        - India’s Eternal Crisis (Pankaj Mishra)
[4]  Pakistan: Crusading for land management (Dr Noman Ahmed)
[5]  India:  Fighting injustice and inequality (Bharat Dogra)
         - Bhopal, 25 years on (Vidya Krishnan)
         - Are we encouraging the violent turn? (Mallika Sarabhai)
         - Homeless wanderers in their own country (Javed Iqbal)
         - Press Note: Solidarity Committee for Internally Displaced
Tribals, Andhra Pradesh
[6]  India: Resources For Secular Activists
        (i) Unknowingly, Liberhan repeats some arguments put forward
by the Hindu nationalists
        (ii) What Matters More the Liberhan Report or its Leak?
        (iii) Politics of Liberhan report
        (iv) Xenophobia in Seventeenth-Century India
[7] UK: Schools of incendiary thought (Shaaz Mahboob)

_____


[1] Nepal:

Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR)

PRESS RELEASE

25 November 2009

Nepal: Proposed actions against security forces is a ploy to promote
General Toran Singh

New Delhi: The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), a Delhi based
regional human rights organisation, today stated that reported
intention of the Government of Nepal to ‘take action’ against 350
security persons and Maoists is nothing but a ploy to hoodwink
international community and allow the government to push through
promotion of General Toran Singh to Chief of the Nepal Army Staff.
General Toran Singh is implicated in very serious crimes including
torture and disappearance.

On 24th November the Nepalese media reported ‘cabinet sources’
suggesting that the Government of Nepal intends to ‘take action’
against 350 persons including security personnel, government officers
and Maoist leaders for involvement in extra judicial killings and
human rights violations.

Empty Promises:

ACHR underlined that the international community should understand
that in the context of Nepal there is little value of promises of
undefined government ‘action’ on human rights.

ACHR further noted in this regard the recent analysis of Mr Ian
Martin the former Head of UNMIN who underlined in the Nepalese media
on 8th November 2009: ‘Repeated commitments have been made to
investigate the fate of the disappeared, compensate victims of the
conflict, enable displaced persons to return, establish a
comprehensive truth commission, and – less frequently and more
reluctantly - take action against those responsible for major human
rights violations.’

In examining the results of these commitments, Mr Martin also noted:
“Not a single person has been properly brought to justice for a
major human rights violation committed during the armed conflict or
since”.

‘This recent ‘media leak’ must be seen as part of a longstanding
pattern of unfulfilled promises to investigate and prosecute human
rights crimes in Nepal that violate the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
and international norms’. Stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Director of ACHR.

In the case of General Singh OHCHR has made representations to the
Prime Minister of Nepal that there should be no promotion until the
case is fully and impartially investigated.  The Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights in its “Report of investigation into
arbitrary detention, torture and disappearances at Maharajgunj RNA
barracks, Kathmandu, in 2003-2004”of May 2006 concluded that the
“the commander of the 10th Brigade [General Toran Singh] knew or
ought to have known about these actions…” OHCHR recommended that
“those potentially implicated directly or through command
responsibility for units involved should be suspended from any
official duties pending the investigation, and should not be proposed
for participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions”.

But despite the overwhelming evidence the government has not only
failed to take action, but is now clearly moving toward promoting Singh.

[Ends]


_____


[2]   Sri Lanka:

hindustantimes.com

A MILITARISED SRI LANKA ON AN UNEASY PATH TO PEACE

by Sutirtho Patranobis, Hindustan Times

Colombo, November 28, 2009

Sri Lanka has a history of violence. For a Buddhist country with a
population of 20 million that history is gory – one long civil war,
two bloody Marxist insurrections, ethnic riots, several
assassinations and an abortive coup in 1962. If that wasn’t enough,
the 2004 December tsunami battered the country’s scenic coastline
and took the lives of thousands.

Everyone knows about long war of attrition that government forces
fought against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE). The 26-year-long war ended in May at the cost of an estimated
100000 lives and two hemorrhaging communities.

Before Tamil militancy was the rebellion of the radical: not many
outside Sri Lanka are aware that the country has seen two armed
rebellions – 1971 and 1987-89 -- by extremist Marxists. The rebels
of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) were fuelled by anti-western
and waves of anti-Indian sentiments. Both claimed the lives of
thousands of youth from the majority Sinhala community and were
crushed under heavy military boots. Thousands more disappeared
without a trace.

But it was the protracted ethnic war with the LTTE that led to, what
a political analyst said, a `national security regime’ (NSR) in the
country. ``An NSR is created when militarisation is viewed as a
necessary component of the conduct of a state. That doesn’t mean
that country is under dictatorship; the regime could be in a broad
democratic framework,’’ the analyst, who requested anonymity, said.

It doesn’t really help that the country continues to be under a
``state of emergency’’ six months after the war. ``Holding of
elections alone is not democracy. Many rogue systems have many forms
of manipulated elections for no other reason than to have some
legitimacy, particularly before the eyes of the international
community,’’ the Asian Human Rights Commission said in a statement
soon after LTTE leader V Prabhakaran was declared dead.

The framework maybe democratic but essential components like the
practice of civil liberties, artistic freedom and dissenting opinion
is severely curtailed in such a regime. In Sri Lanka, it has meant
the murder and assault of journalists and human rights activists,
severe restrictions on critical opinion in the academia and a close
watch, bordering on intimidation, on artists who want to make
political comment.

A well-known painter HT spoke to said: ``I would say (the situation),
it’s scary. But don’t quote me. Do you get the picture?’’

A more direct impact of the internal strife and the security regime
has been the rapid strengthening of armed forces. Latest statistics
is hard to come by as the military continues to be cagey about
sharing numbers but Sri Lanka does have one of the highest ratios of
soldiers to civilians in Asia.

In 2006, according to a study by Mumbai-based Strategic Foresight
Group, Sri Lanka had already emerged as the most militarised country
in South Asia. "For every thousand population, it has eight military
personnel against 1.3 in India or four in Pakistan. In terms of
military expenditure, Sri Lanka spends 4.1 per cent of its GDP
against 2.5 per cent by India or 3.5 per cent by Pakistan,’’ the
study said.

Three years later, those numbers have gone up. The total number of
the forces including the army, navy, air force, police and civil
defence adds up to 350000-400000. The army accounts for about 2.4
lakh personnel. Military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara
recently said the "army would recruit another 10000 by the year-
end.’’

Basic requirements are simple – applicant has to be between 18 and
24 years of age, unmarried and physically fit.

Military budget is going up too. Recently, Parliament approved an
additional 20 per cent budget, over above the already allocated $
1.74 billion, for defence expenditure.

The government argued it’s was necessary because the security forces
still need strengthening.

The arrival of Sarath Fonseka, the first four-star general and
recently retired as chief of defence staff, in the political arena is
another sign of how ``militarised’’ the Lankan society was
becoming, Professor J Uyangoda, head of department, political
science, Colombo University argued.

``Militarisation has seen a gradual consideration in the society. Now
with general Fonseka fighting the Presidential election as the
opposition candidate, it indicates demilitarisation is not in the
agenda even for the opposition. It doesn’t look like the United
National Party (the main opposition party) is committed to
demilitarising Sri Lanka,’’ Uyangoda said.

Historian Silan Kadirgamar said he ``was afraid that the run-up to
the Presidential polls could be violent as the stakes were high.’’

``There are no professional army or security forces left in Sri
Lanka. Having Rajapaksa is terrible and having Fonseka would be a
nightmare. Unfortunately Sri Lanka has evolved a tradition where
rogues contest the presidency and no one could remotely hold them
down to their promises,’’ the respected civil rights group,
University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) told HT over email.

The run-up to the election could also see the proliferation of armed
groups, some of which brazenly operate in parts of eastern Sri Lanka.
These groups are usually affiliated to politicians and are known to
kidnap and extort.

What could add to the problem is the high rate of desertion from the
armed forces. Nearly 30000 personnel from the three wings went home
on leave but did not return to their regiments. There were 20,597
deserters from the army alone.

``Desertion has increased after the end of the war. Yes, it is a
problem because they are trained,’’ defence analyst and journalist
Iqbal Athas said. Athas was also worried about politicians using
thugs to protect their turf.

So, what are the ways to demilitarise provided the political class
has the intention. ``Battalions to the United Nations could be
increased. Or a transitory civil defence force could be constituted.
The extra force could also be used to strengthen existing police
stations or to man new police stations in the north,’’ Athas
suggested.

The government has to demilitarise not only in numbers but also
reduce its security paranoia. Sri Lanka’s history of violence cannot
be denied. But the country deserves a future of peace.

_____


[3]  Pakistan and India Must Resist the Hawks:


The Hindu, 28 November 2009

INDIA & PAKISTAN: CASE FOR COMMON DEFENCE

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

The reason for India to want a rapprochement with Pakistan, and vice
versa, has nothing to do with feelings of friendship or goodwill. It
has to do with survival.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says Pakistan is
“compiling hard evidence of India’s involvement” in terrorist
attacks on Pakistan’s public and its armed forces. If he and the
Interior Minister are correct, then we must conclude that the Indians
are psychotics possessed with a death wish or, perhaps, plain stupid.
While India’s assistance for Baloch insurgents could conceivably
make strategic sense, helping the jihadists simply does not.

As Pakistan staggers from one bombing to the other, some Indians must
be secretly pleased. Indeed, there are occasional verbalisations: Is
this not sweet revenge for the horrors of Mumbai perpetrated by the
Lashkar-e-Taiba? Shouldn’t India feel satisfied as Pakistan reels
under the stinging poison of its domestically reared snakes?

But most Indians are probably less than enthusiastic in stoking the
fires across the border. In fact, the majority would like to forget
that Pakistan exists. With a 6 per cent growth rate, booming hi-tech
exports, and expectations of a semi-superpower status, they feel
India has no need to engage a struggling Pakistan with its endless
litany of problems.

Of course, some would like to hurt Pakistan. Extremists in India ask:
shouldn’t one increase the pain of a country — with which India
has fought three bloody wars — by aiding its enemies? Perhaps do
another Bangladesh on Pakistan some day?

These fringe elements, fortunately, are inconsequential today.
Rational self-interest demands that India not aid jihadists. Imagine
the consequences if the Central authority in Pakistan disappears or
is sharply weakened. Splintered into a hundred jihadist Lashkars,
each with its own agenda and tactics, Pakistan’s territory would
become India’s eternal nightmare. When Mumbai-II occurs — as it
surely would in such circumstances — India’s options in dealing
with a nuclear Pakistan would be severely limited.

The Indian Army would be powerless. As the Americans have discovered
at great cost, the mightiest war machines on earth cannot prevent
holy warriors from crossing borders. Internal collaborators,
recruited from a domestic Muslim population that feels itself
alienated from Hindu-India, would connive with the jihadists.
Subsequently, as the Indian forces retaliate against Muslims —
innocent and otherwise — the action-reaction cycle would rip the
country apart.

So, how can India protect itself from invaders across its western
border and grave injury? Just as importantly, how can we in Pakistan
assure that the fight against fanatics is not lost?

Let me make an apparently outrageous proposition: in the coming
years, India’s best protection is likely to come from its
traditional enemy, the Pakistan Army. Therefore, India ought to help
now, not fight against it.

This may sound preposterous. After all, the two countries have fought
three-and-a-half wars over six decades. During periods of excessive
tension, they have growled at each other while meaningfully pointing
towards their respective nuclear arsenals. Most recently, after
heightened tensions following the Mumbai massacre, Pakistani troops
were moved out of North West Frontier Province towards the eastern
border. Baitullah Mehsud’s offer to jointly fight India was welcomed
by the Pakistan Army.

And yet, the imperative of mutual survival makes a common defence
inevitable. Given the rapidly rising threat within Pakistan, the day
for joint action may not be very far away.

Today Pakistan is bearing the brunt. Its people, government and armed
forces are under unrelenting attack. South Waziristan, a war of
necessity rather than of choice, will certainly not be the last one.
A victory there will not end terrorism, although a stalemate will
embolden the jihadists in south Punjab, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba
and the Jaish-e-Muhammed. The cancer of religious militancy has
spread across Pakistan, and it will take decades to defeat.

This militancy does not exist merely because America occupies
Afghanistan. A U.S. withdrawal, while welcome, will not end
Pakistan’s problems. As an ideological movement, the jihadists want
to transform society as part of their wider agenda. They ride on the
backs of their partners, the mainstream religious political parties
like the Jamat-e-Islami and the Jamiat-e-Ulema-Pakistan. None of
these has condemned the suicide bombings in Pakistani universities,
schools, markets, mosques, and police and army facilities.

Pakistan’s political leadership and army must not muddy the waters,
especially now that public sanction has finally been obtained for
fighting extremism in Swat and Waziristan. Self-deception weakens,
and enormously increases vulnerability. Wars can only be won if
nations have a clear rallying slogan. Therefore, the battle against
religious extremism will require identifying it — by name — as the
enemy.

India should derive no satisfaction from Pakistan’s predicament.
Although religious extremists see ordinary Muslims as munafiqs
(hypocrites) — and therefore free to be blown up in bazaars and
mosques — they hate Hindus even more. In their calculus, hurting
India would buy even more tickets for heaven than hurting Pakistan.
They dream of ripping apart both societies or starting a war —
preferably nuclear — between Pakistan and India.

A common threat needs a common defence. But this is difficult unless
the Pakistan-India conflict is reduced in intensity. In fact, the
extremist groups that threaten both countries today are an unintended
consequence of Pakistan’s frustrations at Indian obduracy in Kashmir.

To create a future working alliance with Pakistan, and in deference
to basic democratic principles, India must therefore be seen as
genuinely working towards some kind of resolution of the Kashmir
issue. Over the past two decades, India has been morally isolated
from Kashmiri Muslims and continues to incur the very considerable
costs of an occupying power in the Valley. Indian soldiers continue
to needlessly die — and oppress and kill Kashmiri innocents.

It is time for India to fuzz the Line of Control, make it highly
permeable, and demilitarise it up to some mutually negotiated depth
on both sides. Without peace in Kashmir the forces of cross-border
jihad, and its hate-filled holy warriors, will continue to receive
unnecessary succour.

India also needs to allay Pakistan’s fears on Balochistan. Although
Pakistan’s current federal structure is the cause of the problem —
a fact which the government is now finally addressing through the
newly announced Balochistan package — it is possible that India is
aiding some insurgent groups. Statements have been made in India that
Balochistan provides New Delhi with a handle to exert pressure on
Pakistan. This is unacceptable.

While there is no magic wand, confidence-building measures (CBMs)
continue to be important for managing the Pakistan-India conflict and
bringing down the decibel level of mutual rhetoric. To be sure, CBMs
can be easily disparaged as palliatives that do not address the
underlying causes of a conflict. Nevertheless, looking at those
initiated over the years shows that they have held up even in adverse
circumstances. More are needed.

The reason for India to want a rapprochement with Pakistan, and vice
versa, has nothing to do with feelings of friendship or goodwill. It
has only to do with survival. For us in Pakistan, this is even more
critical.

(The writer teaches Physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.
This article will appear in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper on Sunday.)

o o o

MEDIATION AND SOUTH ASIA

by A.G. Noorani

dawn.com, 28 Nov, 2009

India should not go into high dudgeon nor Pakistan into ecstasy
whenever any country or organisation talks of mediation in Indo-Pak
disputes or pleads with them to move expeditiously towards their
settlement or evinces interest in these matters.

India must view such exertions calmly, and Pakistan must assess them
realistically. We dwell on an island which is home to a global
community whose links will only increase with time. People will talk
if disputes fester anywhere; especially between two nuclear states.

However, neither of them will yield to external pressures where its
national interests are at stake. India must realise that Pakistan, as
the weaker power, will solicit mediation by others. On its part,
Pakistan must realise that India will respond to external influences
only up to a point and no further.

Presumptuous and silly are the only words one can use for the
formulation of the Obama-Hu Jintao joint statement issued in Beijing
on Nov 17. They first ‘welcomed all efforts conducive to peace,
stability and development in South Asia’; next, expressed ‘support
(to) the efforts of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight terrorism’;
and went on to ‘support’ [sic] the improvement of relations
between India and Pakistan. All this is mother love and apple pie;
unexceptionable but patronising.

The next formulation reads thus: ‘The two sides are ready to
strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related
to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and
development in the region.’

This smacks of joint oversight or monitoring. The US and China will
strengthen cooperation on issues related to South Asia. More, they
will ‘work together to promote peace in that region’.

The last time we heard of all this was in their joint statement on
June 27, 1998, during Clinton’s visit to China shortly after the
nuclear blasts by India and Pakistan.

They never repeated that pledge in all these 11 years. Their
interests diverge, as do their respective relationships with each of
the countries in South Asia, and in consequence, their perceptions also.

Reaction in the region was predictable. Pakistan was happy and India
got angry. ‘A third country role cannot be envisaged’.

American and Chinese retractions followed swiftly. The very next day
the US under secretary of state for political affairs, William J.
Burns, said that it was for the two neighbours to decide on the
‘scope, content and pace’ of the peace process.

The assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia Robert
Blake echoed this on Nov 19. China’s foreign ministry spokesman Qin
Gang spoke in a similar vein on the same day asserting besides that
the boundary dispute with India should not ‘undermine our greater
bilateral relations’.

Nothing will come out of the joint statement so far as South Asia is
concerned. But even without it, the US and China would have chatted
about this strife-torn region in confidence.

The record on mediation is instructive. Without it the Indus Waters
Treaty (1950) would not have been signed nor the results of the war
of 1965 arranged efficiently but for the Tashkent Accord. But the
Simla Pact (1972) was a bilateral affair.

In 2002 the Vajpayee government leaned heavily on the US to
pressurise Pakistan after the massing of the troops. The US responded
for a while, extracting its gain in the process.

When the optimum point was reached, it washed its hands off the
affair, and issued travel advisories to its citizens. India called
off Operation Parakram.

On the other side of the coin, even after its military reversals in
the war with China in October 1962, India did not yield to joint
Anglo-American pressure on Kashmir. Howard B. Schaffer served as
political counsellor in the American embassies in Pakistan (1974-77)
and India (1977-79).

His excellently documented book on ‘America’s role in Kashmir’
sums up accurately in the title the conclusion of his study: The
Limits of Influence. It covers the period 1947-2009. Fortunately
neither side accepted the obscene Anglo-American proposal for
partition of the Valley.

His advice to the Obama administration is to ‘work quietly’; that
is, ‘if Washington does decide on making a stronger effort’. It is
very unlikely that it will. The Great Powers step in only when there
is a threat of war or in the aftermath of one.

But right now we are not doing badly by ourselves. President
Musharraf revealed on May 18, 2007 that a broad outline of a solution
to the Kashmir dispute had been worked out ‘but we have yet to reach
a conclusion’.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on May 2, 2009, ‘Gen Musharraf
and I had nearly reached an agreement’. The then foreign minister of
Pakistan Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri confirmed that.

One thing after another prevented a summit: the train blasts in
Mumbai in July 2006, the crisis in Pakistan’s judiciary in March
2007 and the Mumbai attack on Nov 26, 2008.

The composite dialogue understanding has run its course. Foreign
secretaries cannot tackle Kashmir, Siachen, Wullar Barrage and Sir
Creek. On all four a broad framework for agreement exists.

They can be settled only at the highest level provided there is a
political will and resolve to do so by stable governments uninhibited
by predictable cries of a ‘sell-out’.

The rest of the matters are best left to the joint commission set up
by an agreement signed on March 10, 1983 by foreign ministers
Sahabzada Yaqub Khan and P.V. Narasimha Rao.

That process cannot begin unless and until the ‘battle of
dossiers’ is brought to a swift, satisfactory and amicable
conclusion. Mediators have no role to play. Discreet inquiries are
the stuff of diplomacy, though.

The writer is a lawyer and an author.


o o o

India:

Mail Today, 26 November 2009

EDITORIAL : UNCALLED FOR REMARKS

THE Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor’s statement earlier this
week that “ a limited war under a nuclear overhang is still very
much a reality in the Indian subcontinent” is an unfortunate example
of illtimed military bravado. For a country that aims to be a
responsible superpower, it is irresponsible, at the very least, for
its Army chief to say or imply that it would go to war with one of
its neighbours, and then for good measure, introduce the possibility
of a limited nuclear engagement.

This is not the first or the only time that Gen Kapoor has said
something that should have been rather left unsaid; at various times
he has warned his countrymen that up to 2500 terrorists are waiting
to infiltrate into India from across the border to effect terror
attacks; that India should be ready for another 26/ 11 type of attack
and that asymmetric warfare is a concern for India.

It is not for us to remind the general that in any democracy, it is
the Union cabinet’s responsibility to create a policy framework for
the nation’s security and indeed its defence in the face of a
military attack from its adversaries. By talking about a possible war
with its neighbour, Gen Kapoor seems to have overstepped his brief.

Understandably, his statement has given Islamabad a stick to beat
India with in international forums. The Pakistan foreign office has
already criticised Gen Kapoor’s remarks saying they “ only
reaffirm India’s dangerous and offensive nuclear doctrine” and
that it “ confirms the hegemonic thrust of India's nuclear
doctrine.” As the Army chief of one of the world’s economic and
military powerhouses, Gen Kapoor must rise above petty considerations
of one-upmanship in the subcontinent.

More important, he must choose his words carefully; and in a manner
that suggests that India knows its position in world affairs as a
would- be superpower, and not just as a small time regional player.

o o o

The New York Times, November 28, 2009

INDIA’S ETERNAL CRISIS

by Pankaj Mishra

Mashobra, India

ON the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, I hurried through a dark apple
orchard to the nearest television in this Himalayan village. My
landlord opened his door reluctantly, and then appeared unmoved by
the news I had just received by phone. I struggled to explain the
enormity of what was happening, the significance of New York, the
iconic status of the World Trade Center — to no avail. It was time
for his evening prayers; the television could not be turned on.

I did not witness the horrific sights of 9/11 until three days later.
Since then, cable television and even broadband Internet have arrived
in Mashobra and in my own home. Now the world’s manifold atrocities
are always available for brisk inspection on India’s many 24-hour
news channels. Indeed, the brutal terrorist assault on Mumbai that
killed 163 people a year ago was immediately proclaimed as India’s
own 9/11 by the country’s young TV anchors, who seem to model
themselves on Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Yet, on the first
anniversary of “26/11,” it seems as remote as 9/11 to the
inhabitants of this village.

There is no great mystery behind this indifference, which is distinct
from callousness. India, where most people still depend on
agriculture for a living, has just suffered one of its most serious
droughts in decades. The outlook for winter crops is bleak; many
farmers have committed suicide in recent months, adding to the
epidemic of rural suicides over the last few years.

Politically, too, India has lurched from one crisis to another in the
last year. Prudent financial regulation saved India from the worst
effects of the worldwide economic recession. But the rage of people
who feel themselves not only left behind but victimized by corporate-
driven and urban-oriented economic growth has erupted into violence;
the Indian government has called for an all-out war against the
Maoist insurgent groups that now administer large parts of central
India. Anti-India insurgencies in Kashmir and the northeast continue
to simmer, exacting a little-reported but high daily toll.

Geopolitically, India’s room to maneuver has shrunk since the Mumbai
attacks. Last November, middle-class nationalist fury, though
initially directed at inept Indian authorities, settled on Pakistan,
where the attacks were partly planned and financed. The writer Shashi
Tharoor described “India’s leaders and strategic thinkers” as
watching Israel’s assault on Gaza last winter with “empathy,”
and wondering “why can’t we do the same?” One hopes Mr. Tharoor,
who has since become India’s junior foreign minister, is today more
aware of why India can’t do a Gaza or Lebanon on its nuclear-armed
neighbor.

As Western anxiety about nuclear-armed Pakistan’s stability deepens,
India can barely afford aggressive rhetoric, let alone military
retaliation, against its longtime foe. Pakistan remains vital to
Western campaigns against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Aware of its
strategic importance, Pakistan has been in no hurry to accede to
India’s demands to prosecute those it holds responsible for the
Mumbai massacre. (One hopes the charges filed against seven radicals
on Wednesday mark a real change.) Islamabad has also upped the
rhetorical ante by accusing India of backing the violent secessionist
movement in Baluchistan, in western Pakistan.

India’s seeming impotence enrages those in the new right-wing news
media who are eager to commemorate 26/11, and to make that ersatz
shorthand signify India’s unavenged humiliation and shame. Prabhu
Chawla, the editor of India Today, the country’s leading
newsmagazine, expressed the frustration of many middle-class
nationalists: “India, divided by politics, doesn’t know what to do
with its enemy or with its much-mauled nationalist soul. We are as
clueless as we were on that dreadful November night one year ago.”

That may be true, but in a country where 400 million live without
electricity, it isn’t easy to manufacture, or sustain, a national
consensus. In any case, things are not as bad as the pundits make
out. The lone surviving Mumbai killer is already on trial; his
accomplices are being gradually apprehended. There have been no major
retaliatory attacks against Muslims. There are stirrings of a civic,
even political, consciousness among rich Indians who, until the
Mumbai massacre, were largely unaffected by our frequent terrorist
bombings.

India may have been passive after the Mumbai attacks. But India has
not launched wars against either abstract nouns or actual countries
that it has no hope of winning or even disengaging from. Another
major terrorist assault on our large and chaotic cities is very
probable, but it is unlikely to have the sort of effect that 9/11 had
on America.

This is largely because many Indians still live with a sense of
permanent crisis, of a world out of joint, where violence can be
contained but never fully prevented, and where human action quickly
reveals its tragic limits. The fatalism I sense in my village may be
the consolation of the weak, of those powerless to shape the world to
their ends. But it also provides a built-in check against the
arrogance of power — and the hubris that has made America’s
response to 9/11 so disastrously counterproductive.

Pankaj Mishra is the author of “Temptations of the West: How to Be
Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond.”


_____


[4] Pakistan:

The News on Sunday, 29 November 2009

CRUSADING FOR LAND MANAGEMENT

The case of Gutter Baghicha proves that urban planning is merely a
ritual in Karachi

by Dr Noman Ahmed

The tragic murder of comrade Nisar Baloch on November 7, 2009 is not
the first atrocity committed against crusaders of public causes in
Karachi. Many activists and their kins have lost their life and limb
in bids to safeguard public lands.

The shady attempt to dispose of Gutter Baghicha is only one of the
several moves to grab land by quasi official actors. Many other
examples highlight the trend: The clandestine moves to privatise the
coastal belt of the city and open it to real estate development of an
elite kind; reckless sale of land along the Northern Bypass, unabated
pressure on Pakistan Railways to sell its priceless land assets to
"offset" its financial losses, mindless creation of factory built
hawker stalls and placement along public open spaces and the creation
of a plush housing scheme for military officers adjacent to National
Stadium are all examples of non-transparent land transactions without
any logical reasoning or reference to urban planning practices.

The policy makers, including members of legislature, view land as a
commodity, which can be traded to obtain short-term financial gains.
This is not correct from an urban planning and sociological
perspective. Land is a finite asset which can only be used for public
benefits. Its utilisation is best determined through a professionally
sound and socially appropriate planning process. A healthy urban life
cannot be imagined without a proper utilisation policy for land with
a detailed master plan to lay down all the proposed functions in
relation to existing constraints and potentials.

Given the ongoing crisis of infrastructural decay, poor governance
and declining urban management capacities, it is crucial that any new
venture must be examined for its operational viability and
sustainability in the short and long term periods. For example, the
Karachi Port Trust has begun the unabated process of land reclamation
along the Mai Kolachi Bypass. This area has been the site of
backwater and thick mangrove vegetation for ages. The British had
left this area open due to the fact that water from the port would
enter this area through Chinna Creek and after interface with the
marine forests, get finished and cleaned. This natural ocean
cleansing operation has been completely disrupted due to the reckless
land reclamation for anticipated real estate development.

Similarly, the federal government acquired an exceptionally wide land
strip for the construction of Lyari Expressway (16.5 kilometer
stretch from the port to Sohrab Goth). The allotment has created the
lucrative provision of over 1.8 million square yards of land for real
estate. It is important to note that none of these lands have been
allotted or utilised according to any openly pursued or applied land-
use policy for the city.

During the reign of an enthusiastic Chief Controller of Buildings,
the Karachi Building Control Agency (KBCA) developed a colourful land-
use plan for the Northern Bypass. Townships for jurists, government
officers, diplomats and other influential lobbies were outlined. To
please the all powerful lobby of builders and developers, half a
dozen towns with politically-correct nomenclature were earmarked.
This fantastic scheme was unveiled in a crowded exhibition on housing
industry during 2005; and this despite the fact that KBCA has no
direct role in planning process.

Decision making pertinent to urban lands has remained highly
centralised. One finds the federal government departments or the
chief executive of the country directly fiddling with the allotment
procedures. Few years ago, the management of Sindh Industrial and
Trading Estate (SITE) was unnecessarily pressurised to accommodate
the political favourites in land allotment in one of the new emerging
industrial schemes.

As per rules, the chief minister possesses the discretionary power to
allot land to any party as he deems appropriate. It is deplorable to
note that these powers have been used most injudiciously in the past.
  From 1985 to 1993, four chief ministers of Sindh allotted land in
Karachi worth more than six billion rupees to cronies or party
favourites.

The institutionalised procedures of land allotment are also not free
from corruption. The standard procedure is through balloting. People
are free to fill any number of application forms as they can afford.
Thus rich people file dozens of applications by specifying different
names of their family members, relations or even servants. The
probability of computer ballot automatically increases compared to
the poor and needy who file only one application with great financial
hardship. As a result, schemes for low income groups become the high
ground for speculation.

It was found that land policies do not reflect the range of quasi-
legal situations existing between formal and informal housing.
Various intermediate situations have been discovered in the land and
housing scenario which cannot be described as legal from the
statutory standpoint. As per standard definitions, the land or
housing which is formally registered through the offices of registrar
after completion of formalities related to the title are recognized
as legal properties. According to another definition, the property
which can be accepted by a housing finance institution for mortgage
financing is a legally valid property.

Spot field studies have shown that there are many lacunae where land
and housing units fall short of meeting any of the two conditions. In
reference to land, the plots floated in any scheme of development
authorities, legally-constituted cooperative societies or any other
land owning agency are termed as formally titled land. Legality of
such land parcels is only verified and accepted when the leasing
conditions of the concerne neighbourhood/locality are completely
fulfilled. katchi abadies which have been approved for regularisation
but await the initiation of leasing process; neighbourhoods which
await the notification of amelioration plans; localities where change
of land use has taken place and areas that have a change of status or
jurisdiction are only a few types which cannot be compared with a
normally leased area. Owners and prospective buyers have to suffer
due to indifference of planning and development agencies. However
powerful groups acquire such properties at lower prices and harass
the stakeholders, including legal heirs, to submit to their demands.

Land and housing floating mechanism is so designed that speculation
automatically evolves in the process. Land development agencies from
civilian and military domain allot land parcels at a very low selling
price. As the owner completes the formalities, he already possesses
the opportunity of delaying construction and accruing profits on idle
land. Since powerful interest groups are averse to changes as they
benefit from this in-built procedural defect.

Regulatory controls in the form of non-utilisation fees or any other
form of levies are either non-enforceable or too miniscule to bother
the property owners. A simple outcome is the artificial rise in
property demands that results in a rush supply of land and housing
without any urban planning blue print. Land sales along Super
Highway, Defence Housing Authority and space along major
transportation projects are examples. These instances render land
management and control to be an even more uphill task.

It may also be understood that an absolutely uncontrolled market
mechanism soon becomes a detrimental entity for the stakeholders. In
Karachi, the impotence of land control bodies has been historical.
Vested interests, in connivance with government functionaries, have
managed to keep planning agencies and building/town planning control
departments separate from each other. Thus urban planning, wherever
and whenever performed, only becomes a ritual. Nobody is bound or
regulated to follow its prescriptions.

It is assumed that by revising the statutes and regulations of
building and town planning, land management strategies would emerge
automatically. The realities are otherwise. Building and town
planning controls affect a small minority of urban areas of the city.
Federal districts, cantonments and military estates, port
authorities, railways, katchi abadies are not under the writ of
building control mechanism of the city. Thus the land market and
construction boom generated from these locations soon exert pressure
on other city areas. Building code violations, blatant changes in
land use and mindless adoption of street commercialisation policies
play havoc in the domain of land control.

The current scenario demands various actions without any further
delay. It is an established fact that land is a finite asset which
requires careful utilisation, largely on the basis of social needs.
Any land transaction that is initiated must be finalised after
inviting views and observations from the concerned stakeholders. To
instill transparency in the routine processes, the various government
departments, including the military authorities, must be requested to
publish the details of the land owned or controlled by them. The
provincial and city government must create an autonomous planning
agency for Karachi to deal with land management, infrastructure and
planning issues for the city. This step shall greatly help streamline
the otherwise haywire scenario of misappropriation and ill-managed
utilisation of land in Karachi.


_____


[5] India

The Tribune, 29 November 2009

FIGHTING INJUSTICE AND INEQUALITY
by Bharat Dogra

In recent years, there has been an increasing tendency in South Asia
of movements demanding equality and justice to drift towards
violence. This is particularly seen in the growth of Maoist movements
in India, Nepal and Bhutan.

More recently as violence has escalated in Chhattisgarh and other
parts of the tribal belt of Central India, the government has also
launched a major offensive. Where will this take the country and what
will be the implications for the innocent people caught in the
crossfire?

Reflecting these concerns, a National Convention of the Citizens
Initiative for Peace held recently in Delhi called for commitment to
people on both sides. It asked the government to first stop the
offensive in the areas where the CPI (Maoist) and other Naxalite
parties are active, to facilitate a ceasefire.

At the same time, the resolution asked the Maoist and others to cease
all hostilities against the state forces to facilitate a ceasefire.
There should be no attacks on civilians by anyone and their lives
must be secure.

Unconditional dialogue must begin between the government and the
Maoists. People’s basic livelihood rights and democratic control
over their natural resources must be ensured. This appears to be a
very reasonable approach, but will the voice of reason and peace
prevail?

To avoid such situations in future, a broader plea needs to be made
in favour of peaceful struggles and movements for justice and
equality. The legitimate demands of equality and justice can be
better achieved at a lesser cost and in more stable ways by strong,
broad-based peaceful movements. Large-scale violence can increase the
overall problems of these countries and even lead to further
deterioration in the life of those weaker sections whom the violent
resistance movements claim to help.

  From the point of view of the ordinary people of struggle areas, a
long drawn-out violent struggle can mean an endless series of
suffering. Several reports from these areas describe the plight of
the people caught between the cadre of violent struggle groups and
security forces. As both ask them at gun-point to be on their side,
ordinary people can easily become the target of either the violent
struggle groups or the security forces.

These problems intensify when there are divisions within the ranks of
the violent struggle groups, or when security forces start arming
villagers to create para-military squads among them. In fact, the
proliferation of increasingly more destructive modern weapons as well
as improvised devices has increased the possibility of more deaths
and serious injuries in the course of these violent struggles. Many
of the dead and injured are innocent civilians who have no protection
and can easily be caught in the crossfire, or fall victims to
improvised explosive devices.

Many gains made by the weaker sections as a result of violent
struggles are not stable. Whether these households can cultivate the
land allotted to them by struggle groups or harvest its crops depends
on whether the struggle groups are in control or in retreat. For land
and other gains to be stable, legal recognition by the same system is
needed which the struggle seeks to overthrow.

It is not possible for a violent movement to benefit from a wider
democratic debate. By its very nature, a very violent secretive
movement has to confine debate of critical planning and strategy
decisions to a relatively narrow group.

Even within this narrow group, free discussion may not always be
possible with respect to more basic formulations which have been
taken for granted. On the other hand, peaceful movements can be much
more transparent and benefit from the opinion of many wide-ranging
sources.

In a peaceful movement any problem within the movement or failure of
the leadership is more likely to come in for public scrutiny so that
remedial steps can be taken at an early stage. On the other hand, in
a violent struggle this may be delayed for too long and finally
violence within the group may have to be used to sort out problems
brought out peaceful transitions of governments for a long time now.

Therefore, the right way to fight injustice and inequality is to
establish very broad alliances of weaker sections for non-violent
struggles. All others who are sympathetic to such peaceful struggles
can also join in.

These peaceful struggles certainly have the right of such
mobilisation as may be needed to provide protection to their
activists from violent attacks, but as a matter of principle they
will not unleash any violence on their own.

Their means of achieving success should be their ability to have a
very broad alliance of vast number of people and making effective use
of all democratic, peaceful means of mobilisation and protest.

o o o

Indian Express, Nov 29, 2009

BHOPAL, 25 YEARS ON

by Vidya Krishnan

The cremator
The pyre used to burn day and night, says Shivcharan Dhaulpuria

SEVENTEEN Ashoka trees stand tall in a small park on Chola Road. Had
Shivcharan Dhaulpuria not seen it himself, he would never have
believed what the manicured grass hides.

Twenty-five years ago, where Dhaulpuria now stands, bodies were
cremated in batches of 200 and more. “We did not have time for
individual burials. Bodies came from hospitals in trucks and we had
to cremate them fast,” says Dhaulpuria, whose family has been
working at the Chola cemetery near the Union Carbide factory for
three generations.

For the first few minutes on the night of the gas leak, Shivcharan—
who had just gone to bed—thought it was smoke from the hawan kund in
the crematorium that was causing his eyes and throat to burn.

“It was like someone had put chilies in my eyes. When we came out,
everyone was running towards the railway station. When I heard
someone shout “tanki fuut gayi (the tank has burst)”, I decided to
take my wife, children and parents to Sujalpur. I left them with my
relatives and came back to work as bodies had to be cremated. We had
to cremate them quickly and send the remains to be immersed in the
Narmada,” he says.

Bodies of over 3,000 victims, who died in the first 24 hours, were
cremated at Chola cemetery and the Badebaag Shamshaan Bhumi. The
hospitals separated bodies of Hindu and Muslim victims.

“Initially, the pyre used to burn day and night. There were so many
bodies to be cremated. No one had enough wood, coffins or kerosene,”
he says. By the fourth day, volunteers came to cremate bodies and
traders donated coffins. The forest department arranged for wood
while people donated kerosene.

Dhaulpuria, meanwhile, considered moving to a new city. “But I could
not bring myself to do it. My family has lived here for generations
and cared for the departed. Tending to this garden gives me peace.
This is the final resting place of troubled souls and I will remain
here and watch over the place,” he says.

In the intervening years, he says his parents died due to MIC
poisoning while his wife developed tuberculosis. “Both my children
suffer from respiratory ailments. We received compensation twice but
that did not even cover even the basic medical care,” he says.

In 1990, to mark the sixth anniversary of the tragedy, the state
government set up Smriti Udyan, a memorial to the thousands who had
been cremated here. Twenty-five years later, the memorial is a
forgotten landmark in a city which now attracts ‘gas tourists’.
“The government does not have time to care for the living. Who is
going to remember the dead,” asks Dhaulpuria.

The ‘death doctor’

Dr D.K. Satpathy and his team conducted 750 autopsies in the first 24
hours

A month into retirement, Dr D.K. Satpathy does not know what to do
with the ‘papers’. They cover a whole range: from the medico-legal
notes he painstakingly took on the night of the gas leak to chits he
meticulously pasted on the forehead of each dead body for
identification.

Bright, cherry-red blood—that is the 60-year-old forensic expert’s
lasting memory of the disaster. “In every body that we examined, we
found that all organs were cherry red in colour. At that time, we
knew nothing about the nature of poisoning and this was our first
hint. It is typical of cyanide. When our Casualty Medical Officer
contacted Union Carbide, they said they didn’t know the composition
of, or antidote to, methyl isocyanate (MIC, the gas released from the
plant) poisoning,” he says.

By December 5, doctors had started administering sodium thiosulphate
(STS) to bring down the level of MIC in victims. “The treatment was
discontinued due to differences between doctors after rumours
circulated that STS was causing deaths,” he says.

The Casualty Medical officer at the Gandhi Medical College (GMC)
reported the first case at 12.45 a.m. on December 3, 1984. By the
time Satpathy reached the hospital, 42 bodies were kept near the
emergency and over 200 bodies were lying in the mortuary. To maintain
records, it was decided that each corpse would be given a number and
that it would be photographed. “When I entered the hospital campus,
everyone was retching, gasping and groaning. Our biggest challenge
was to identify bodies, number them, click pictures and swiftly
conduct post mortems,” says Satpathy.

Four doctors and 13 final-year students from GMC worked round the
clock for the next five days. “We could not possibly conduct a post-
mortem on each victim. So we decided to do random autopsies while
conducting detailed external examinations. We noted everything from
clothing, scars, even patterns of moustaches,” he says. In the first
24 hours, 750 autopsies were conducted.

Doctors assumed that the papers they were collecting would be useful
in medical research. “I was young and naive,” says Satpathy.

In February 1984, forensic experts submitted a report that connected
tank 610 to the deaths. “We gave the report to the court and waited
for the big day when responsibility would be fixed. No judgment
came,” he says.

Through the next decade, Satpathy worked on developing a disaster
management plan. “Our biggest failure is that we still do not have a
decent disaster management plan,” he says.

His wife calls him a hoarder and Satpathy knows too that his papers
are not of any relevance to anyone anymore. “I know one day all
these papers will end up in a museum,” he says.

The voice

Through his Sambhavna Trust, Satinath Sarangi tells the world about
Bhopal

THIRTY-year-old Satinath Sarangi had just completed his Ph.D in
metallurgy and was working as a community activist in Piparia, about
150 km south of Bhopal, when he heard of the gas leak. He reached
Bhopal on the morning of December 3, hoping to help the victims for a
couple of weeks and go back to his life. “I did not realise it has
been 25 years,” says Sarangi.

In all these years, Sarangi has used all his skill and resources to
tell the world about Bhopal.

In 1985, Sarangi started the Jan Swasth Kendra, a clinic from where
he administered sodium thiosulphate to the victims. But by then, the
government had discontinued that line of treatment and Sarangi was
arrested. His clinic was shut down within 20 days of its opening. “I
stayed in jail for 18 days and by the time I came out, I was clear
that this was a fight I would take to its logical conclusion. I knew
how to speak English and my family had contacts. I wanted to use
those privileges to help the victims,” he says.

By 1986, Sarangi formed the Bhopal Group for Information and Action.
“We started publishing papers in English and Hindi on corporate
crime. Our office was raided and all our documents were taken,” he
says.

In 1989, Sarangi toured four countries—US, Netherlands, Ireland and
Britain—campaigning against the “inadequate” compensation of USD
470 million awarded by Union Carbide. “We took along with us three
victims because the world had to see for itself what was unfolding in
Bhopal. Information was the key. If justice is done in Bhopal, the
whole world will be safer,” he says.

While in the UK, Sarangi met author Indra Sinha, who, at his own
expense, placed a large advertisement in The Guardian, appealing for
help for the victims. The donations provided the seed money Sarangi
needed to set up the Sambhavna Trust in 1995. For the last 13 years,
Sarangi has been focusing on medical research and dissemination of
information through the Sambhavna Trust.

The officer

FORMER BHOPAL SP Swaraj puri is pursuing a Ph.D in crisis management
—“I want to be better prepared”

WHEN the police commissioner told Superintendent of Police Swaraj
Puri to rush to the railway station that night, he was expecting a
stampede or a riot. When he reached the Bhopal railway station, Puri
couldn’t understand why people were sleeping outside.

“I yelled at the inspector in-charge for allowing people to sleep
there. He tugged at my shirt and asked me to look closely and then it
sank in. They were all bodies,” says Swaraj Puri, then SP who
retired in 2008.

The first call to a police control room came around 12.20 a.m. It
said two persons had died and a large crowd was walking away from the
Carbide factory. Against his driver’s advice, Puri decided to visit
Ground Zero. “We were both nauseous and our eyes were bloodshot. I
was one of the first officers to reach the factory. From there, I
went to the control room.”

“From the first floor of the police control room near Union Carbide,
the ‘grey-green’ cloud of chemical was clearly visible,” says
Puri, who was one of the MIC poisoning victims whom the Indian
Council of Medical Research studied between 1985 and 1994.

Soon, the police officers in the control room were vomiting
profusely. “I contacted the doctors at GMC when I first heard of
MIC,” he says.

By the morning of December 3, the police had been briefed to block
‘all entry points’ to avoid more casualties. The Chief Minister
had called a high-level meeting, during which a rumour spread that
another tank had leaked from the factory. “It was a law and order
problem of unimaginable magnitude. The government was up against an
unknown gas that was causing mass casualties,” he remembers.

Three days later, Warren Anderson, Chairman and CEO of Union Carbide,
reached Bhopal in a private jet. He was arrested immediately. “At
the airport, we asked him to come out. We shook hands, told him to
sit in the jeep and later told him he was under arrest. He was
astonished. The American embassy was involved and the matter was
discussed at a very high level and I am not privy to the details. But
yes, I do wish our government brings him back and holds him
accountable,” he says.

Anderson was charged under six sections of the Indian Penal Code with
culpable homicide, causing death by negligence, negligent conduct
with respect to poisonous substances and the killing of livestock. He
was released on a bail of Rs 25,000 and was allowed to fly back to
the US the following day.

At 63, Puri is now pursuing a Ph.D in crisis management from Delhi
University. “I am so disappointed by the turn of event that I know
that Bhopal can happen again. I want to be better prepared the next
time,” he says.

The fighter

Abul Jabbar is devoting all his time to ensure “the victim does not
become a victim again”

ANY quest for information on the gas tragedy usually starts from
behind the Central Library in Bhopal, where ‘Jabbar Bhai’, as Abul
Jabbar Khan is fondly known here, runs the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila
Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS).

In 1984, Khan ran a lucrative tube-well boring business. His house
was two kilometres from the Carbide plant in Rajender Nagar. “After
the gas leak that night, I dropped my mother outside Bhopal and
returned for my sister. By then, she was in Kasturba hospital. Then I
started transporting people to hospitals and in effect, I am still
doing the same,” says the soft-spoken 52-year-old.

His mornings, over the last two decades, start the same way. People
start queuing up to meet him almost as if meeting Jabbar is a remedy
in itself. Khan has moved several litigations, helped thousands of
Bhopalis, yet there is little known about him. “A tragedy of this
scale attracts tourists of various kinds. Journalists feast on
anniversaries and activists make a profession out of this misery. It
is all part of such an event but the common man—the victim and
survivor—requires more than that,” he says.

In 1988, Jabbar married a widow with two children. “The marriage did
not work for various reasons but my activism also had a role to play
in it,” he says. Bowing to family pressure, Jabbar married again in
2002—he lives with his wife and three children in the same Rajender
Nagar house.

Till 1989, when the government finally distributed compensation,
Jabbar regularly led ‘morchas’. Today, he gets patients
transported to hospitals, teaches women vocational skills, and often
ends up as the voice for those who cannot fight for their share of
compensation or pension. Over the years, the activist in Jabbar had
very little time for his business and the tube-well money gradually
ran out. “I shut down the business as I could not turn away from
this (his activism). I may not have money but I cannot abandon the
forsaken,” says Jabbar.

Apart from those living in the gas-affected areas, not many have
heard of Jabbar or his work. He speaks little or no English, his
Sangathan has no foreign affiliation and he is not exactly ‘media
savvy’. All this has cost him dearly. “There are months when I
cannot pay the telephone or electricity bills. But we are not going
to ask people for money. Since 1984, the only thing we have been
fighting for is dignity—in medical treatment, in life and in death.
We want employment, not charity. That is the only way to ensure that
the victim doesn’t become a victim again. I cannot fight for these
people for ever but I can teach them how to fight by providing them
employment, education and skills,” he says.

He may not be a national hero, but Jabbar, who himself suffers from
degenerating vision and decreased lung capacity, personifies hope for
those who have none.

o o o

Daily News and Analysis, November 29

ARE WE ENCOURAGING THE VIOLENT TURN?

by Mallika Sarabhai

The demolition of the Babri Masjid and the horrors that followed are
much in the minds of people -- the BJP is up in arms about the
Liberhan commission -- not about the fact that it indicts all the top
brass, Atal Bihari Vajpayee included, but that someone leaked it to
the press. But the anniversary also comes up on the sixth, and for
many of us that act and that day started a chapter in history that we
still can not live down.

It was then that Darpana's Centre for Non-violence Through the Arts
was born with a debate on what caused prejudice that leads to
violence and how early in life this prejudice gets attached to us.
And whether art in any of its forms could open and light up the debate.

One of our first research projects was in a school, working with
four- and five-year-olds. All children love cartoons, whether in a
language they understand or not. But parents or adults who have
looked at them closely know that cartoons are cruel and very violent.
So we took them as a starting point to understand the comprehension
of violence and of violence as humour among the young children.

We edited all the funnies -- Tom and Jerry, Casper the Ghost, Tweety
and Silvester and what not -- till we had a six- to seven-minute loop
of people hitting others, kicking them, making them fall over,
throwing things at them and what not. We introduced this to our class
of youngsters. They rolled with laughter the first time around, and
the second and the third.

At that point we divided the class into two. We asked group one to
continue laughing if they found the visuals funny. We asked the other
group to say ouch every time someone hit someone else or did them a
violent act. After the first couple of rounds, both groups realised
that whenever one group laughed, the other said ouch. They looked
perplexed. We asked them if it was funny when they were hit or
kicked, and there was a universal 'NO'.

Then how did they find it funny when someone else was hit? And would
they like it if other people laughed when they were in pain? Slowly
the children began to understand that their laughter was perhaps
misdirected, that to find funny someone else's grief was perhaps not
such a great idea.

Another interesting study we did was with older children, adolescents
in fact. We asked them to keep a diary of their days, and to mark in
them whenever they felt they behaved violently towards someone or
when someone was violent towards them. We explained that banging a
door shut on someone was also a violent act. That being abusive
should also be noted. Soon the youngsters started getting a very
different picture of themselves and their peers, their teachers and
parents. And a strong gender difference started appearing. The girls
regularly reported feeling violated when whistled at, or looked at
inappropriately or commented upon when they were passing a group of
boys. When the boys discovered this they were stunned - they thought
it was a sign of admiration and appreciation.

We are a society where violence of all kinds is accepted. Much of
what we call normal behaviour is, in fact, violence. There is little,
however, that we do to sensitise our children about the ills of
violence. A teacher hitting a child is normal -- a recent study in
Gujarat asked children what a foot-ruler was used for: 100 per cent
of rural children put "hitting" as one of its uses! A father yelling
at or beating a mother is commonplace. A small incidence turning into
a lynching mob is not that unusual to see. And yet no discussion on
the subject takes place in the home or in our schools, or for that
matter in other forums.

We are being desensitised. We have become inured to the violence of
speech and the action that surrounds us, that involves us. Are we
aware of this? When Jains and Buddhists "practise" non-violence, are
they aware that there are many forms of daily violence that they and
we involve ourselves in, that are as dangerous, and perhaps more
cancerous and incipient than going to war?


o o o

expressbuzz.com, 29 November 2009

HOMELESS WANDERERS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY

Internally displaced persons from Chhattisgarh’s Kistaram Panchayat
before their shack of sticks and palmyra leaf in Andhra Pradesh’s
Khammam.

by Javed Iqbal

As Operation Green Hunt gathers steam in Chhattisgarh state violence
is also going up steadily. The result is that more people, mostly
tribals, in the state’s Maoist-dominated areas are crossing the
border to find sanctuary in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh as
Internally Displaced Persons.

Each of them fled their homes either after a raid or because they
feared for their lives. The stories these people tell of their
ordeals are also beginning to provide a picture of the true extent of
the destruction.

Gachanpalli is a small village some 30 km from the town of Konta in
Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. According to witnesses, the
security forces raided Gachanpalli sometime in late October. They
allegedly killed Madvi Admaya, Madkam Sulaya, Madvi Joga, Kovasi
Gangaya, Madkam Moiyi. Witnesses say four of the five men were past
60 and too old to escape into the jungle. Madkam Moiyi was apparently
crippled and incapable of walking. They were said to have been
bayoneted and shot to death in the middle of the village.

Nineteen homes were also burnt down.

This was the second attack on Gachanpalli.

In 2005, the Salwa Judum burnt down 65 homes in the village.

“I have so much land at Gachanpalli, but no one to work on it
now.” Kovasi Jogi, 60, lived in Gachanpalli. Now she inhabits an
Internally Displaced Persons settlement in Khammam. Her village is
almost empty now, peopled by ghosts and memories. Most of the people
have scattered. Some have retreated further into the jungle, while
others are in Khammam.

Sodi Rani (real name withheld) left her village of Pallecharma with
her two children for Andhra Pradesh. She relies on the charity of her
relatives. According to her, three people were killed from her
village of Pallecharma by the security forces.

Sodi Sanausi, Tunki Chinnay and Dodhi Adma were killed sometime in
late October.

The police apprehended them in the morning as suspected Maoists and
shot them dead the same evening. The people of Pallecharma were
unaware of the killings for some time.

But when the news of the deaths reached them, they fled to Khammam
district.

On the same day as the attack on Pallecharma, the security forces
arrested Vaika Madvi (name withheld). He was held captive along with
an unidentified Pallecharma villager. Vaika Madvi managed to escape,
leaving behind the villager. He has no idea what happened to the man.
Vaika Madvi now lives in Khammam district.

Near Pallecharma is the village of Batiguda where Sodi Venka (name
withheld) was regularly harassed by Special Police Officers as well
as Maoists. He was detained over a year ago by security forces and
asked to relocate to the Maraiguda Salwa Judum camp, abandoning his
five acres of land. At the same time, the Maoists threatened him with
dire consequences if he left the land.

Drinking water is a big problem in Batiguda where four hand pumps
were installed about 12 years ago. Three of them don’t work anymore.
So the villagers approached the authorities at Konta for help to fix
the pumps. But their appeal was turned down flat.

“Go ask your Naxalites to fix your hand pumps,” the officials
jeered at them. The dejected villagers could only repeat this piece
of advice every time anyone asked them whether they had got any
assistance from Konta.

“And what do the Naxalites say?” Venka asks with a fatalistic
chuckle. “They say, ‘go to Bhadrachalam and buy the materials and
we shall fix it’. But the problem is we don’t have any money!”
Sodi Venka also lives in Khammam district now. He earns around Rs 60
a day working as a landless labourer — for about 10 to 20 days a
month. Back at his village, he used to sell a kilogram of tamarind
for five rupees, each mango for two to three rupees. He also sold
mahua for twelve to fourteen rupees a kg. He left his village soon
after he heard about the killings in Pallecharma.

Muchki Deva, 65, was picked up by Gondi- speaking SPOs from his
village of Oonderpad near Bhejji and taken to jail.

He says he was repeatedly beaten and given electric shocks. He was
incorrectly reported as being burnt with oil by some publications —
in fact, he had no idea what they were doing to him. He was released
after four days, when a superior police officer found him in the
company of young Special Police Officers who were beating him. The
officer chastised the SPOs and ordered them to release the old man.
He was neither booked nor asked to give a statement. He soon left his
village for Khammam district.

The stories seem never-ending and each one is harrowing. Take, for
instance, the case of Maroodbacka village in Usur Block of Bijapur
district in Chhattisgarh. On October 24, the security forces raided
the place. They picked up Katam Kistaya (20) and Bhandavi Bhimaya
(18). Bhimaya was suffering from a high fever and hence incapable of
escaping. Both of them are now reportedly languishing in Dantewada jail.

Soon after, some 15 families of Maroodbacka left for Khammam district.

Others, like Madkam Mooti from Bijjamariaguda, did not bother to wait
for the raids. They left their villages for Andhra Pradesh with their
families well before that. When news of the attacks on Tatemargu,
Pallodi, Doghpar and Pallecharma spread across the tehsil, villagers
from Paytalguta, Ampeta and Dormangum from Kistaram panchayat also
left their villages, afraid of what the authorities might do to them.
They are all now living in Khammam district. They have survived but
in Khammam they have no land, no ration cards, no schools, no
angaanbadi. They also suffer the risk of being branded as Maoists or
sympathisers by the Andhra Pradesh authorities.

Their difficulties are compounded by inter-tribal conflicts. For
instance, the Gotti Koya from Chhattisgarh and the local Koya
villagers find themselves at odds at times, fighting over meagre
forest resources.

Despite the tensions, many settlements have been built with
permission from the local gram sabhas and there is no confrontation
as the IDPs also work as landless labour for them. Many more IDPs are
living with their relatives.

There are disturbing reports that party members from New Democracy
(CPI-ML) have been demanding that the local Koya villagers evict the
Gotti Koya and send them back to Chhattisgarh. The Andhra Pradesh
police and forest officials are also considering a similar proposal
and have reportedly approached the Collector’s office for provisions
to ‘pack off ’ the IDPs back to Chhattisgarh.

There are some dissenters from this view, however. Gandhibabu of the
Agricultural and Social Development Society, who has been interacting
with government officials and the IDPs is against any forced
repatriation.

“First, it is their constitutional right, freedom of movement.
Secondly, how can you send them back to Chhattisgarh where they’d
end up in Salwa Judum camps and thus be in danger of being killed by
the Naxalites, or to their villages where they’re in danger of being
killed by the security forces? They really have no place to go back
to at the moment.’ The Solidarity Committee for Internally Displaced
Tribals, Andhra Pradesh has raised similar concerns. After meeting
IDP families in Khammam district, the committee held a press
conference in Hyderabad earlier in the week. It demanded that the
Union government and state governments concerned be responsible for
the safety of the tribals. Also, the refugees should be provided with
rehabilitation packages.

The committee also demanded that IDPs be given NREGAS job cards,
temporary ration cards, with pensions for senior citizens and
disabled people; and that the government should help set up schools
and mini-angaanbadi centres as a majority of the fleeing tribals are
children.

They are safe now, but what happens next is anybody’s guess.

o o o

Press Note: Solidarity Committee For Internally Displaced Tribals,
Andhra Pradesh
http://www.sacw.net/article1258.html

25th November, 2009

RECOGNIZE DISPLACED ADIVASI’S FLEEING TO ANDHRA PRADESH AS
INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS (IDPS) AND PROVIDE THEM REHABILITATION
PACKAGE.

The Chattisgarh Government and the Central governments have started
War in the name of Green Hunt. They are fully aware that when the
operation starts thousands of tribals will flee their homes. The
earlier experience of attacks by Sulwa Judum has taught this lesson.
In spite of this knowledge the Government of India or the state
governments have not taken any steps to set up a rehabilitation
programme and allocate adequate funds, or food security for the same.

Solidarity Committee for Internally displaced tribals spent 23rd and
24th November, 2009 in Khammam district in the Mulkalapally, Kukunoor
and Cherla Mandals visiting the displaced families. The Committee has
collected following information from them.

Murders and Burning villages (in Chattisgarh)

Under the protection of Para Military forces the Special Police
officers (SPOs) and Salwa Judum members have restarted attacking the
villages. For Example, in Gachanpad Village, Konta Tahsil. five men
were rounded up brought to the centre of the village and killed by
bayonets and bullets. Their names are: 1 Madave Adamiah, 2 Madakam
Soolaiah, 3 Madavi joga, 4 Kovasi Gangiah, 5 Madakam Mui. Except for
one, the others were old men who could not run . Madakam Mui was
disabled and could barely walk. The son of Madave Adamiah and sister
of Gangiah shared their horrors with the Committee. The forces burnt
19 homes in the village.

Earlier, Maraigudem village was burnt to the ground by Sulwa Judum.
The villagers who had run away returned after a while and had started
living in small huts nearby. In this round of attacks the huts were
burnt down again.

Next Pujari Kankeru village was attacked and two women and one man
was killed. Houses were burnt down.

Terrorizing the tribals

It is clear that by targeting some villages, killing and burning down
homes, people are being evicted. People reported that some villages
were targeted for the first time while others were attacked a second
time. The Para military are encircling villages and the SPOs and
Sulwa Judum entering the villages and carrying out the attacks.

Destroying property and disappearing livestock.

Last year the region faced drought and people lost their crops. This
year once again there was limited production. When the harvest was
ready the government started Operation Green Hunt. People left their
standing crops and either ran away to the forest or crossed over to
Andhra Pradesh. All the people reported that the forces stole their
chicken, goats and pigs which were killed and consumed by them. When
women dared to protest they were severely beaten up.

The situation in Andhra Pradesh

   The people who are fleeing in groups are apprehended by the Andhra
police, taken to the Police camp and threatened to go back. They are
calling whole families including babies to be photographed as
suspected Maoists. In Charla mandal one such settlement (of thirteen
families) under a tamarind tree was threatened and forced to leave.
The Committee met four youth of these families who are struggling to
eke out a living in spite of these difficulties.

Hunger and Cold.

The fleeing families are burning with hunger and freezing in the
cold. Since they have come with only the clothes on their back they
do not have any vessels to cook in or blankets. The Committee met ten
families who came to Kukunoor Mandal, Kivaka Panchayat. The Committee
observed that they did not have any sheets to spread on the ground to
sleep on. They did not have any cover either. Nine children are
living with the families and are looking malnourished. Since breast
feeding mothers also do not have any food, the babies are underweight.

The families requested Committee members for plastic sheets, utensils
to cook, blankets and food grains as immediate rations.

Appeal to the Governments.

The government of India and the Concerned State governments must take
responsibility to create a safe environment so that the displaced
families can return to their homes and lead their normal lives.

Attacks on Adivasi villages should be stopped immediately

Arrest and punish the guilty immediately and uphold constitutional
rights and the Rule of Law.

The fleeing families should be recognized as internally displaced
People (IDP). The government of India must develop a rehabilitation
package and allocate funds to the state governments.

To ensure survival of the families, the Government of Andhra Pradesh
must take following steps:

For immediate relief : each family to be given 100 Kgs of rice, 10
kgs dal, kerosene, one set of cooking vessels, polythene sheets for
cover and blankets.

Issue NREGS job cards with 200 days of employment per year since they
have lost all their productive assets

Temporary ration cards for a year to be renewed on the basis of then
conditions. Double rations should be provided since the families have
lost access to their productive resources including land.

Pensions to be provided to people with disabilities and the elderly
on a temporary basis.

Set up bridge schools to uphold the Right to Education and provide
mini anganwadi centre’s in habitations.

Set up Medical camps to treat diseases and recognize malnutrition.
Set up feeding center’s for malnourished children.

Implement the recommendations of National Commission for the
Protection of Child Rights as above pertaining to children.

Immediately give directions to stop forest official and police
harassment of IDPs since they are citizens of this country and have a
right to live where they choose and travel according to their need
and will.

Appeal to Civil Society.

Civil society responded with great generosity during the recent
floods. We appeal that they respond equally to this emerging crises
of the innocent adivasis and support their survival.

Prof M Kodand Ram

B Ramakrishnam Raju

G Rajasekhar

Dr V Rukmini Rao

V Gandhi Babu

P S Ajay kumar

(Contact Numbers G RajaSekhar, 9440235978, A Krishna 9959098737)



_____


[6]  India: Resources For Secular Activists (selected posts from
communalism.blogspot.org)

(i) Unknowingly, Liberhan repeats some arguments put forward by the
Hindu nationalists
http://bit.ly/8IR4Tc

(ii) What Matters More the Liberhan Report or its Leak?
http://bit.ly/5JdVGh

(iii) Politics of Liberhan report
http://bit.ly/5S6KhB

(iv) Xenophobia in Seventeenth-Century India
by Gijs Kruijtzer - 2009 - Social Science - 326 pages
https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/1887/13850/2/Kruijtzer2009-
low+resolution+small+file.pdf

_____


[7] Miscellanea:


The Guardian, 26 November 2009

SCHOOLS OF INCENDIARY THOUGHT

Faith schools that may be promoting extremist ideas must be closely
monitored – and should certainly not receive public funds

by Shaaz Mahboob

Any institution that promotes segregation and openly prescribes
members of society to lead separate lives deserves no sympathy and
most definitely not public support in the form of tax money.
Certainly not in a secular modern democracy such as Britain, where
the graduates of such institutions are at risk of coming out the
other end less able to integrate with the rest of the society. On top
of this, they are potentially liable to fuel the disintegration of
society by firmly believing in segregation, not only of the sexes but
also along the lines of faith and belief.

It is therefore quite disconcerting to find that countless "Muslim or
Islamic schools" – whatever the distinction might be – receive
public funds, and which go to extreme lengths in instilling the seeds
of segregation into these young minds.

Nevertheless, they at least appear to be hesitatingly tolerant (yes,
only tolerant, not entirely happy with the notion that a nation could
be run by the wishes of the Muslim and non-Muslim masses and not that
of a male unelected supreme leader).

Disturbingly, certain educational institutions are led and managed by
the adherents of a political ideology which goes one step further and
calls for the abolition of the democratic system in Britain. As part
of their vision, secular democracy would be replaced by another
system which is far more intolerant towards religious minorities,
placing curbs on their rights and relegating them to a second-class
position in society. Unsurprisingly, liberal, secular-minded, pro-
democracy co-religionists are relegated to the lowest of all possible
positions within such a theocratic state.

Ironically the model of governance to which some of the patrons of
these schools aspire seems to have failed elsewhere on other
continents; most recently in Afghanistan under the Taliban, which was
hailed as the "21st century model Islamic Caliphate" and the Ottomon
Caliphate during the last century, only to be replaced by a secular
Turkish state. Pakistan appears to be a new target for such movements
where certain British Muslims are attempting to transform the
nation's governing structure, from a democracy finding its feet, to a
theocratic Islamic Caliphate.

To add insult to injury, such centres of education in Britain receive
vast public funding to propagate their message through teaching these
values and ideals to the innocent and impressionable minds of our
future generations. One example of such schools is that of the
Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF) that runs such schools in
Tottenham, north London, and Slough, Berkshire. Three quarters of the
trustees and certain individuals who run the schools are members of
Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), an organisation which to this day seeks to
abolish democracy and freedom.

The recent spat between the Tories and Labour frontrunners over the
funding of the schools run by the ISF appear to be between two major
stakeholders in the future governance of this country, both equally
unsure of how to deal with this Frankenstein's monster that is
threatening society (regardless of who comes into power for the next
five years). Although the Tories appear to have pledged to ban HT,
they – like Labour's top advisers – are not prepared to tackle the
issue of faith schools and in particular, certain Islamic schools
whose governing bodies have links to questionable organisations.

As a matter of principle, organisations such as British Muslims for
Secular Democracy have been opposed to any state funding of religious
schools, particularly schools which embed hard-line interpretations
of religious ideology into their curriculum. These teachings can have
far-reaching consequences on the pupils' personal and creative
development. A ban on music is the order of the day and girls as
young as five years old are forced to cover themselves up, even
though it is a well-established Islamic teaching that women who
choose to wear the hijab do not need to do so until the onset of
puberty. One of the standard reasons cited in defence of the hijab is
that women (and little girls in this case) are better protected by
wrapping themselves up from the prying eyes of men. It beggars belief
as to who these innocent female pupils are at risk from in a school
environment – the same-age male pupils or those whose responsibility
is to teach them. By teaching them at this tender age that the
exposure of their flesh and hair is somehow provocative to the men
(and little boys) around them is perhaps also akin to taking away
their innocence before it gets a chance to see the light of the day.

The question to both Ed Balls and David Cameron is not that of this
particular school but the future of countless other Islamic schools
dotted across the country, those which receive public funding and
those which are completely independent. Any institution – even if it
operates without any state funding yet promotes anti-democratic
ideals and preaches inequality using religion as an excuse – cannot
and must not be allowed to function, whether it's a Jewish, Sikh,
Hindu, Christian, Muslim or a Jedi school. And why only target the
schools run by Hizb-ut-Tahrir and absolve those run under the
protection of Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)?

The MCB almost always comes to the rescue of such schools each time
their inadequacies are exposed by the media or the regulatory bodies
which brave the Islamophobia rhetoric. Going beyond the remit of
acting as an umbrella organisation for the countless mosques,
madrasas and Islamic schools, the MCB demands from state-run secular
schools certain absurd and impractical privileges on behalf of Muslim
pupils, with or without their parents' agreement. Such demands –
recently made to the schools in a cunningly disguised booklet –
include promoting the idea that Muslim pupils be withdrawn from
religious education classes, yet ensuring that non-Muslim pupils are
made to learn about Islam as a religion, in addition to complete
segregation on the basis of gender and time off school each week to
perform Friday prayers at the cost of valuable lessons.

A potential solution which I have been advocating is perhaps not to
close down such schools (and other registered or unregistered
educational institutions) in the first instance, but to ensure that
their curriculums are effectively monitored for potentially
incendiary or divisive material, and revised accordingly. An
education that promotes a good balance between different faith
backgrounds and cultures should be maintained to promote equality,
respect and interaction between the future generations of Britain.



_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 26-27, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2670 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1] Sri Lanka: Free All Unlawfully Detained: Respect Rights of Those
Not Slated for Release (Human Rights Watch)
[2] Bangladesh: Do not allow political space to extremists (Shahedul
Anam Khan)
[3] Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan (Jeremy Scahill)
[4] Reflections on First anniversary of November 2008 Terror Attacks
in Bombay
       - From Karachi, with love (Rafia Zakaria)
       - Mumbai attacks remain unpoliticised (Faisal Devji)
       - Comment by Veena Das
       - Comment by Arvind Rajagopal
[5] India: Liberhan Commission Report and After - Resources For
Secular Democrats
         (i) Politics of Babri Masjid (Kuldip Nayar)
         (ii) Anhad Statement on the Liberhan Commission Report - 25
November 2009
         (iii) CPI(M) Statement on Liberhan Commission Report - 25
November 2009
         (iv) The cycle of violence (Antara Dev Sen)
         (v)  Will perpetrators of heinous crime be punished
(Editorial: kashmirtimes.com)
[6]  Announcements:
(i) A Sufi music evening with Mukhtiar Ali (Bangalore, 6 December 2009)
(ii) 12th International Conference on Sri Lanka Studies (Colombo,
March 2010)
_____


[1] Sri Lanka:

Human Rights Watch, November 24, 2009

SRI LANKA: FREE ALL UNLAWFULLY DETAINED: RESPECT RIGHTS OF THOSE NOT
SLATED FOR RELEASE

      The government’s promise to release displaced civilians from
camps is welcome, though long overdue. The government has been
holding many Tamils for alleged involvement in the LTTE without
providing them basic rights due under Sri Lankan and international
law. The release of displaced persons should not be an excuse for
another wave of arbitrary detentions.
      Brad Adams, Asia director

(New York) - As it prepares to allow the 130,000 internally displaced
persons detained in camps to decide whether to stay or leave, the Sri
Lankan government should ensure that no additional persons are
subject to arbitrary detentions, Human Rights Watch said today.

On November 21 the government announced that the camps would be
opened by December 1. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on the
Sri Lankan government to release displaced civilians and to restore
their full freedom of movement. Human Rights Watch said that the
decision to release the people in the camps is a positive step, but
also expressed concern that the authorities would step up the
arbitrary detention of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
suspects in violation of international law.

Human Rights Watch has learned that the authorities have been
notifying some camp residents that they will be moved to other
detention camps instead of being released. Additionally, the
government currently detains without charge more than 11,000 persons
on suspicion of LTTE involvement in so-called "rehabilitation
centers." Human Rights Watch called upon the government to either
bring charges against these security detainees or release them.

"The government's promise to release displaced civilians from camps
is welcome, though long overdue," said Brad Adams, Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. "The government has been holding many Tamils for
alleged involvement in the LTTE without providing them basic rights
due under Sri Lankan and international law. The release of displaced
persons should not be an excuse for another wave of arbitrary
detentions."

According to information received by Human Rights Watch, the
authorities have started notifying some people that they will not be
able to leave the camps on December 1, but that they instead will be
transferred to one of the Manik Farm detention camps, which will be
designated as a "rehabilitation center."

The government has denied security detainees fundamental rights to
challenge the lawfulness of their detention and to obtain legal
counsel. In many cases, the government has failed to inform relatives
of the whereabouts of detainees, raising fears of enforced
disappearances and ill-treatment. It is unclear what criteria the
government uses to determine who should be released, who should
remain in "rehabilitation," and who should be prosecuted.

In an illustrative case, the authorities detained "Aanathan" together
with dozens of others from a camp in Manik Farm on October 5. His
wife told Human Rights Watch:

When they came to detain him on October 5, they did not tell me
anything; they only said that he would be interrogated and then he
would come back in a couple of days. When I did not hear anything
from him, however, I went to the CID [police Criminal Investigation
Department office in the camp]. I cried and I begged them to return
him to me, but they only told me to leave.

Aanathan's wife only found out about her husband's whereabouts 15
days later, when she received a letter from him. By that time she had
been released from Manik Farm camp and was able to visit him in the
Pampaimadhu camp, where he was being held. She told Human Rights Watch:

He does not know how long he will have to stay there. They have not
told him anything. When I went there the day before yesterday [mid-
November, more than five weeks after his detention], he had still not
been brought before a judge and he had not had access to a lawyer.

Human Rights Watch also called on the government to ensure that all
displaced persons are able to return to their homes voluntarily, in
safety and with dignity. People who are not able or willing to return
to their home villages and towns should be able to resettle where
they wish or remain in open camps.

Since August, the authorities have returned about 140,000 people to
their home areas or to host families. But Human Rights Watch has
received information that they often do not have any real choice in
terms of where to go when they are released and at least some of the
returns have been forced.

Human Rights Watch is particularly concerned about continuing
government restrictions on access to the return areas. While the
government has granted UN agencies access to Mullaitivu and
Kilinochchi districts, it has barred access for other international
humanitarian organizations even though the infrastructure is
shattered and there is a great need for basic support such as food,
water, shelter and health facilities.

"By denying access of international aid organizations to those
returning home, the government is putting the health and well-being
of these people at additional risk," said Adams. "Donors funding
reconstruction work should reject the government's attempt to isolate
the returnees and insist on free access for independent observers."


_____


[2]

The Daily Star, November 26, 2009

DO NOT ALLOW POLITICAL SPACE TO EXTREMISTS: No pandering to militancy.

Shahedul Anam Khan

IS the method of combatting terrorism any different from addressing
the issue of extremism? How does one relate the issue of human
security to the issue of extremism; is it too simplistic to suggest
that once all the factors that militate against human security are
removed, and by empowering the less endowed, we will be able to
reduce the chances of extremism finding roots? These were some of the
issues that international scholars of the region and from Japan had
been delving in last week under the auspices of the BIISS.

Extremism, terrorism, radicalism are fungible words and the less
perspicuous may be forgiven for using it as such. It would not be
wrong to suggest that while the term radicalism is not normally
considered pejorative there is little substantive difference between
extremism and terrorism.

It provides little comfort to be told that while all terrorists
resort to violence, that is not necessarily the main expedient of the
extremists. Our views of extremism have been shaped by our experience
of various extremists groups in Bangladesh and the region of South
Asia, which compels us to believe that there is little to choose
between the two when it comes to their method of operation.

Extremism had been glorified in the past and that perhaps may
validate the premise on which the "non-violent" attribute of
extremism is situated. Clearly the US Republican candiate's comment
in 1964, that extermism in the defence of liberty is no vice;
moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue, relied on the
passive aspect of the phenomenon to justify the defence of a good cause.

However, while extremism resides primarily in the realm of the mind
it tends to be exclusive and intolerant. And that possibly drive
extremists to find acceptability of the majority, and finding little
resonance of their position in the psyche of the common people
violence becomes the only means of imposing their conviction.
Therefore, the line, that apparently separates the two, is breached
more often out of compulsion if not conviction.

In our effort to devise countermeasures it would also stand us well
not to be bogged down in conceptual discourse and hair splitting on
categorisation of extremism. Extremism is not a singular construct
and the motive force may differ, but the ultimate aim remains the
assumption of political power or attaining enough clout to achieve
parity with other state actors to influence politics and policies.

The purpose of mapping extremism is to use the findings to formulate
appropriate responses. Therefore, the focus should be on why it
occurs in the first place i.e. the root causes, and certainly that
would differ from country to country and with the types of extremism.

And the point that one would like to stress here, when the focus is
on human security as a vehicle to counter terrorism, is the "poverty-
conflict trap." It is a universal argument that poverty resists good
governance, which in turn generates extremist tendencies. While not
in anyway downplaying the impact of poverty, it will be worth our
while to look at other regions of the world which were more endowed
in resources and more affluent yet suffered the wrath of violent
extremism.

In trying to assess the footprints of extremism in South Asia one is
faced with some very interesting realities. Not only do the scope and
intensity vary from country to country, the potential to impact on
politics is more severe in some countries than others.

Looking at Pakistan, it seems that the extremists are no longer going
only after soft targets but making the centre of power their objects
of attack. They are now being engaged in classical combat by the
Pakistan army and only time can tell whether they will meet the same
fate as the LTTE. Do they have enough in terms of military resources
to put up a protracted fight? But the issue is not their military
defeat alone. It is their ideological position that has many
supporters within the Pakistan army, which will determine the future
of Taliban and the nature of politics in Pakistan.

The Indian picture is equally alarming. The fact the politico-
religious extremists have found firm roots in Indian politics through
political parties is indeed frightening. Extremist organisations like
the VHP and the RSS are represented in Indian politics through the
BJP; that they backseat-drive the party is no secret, and the BJP had
held the powers in the centre and is the ruling party in certain
states in India.

Sri Lanka has defeated the LTTE in battle, but the point at issue
remains unresolved.

As for Bangladesh, there is suspected link between the religious
extremists and certain religion-based parties. While the extent is
yet to be ascertained, these parties have never been voted to power
as a party but have managed to assume state power through electoral
alliances.

It would do well for the mainstream political parties to remember
that extremism thrives because of political space they are afforded,
wittingly nor unwittingly. Preventing that must be the top priority.

Brig. Gen. Shahedul Anam Khan, ndc, psc (Retd) is Editor, Defence &
Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.


_____


[3] Pakistan:

The Nation, November 23, 2009

BLACKWATER'S SECRET WAR IN PAKISTAN

by Jeremy Scahill

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special
Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi,
members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a
secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of
suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-
value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan,
an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives
also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US
military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-
documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source
within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years,
including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of
Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of
anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the
program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the
Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be
aware of its existence.

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking
comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm.
Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation,
"We do not discuss current operations one way or the other,
regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background,
specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or
intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do
that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period,"
the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts
between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source
said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the
agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June
2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source.
"They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the
epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation
against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that
could further strain the already tense relations between the United
States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a
deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden
with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given
permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any
active military operations in the country.

Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US
Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe
Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction
oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark
Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company
has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military
intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan
for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert
operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also
working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an
Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on
the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations,
including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West
Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the
former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize
former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while
denying an official US military presence in the country. He also
confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel
deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on
condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne
out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces
actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's
covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for
anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is
absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."

"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything,"
said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin
Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's
role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush
administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement
with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this,
of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress
has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it,
you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not
surprise me."

The Counterterrorism Tag Team in Karachi

The covert JSOC program with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at
least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The
current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the
post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008
before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater's
presence in Pakistan is "not really visible, and that's why nobody
has cracked down on it," said the source. Blackwater's operations in
Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or
publicly identified Defense contracts. "It's Blackwater via JSOC, and
it's a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis." The
main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is
nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones
and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center. "It's
a very rudimentary operation," says the source. "I would compare it
to [CIA] outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts.
It's very bare bones, and that's the point."

Blackwater's work for JSOC in Karachi is coordinated out of a Task
Force based at Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan, according
to the military intelligence source. While JSOC technically runs the
operations in Karachi, he said, it is largely staffed by former US
special operations soldiers working for a division of Blackwater,
once known as Blackwater SELECT, and intelligence analysts working
for a Blackwater affiliate, Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which
is owned by Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince. The military source
said that the name Blackwater SELECT may have been changed recently.
Total Intelligence, which is run out of an office on the ninth floor
of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia, is staffed
by former analysts and operatives from the CIA, DIA, FBI and other
agencies. It is modeled after the CIA's counterterrorism center. In
Karachi, TIS runs a "media-scouring/open-source network," according
to the source. Until recently, Total Intelligence was run by two
former top CIA officials, Cofer Black and Robert Richer, both of whom
have left the company. In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either
its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the
former Blackwater executive. "They are running most of their work
through TIS because the other two [names] have such a stain on them,"
he said. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesperson, denied that TIS or any
other division or affiliate of Blackwater has any personnel in Pakistan.

The US military intelligence source said that Blackwater's classified
contracts keep getting renewed at the request of JSOC. Blackwater, he
said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of
the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former
Blackwater executive, "The politics that go with the brand of BW is
somewhat set aside because what you're doing is really one military
guy to another." Blackwater's first known contract with the CIA for
operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along
the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is
that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security
clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative
Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater
personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the
bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified "black"
operations. "With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to
you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs
far above 'secret'--even though you have no business doing so," said
the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that "do not have the
requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance
whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of
trust," he added. "Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top
secret. That's exactly what it is: a circle of love." Blackwater,
therefore, has access to "all source" reports that are culled in part
from JSOC units in the field. "That's how a lot of things over the
years have been conducted with contractors," said the source. "We
have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers
don't unless they ask."

According to the source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself
as a company whose operatives have "conducted lethal direct action
missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell.
JSOC just ate that up," he said, adding, "They have a sizable force
in Pakistan--not for any nefarious purpose if you really want to look
at it that way--but to support a legitimate contract that's
classified for JSOC." Blackwater's Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret
and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said. The source
is not sure when the arrangement with JSOC began, but he says that a
spin-off of Blackwater SELECT "was issued a no-bid contract for
support to shooters for a JSOC Task Force and they kept extending
it." Some of the Blackwater personnel, he said, work undercover as
aid workers. "Nobody even gives them a second thought."

The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater/JSOC
Karachi operation is referred to as "Qatar cubed," in reference to
the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the
planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. "This is
supposed to be the brave new world," he says. "This is the Jamestown
of the new millennium and it's meant to be a lily pad. You can jump
off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the border, you can jump
sideways, you can jump northwest. It's strategically located so that
they can get their people wherever they have to without having to
wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is
convoluted. They don't have to deal with that because they're
operating under a classified mandate."

In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against
suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and
the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for
JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,
according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not
actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the
ground by JSOC forces. "That piqued my curiosity and really worries
me because I don't know if you noticed but I was never told we are at
war with Uzbekistan," he said. "So, did I miss something, did
Rumsfeld come back into power?"

Pakistan's Military Contracting Maze

Blackwater, according to the military intelligence source, is not
doing the actual killing as part of its work in Pakistan. "The SELECT
personnel are not going into places with private aircraft and going
after targets," he said. "It's not like Blackwater SELECT people are
running around assassinating people." Instead, US Special Forces
teams carry out the plans developed in part by Blackwater. The
military intelligence source drew a distinction between the
Blackwater operatives who work for the State Department, which he
calls "Blackwater Vanilla," and the seasoned Special Forces veterans
who work on the JSOC program. "Good or bad, there's a small number of
people who know how to pull off an operation like that. That's
probably a good thing," said the source. "It's the Blackwater SELECT
people that have and continue to plan these types of operations
because they're the only people that know how and they went where the
money was. It's not trigger-happy fucks, like some of the PSD
[Personal Security Detail] guys. These are not people that believe
that Barack Obama is a socialist, these are not people that kill
innocent civilians. They're very good at what they do."

The former Blackwater executive, when asked for confirmation that
Blackwater forces were not actively killing people in Pakistan, said,
"that's not entirely accurate." While he concurred with the military
intelligence source's description of the JSOC and CIA programs, he
pointed to another role Blackwater is allegedly playing in Pakistan,
not for the US government but for Islamabad. According to the
executive, Blackwater works on a subcontract for Kestral Logistics, a
powerful Pakistani firm, which specializes in military logistical
support, private security and intelligence consulting. It is staffed
with former high-ranking Pakistani army and government officials.
While Kestral's main offices are in Pakistan, it also has branches in
several other countries.

A spokesperson for the US State Department's Directorate of Defense
Trade Controls (DDTC), which is responsible for issuing licenses to
US corporations to provide defense-related services to foreign
governments or entities, would neither confirm nor deny for The
Nation that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work
with Kestral. "We cannot help you," said department spokesperson
David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials.
"You'll have to contact the companies directly." Blackwater's Corallo
said the company has "no operations of any kind" in Pakistan other
than the one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to
inquiries from The Nation.

According to federal lobbying records, Kestral recently hired former
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger
Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, to lobby the US
government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on
foreign affairs issues "regarding [Kestral's] capabilities to carry
out activities of interest to the United States." Noriega was hired
through his firm, Vision Americas, which he runs with Christina
Rocca, a former CIA operations official who served as assistant
secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 2001 to 2006 and was
deeply involved in shaping US policy toward Pakistan. In October
2009, Kestral paid Vision Americas $15,000 and paid a Vision Americas-
affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., an equal amount to lobby on defense
and foreign policy issues.

For years, Kestral has done a robust business in defense logistics
with the Pakistani government and other nations, as well as top US
defense companies. Blackwater owner Erik Prince is close with Kestral
CEO Liaquat Ali Baig, according to the former Blackwater executive.
"Ali and Erik have a pretty close relationship," he said. "They've
met many times and struck a deal, and they [offer] mutual support for
one another." Working with Kestral, he said, Blackwater has provided
convoy security for Defense Department shipments destined for
Afghanistan that would arrive in the port at Karachi. Blackwater,
according to the former executive, would guard the supplies as they
were transported overland from Karachi to Peshawar and then west
through the Torkham border crossing, the most important supply route
for the US military in Afghanistan.

According to the former executive, Blackwater operatives also
integrate with Kestral's forces in sensitive counterterrorism
operations in the North-West Frontier Province, where they work in
conjunction with the Pakistani Interior Ministry's paramilitary
force, known as the Frontier Corps (alternately referred to as
"frontier scouts"). The Blackwater personnel are technically
advisers, but the former executive said that the line often gets
blurred in the field. Blackwater "is providing the actual guidance on
how to do [counterterrorism operations] and Kestral's folks are
carrying a lot of them out, but they're having the guidance and the
overwatch from some BW guys that will actually go out with the teams
when they're executing the job," he said. "You can see how that can
lead to other things in the border areas." He said that when
Blackwater personnel are out with the Pakistani teams, sometimes its
men engage in operations against suspected terrorists. "You've got BW
guys that are assisting... and they're all going to want to go on the
jobs--so they're going to go with them," he said. "So, the things
that you're seeing in the news about how this Pakistani military
group came in and raided this house or did this or did that--in some
of those cases, you're going to have Western folks that are right
there at the house, if not in the house." Blackwater, he said, is
paid by the Pakistani government through Kestral for consulting
services. "That gives the Pakistani government the cover to say,
'Hey, no, we don't have any Westerners doing this. It's all local and
our people are doing it.' But it gets them the expertise that
Westerners provide for [counterterrorism]-related work."

The military intelligence source confirmed Blackwater works with the
Frontier Corps, saying, "There's no real oversight. It's not really
on people's radar screen."

In October, in response to Pakistani news reports that a Kestral
warehouse in Islamabad was being used to store heavy weapons for
Blackwater, the US Embassy in Pakistan released a statement denying
the weapons were being used by "a private American security
contractor." The statement said, "Kestral Logistics is a private
logistics company that handles the importation of equipment and
supplies provided by the United States to the Government of Pakistan.
All of the equipment and supplies were imported at the request of the
Government of Pakistan, which also certified the shipments."

Who is Behind the Drone Attacks?

Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has
expanded drone bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone
strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23,
and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The
Obama administration has now surpassed the number of Bush-era strikes
in Pakistan and has faced fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US
lawmakers over civilian deaths. A drone attack in June killed as many
as sixty people attending a Taliban funeral.

In August, the New York Times reported that Blackwater works for the
CIA at "hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company's
contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-
guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft." In February, The
Times of London obtained a satellite image of a secret CIA airbase in
Shamsi, in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, showing
three drone aircraft. The New York Times also reported that the
agency uses a secret base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to strike in
Pakistan.

The military intelligence source says that the drone strike that
reportedly killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, his wife
and his bodyguards in Waziristan in August was a CIA strike, but that
many others attributed in media reports to the CIA are actually JSOC
strikes. "Some of these strikes are attributed to OGA [Other
Government Agency, intelligence parlance for the CIA], but in reality
it's JSOC and their parallel program of UAVs [unmanned aerial
vehicles] because they also have access to UAVs. So when you see some
of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties,
those are almost always JSOC strikes." The Pentagon has stated
bluntly, "There are no US military strike operations being conducted
in Pakistan."

The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater
continues to work for the CIA on its drone bombing program in
Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added
that Blackwater is working on JSOC's drone bombings as well. "It's
Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC," said the
source. When civilians are killed, "people go, 'Oh, it's the CIA
doing crazy shit again unchecked.' Well, at least 50 percent of the
time, that's JSOC [hitting] somebody they've identified through
HUMINT [human intelligence] or they've culled the intelligence
themselves or it's been shared with them and they take that person
out and that's how it works."

The military intelligence source says that the CIA operations are
subject to Congressional oversight, unlike the parallel JSOC
bombings. "Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town
right now and the CIA knows that," he says. "Contractors and
especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not
[overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one
person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the
building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality."
He added, "They're not accountable to anybody and they know that.
It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?"

In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes,
Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the
sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps and
Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan, according to the
military intelligence source.

Mosharraf Zaidi, a well-known Pakistani journalist who has served as
a consultant for the UN and European Union in Pakistan and
Afghanistan, says that the Blackwater/JSOC program raises serious
questions about the norms of international relations. "The immediate
question is, How do you define the active pursuit of military
objectives in a country with which not only have you not declared war
but that is supposedly a front-line non-NATO ally in the US struggle
to contain extremist violence coming out of Afghanistan and the
border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan?" asks Zaidi, who is
currently a columnist for The News, the biggest English-language
daily in Pakistan. "Let's forget Blackwater for a second. What this
is confirming is that there are US military operations in Pakistan
that aren't about logistics or getting food to Bagram; that are
actually about the exercise of physical violence, physical force
inside of Pakistani territory."

JSOC: Rumsfeld and Cheney's Extra Special Force

Colonel Wilkerson said that he is concerned that with General
McChrystal's elevation as the military commander of the Afghan war--
which is increasingly seeping into Pakistan--there is a concomitant
rise in JSOC's power and influence within the military structure. "I
don't see how you can escape that; it's just a matter of the way the
authority flows and the power flows, and it's inevitable, I think,"
Wilkerson told The Nation. He added, "I'm alarmed when I see execute
orders and combat orders that go out saying that the supporting force
is Central Command and the supported force is Special Operations
Command," under which JSOC operates. "That's backward. But that's
essentially what we have today."

  From 2003 to 2008 McChrystal headed JSOC, which is headquartered at
Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where
Blackwater's 7,000-acre operating base is also situated. JSOC
controls the Army's Delta Force, the Navy's SEAL Team 6, as well as
the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation
Regiment, and the Air Force's 24th Special Tactics Squadron. JSOC
performs strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas and
special intelligence missions. Blackwater, which was founded by
former Navy SEALs, employs scores of veteran Special Forces
operators--which several former military officials pointed to as the
basis for Blackwater's alleged contracts with JSOC.

Since 9/11, many top-level Special Forces veterans have taken up
employment with private firms, where they can make more money doing
the highly specialized work they did in uniform. "The Blackwater
individuals have the experience. A lot of these individuals are
retired military, and they've been around twenty to thirty years and
have experience that the younger Green Beret guys don't," said
retired Army Lieut. Col. Jeffrey Addicott, a well-connected military
lawyer who served as senior legal counsel for US Army Special Forces.
"They're known entities. Everybody knows who they are, what their
capabilities are, and they've got the experience. They're very
valuable."

"They make much more money being the smarts of these operations,
planning hits in various countries and basing it off their experience
in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia," said the military
intelligence source. "They were there for all of these things, they
know what the hell they're talking about. And JSOC has unfortunately
lost the institutional capability to plan within, so they hire back
people that used to work for them and had already planned and
executed these [types of] operations. They hired back people that
jumped over to Blackwater SELECT and then pay them exorbitant amounts
of money to plan future operations. It's a ridiculous revolving door."

While JSOC has long played a central role in US counterterrorism and
covert operations, military and civilian officials who worked at the
Defense and State Departments during the Bush administration
described in interviews with The Nation an extremely cozy
relationship that developed between the executive branch (primarily
through Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld) and JSOC. During the Bush era, Special Forces turned into a
virtual stand-alone operation that acted outside the military chain
of command and in direct coordination with the White House.
Throughout the Bush years, it was largely General McChrystal who ran
JSOC. "What I was seeing was the development of what I would later
see in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Special Operations forces would
operate in both theaters without the conventional commander even
knowing what they were doing," said Colonel Wilkerson. "That's
dangerous, that's very dangerous. You have all kinds of mess when you
don't tell the theater commander what you're doing."

Wilkerson said that almost immediately after assuming his role at the
State Department under Colin Powell, he saw JSOC being politicized
and developing a close relationship with the executive branch. He saw
this begin, he said, after his first Delta Force briefing at Fort
Bragg. "I think Cheney and Rumsfeld went directly into JSOC. I think
they went into JSOC at times, perhaps most frequently, without the
SOCOM [Special Operations] commander at the time even knowing it. The
receptivity in JSOC was quite good," says Wilkerson. "I think Cheney
was actually giving McChrystal instructions, and McChrystal was
asking him for instructions." He said the relationship between JSOC
and Cheney and Rumsfeld "built up initially because Rumsfeld didn't
get the responsiveness. He didn't get the can-do kind of attitude out
of the SOCOM commander, and so as Rumsfeld was wont to do, he cut him
out and went straight to the horse's mouth. At that point you had
JSOC operating as an extension of the [administration] doing things
the executive branch--read: Cheney and Rumsfeld--wanted it to do.
This would be more or less carte blanche. You need to do it, do it.
It was very alarming for me as a conventional soldier."

Wilkerson said the JSOC teams caused diplomatic problems for the
United States across the globe. "When these teams started hitting
capital cities and other places all around the world, [Rumsfeld]
didn't tell the State Department either. The only way we found out
about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, 'Who the hell
are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking
around our capital cities?' So we discovered this, we discovered one
in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi
driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered
him--we rendered him home."

As part of their strategy, Rumsfeld and Cheney also created the
Strategic Support Branch (SSB), which pulled intelligence resources
from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA for use in sensitive
JSOC operations. The SSB was created using "reprogrammed" funds
"without explicit congressional authority or appropriation,"
according to the Washington Post. The SSB operated outside the
military chain of command and circumvented the CIA's authority on
clandestine operations. Rumsfeld created it as part of his war to end
"near total dependence on CIA." Under US law, the Defense Department
is required to report all deployment orders to Congress. But
guidelines issued in January 2005 by former Under Secretary of
Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone stated that Special
Operations forces may "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations...before
publication" of a deployment order. This effectively gave Rumsfeld
unilateral control over clandestine operations.

The military intelligence source said that when Rumsfeld was defense
secretary, JSOC was deployed to commit some of the "darkest acts" in
part to keep them concealed from Congress. "Everything can be
justified as a military operation versus a clandestine intelligence
performed by the CIA, which has to be informed to Congress," said the
source. "They were aware of that and they knew that, and they would
exploit it at every turn and they took full advantage of it. They
knew they could act extra-legally and nothing would happen because A,
it was sanctioned by DoD at the highest levels, and B, who was going
to stop them? They were preparing the battlefield, which was on all
of the PowerPoints: 'Preparing the Battlefield.'"

The significance of the flexibility of JSOC's operations inside
Pakistan versus the CIA's is best summed up by Senator Dianne
Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
"Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be
briefed to the Congress," she said. "If they are not, that is a
violation of the law."

Blackwater: Company Non Grata in Pakistan

For months, the Pakistani media has been flooded with stories about
Blackwater's alleged growing presence in the country. For the most
part, these stories have been ignored by the US press and denounced
as lies or propaganda by US officials in Pakistan. But the reality is
that, although many of the stories appear to be wildly exaggerated,
Pakistanis have good reason to be concerned about Blackwater's
operations in their country. It is no secret in Washington or
Islamabad that Blackwater has been a central part of the wars in
Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the company has been involved--
almost from the beginning of the "war on terror"--with clandestine US
operations. Indeed, Blackwater is accepting applications for
contractors fluent in Urdu and Punjabi. The US Ambassador to
Pakistan, Anne Patterson, has denied Blackwater's presence in the
country, stating bluntly in September, "Blackwater is not operating
in Pakistan." In her trip to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton dodged questions from the Pakistani press about
Blackwater's rumored Pakistani operations. Pakistan's interior
minister, Rehman Malik, said on November 21 he will resign if
Blackwater is found operating anywhere in Pakistan.

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that Blackwater
"provides security for a US-backed aid project" in Peshawar,
suggesting the company may be based out of the Pearl Continental, a
luxury hotel the United States reportedly is considering purchasing
to use as a consulate in the city. "We have no contracts in
Pakistan," Blackwater spokesperson Stacey DeLuke said recently.
"We've been blamed for all that has gone wrong in Peshawar, none of
which is true, since we have absolutely no presence there."

Reports of Blackwater's alleged presence in Karachi and elsewhere in
the country have been floating around the Pakistani press for months.
Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who rose to fame after
his 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden, claimed in a recent
interview that Blackwater is in Karachi. "The US [intelligence]
agencies think that a number of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are
hiding in Karachi and Peshawar," he said. "That is why [Blackwater]
agents are operating in these two cities." Ambassador Patterson has
said that the claims of Mir and other Pakistani journalists are
"wildly incorrect," saying they had compromised the security of US
personnel in Pakistan. On November 20 the Washington Times, citing
three current and former US intelligence officials, reported that
Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has "found
refuge from potential U.S. attacks" in Karachi "with the assistance
of Pakistan's intelligence service."

In September, the Pakistani press covered a report on Blackwater
allegedly submitted by Pakistan's intelligence agencies to the
federal interior ministry. In the report, the intelligence agencies
reportedly allege that Blackwater was provided houses by a federal
minister who is also helping them clear shipments of weapons and
vehicles through Karachi's Port Qasim on the coast of the Arabian
Sea. The military intelligence source did not confirm this but did
say, "The port jives because they have a lot of [former] SEALs and
they would revert to what they know: the ocean, instead of flying
stuff in."

The Nation cannot independently confirm these allegations and has not
seen the Pakistani intelligence report. But according to Pakistani
press coverage, the intelligence report also said Blackwater has
acquired "bungalows" in the Defense Housing Authority in the city.
According to the DHA website, it is a large residential estate
originally established "for the welfare of the serving and retired
officers of the Armed Forces of Pakistan." Its motto is: "Home for
Defenders." The report alleges Blackwater is receiving help from
local government officials in Karachi and is using vehicles with
license plates traditionally assigned to members of the national and
provincial assemblies, meaning local law enforcement will not stop them.

The use of private companies like Blackwater for sensitive operations
such as drone strikes or other covert work undoubtedly comes with the
benefit of plausible deniability that places an additional barrier in
an already deeply flawed system of accountability. When things go
wrong, it's the contractors' fault, not the government's. But the
widespread use of contractors also raises serious legal questions,
particularly when they are a part of lethal, covert actions. "We are
using contractors for things that in the past might have been
considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention," said Lt. Col.
Addicott, who now runs the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's
University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. "In my opinion, we
have pressed the envelope to the breaking limit, and it's almost a
fiction that these guys are not in offensive military operations."
Addicott added, "If we were subjected to the International Criminal
Court, some of these guys could easily be picked up, charged with war
crimes and put on trial. That's one of the reasons we're not members
of the International Criminal Court."

If there is one quality that has defined Blackwater over the past
decade, it is the ability to survive against the odds while
simultaneously reinventing and rebranding itself. That is most
evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the
US military, the CIA and the State Department despite intense
criticism and almost weekly scandals. Blackwater's alleged Pakistan
operations, said the military intelligence source, are indicative of
its new frontier. "Having learned its lessons after the private
security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its
operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger
and anticipating other places we're going to go as a nation that are
dangerous," he said. "It's as simple as that."

_____


[4] Reflections on First anniversary of November 2008 Terror Attacks
in Bombay:

The Hindu, 26 November 2009

FROM KARACHI, WITH LOVE

by Rafia Zakaria

Last year’s catastrophic attack in Mumbai broke the heart of many
children raised by its ghosts in Karachi.

The Karachi I grew up in was haunted by memories of Mumbai. My
father, grandparents and aunts had all left Mumbai in the decades
after Partition, chasing jobs and the promises sold to the Muslims of
the subcontinent. At every dinner table conversation, every afternoon
tea reminiscence, and every late night stroll, we were accompanied by
the omnipresent ghost of Mumbai. Against the mythic Mumbai of their
memories, Karachi always fell short: the fish was fresher in Mumbai,
my father sighed, and the nights were cooler, my grandmother complained.

The imagined Mumbai that punctuated my Karachi childhood was an idyll
of fresh food, better infrastructure, kinder people and those
glorious Bollywood movies that lit up our screens courtesy of
borrowed VCRs. Impressionistic remembrances muted all dissonance. The
imagined Mumbai my father brought with him had been delivered of the
daily annoyances that everyday life in the city would undoubtedly
have had.

The Karachi of my childhood thus existed very much in relation to and
in conversation with a Mumbai whose reality for me was only defined
by other people’s recollections. Saddened by the discontent of the
transplanted grown-ups, I wanted to exorcise the ghost that seemed to
be the ever present lament of my father that inevitably distanced him
from loving Karachi, the only city I knew and loved. How could he
love me and not love Karachi, I wondered? My twin brother and I,
united in our devotion to Karachi would mount vehement arguments in
its favour. Our childish reasons for loving Karachi were constructed
both from our childlike love for the only home we knew and the
propaganda about India that we were regularly fed at school.

Karachi may have fallen short against the idealisations of my
father’s memory, but it offered much to the children. My brother and
I both went to Zoroastrian schools that had helped form pluralistic
core of the city more than a hundred years before Pakistan had ever
been in existence. I grew up in classrooms where religious pluralism
was not an abstract concept but an everyday reality. Close
friendships between the Muslim, Hindu, Parsi and Christian children
who shared classrooms were so commonplace that writing about them as
exercises in diversity seems somewhat odd. We went to separate rooms
to pray in the morning and during religious classes, but our shared
personal dramas and competitive hysteria over tests defined us as
similar in a way that could not be divested by our religious
differences. Karachi’s locale, and its conglomeration of migrants
from all over India and Pakistan, offered a cornucopia of culture and
cuisine. Chapli kebabs in Shah Faisal Colony, Dahi baras in Hyderabad
Colony and delicious dossas near the Agha Khan Jamatkhana became the
varied flavours of our childhood.

The foundation of tolerance that was such a part of our lives was
valued because it was often tested. In the early nineties, Karachi
was torn and bleeding from ethnic violence between migrants from
India and indigenous Sindhis over control of the city. Karachi was
rocked with shootings that often killed hundreds in the span of a
week. Curfews would be imposed in various parts of the city and
schools like ours in the centre of the city would often be closed.
The first bomb blast I remember as a child was one that hit Bohri
Bazar, a market in the heart of the city in the late eighties. It had
hit a store called Liberty Uniforms, where we had purchased our first
school uniforms a few weeks earlier. The charred, inside stairway,
suddenly exposed because of the blown up store front, was an image
that would soon define the city. As the first democratic governments
of our lifetimes sputtered in the face of ethnic identities, violence
and Karachi became a compound word. That ubiquitous question, “what
are you”, became a part of Karachi children’s vocabulary. It
defined our allegiances, our origin and for some others who saw our
transplanted parents as suspect, also our loyalties. This period of
violence defined Karachi’s break from Mumbai: the calcification of
ethnic identities, the hatred toward the transplanted “other”
entrenched violence into Karachi’s political landscape just as
surely as the Arabian Sea defined its geographical one.

As I write this today, the irony of my childhood consternation at my
father’s memories of Mumbai does not escape me. I make my home far
from Karachi, in the United States but am haunted by its pain as I
watch my native country all but unravel in the face of insurgent
terror. It is a curious exercise for Karachiites when they have to
digest the news of bomb blasts in other Pakistani cities. Reactions
are complex. Some scoff at the fear of our fellow Pakistanis while
we, oddly proud of having already borne nearly every sort of terror,
can make a spectacle of our resilience. Others, point optimistically
to our having learned by necessity the lessons of security decades
before the rest of the country, where ethnic contiguity inured then
from the ravages that plagued Karachi. The latter point to the fact
that going through metal detectors and having our cars searched are
all old hat to Karachi, a city that has never been able to take peace
for granted.
Changing climes

But the tough-guy badness that makes Karachiites wear their war
ravaged history as a badge of resilience cannot hide the weight that
the current conflict is having on the emotional and spatial psyche of
the city. Women’s bodies, always a mirror of the politico-religious
landscapes of a city have again become testaments of these changing
climes. In years past, women in burqas existed side by side with
women in brightly coloured shalwar kamiz but the latter are now
harassed by the former. My mother, who has worn shalwar kamiz without
covering her hair her whole life, was lectured by another woman at a
park about how she ought wear a hijab. A cousin was spat upon at a
traffic light because she has short hair. Another friend was
threatened with an acid attack for wearing capris in a crowded
market. The onslaught has begun here; in a place where diversity of
religious practice, if not ethnic diversity, was heretofore taken for
granted. Women swathed in black are everywhere; and while it is
difficult to tell whether their new garb is the product of
intimidation or choice it is tangible presence pointing to the
constriction of psychological and cultural vibrancy which was such a
trademark of Karachi.

Mumbai’s ghost remains ever-present in this new Karachi; whether it
is the sweet shops that sell delicacies from there, or the Bollywood
blockbuster screened at one of the new cinemas or the many boutiques
that promise clothes straight from Bombay. Last year’s catastrophic
attack in Mumbai broke the heart of many children raised by its
ghosts in Karachi; children who have envisioned Mumbai as a
realisation of all they hope for in their own city. Perhaps also it
made those who live in Mumbai also realise how the ravages of terror
have harangued its estranged twin where a second generation is now
growing up with terror and insecurity as a historical constant. There
is much that Karachi and Mumbai have in common, megacities peopled by
those fuelled as much by dreams and ambition and food and water; they
both tread the tightrope between the harshness of survivalism and the
tempering kindness of strangers in crowds. Yet as their political
narratives fall farther apart and the generation that kept the ghost
of Karachi alive fades into the past, their estrangement threatens to
become a permanent break. It is this possibility; so proximately
real, that represents the most terrible tragedy to befall both
Karachi and Mumbai.

(Rafia Zakaria is a Director of Amensty International, U.S.A.)


o o o

The Guardian, 26 November 2009

MUMBAI ATTACKS REMAIN UNPOLITICISED

A year on it's still unclear what motivated the attacks, but unlike
the US after 9/11, India has not sought political capital

by Faisal Devji

One year after the Mumbai attacks, journalists, diplomats and
security experts have set in place a narrative of Indian incompetence
and apathy. We are told that attempts to hold Pakistan responsible
for the murderous events, or bring those of its citizens implicated
in them to justice, have all been infinitely delayed if not entirely
stymied not least because of Pakistan's importance in the Afghan war.
As if this were not bad enough, these pundits complain that not
enough has been done to improve security in cities such as Mumbai,
and even worse, that the Indian public has itself become apathetic
about the issue.

However true or false this narrative, more interesting is the
question of why the attacks seem to have had no political
consequences in India, despite the efforts made by certain opposition
parties to drum up American-style hysteria about the government's
failure in guaranteeing the nation's security. Both in the provincial
elections that were occurring while two of Mumbai's greatest hotels
were under siege, and in the federal elections held shortly
afterwards, terrorism proved to be of little concern for voters,
including the middle and upper classes whose favourite haunts had
been targeted in Mumbai, and who are otherwise so vocal about
security matters.

Instead of attributing this lack of interest to an epidemic of apathy
that has infected India's government and people alike, we should
recognise the truth of an argument made by Ashis Nandy, one of the
country's most eminent intellectuals, a number of years ago, to the
effect that terrorism has rarely been a political issue for Indians.

While they have suffered from its effects so often the citizens of
this great democracy appear to have realised that terrorist strikes
such as those in Mumbai last year were not political acts of any
serious kind, but a set of provocations and murderous gambles whose
aims remain unclear even in the account of the surviving gunman now
in custody. For even as Ajmal Kasab offered his captors a stereotyped
tale of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e Taiba's arrangements to strike
at its old enemy for the umpteenth time, he also revealed that he had
joined the outfit a short time before only so that he might have
access to arms in order to embark upon a career of robbery in his own
country.

Whether it was intended as a provocation to India, a message to the
US, or simply a self-serving global spectacle, the attack on Mumbai
accomplished many things, none of them, however, being political in
the sense of supporting a particular interest or pushing an agenda in
any meaningful way. And it is because no such aim is clearly
identifiable that the event remains the subject of speculation and
rumour.

In refusing to politicise the attacks, then, Indians have displayed a
maturity that contrasts with America's response not only to the
devastating strike that was 9/11, but to far lesser threats as well.
For 9/11, too, was not a political act in any international sense,
given the insignificant abilities and resources of its perpetrators,
but instead was politicised only by the US reaction that followed it.
Is this contrast due to the fact that as an emerging power, India
uses such attacks to bolster its military role in the region, while
as a gradually declining one the US scrambles to take advantage of
such incidents so as to renew its global dominance, if only by
engaging in high-risk gambles?

Whatever the case, both India's enmity with Pakistan in the
international arena, and the mutual enmity of Hindus and Muslims in
the domestic one, are based on a politics of intimacy in which each
is seen as being all too familiar with the other. Because of its very
closeness, such a relationship can result in the kind of violence
born from the feeling of a fraternity betrayed, as much as it can
lead to the amity of a brotherhood restored. And if Indian society
tolerates the violence of those seen as enemies, it does so in the
same proportion as it tolerates violence against them, recognising in
this way that justice might exist on both sides. This tolerance
suggests that violence is not always viewed as political, and can
even be ignored when no clear interest or agenda is involved. The
aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, I believe, tell us that it is
possible to set limits to what counts as politics, and in doing so to
deal with terrorism in a less paranoid and more productive way than
is seen in the west today.

o o o

Posting on http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/category/mumbai-1126/

Veena Das, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology, Professor of
Humanities, Johns Hopkins University

It would be a fatal error to cast the Mumbai attacks last year in the
same model as the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in
New York. The New York events led to a sea of change in the way U.S.
security policy came to be formulated and how the USA saw its
relation to the world. To India’s credit it did institute a normal
legal trial of the one surviving man from the group of attackers,
despite the demands from many Hindu right-wing groups that there was
no need for a regular court trial, since the evidence of terror was
there for all to see. An analysis of the slow shifts that are
occurring in the legal realm and the relation they bear to the many
non-legal practices utilized in dealing with terrorism, especially
police encounters and the use of torture, need to be understood as
part of the problem of reforming and making government accountable.
But this is unrelated to the Mumbai attacks. There is no magical
solution to this task and one can only be grateful for the work of
various human rights groups, and especially lawyers, who ensured that
even in the reinstated POTA, confessions obtained in police custody
are not usable as evidence.

The second error that is implicit in the questions posed is the
notion that one can establish some kind of link between the
discrimination against Muslims as a minority that is embedded in
everyday operations of governmental institutions and of civic life
more generally, rather than enshrined in any legal rules, and the
attraction toward terrorist violence. The facts of discrimination
against Muslims, as well as against other categories of minorities,
including women and sexual minorities, are real and the state must be
constantly held accountable for them, regardless of terrorist acts or
not. The threats of terrorism have to be thought of in geopolitical
and transnational terms. I agree with Faisal Devji completely that
terrorism is not linked anymore to any political goals—nor is it
easy to understand what attraction acts such as suicide bombing hold
for young men, and sometimes women, despite a plethora of
explanations that are almost like the El Dorado of theory. One fact
is perhaps clearer to many politicians and senior administrators in
India now, and that is that an unstable Pakistan might become much
more difficult for India to live with than a strong and vibrant
Pakistan. For one thing, if Taliban-type rules become established in
Pakistan there will be huge migration to India that would not be easy
to contain. Already, in the bombing of girls’ schools in Swat by the
Taliban, it was clear that there are all these new desires for
education and for certain forms of modernity that cannot be
suppressed forever.

o o o

Posting on http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/category/mumbai-1126/

Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Culture and Communication,
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

The global war on terror has led to a realignment of the political
landscape in countries like India. Domestic politics in India has, at
least since the 1980s, been defined on a spectrum from secular to
Hindu nationalist. “Secular” corresponded to “liberal” or
“left” and “Hindu nationalist,” to “conservative”
politics—to describe it in the more familiar terms understood
elsewhere.

Secularism was cosmopolitan in the developmental context. It stood
for the claim to rise above caste and sect, region and religion, to
an inclusive sense of national identity. Hindu nationalists by
contrast argued that only under a Hindu rubric could the nation be
both Indian and free. Hindu nationalists have been perceived as
parochial and retrograde, and for various reasons they have also been
losing at the polls. But by a strange twist of circumstances, the war
on terror is being run on their terms. Meanwhile secularists have
come to be perceived as a security risk, and it is they who seem to
cling to obsolete superstitions and pieties. But in fact
“security” is as much a mantra as a determinable fact, and the
spell it has cast on its adherents is a strong one indeed.

Now, the prevailing etiology of terrorism imputes to it a force akin
to religious conversion, with acts of violence providing
“inspiration and instruction” for other “extremists,”
according to a 2009 Rand Corporation study on the “lessons of
Mumbai.”

This is not only true for “Islamic terrorism” however. For those
who subscribe to the tenets of the war on terror, a conversion
experience also seems to obtain. Seen from this perspective it is
easier to understand how the suspicion of terrorism becomes the light
guiding the behavior of police, judiciary, and media, while any
evidence contradicting the belief in terrorism is rendered doubtful.
Once the accusation has been made, the failure to discover any
conclusive proof that a given person is a terrorist is to be regarded
as temporary, and seldom disturbs the premise. Terrorism is
understood to be an overarching reality that trumps mere data, or to
comprise a threat so great that only potential danger is relevant,
while other information must be regarded as uncertain and subject to
confirmation. Terrorism is akin to a deep truth against which counter-
factual data is incidental, that is, superficial truth belonging to
the merely sensory realm, lay evidence subject to reinterpretation by
experts.

Such a conversion experience has material grounds. The politically
dominant form of cosmopolitanism today demands alignment with the
U.S. in the war on terror. For example, with President Obama’s
recent statement that the U.S.-India relationship will be one of the
21st century’s defining partnerships, together with the announcement
of a U.S.-India agreement on counter-terrorism and several other
issues, the pressure to assess domestic issues within India from a
U.S.-centric perspective receives an enormous boost.

A new sense of directional historical time in the chronology of
violence is part of this conversion experience. Ignoring the lengthy
history of similar violence in Mumbai alone, e.g., in March 1993
(where 257 were killed) and July 2006 (where 209 were killed), to
declare the November attacks (where 172 were killed) as “India’s
9/11” is to acknowledge, as the Rand Corporation study does, that
not the death toll alone, but the attention it accrued was crucial.
Stretched out over three days, the attacks proceeded not through bomb
blasts, which would have been more efficient if murder alone were the
objective. Instead they unfolded through a cinematic series of
strikes using small arms, targeting photogenic public sites. Renaming
the Mumbai 2008 episode as “India’s 9/11” translates it to the
realm of tele-globalization, where worldwide audiences track events
in real time, and commune without any sense of developmental lag.

Considerations of global security are now therefore fulfilling an old
dream of Hindu nationalists. The latter had always argued that
Muslims were latently or patently anti-national, and that restricting
their rights was not only patriotic, but also prudent. Today the
media, the police and the judiciary are tacitly observing the Code
Napoleon: terrorists are assumed guilty until proven innocent, and
accusations of guilt by private as well as public agencies are quick
to accrue force. The immense technological apparatuses of the media,
designed to accumulate and sift facts in the public interest, have
become akin to an enchanter’s wand, one that has only to point to
make its wish-image appear.

Meanwhile secularism is a creed that dare not speak its name, except
very softly, and many of its erstwhile advocates believe the war on
terror preempts their older concerns. Security is now the watchword,
impelled by the most rational and ecumenical motives, we are told.
But if we observe the systematic racial and ethnic profiling, as well
as the violence occurring in its name, we are justified in asking—
can security be secular? Can the considerations governing global
security themselves be submitted to rational and critical assessment,
not only of its methods, but as well of its serial outcomes?


_____


[5] India: Liberhan Commission of Enquiry Report and After -
Resources For Secular Democrats

(i)

The Daily Star, 27 November 2009

POLITICS OF BABRI MASJID

by Kuldip Nayar

LET the temple come up." This was the remark by Atal Behari Vajpayee
when I asked for his reaction to the destruction of the Babri Masjid
one day after the incident. I was surprised by his comment because I
considered him a liberal force in the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).

Yet, I did not attach much importance to his remark. Now that the one-
man commission on the demolition, headed by Justice Manmohan Singh
Liberhan, has named Vajpayee as one of the collaborators in the
pulling down of the mosque, his remark falls into the slot. How could
he have reacted differently when he was a party to the "meticulously
planned" scheme to demolish the mosque?

That L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, the other two BJP leaders,
were co-conspirators was known on December 6, 1992, itself. The
surprising name for me is that of Vajpayee. I would have been
indulgent towards him if I had not seen a clip of his speech. A
television network showed it on the day a Delhi paper had published
the leaked report. Vajpayee said on December 5, one day before the
demolition of the masjid, at Lucknow that the ground would be
"leveled" and a yangya (religious celebration) held at that place.

The commission has said that the destruction of the masjid was
"preventable." Advani could have done it. But all of them, "pseudo-
moderates" as the commission has described them, knew about what was
happening and were "not innocent of wrongdoing."

The indictment has exposed our polity because all the three came to
occupy top positions in the country. Vajpayee became the prime
minister, Advani the home minister and Joshi, the human resources
development minister. If all the three were collaborators in the
demolition of the Babri Masjid, they were dishonest in taking the
oath of office which demanded that the oath taker would work for the
country's unity and uphold the constitution, which mentions
secularism in the preamble. The Liberhan Commission has said that
they were among the 68 who were "culpable" in taking the country to
the brink of "communal discord."

Not only that. The three leaders acted against the Supreme Court's
order "not to disturb the status quo." In other words, they made a
mockery of the country's judiciary and the constitution to which they
swore before assuming power. And they ruled for six years without a
tug of conscience.

The question is not only legal but also moral and political. How can
the planned demolition be squared up with the holding of office by
Vajpayee, Advani and Joshi? This is a matter that the nation must
debate to find an answer, at least for the future. Those who have no
clean hands should not be allowed to defile the temple of Parliament.
And if they do so, what should be the punishment when facts come to
light? True, the BJP came to power through the Lok Sabha election.
Would the party have won so many seats if the commission had
submitted its report before 1999, when the BJP led the coalition?

It is unthinkable that the commission should say that the centre
could not have interfered in the affairs of Uttar Pradesh until the
state governor had asked it to do so. This is an alibi. My experience
is that the governor adjusts his power to suit the convenience of
whichever party is at the helm of affairs in New Delhi. The governor
was bound to report according to the wishes of Prime Minister P.V.
Narasimha Rao, whom he personally knew because both belonged to
Andhra Pradesh.

Even otherwise, the centre has an overall responsibility to protect
the constitution. Rao could have easily acted before the demolition
took place. The proclamation to impose president's rule was ready a
fortnight earlier. It was awaiting the cabinet approval. The prime
minister did not convene the meeting. This means his connivance,
although in his book Rao mentions the pressure of his party men that
did not allow him to react in time. When the demolition began, there
were frantic calls to the Prime Minister's Office. He was said to be
at puja (prayer) and continued to be at it till the demolition was
over. What should one make out of this?

Even if the Congress were to deny the allegation against Rao, the
party should explain how a small temple was built overnight at the
site where the Babri Masjid stood a few hours earlier. The centre was
then in full control because UP had been put under president's rule
after dismissal of the state government. In any case, the Babri
Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute had transcended the state borders and
the centre was following the developments every day. The commission's
silence on Rao's behaviour is meant to cover up his complicity and
that of the Congress party.

One thing that Justice Liberhan has not explained in his 900-page
report is the span of 17 years between his appointment and the
submission of his findings. Though he has blamed it on the
commission's counsel for the delay, it is still difficult to
understand that the probe should have taken such a long time. A sum
of Rs.8 crore was spent on the commission and people have commented
that he was prolonging his job.

I expected the government's Action Taken Report to be precise and
meaningful. But it is too general and too vague. And it is shocking
that the government should say that there wouldn't be punitive action
against anybody. Some of the guilty are saying openly that they are
not repentant over what they have done. It would be tragic if those
who demolished the mosque went scot-free. They are also responsible
for the killing of 2000 people in the wake of the masjid's destruction.

The danger of communal discord confronts the nation in one form or
another. The Liberhan Commission has rightly underlined it: the basic
difference between those who want a pluralistic society and those who
are obsessed with Hindutva. The ideology of the BJP, or more so of
its mentor, the RSS, is clear. But those who are playing politics
over the demolition are doing the greatest disservice to the country.

The report parked at the home ministry a few months ago was waiting
to be scooped. It is the prerogative of journalists to do so. Why
should political parties make its publication an issue instead of
discussing how to punish those who conspired to pull down the mosque?
Significantly, all secular parties came to the rescue of the BJP when
the question of the report's leakage was raised. It was sought to be
made a privilege issue. This is one way to evade the real problem.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.

o o o

(ii) Anhad Statement on the Liberhan Commission Report - 25 November
2009
http://www.anhadin.net/article93.html

(iii) CPI(M) Statement on Liberhan Commission Report - 25 November 2009
http://bit.ly/4ZpdlO

(iv) THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
by Antara Dev Sen
http://www.sacw.net/article1251.html

(v) GUILTY MEN OF BABRI OUTRAGE
Will perpetrators of heinous crime be punished
Editorial: kashmirtimes.com
http://www.sacw.net/article1254.html

_____


[8]  Announcements:

(i)  Subject: Sufi Music Concert on 6th Dec by Mukthiyaar Ali

Souharda Raaga

A Sufi music evening with Mukhtiar Ali

Sufi and Folk singer from Rajasthan

6.00pm onwards, 6th December 2009

St Joseph's Commerce College Auditorium
Brigade Road, Bangalore


Background

The demolition of the Babri Masjid by Hindu fundamentalists on
December 6, 1992 at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh exposed India’s ugly
communal, caste and majority politics. Dec 6th is remembered as a
black day as the destruction of the Babri Masjid was a symbolic
assault on the secular fabric of our society and failure of Indian
State's machinery to protect the minorities.
What followed babri demolition was a series of outburst of communal
violence throughout India particularly in Bombay, Ahmedabad, Surath
and many parts of the country. The South India which was relatively
free of communalism and communal violence began to experience
outburst of communal violence too.
In Karnataka communal tensions centred around the issues of Bababudan
giri, a sufi shrine in Chikkamangalur, flag hoisting issue in Hubli,
attacks on churches, attacks on minority communities and women in
Mangalore and the recent Mysore communal riots are result of rightist
forces' communal agenda.
In Karnataka attacks by rightist forces targeting Christians and
Muslims has raised to alarming levels in past one decade. We have
also seen that socio-cultural and educational spaces gradually come
under communal ideology.
Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike has been one of the prominent voices
against communalization of Karnataka. Vedike has just not been a
space for protest against communal forces but also a space to
celebrate values of secularism, love and harmony. We are organizing
this program to reiterate our commitment to our values of creating a
harmonious society.

What is happening on Dec 6th 2009?
On this December 6th Vedike is organizing Souharda Raaga, a sufi
music evening by Mukhthiyar Ali, Sufi, folk singer from Bikaner,
Rajasthan. His music is a blend of mysticism, classicism and folk
idioms singing Kabir, Mira, Rumi, Bulleh Shah and many other Sufi poets.
Celebrating values of love and harmony we feel is the best way to
protest politics of hatred and violence that rightist forces believes
in.

Join us for this program
This is a request to all of you to contribute to this event. Vedike
is a coalition of more than 150 organisations, intellectuals,
writers, artists etc and entirely a non funded group, it requests you
to financially contribute to make this event successful

Please send your contributions to:
Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike
51, 29th cross, 9th main, Banashankari II Stage Bangalore -70.
Cheques/DD’s can be sent in the name of SOUHARDA RAAGA
Contact: Uvaraj on 9448371389 OR Deepu on 9448367627for details or
write to us on:  souharda.vedike(at)gmail.com



o o o

(ii) 12th International Conference on Sri Lanka Studies

A 12th ICSSL will be held in Sri Lanka at a time decisive to the
country. The country marked the end of the war that disturbed the
lives of people for more than 35 years. Scholars have gathered
knowledge of the processes that lead to  continuation and ending of
the war. Use of this knowledge in planning the future prosperity of
the country is imperative. 12th ICSLS, following its long held
tradition of openness will provide a scholarly  forum  to debate and
to faciliate emergence of new knowledge useful in shaping the country
in the future. The conference will be held from 18th to 20th March
2010.  Theme for the 12th ICSLS will be “ Sri Lanka after the War:
Prevention of recurrence, reaching for prosperity “.

The conference will also provide a forum to present and discuss in a
scholarly environment,  studies conducted and thoughts to guide the
future directions of research in topics other than the theme on the
past, and contemporary society in Sri Lanka  as well as the Sri Lanka
in a global context.

Scholars are invited to contribute by submitting papers.  Individual
papers are invited from a wide variety of fields such as;
anthropology, archeology, architecture, culture and society, defense
studies, demography, development studies, diasporic studies, distance
learning; economics, education, ethnic studies, environmental
studies, fine arts, gender studies, geography, history, information
science, languages and literature studies, library and information
studies; management studies, media studies, philosophy, political
science, post-tsunami studies, psychology, religious studies, risk
studies, science and technology policy; and sociology.

For inquiries, Please contact:

Secretary to the National Organizing Committee
12th ICSLS
Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka
Mahaweli Center,
Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha,
Colombo 07 - 00700
Sri Lanka.
Telephone: +94-077-725-7020
Fax: +94 (011)-269-8249
http://www.slageconr.net/12thicslshome.html
E-mail: 12thicsls@...


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 24-25, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2669 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1] Sri Lanka: The War's Winners Fall Out (The Economist)
[2]  A bridge to build between India and Pakistan (Ahmed Rashid)
[3]  Lessons and challenges for Pakistan (Hassan Abbas)
       + Pakistan conspiracy theories stifle debate (Ahmed Rashid)
[4] Watchdog for women's rights : An Interview with Sunila Abeysekera
(Rajashri Dasgupta)
[5] India - Human rights: An invisible world (Ramachandra Guha)
      + We Welcome the Prospect of Talks between Govt and Maoists
(Statement from Citizens Initiative for Peace)
      + The Police Firing on Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha in Orissa - A
Citizens Report (K Sudhakar Patnaik, Manoranjan Routray, Sharanya)
[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists
         Report of the Liberhan Ayodhya Commission of Inquiry - Full Text
         +
         (i)  Proof of planning, conspiracy a big blow to BJP, RSS
(Siddharth Varadarajan)
         (ii)  Babri Masjid Demolition and Liberhan Commission Report
(Asghar Ali Engineer)
         (iii) Judicial archaeology (The Economic Times)
         (iv) Ugly face of communalism (Editorial, Kashmir Times)
         (v) The ‘millions’ behind BJP: Price of Yeddy-Reddy peace
in Karnataka (J. Sri Raman)
         (vi) Bringing the Sena to justice (Editorial, The Hindu)
[7] UK: Prey for the BNP (Priyamvada Gopal)
[8]  Announcements:
(i)    Rummana's Question: is it what you think?’ - a lecture by
Geeta Kapur (New Delhi, 25 November 2009)
(ii)   Public meeting on the “Right to Dissent” (New Delhi, 26
November 2009)
(iii)  "India's Linguistic Diversity: A Political View" a talk by
Ayesha Kidwai (New Delhi 1 December 2009)
(iv)  Public Meeting And Film Screening  - Corporate Crimes,
Environment Plunder (New Delhi, 17 December 2009)

_____


[1] Sri Lanka:

The Economist

Sri Lanka's retired army chief
General intentions

November 19th 2009 | Colombo

THE WAR’S WINNERS FALL OUT

WHEN Sarath Fonseka sought permission this month to retire as chief
of Sri Lanka’s defence staff from December 1st, President Mahinda
Rajapaksa replied through his secretary that the general, who had led
his government’s victory against the Tamil Tigers, could consider
himself retired with immediate effect. So General Fonseka had to
vacate his office in less than two days. He was told his large
security detail would be slashed. He must quit his official
residence. The impromptu farewell ceremony for him was so hastily
arranged, apparently, that the commanders of the army, navy and air
force could not attend.

His retirement, more than a month before the end of his term, fuelled
rampant speculation that General Fonseka would stand against Mr
Rajapaksa at the presidential election he wants to call next year,
nearly two years early, to capitalise on the government’s defeat of
the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May.

General Fonseka played no small part in that rout. But with a new
opposition alliance, led by former Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP), hinting strongly that
he would be their presidential candidate, the gloves are coming off
almost as quickly as billboards of Mr Rajapaksa are springing up
around the country. In an interview with a Tamil newspaper, Mr
Wickremesinghe confirmed that his coalition has agreed to nominate
General Fonseka. He urged a Marxist party, the Janatha Vimukthi
Peramuna (JVP), and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), once seen as a
proxy for the Tigers, to support him.

The JVP, however, is already wooing General Fonseka to contest as its
own candidate. The third force in Sri Lankan politics, the JVP, which
was trounced by Mr Rajapaksa’s party at recent provincial and local
government polls, wants to back a winning horse. The TNA has not
commented on General Fonseka. But the Tigers hated the army commander
with such a vengeance that they once deployed a female suicide-bomber
to assassinate him. (She exploded on target but he survived to return
to work just three months later.)

It is the general’s steely grit that Mr Rajapaksa seems to fear. The
president has always counted on populist appeal to garner votes and
knows that General Fonseka, who is considered a national hero, could
significantly eat into his base among the Sinhala-Buddhist majority.
Mr Rajapaksa’s anxiety is beginning to show. Two days after he
accepted General Fonseka’s retirement, his Sri Lanka Freedom Party
held its annual convention in a sports stadium hired for the
occasion. The venue was brimming with members who had been promised
“an important announcement” about elections. The event was
broadcast live on television. But Mr Rajapaksa failed to name the day.

General Fonseka is yet to reveal which party he will join or, indeed,
whether he will contest at all. This week he said that he would make
his decision public next week. But just two days before he had told
journalists that he would reveal his plans in 48 hours. Sri Lanka’s
first four-star general, it seems, is in a dither.

Many analysts feel that if he does decide to contest the election,
General Fonseka will pose a formidable challenge to Mr Rajapaksa.
Sanjana Hattotuwa, of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo
think-tank, says he will present himself as the architect of the
victory over the Tigers and as a war hero. No other challenger could
hope to boast as much.


_____


[2]

The Washington Post, November 25, 2009

A BRIDGE TO BUILD BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

by Ahmed Rashid

Lahore, Pakistan

Visits from three senior U.S. officials in three weeks indicate
troubles in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Washington has failed to
deliver on the regional strategy it promised this spring, and
friction with Pakistan seems to be contributing to the long delay in
announcement of a new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Pakistan is
critical to any Afghan strategy the Obama administration undertakes.
Pakistanis hope that President Obama will push his state guest this
week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to be more flexible
toward Islamabad. But Pakistanis too must compromise if there is to
be hope for Afghanistan, and South Asia in general.

In their recent visits Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, national
security adviser James Jones and CIA chief Leon Panetta have promised
to push the Indians on regional issues. But the Pakistani army does
not trust American promises and has leaned on the civilian government
in Islamabad to scale back its largely pro-U.S. positions.

Any surge of U.S. or NATO troops into Afghanistan would depend on the
Pakistani army's help to protect the truck convoys that would supply
the extra Western troops in landlocked Afghanistan. Washington would
need even greater clandestine cooperation from the Pakistani military
in targeting terrorist hideouts along the border.

Pakistan's army, which is overshadowing the elected government on
regional policy, does not want U.S. forces to pull out of
Afghanistan. But neither does it want a massive surge of U.S. troops,
which it fears will ultimately drive more Afghan refugees into
Pakistan or boost morale for the Pakistani Taliban.

The army is finally fighting decisively against the Pakistani Taliban
on several fronts in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and has
had some success in driving the Pakistani Taliban out of its main
stronghold in South Waziristan. Yet the army is loath to even
acknowledge the presence of the Afghan Taliban leadership that is
based in Baluchistan province and North Waziristan.
ad_icon

U.S. troops cannot roll back the Taliban in southern and eastern
Afghanistan without the Pakistanis cutting off the men and materials
the Afghan Talian can draw on.

If U.S.-NATO troops stay on in Afghanistan and beat back the Afghan
Taliban in the next few years, the Pakistani military is likely to
cooperate with the West.

If, however, President Obama speaks soon of an exit strategy, as many
in the United States and Europe want, the Pakistani army is likely to
push Afghan President Hamid Karzai to accept a Pakistani-brokered
deal to form a pro-Pakistan government with the Taliban in Kabul.

The Pakistani army has no love for Islamic extremists now, but it
differentiates between the Afghan Taliban, which it sees as a
potential ally in a pro-Pakistan Afghanistan if U.S. efforts there
fail, and the Pakistani Taliban, which is viewed as a threat to the
state to be eliminated.

In reality, the two Taliban groups and al-Qaeda are closely allied.
Both Taliban groups acknowledge the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah
Mohammed Omar as head of the essential jihad against Western forces
in Afghanistan. Even though the Afghan Taliban are careful not to
fight alongside their Pakistani brothers in South Waziristan, they
would be happy to see larger parts of the NWFP controlled by the
Pakistani Taliban so that their own base areas expand.

Pakistan's military insists that any U.S. surge will lead to havoc
along its border. In fact, since 20,000 additional U.S. troops
started arriving in Afghanistan in March more and more Afghan,
Pakistani and Central Asian fighters have left Pakistan and gone to
Afghanistan to take on the Americans. Summertime fighting raged in
Helmand in the south, where 10,000 Marines are based, but in the
previously peaceful west and north of Afghanistan, where the
additional Taliban manpower has helped it expand its territorial
control.
The Pakistan military's primary interest in a U.S.-led regional
strategy was that the Americans would help restart Indo-Pakistan
talks on Kashmir and other disputes that ceased after the terrorist
attack on Mumbai last year, and negotiate a reduction of India's
influence in Kabul, which Pakistan now blames for a host of ills
(some imagined, some real).

Washington pledged in March to involve all of Afghanistan's neighbors
and regional powers such as India, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China to
work on a common agenda to secure peace and cease interference in
Afghanistan. India pointedly snubbed the United States and its
regional strategy and demanded that Pakistan first eliminate
terrorist groups targeting India from Punjab and Karachi. Iran,
Russia and China presented other setbacks to the U.S. initiative.

Now India and Pakistan are both playing for broke. Pakistan says it
will support a U.S. regional strategy that does not include India,
while India is talking about a regional alliance with Iran and Russia
that excludes Pakistan. Both positions -- throwbacks to the 1990s,
when neighboring sates fueled opposing sides in Afghanistan's civil
war -- are non-starters as far as helping the U.S.-NATO alliance
bring peace to Afghanistan.

To avoid a regional debacle and the Taliban gaining even more ground,
Obama needs to fulfill the commitment he made to Afghanistan in
March: by sending more troops -- so that U.S.-NATO forces and the
Afghan government can regain the military initiative -- as well as
civilian experts, a revised plan and more funds for development that
will help kick-start the Afghan economy. He must bring both India and
Pakistan on board and help reduce their differences; establishing a
regional strategy is a necessary first step for any U.S. strategy in
Afghanistan to have a chance at succeeding. The United States needs
to persuade India to be more flexible toward Pakistan while
convincing Pakistanis to match such flexibility in a step-by-step
process that reduces terrorist groups operating from its soil so that
the two archenemies can rebuild a modicum of trust.
ad_icon

The writer, a Pakistani journalist, is the author of "Taliban" and
"Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Central Asia."

_____


[3]   Pakistan:

The Hindu, 25 November 2009

LESSONS AND CHALLENGES FOR PAKISTAN

by Hassan Abbas

Pakistan is learning the hard way that religious extremists and
militants of all stripes are bad for the country.

The tragic Mumbai attacks in November 2008 unfortunately derailed the
India-Pakistan peace process in its wake. It should have brought both
countries closer instead. The humanistic traditions and values of the
Indian sub-continent and Indus Valley civilisation demanded so. On
the contrary, masterminds of the terror attacks are succeeding so far
because disruption of South Asian peace process was one of their
prime targets. India legitimately expected that Pakistan would do its
best to pursue and prosecute those involved in the heinous crime but
in its hour of pain and grief it forgot that Pakistan is also a
victim of terrorism and is passing through turbulent times.

Pakistan has faced enormous challenges in 2009. It has been
confronted with the growing menace of terrorism — ranging from
militancy in the Swat valley to insurgency in parts of the Pashtun-
dominated Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan.
Dozens of suicide bombers have targeted urban centres of Pakistan,
killing civilians and security forces alike. Police and law
enforcement have lost hundreds of their personnel in this battle this
year alone. The fact that even Pakistan army’s General Headquarters
in Rawalpindi and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) offices in
Lahore and Peshawar were also attacked indicate that terrorists
consider them their arch enemy. Somehow, the significance of these
developments has not been fully recognised in India.

Pakistani public opinion about the identity of militants and
terrorists has transformed in to a great degree. The earlier denial
and misperception that ‘outsiders are doing all this’ has given
way to acceptance of the fact that country’s internal dynamics are
largely responsible for the rise of violence. There is also an
understanding that religious extremism has played a gruesome role in
all of this. People increasingly acknowledge that domestic and
foreign policy mistakes of 1980s and 1990s are coming back to haunt
the country.

Many Pakistanis, however, also believe that India leaves no stone
unturned in making things more difficult for Pakistan whenever it
can. Alleged Indian interference in Baluchistan for instance is often
referred to in this regard. The matter was even mentioned in the
joint statement issued after the Prime Ministers of the two countries
met at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in August 2009. More recently,
Pakistani security forces operating in South Waziristan have also
hinted that they have found some evidence of Indian support to
militants in FATA. Whether true or false, the real issue is the
widespread Pakistani belief that India is involved in destabilising
Pakistan.

Pakistan’s response to Mumbai attacks must be understood in this
context. The initial Pakistani public reaction to the attacks was one
of shock and alarm. Pakistanis become distressed, however, when the
electronic media started showing clips from live Indian television
channel transmissions declaring that Pakistan was the culprit. Once
the facts of the case started getting disseminated, especially about
the identity of Mohammad Ajmal ‘Kasab’ — the lone surviving
member of the terrorist group that created havoc in Mumbai — there
was initially disbelief in Pakistan. Pakistan’s various media
channels wasted no time in sending their investigative teams to
Faridkot, ‘Kasab’s’ hometown in Punjab. To Pakistani
journalists’ credit, they confirmed ‘Kasab’s’ nationality and
exposed his links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant group
known for its activities in the Kashmir region. Despite delay and
reluctance on the part of Pakistan’s government to acknowledge this
connection, the independent media fulfilled its professional
responsibility without fear or favour.

Consequently, Pakistan deputed some of its finest law enforcement
officials in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to spearhead the
investigations. Despite concerns about LET’s old connections with
security agencies of the country, the political leadership acted
quite swiftly. The arrest of important suspects like Zaki-ur-Rahman
Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks, would
not have been possible without the help from country’s intelligence
services, too. The clamp-down on the Jamaat-ud Dawa, the charity cum
proselytising group associated with LET, all across the country was
no small job as well. Since then, Pakistan and India have exchanged
many dossiers containing their respective investigations and
questions for the other side. India legitimately expects quick
progress in this case and it is in Pakistan’s interest to proceed in
the matter in a transparent fashion. It is worth remembering, though,
that any law enforcement organisation’s evidence-gathering exercise,
as per standard legal guidelines, takes time. Indian law enforcement
has also taken many months to investigate and prepare the case for
prosecution in Indian courts.

One of the reasons for a disconnect between Indian and Pakistani
positions on the subject relates to the varying views about the
alleged role of Pakistani intelligence services in all of this. The
difference between acts of omission and commission should be clearly
understood. Prosecution in the court of law needs concrete evidence
rather than suspicion or bad reputation. Pakistan’s judiciary has
earned a lot of respect in the last couple of years and it will guard
its newly won independence irrespective of anything else. This alone
should make India comfortable with the trial stage of the case. Ideal
opportunity

Pakistan has an ideal opportunity to show to India that it is fully
committed to defeat terrorism in all its shapes and forms. Political
rhetoric for public consumption on the subject, both in India and
Pakistan, should not be allowed to disrupt honest and professional
investigations of the Mumbai attacks. All other disputes between the
two countries should be dealt with and tackled separately from this
case and no quid pro quo arrangement or expectation should come in
the way of giving an exemplary punishment to those responsible for
this crime against humanity. This includes all who are to be found
involved in planning, facilitating, or orchestrating the atrocity. My
opinion on this is not a minority view in Pakistan. Pakistani
writers, journalists and politicians have said this repeatedly.
President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, and
prominent political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Altaf Hussain are
all on record supporting such an outcome. A renowned Pakistani lawyer
and writer Babar Sattar very aptly says: “It is not the Pakistani
identity of Ajmal ‘Kasab’ that makes Pakistan guilty of having a
hand in Mumbai. But it is the misguided inclination to hide
unflattering truth born of false pride and misperceived patriotism
that could make us complicit.”

Pakistan is learning the hard way that religious extremists and
militants of all stripes are bad for the country. There is no such
thing as ‘Good Taliban’ or ‘Bad Taliban.’ Those who have
distorted religious ideals and are involved in brainwashing many
youngsters in Pakistan are looking to expand their space in the
country. Lack of education and economic distress strengthen their
role in society further. Pakistan is currently taking unprecedented
military action against these forces, but it will not be able to
defeat these forces of darkness comprehensively without regional
stability and help from India. A good beginning in this direction can
be more interaction and cooperation between the civilian law
enforcement agencies of the two countries.

No one can deny that both countries have produced fanatics of one
kind or the other and insurgencies of various intensities are brewing
in various parts of both the countries. The longer the South Asian
peace process remains frozen, more extensive will be the damaging
impact of extremism and mutual mistrust.

( Dr. Hassan Abbas is a Bernard Schwartz fellow at the Asia Society
and senior adviser at the Belfer Centre, Harvard Kennedy School. He
is also the author of Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism.)

o o o

BBC News, 24 November 2009


AHMED RASHID: PAKISTAN CONSPIRACY THEORIES STIFLE DEBATE

Protests against US in Pakistan
Many Pakistanis blame others for the country's problems

Guest columnist Ahmed Rashid reports on how the real problems facing
Pakistan are being sidelined by a surge of conspiracy theories.

Switch on any of the dozens of satellite news channels now available
in Pakistan.

You will be bombarded with talk show hosts who are mostly obsessed
with demonising the elected government, trying to convince viewers of
global conspiracies against Pakistan led by India and the United
States or insisting that the recent campaign of suicide bomb blasts
around the country is being orchestrated by foreigners rather than
local militants.

Viewers may well ask where is the passionate debate about the real
issues that people face - the crumbling economy, joblessness, the
rising cost of living, crime and the lack of investment in health and
education or settling the long-running insurgency in Balochistan
province.

The principal obsession is when and how President Asif Ali Zardari
will be replaced or sacked

The answer is nowhere.

One notable channel which also owns newspapers has taken it upon
itself to topple the elected government.

Another insists that it will never air anything that is sympathetic
to India, while all of them bring on pundits - often retired hardline
diplomats, bureaucrats or retired Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
officers who sport Taliban-style beards and give viewers loud, angry
crash courses in anti-Westernism and anti-Indianism, thereby
reinforcing views already held by many.

Collapse of confidence

Pakistan is going through a multi-dimensional series of crises and a
collapse of public confidence in the state.

Suicide bombers strike almost daily and the economic meltdown just
seems to get worse.

But this is rarely apparent in the media, bar a handful of liberal
commentators who try and give a more balanced and intellectual
understanding by pulling all the problems together.

A poor neighbourhood in Pakistan
The media debate 'misses real Pakistani life'

The explosion in TV channels in Urdu, English and regional languages
has bought to the fore large numbers of largely untrained, semi-
educated and unworldly TV talk show hosts and journalists who deem it
necessary to win viewership at a time of an acute advertising crunch,
by being more outrageous and sensational than the next channel.

On any given issue the public barely learns anything new nor is it
presented with all sides of the argument.

Every talk show host seems to have his own agenda and his guests
reflect that agenda rather than offer alternative policies.

Recently, one senior retired army officer claimed that Hakimullah
Mehsud - the leader of the Pakistani Taliban which is fighting the
army in South Waziristan and has killed hundreds in daily suicide
bombings in the past five weeks - had been whisked to safety in a US
helicopter to the American-run Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.

In other words the Pakistani Taliban are American stooges, even as
the same pundits admit that US-fired drone missiles are targeting the
Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan.

These are just the kind of blatantly contradictory and nut-case
conspiracy theories that get enormous traction on TV channels and in
the media - especially when voiced by such senior former officials.

The explosion in civil society and pro-democracy movements that
brought the former military regime of President Pervez Musharraf to
its knees over two years has become divided, dissipated and confused
about its aims and intentions.

A Pakistani soldier in South Wazirstan
Troops and militants are fighting in South Waziristan

Even when such activists do appear on TV, their voices are drowned
out by the conspiracy theorists who insist that every one of
Pakistan's ills are there because of interference by the US, India,
Israel and Afghanistan.

The army has not helped by constantly insisting that the vicious
Pakistani Taliban campaign to topple the state and install an Islamic
emirate is not a local campaign waged by dozens of extremist groups,
some of whom were trained by the military in the 1990s, but the
result of foreign conspiracies.

Economic crisis

Such statements by the military hardly do justice to the hundreds of
young soldiers who are laying down their lives to fight the Taliban
extremists.

Nor has the elected government of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP)
tried to alter the balance, as it is mired in ineffective governance
and widespread corruption while failing to tackle the economic
recession, that is admittedly partly beyond its control.

Moreover the PPP has no talking pundits, sympathetic talk show hosts
or a half decent media management campaign to refute the lies and
innuendo that much of the media is now spewing out.

At present, the principal obsession is when and how President Asif
Ali Zardari will be replaced or sacked, although there is no apparent
constitutional course available to get rid of him except for a
military coup, which is unlikely.

The campaign waged by some politicians and parts of the media - with
underlying pressure from the army - is all about trying to build
public opinion to make Mr Zardari's tenure untenable.

Victim of a suicide attack in Pakistan
Pakistan is caught in a spiral of violence

Nobody discusses the failure of the education system that is now
turning out hundreds of suicide bombers, rather than doctors and
engineers.

Or the collapsing and corrupt national health system that forces the
poorest to seek expensive private medical treatment, or the explosion
in crime or suicides by failed farmers and workers who have lost
their jobs.

Pakistan cannot tackle its real problems unless the country's leaders
- military and civilian - first admit that much of the present crisis
is a result of long-standing mistakes, the lack of democracy, the
failure to strengthen civic institutions and the lack of investment
in public services like education, even as there continues to be a
massive investment in nuclear weapons and the military.

Pakistan's crisis must first be acknowledged by officialdom and the
media before solutions can be found.

The alternative is a continuation of the present paralysis where
people are left confused, demoralised and angry.

Ahmed Rashid is the author of the best-selling book Taliban and, most
recently, of Descent into Chaos: How the war against Islamic
extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.


_____


[4]  WATCHDOG FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS

by Rajashri Dasgupta

Thirty years after CEDAW, does the Convention really serve a useful
purpose? Sunila Abeysekera, Sri Lankan human rights campaigner who
heads International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific, says
the Convention is a good space for democratic countries to reaffirm
that they respect women’s rights

For over two decades, Sunila Abeysekera has been an ardent campaigner
of human rights and women’s rights in Sri Lanka and around the
world. She defied threats to her life when she brought human rights
abuses in Sri Lanka to the attention of the international community.
In 1999, she won the UN Human Rights Award and was honoured for her
work by Human Rights Watch last year.

In this interview, Abeysekera, who heads the International Women’s
Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) Asia Pacific, talks about how the UN
Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) can be “kept alive” to protect the rights of women.

It’s been 30 years since CEDAW came into force as an international
treaty. What has the Convention achieved?

The Convention is now applicable in at least 120 countries that have
ratified the treaty. It is often described as an international bill
of rights for women. It defines what constitutes discrimination
against women, and sets up an agenda for national action to end such
discrimination. Countries that have ratified or acceded to the
convention are legally bound to put its provisions into practice.

Every four years, a committee of experts reviews the work of
countries that have ratified the Women’s Convention, as CEDAW is
popularly known. They are also committed to submitting national
reports on measures they have taken to comply with their treaty
obligations. Since Sri Lanka and India have both ratified the
Convention, their governments submit a report to the CEDAW Committee
(henceforth, Committee) on how well they are doing in terms of
applying and making CEDAW rights applicable to women in their countries.

Can women’s groups keep the pressure on governments during the
review process, to keep alive the spirit of the Convention? After
all, government reports can be an eyewash…

Exactly. The Committee welcomes the involvement of women’s groups in
making a separate submission called the Shadow Report to the
Committee. These groups provide bits of information that governments
forget, such as about minority groups and poverty. The Committee
really tries to encourage a national process which includes different
women’s groups working on different issues that represent different
communities and issues.

How important is the Shadow Report?

The way it works, the report provides valuable information to members
of the Committee. When the government submits its report, it also
sends representatives from the capital, foreign ministry, human
rights desk, embassy, and the ambassador in Geneva to attend the
review meeting. It is quite an active dialogue between
representatives of the government and members of the Committee.
Governments often say only good things, not bad about their own
country. The sharpness of the questions asked by Committee members to
government representatives depends on whether they have alternative
and good information from the Shadow Report.

Did the Shadow Report from India help to question the Indian government?

It is interesting that national organisations like the National
Alliance of Women’s Organisations have a comprehensive process
whereby they reach out to an extensive network of women’s groups.
The report put together was edited by five or six women who have the
competence necessary for the task. Largely based on this, the
Committee specifically recommended that the government report back
later on the status of cases with regard to the Gujarat carnage (in
2002). Women’s groups actually relayed valuable information showing
that these cases were being delayed; victims of rape and violence
have not got justice…

At the end of the review process, as concluding observations, the
Committee comes out with a set of recommendations; it could be on
reforming the law or a policy that is discriminatory or flawed. In
the next four years, the government is meant to implement these
recommendations. Women’s groups should be following up on what the
government is doing, or not doing.

Can the recommendations create international pressure?

It can, it can. Whatever the Committee says the Indian government is
obliged to take seriously, even though the Committee does not have
the power to really enforce the recommendations. Still, for
governments like India it is an important process to say ‘we are
accountable, we respect women’s rights, we are democratic’. It’s
a good space for democratic countries.

What is IWRAW’s role in the CEDAW process?

We have an office at the High Commission for Human Rights in New York
that, every year, puts out a list of countries that will be reviewed.
We get advance warning. For instance, this year the committee will
review countries including Brazil and Azerbaijan. We send out
messages through email or word-of-mouth to women’s groups, that such
and such country will be reporting (we have a good network and
contacts). Thirty years down the line, many countries have a process
going.

This year, both Laos and Timor are submitting their first reports to
the committee. IWRAW members with expertise visited Laos and Timor to
help groups with the process, provide guidelines and technical and
legal know-how on how to prepare a Shadow Report. IWRAW also helps
and supports groups on following up on the committee’s
recommendations.

During the review process, IWRAW runs a programme called ‘From the
Global to Local’, where women from the community grassroots visit
Geneva and New York to take part in the review meeting. They can
actually observe the whole process and talk to Committee members
before the meeting. But they do not have any speaking space at the
meeting. They can only observe the process -- even when their own
country is reporting.

The dialogue at the meeting is between country representatives and
Committee members. But there are many spaces and places where
grassroots-level women can interact with Committee members. It’s a
dynamic and lively process that enables women to become involved…
after all, the whole environment is very conducive to planning and
implementing steps concerning women’s rights in the presence and
precincts of a committee created for this very purpose, with a clear
and specific agenda, supported by experts in this field and women’s
groups.

Governments, including India, have reservations about many articles
of the Women’s Convention. It is ineffective if the Indian
government has reservations about articles related to marriage,
customs and cultural practices that are discriminatory against women,
in the name of non-interference in the personal affairs of
communities…

There are global and national campaigns by women’s groups against
the reservations of governments. Groups are always saying: what is
the point of having the Women’s Convention and ratifying it if you
also take away some of these rights…

The Government of India has reservations based on the fact that it is
a multicultural society and does not want to impinge on the cultural
rights of minorities (Articles 5 a and 16 i and ii). Many Islamic
countries have reservations about Article 2 which is about
eliminating discrimination against women, and Article 16 regarding
marriage, custody, inheritance, and divorce.

Last year we had a really big success when Morocco lifted its
reservations on Article 16; there was a strong campaign because it is
a North African country. In 2005, the Bangladesh government lifted
its reservations on Article 2.

Why is it that there is no mention of violence against women in the
earlier CEDAW document?

If you examine the proceedings of the first world conference on women
in 1975, the focus was on economic empowerment. Violence against
women was not recognised then as an issue. If you see the
proceedings, it is women’s labour that is the focus. Groups worked
on the issue of violence in the late-1970s and early-’80s. When
groups saw that CEDAW was not reflecting an issue that was so
critical to many women they launched a campaign and it was rectified.

In 1992, the Committee created something that is called General
Recommendation 19 -- it’s about violence against women (VAW) and it
went to the UN General Assembly and was adopted as a resolution. Such
general recommendations (GRs) then come back and the Committee tells
governments that CEDAW is now looking at VAW and that it has to
report on it.

At this moment, many women’s groups from regions of conflict are
talking to the Committee about creating a GR about women affected by
conflict; this is not covered by CEDAW.

There are other gaps too. The Women’s Convention has an ambiguous
section on trafficking of women…

There is a separate Article 6 on trafficking but it is couched with
the perception of trafficking being very much linked to prostitution
and forced prostitution, though these words are not mentioned. Unless
the reader is looking for it, she can miss it. There has been a lot
of pressure on the Committee to articulate its opinion on
trafficking. Since there are other human rights mechanisms like the
Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, who did a special
report on trafficking, the Committee has not moved on this issue. But
it is important to push for the rights of trafficked victims; it is
the best way to combat the criminalisation of victims of trafficking
that we see happening at this point.

Source: Infochange News & Features, November 2009



_____


[5]  India: Human Rights

Hindustan Times, November 23, 2009

AN INVISIBLE WORLD

by Ramachandra Guha

Every Indian city has a road named after Mahatma Gandhi, each
presenting in its own way a mocking thumbs-down to the Mahatma’s
legacy. The M.G. Road of my home town, Bangalore, is a celebration of
consumerism, with its array of shop-windows advertising the most
expensive goods in India. In other cities, government offices are
housed on their M.G. Road, where work — or laze — politicians and
officials consumed by power and corruption.

The Mahatma stood, among other things, for non-possession, integrity
and non-violence. The M.G. Road of Imphal chooses to violate the last
tenet, demanding that citizens negotiate pickets of heavily armed
jawans every few metres. When I visited Manipur last year, I was
staying at a lodge on M.G. Road, from where I watched a boy aged not
more than ten clasp the hand of his even littler sister as he walked
her past the pickets on their way to school. He was terribly tense,
as the urgency by which he guided his sibling along the barricades
made manifest. Back in Bangalore, for my own son and his younger
sister the everyday act of going to school has been wholly relaxed,
and mostly enjoyable — and yet, in this other state of our shared
Union, it was fraught with fear.

Exactly five years ago, in November 2004, the Prime Minister visited
Manipur. He had come in response to a massive popular protest against
army excesses, among them the brutalisation of women. After meeting a
cross-section of the population he agreed to vacate the historic
Kangla Fort of armed detachments, and to ‘sympathetically
consider’ the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA),
under which the security forces are given wide powers to arrest
without warrant and to shoot without provocation.

The opposition to the AFSPA in Manipur is near-unanimous. However, by
the nature and duration of her protest one individual has made her
opposition distinctive. This is Irom Sharmila, a young woman who in
November 2001 began an indefinite fast for the repeal of the Act.
(The immediate provocation was the killing, by the Assam Rifles, of
ten bystanders at a village bus-stop.) Arrested for ‘attempted
suicide’, she continues her fast in her hospital-cum-jail, where she
does yoga, and reads religious texts, political memoirs, and folk-
tales. As her biographer Deepti Priya Mehrotra points out, while the
law accuses her of fasting-unto-death, Sharmila is better seen as
‘fasting unto life, to remove a brutal law that allows the murder of
innocent people’.

On his return to New Delhi from Manipur, the PM set up a committee to
report on whether the AFSPA should be scrapped. Headed by a respected
former judge of the Supreme Court, the committee’s members included
a highly decorated general and a very knowledgeable journalist. The
committee’s report is based on visits to several states, and
conversations with a wide spectrum of public opinion. It makes for
fascinating reading. The entire text is up on the Web; here, however,
a few excerpts must suffice.

The committee found that ‘the dominant view-point expressed by a
large number of organisations/individuals was that the Act is
undemocratic, harsh and discriminatory. It is applicable only to the
North-eastern states and, therefore, discriminates against the people
of the region. Under the protection provided by the Act, several
illegal killings, torture, molestations, rapes and extortions have
taken place particularly since the Act does not provide for or create
a machinery which provides protection against the excesses committed
by armed forces/paramilitary forces… The Act should, therefore, be
repealed.’

The committee agreed, recommending that AFSPA be taken off the
statute books. It noted that with the insertion of suitable
provisions in the existing Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act
(ULP), the security needs of the state would be served without
impinging on the human rights of its citizens. The ULP Act, it
pointed out, permitted swift deployment of the army to combat
terrorism, while simultaneously ensuring that those arrested would be
handed over to the police and provided legal protection.

In making its recommendations, the committee also offered this astute
assessment of the popular discontent in the state: ‘[A]gitations
such as those in Manipur and elsewhere are merely the symptoms of a
malaise, which goes much deeper. The recurring phenomena of one
agitation after another over various issues and the fact that public
sentiments can be roused so easily and frequently to unleash unrest,
confrontation and violence also points to deep-rooted causes which
are often not addressed. Unless the core issues are tackled, any
issue or non-issue may continue to trigger another upsurge or
agitation.’

When I was in Imphal, I was driven to the Kangla Fort by a respected
professor of economics. As he took me through the various shrines and
memorials, he wondered when — or if — the PM would match the
removal of the Assam Rifles from Kangla with a repeal of the AFSPA.
Only that, he felt, would signal that the Government of India treated
the residents of Manipur as full and equal citizens. As the professor
put it, ‘if you love a people, do so wholly — not half-heartedly’.

The AFSPA was first enacted in parts of Manipur in 1960. Even from a
narrow security point of view it does not seem to have worked, for
the discontent and the violence have only escalated in the decades it
has been in operation. It is past time that it is done away with. A
generous deadline for its repeal might be November 2010 — before the
10th anniversary of Irom Sharmila’s fast, which, as matters
presently stand, may be the only thing Gandhian about the whole state
of Manipur.

Ramachandra Guha is a historian and the author of India After Gandhi

o o o

(SEE ALSO)

STATEMENT FROM CITIZENS INITIATIVE FOR PEACE

We welcome the reports that the Government of India and the CPI
(Maoist) are agreeable to the idea of talks. In the present situation
talks are the only way to come to a resolution of any problem,
however difficult it may be.

        We reiterate that the talks should be unconditional, and that
they should be held at the central level. We propose the following
steps to expedite the dialogue:

        1. Security forces should not move forward and should cease
all operations.

        2. Maoists should cease all operations.

        3. This ceasefire should take place immediately.

        4. In order to enable villagers to resume their normal life
the security forces must withdraw from schools, dispensaries and
other civilian buildings, as recommended by the NHRC. The Maoists
must also give a commitment that government institutions like
schools, ration shops etc. will be allowed to function.

        We hope and trust that both sides will carry on the talks with
an aim to finding solutions to the concrete problems faced by the
people of the affected regions. Any disagreement in the first round
should not lead to the breakdown of talks. There should be a series
of talks to arrive at mutually agreed solutions.

Rajindar Sachar Manoranjan Mohanty

(on behalf of the Citizens Initiative for Peace)

o o o

THE NARAYANPATNA POLICE FIRING ON CHASI MULIA ADIVASI SANGHA IN
ORISSA - A CITIZENS REPORT

by K Sudhakar Patnaik, Manoranjan Routray, Sharanya (sacw.net, 24
November 2009)
http://www.sacw.net/article1244.html

_____


[6]  India: Resources For Secular Activists

Full Text of Report of the Liberhan Ayodhya Commission of Inquiry
[These PDF files are bad, but it is expected that the correct
versions will replace them, so keep the URL's]
Part I   http://bit.ly/4SQwu5
Part II  http://bit.ly/5AaJYC
Part III http://bit.ly/5WgXus
Part IV http://bit.ly/8nLoND
Part V  http://bit.ly/4SQwu5

+ Other Articles
(i) The Hindu, 24 November 2009

PROOF OF PLANNING, CONSPIRACY A BIG BLOW TO BJP, RSS

by Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: Once the dust from the unnecessary debate over who leaked
the Liberhan Commission’s findings settles down, the country will be
in a better position to reflect upon the political consequences of
the enquiry report on one of independent India’s most sinister mass
crimes: the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya on December 6,
1992.

Though it is not yet clear whether Mr. Liberhan has fixed criminal or
merely political responsibility on top Bharatiya Janata party leaders
like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, the
commission report seems to have concluded that the demolition was no
act of spontaneous vandalism but a pre-planned conspiracy. The circle
of conspirators may well have been small but it is impossible to
imagine that leaders like Mr. Advani were completely unaware of what
was underfoot. Either way, the Manmohan Singh government is duty-
bound to get to the bottom of the matter and to do so without any
further delay.

For years, the BJP walked a fine line on the demolition. Senior
leaders like Advani sought to avoid direct culpability for what was,
after all, a criminal act, while also exploiting the communal
polarisation the masjid/mandir issue caused for political gain. The
strategy worked fine at first. The demolition was used by the BJP,
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to
spread the sangh parivar’s influence beyond the Gangetic plains and
into Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
By the time the BJP came to power in Delhi as part of the National
Democratic Alliance, however, the signs of mandir fatigue were
already apparent, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. As the
communal virus of the 1990s slowly exhausted itself and robbed
Ayodhya of its political potency, the BJP moved on to other issues.
With Mr. Liberhan content to drag out his enquiry, the legal fallout
of the demolition was managed by petty clerical fiddles at the
Central Bureau of Investigation and the U.P. bureaucracy. The end
result: many senior leaders of the party, including Mr. Advani,
extricated themselves from the demolition cases which were, in any
case, progressing at snail’s pace.
Two-fold problem

The problem for the BJP today is two-fold: First, Mr. Liberhan chose
to complete his labours and that too during the tenure of a Congress-
led government; and second, the scope for whipping up religious
sentiments and rallying Hindus around the prospective martyrdom of
leaders like Mr. Advani is extremely limited. Indeed, ordinary Hindus
know that the Babri Masjid’s demolition, like the Gujarat massacres
of 2002, is part of the backstory of urban terrorism, including the
rise of homegrown terrorist outfits like the Indian Mujahideen. They
also know instinctively that religious polarisation of the kind the
sangh parivar has sought to engineer has made India a more dangerous
and violent place. Any campaign the BJP mounts now will be marked by
the desperate search for legal loopholes, alibis and fixes, not
defiance and bravado in the service of Lord Rama.

Ironically, the best hope for the BJP lies in the Congress’
reluctance to press ahead its political advantage. At the best of
times, the party has never been too enthusiastic about ensuring
punishment of those involved in communal crimes. The findings of the
Srikrishna Commission of Enquiry into the 1992-1993 communal killings
in Mumbai, for example, have remained largely unimplemented. Going by
the law of probability — since the probability of law is so low —
there are good reasons to believe the Liberhan findings will also
meet the same fate.

(ii) INDIA: BABRI MASJID DEMOLITION AND LIBERHAN COMMISSION REPORT
by Asghar Ali Engineer
http://www.sacw.net/article1243.html


(iii)

The Economic Times, 24 Nov 2009

JUDICIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

The BJP’s umbrage over media reports of the Justice Liberhan
Commission’s findings is laughable. They are outraged over
procedure: how did the
report find its way to the press before the hon’ble members of
Parliament have had a chance to see it?

This matters less to India’s polity than the substance of the
commission’s report, which finds the entire top leadership of the
Sangh Parivar culpable for demolition of the Babri mosque at Ayodhya,
not sparing even the most moderate of the lot, former prime minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Liberhan Commission’s putative findings raise three questions.
One, anti-national conduct in bringing about a deep communal divide
in the country and culpability for such conduct; two, the propriety
of the commission’s report finding its way to the press before being
tabled in Parliament; and, three, the gross delay in the submission
of its report by the commission. All three merit serious attention.

That the Babri mosque was demolished and did not crumble under its
own or the kar sevaks’ weight is well known. Equally well-known is
the nationwide campaign carried out by the Sangh Parivar on the
slogan, mandir wohin banayenge! (we’ll build the temple there
itself, the there being where the mosque stood), which was an
undisguised call to demolish the mosque.

It took extreme disingenuousness for anyone to seriously believe that
the BJP leadership distributed sweets and hugged one another after
the demolition of the mosque in pain and in shock. That the
demolition of the mosque considerably eroded the minority
community’s faith in the Indian Republic’s secular character is
also well known.

The only purpose served by the commission’s findings would be that
these well-known facts would now be official.

Parliamentary privilege is one of the most over-rated institutions of
democracy. The Fourth Estate is called thus only because it mediates
information between the people and the state. The people have
primacy, not their representatives. If important information is
leaked to select groups, that would be breach of privilege.

But making information available directly to the people through the
media is no more a crime than Satyagraha is. As for judicial delay —
the commission took 17 years and 48 extensions to state the obvious
— it leaves justice to be a matter of interpretation by historians,
without operative import.


(iv)

Kashmir Times, 25 November 2009

Editorial

UGLY FACE OF COMMUNALISM
Inaction against communalists is a bigger cause of concern

A report in a national daily has pointed out how the Liberhan
Commission probing the Babri mosque demolition has maintained that it
was meticulously planned and indicted among other Lal Kishen Advani
and even Atal Behari Vajpayee for inciting communal passion. The
report has also not spared leaders of Muslim organizations for their
irresponsible remarks and for not caring for the welfare of the
Indian Muslims. The report has been lying pending with the government
for over four months but there has just not been any forward movement
on the case even as Babri mosque demolition, that sparked widespread
riots throughout the country and caused an unbridgeable divide among
the communities of the country, will be an 18 year old mishap next
month. It is not simply the case of Babri mosque demolition alone.
Anything that has communal overtones is something that successive
governments in this country have dragged their feet over. Various
courts and panel reports have been marked by either serious flaws or
inordinate delays in filing reports on Mumbai riots that followed the
blasts, the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 or the Gujarat carnage of 2002.
Interestingly, in the Mumbai case, while action was indeed taken
against perpetrators of the blasts, the riot hoodlums have been left
untouched even as they caused acute panic among people, left many
homeless and several killed or tortured. The Sikh victims of 1984
have not got any justice till date and the Gujarat victims continue
to linger on in camps in neglect and face constant threat that is
also state sponsored. The successive governments have virtually
failed to act against irresponsive governments and take that much
needed initiative in pursuance of justice. Justice delayed is justice
denied, it is said. When it comes to victimisation through communal
discourses and violence, justice is not the only casualty. Inaction
on part of the government legitimises the communal discourse and more
significantly, it encourages a vicious cycle of greater tyranny and
thus perpetuation of more victimisation at the hands of communalists,
whose hands only get strengthened by the inaction. It needs to be
recalled that the founders of free India like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
had excessively cautioned against the majoritarian communalism being
the greatest threat to the nation. The last three decades, with
mounting cases of minorities being hounded in various parts of the
country, amply demonstrate the perils to the country that Nehru
talked about. Yet, the leaders who swear by his name or Mahatama
Gandhi's fail to pay any heed.

(v)

The Tribune, 24 November 2009

THE ‘MILLIONS’ BEHIND BJP: PRICE OF YEDDY-REDDY PEACE IN KARNATAKA
by J. Sri Raman

Millions stand behind me”, says the caption. The famous poster of
the early thirties by German photomontage artist John Heartfield
connects the Fuhrer to corporate capital. It shows Hitler delivering
his Nazi salute, with the hand bent over the shoulder, and receiving
a backhand donation from a giant figure behind representing Big
Business, dominated then by the Krupps.

Mt. Bokanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa and the Bellary brothers, of
course, are far less known than Adolf Hitler and the Krupps
respectively. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and the big-
money backers of his regime are tied by the same bond of millions
that is no synonym of the soapbox orator’s “masses”.

Mr Yeddyurappa has just survived a challenge from the Reddy brothers
(as they are also known) and saved his rudely shaken throne as the
Chief Minister of India’s southern State of Karnataka. But he has
not done so before providing yet another abject proof of whom the far
right really represents despite its apparent priority for an agenda
of fanaticism and ultra-nationalism.

It is, of course, not only the far right anywhere, or the BJP’s camp
alone in this country that has these firm bonds with corporate
patrons and puppeteers. So do several others. India’s Parliament has
witnessed a debate between two parties — the ruling Congress and the
opposition Samajwadi Party — taking sides in another corporate
sibling rivalry, between the Ambani brothers. Even bit players in
electoral politics, like regional parties, have their big-buck
benefactors.

But there is an important difference. What sets apart the business
partnership of the far right is the nature of the return benefit
sought and secured. The fund-givers, in this case, are not asking
only for direct favours of the kind political parties and forces can
dispense, especially if in power. They are even more interested in
far-right campaigners creating a political ambiance, in which their
ill-gotten fortunes won’t be a major public issue. A “temple”
issue of the BJP’s type, for example, can help tycoons by keeping
some inconvenient taxation issues away from the headlines.

The financial patrons of the far right, of course, expect it to pay
attention to their problems of excess. But they expect it even more
to divert popular attention away from the diverse socio-economic
problems of their creation. They make no secret of the returns they
seek from their political investment. The far right can exercise
political power, but without interfering with its freedom of
profiteering. The Bellary brothers have made this clear beyond doubt
to the BJP.

The brothers — Revenue Minister G. Karunakara Reddy, Tourism
Minister G. Janardhana Reddy and legislator G. Somashekhara Reddy —
control what has been described as a mining mafia worth Rs. 300
billion. Allegedly including an illegal segment, the Reddy operations
in the otherwise backward district of Bellary set new profit records
since 2003 when the Chinese started importing iron ore from here on a
huge scale in preparation for the Beijing Olympics of 2008. Thus it
was that the brothers acquired the financial clout that eventually
gave them the state BJP on a platter.

The same year as the Bejing Games came a big political break for the
party. In the last week of May 2008 came the results of the Assembly
elections in Karnataka, giving the far right its first ever regime in
South India. A hiccup preceded the victory, though, and the Reddys
helped the party make history. The trends reported on the television
showed that the BJP would have to draw on the support of Independent
legislators to form the new government.

The Bellary brothers set out for Bangalore, the state’s capital, and
were to buy up the required legislative support. This was in addition
to their money power winning the mandate for the BJP in 37 of the 117
seats out of a total of 224 in the Assembly.

If the BJP and the Chief Minister thought they had compensated the
mining kings with a couple of Cabinet posts, they were to learn a
costly lesson. The Bellary brothers were soon to conclude that they
had struck a bad bargain. They did not like to be given less
importance in the Cabinet than Rural Development Minister Shobha
Karandlajy, an Yeddyurappa favourite. And they deemed the
government’s proposal for an additional tax of Rs 1,000 per
truckload of iron ore as nothing short of a declaration of war on
them. They joined the war when the Chief Minister ordered the
transfer from Bellary of officers suspected to be loyal to the brothers.

The Reddys raised the standard of revolt in the last week of October,
demanding the removal and replacement of the Chief Minister who had
incurred their displeasure. Both factions descended soon on New
Delhi, forcing an already beleaguered BJP leadership to put on a
brave face and pretend to find a political solution. The farce went
on for days even as parts of Karnataka went under floods. Relief
operations awaited a resolution of the political crisis, as none of
the BJP top brass denied the priority of the need to save the sinking
Yeddyurappa regime.

It all ended in an unabashed capitulation to the Reddys, after a bout
of crying on a TV channel by the Chief Minister. He hated, he said in
a hoarse voice, to compromise for the sake of his “chair” but had
to do so “for the sake of the state”. He stays on in power, but
only after agreeing to abandon the minister the Reddys disapprove of,
the idea of transfers unhelpful to them, and, of course, the tax
proposal. The brothers, meanwhile, have told their supporters that
this is only the “intermission” in the blockbuster they have been
watching.

The spectators, however, have not been confined to Karnataka. The
whole country has been a horrified witness to this latest scene in
the long and sordid drama of the BJP’s internal dissensions ever
since its debacle in the Lok Sabha elections. The struggle between
the Chief Minister and its challengers has shed lurid light on a less
recognised dimension of the party’s ever-deepening crisis. It is a
dimension from which an abstractly political analysis of the crisis
can no longer divert public attention.

The Karnataka episode has come as an expose of the claim that the BJP
is going back to a golden age of ideology under the guidance of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the patriarch of the “parivar”
or the far-right “family”. The mantra of “cultural
nationalism” is proving no match for the “millions” behind the
BJP and its band.


(vi)

The Hindu, November 24, 2009
EDITORIAL: BRINGING THE SENA TO JUSTICE

It is no secret that the Shiv Sena has regularly attempted to stifle
free expression by carrying out violent attacks on journalists and
media establishments — and has got away with it thanks to a policy
of appeasement pursued by successive governments in Maharashtra,
mostly Congress or Congress-led regimes. But the regional party may
have gone too far this time. The recent assault on the offices of the
IBN television network, captured blow-by-blow by CCTV cameras,
featured a mob of Sainiks armed with rods and baseball bats punching
and kicking male and female journalists and trashing furniture,
fittings, and electronic equipment. The Sena leadership would have us
believe the attack was a “spontaneous” reaction to strong remarks
made on the channel against supremo Bal Thackeray. This is
demonstrably false. That it was a planned attack is evidenced by the
fact that the mobs carried out simultaneous attacks on the TV network
in Mumbai and Pune, and by information gathered by the police
investigation that, among others, Sunil Raut, the brother of Shiv
Sena leader Sanjay Raut, was involved. A special target of the
Sena’s wrath was its intrepid critic, Nikhil Wagle, Editor-in-Chief
of the Marathi channel IBN-Lokmat and former Editor of the Marathi
daily Mahanagar who has been assaulted repeatedly by Sena goons.

At one level, the brazen assault reveals the ugly face of competitive
chauvinism, and the continued existence of a goon political culture,
in India’s ‘maximum’ city. At another level, it reflects the
Sena’s sense of insecurity during a phase of political decline —
when it has been challenged by the copycat methods of a youthful
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, and has fared poorly in elections. It is
no accident that Bal Thackeray’s, and Saamna’s, broadsides against
Sachin Tendulkar for implicitly making a stand against linguistic
chauvinism by affirming his Indianness alongside his Maharastrian
identity have been followed up by targeting a channel that has aired
opposition to the chauvinism. Such acts of vandalism have gone
virtually unpunished in the past. This time, under pressure from an
aggressive media, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan has pledged no-nonsense
action and the Mumbai police have arrested close to 20 of the
perpetrators and registered cases of attempted murder. The
investigation, however, has not so far led to anyone more significant
than Sunil Raut, who has just been arrested. The widely shared
suspicion is that the State government’s response will return to the
traditional policy of appeasement once the feelings of shock and
anger subside. This is decidedly a case to be handed over to the
Central Bureau of Investigation.


_____


[7]  UK:

The Guardian, 23 November 2009

PREY FOR THE BNP

The Sikhs who join in the hatred of Muslims are deluded if they
expect to avoid racial exclusion

by Priyamvada Gopal

Rajinder Singh, a British Sikh with an extreme dislike of Muslims,
is, according to the BNP, "the kind of immigrant you want if you're
going to have them". And if, as expected, the party members vote to
allow ethnic minorities to join, Singh will be the first to be
conferred this "honour".

Sikh organisations have dismissed him – and fellow BNP wannabe "Ammo
Singh" (a pseudonym) – as unrepresentative, and it is easy to write
them off as self-hating lunatics or pranksters. But to do so is to
obscure the larger realities of how race, religion and hate operate.

What has been lost in the storm over Nick Griffin's BBC appearance
and the debate over the freedom to voice hatred in the guise of
"white rights" is that modern racism survives through a parasitical
alliance of vicious groups and ideologies, each of which thinks it is
superior to and more entitled to preservation and growth than the
others. What they share is a commitment to delusions of absolute
racial or religious grandeur and purity even as they compete for
victim status.

The two Sikhs' hostility to Islam is strong enough for them to
overlook the contempt in which the BNP ultimately holds all racial
minorities. Communities in Britain with links to the Indian
subcontinent have, over time, seceded from their rich shared heritage
and the assertive "Asian" banner under which they fought successfully
for their rights in the 1960s and 1970s. Dispersed into the sectarian
religious identities of Sikh, Hindu and Muslim, they have all but
forgotten how to mobilise together against the threat of an
opportunistic ethnic majoritarianism that does not, ultimately, make
fine distinctions among those it perceives as outsiders.

Generalising labels like "Asian" may have their drawbacks but, as
Arun Kundnani of the Institute of Race Relations notes of Sunrise
Radio's bizarre decision to drop "Asian" from its banner under
sustained pressure from extremist groups like the World Hindu
Council, the hope underlying such disaffiliation is that "racist
whites could be persuaded to exclude Hindus and Sikhs from their
hatred, and focus instead solely on Muslims". A 2006 Runnymede Trust
survey claims that as many as 80% of Hindus and Sikhs in Britain
wished to be seen as specifically distinct from Muslims. "Don't
Freak, I'm a Sikh", urged T-shirts printed after the 7 July bombings.

Griffin's assertion that "many" Hindus and Sikhs support the BNP is a
wild exaggeration. But we need to face up to the messy reality of a
society where ethno-religious fragmentation and tensions between
minority groups work to the advantage of majority chauvinism.
Kundnani points out that as early as 2002 the BNP was able to
persuade a tiny Sikh faction called the Shere-e-Punjab to participate
in its anti-Muslim campaign. Even if such collaborators are a tiny
fringe, minority communities need to be aware of the ways in which
their participation in divisive categories and separatist communal
warfare only strengthens the positions of the racists who seek to
subordinate them entirely.

Anti-immigrant views among migrants are not new, but what extremisms
also share is an exaggerated fear that other groups are numerically
overwhelming theirs. When Sikh-Muslim gang fights broke out in
Slough, the language used mimicked the defensive territorial language
of the BNP. "Muslims run Slough," one gang member insisted at the
time. "Why are Sikhs coming from outside?"

Ammo Singh told the BBC, which has made a habit of using fringe
groups as representatives of entire communities, that Islam was
planning to take over Britain through "a combination of immigration,
high birth rate and conversion".

Rajinder Singh, like many Hindus and Sikhs, has invoked the 1947
partition of India, in which he lost his father, as the cause of his
enmity towards Muslims. This selective emphasis conveniently obscures
two facts. The first is that it was the British empire and its
policies of divide and rule which culminated in the partition that
was its last official act. The second is that all three communities
are fully responsible for the horrific butchery, bloodletting and
rape that followed. Rather than mourning the tragedy of partition,
men like Rajinder Singh seek to re-enact it in Britain, once again
under the aegis of British racial supremacism.

The time has come for us to recognise racial and religious hatred in
all its manifestations for what it is and take a stand against it –
alongside right-thinking whites – not only when it is directed at
us, but also when it is undertaken in our name. The colour line
hasn't disappeared yet, but the real struggle is between fascist
hatreds and humane solidarity.


_____


[8]  Announcements:

(i)  Remembering Rummana Husain

      SAHMAT presents a lecture by Geeta Kapur

Rummana's Question: is it what you think?’

Chair: Kumar Shahani

Time and Date: 5.30 pm on Wednesday 25th November 2009

Venue: ICSSR Conference Room,
35 Ferozshah Road, New Delhi-110001


SAHMAT
29, Ferozeshah Road,
New Delhi-1
Tel: 23070787, 23381276

o o o

(ii)

Dear Friend,
Janhastakshep, Campaign Against Fascist Designs Invites you for a
public meeting on the “Right to Dissent”
Date & Time : November 26 at 5 P.M.
Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhaya Marg, ITO, New
Delhi.

Panelists:
1.     Mr. Surendra Mohan (Former M.P.)
2.     Mr. Rajendra Sachar (Former Chief Justice Delhi High Court)
3.     Mr. Neelabh Mishra (Journalist)
4.     Mr. Prashant Bhushan (Advocate Supreme Court)
5.     Mr. Manoj Mitta (Journalist)
6.     Mr. Jaspal Sidhu (Journalist)
   and others

Prof. N.K. Bhattacharya
Convener,
9811073278

o o o

(iii) Jana Natya Manch 1973 — 1989 — 2009

The Safdar Janam Talks on Culture and Politics

This year, to observe 20 years of Safdar's death, as well as 35 years
of our work, Janam is organizing a series of talks, one every month,
each focusing on the complex and critical interconnections between
culture and politics. The talk is followed by a discussion on the
issues thrown up. The eleventh of these is:

"India's Linguistic Diversity: A Political View" a talk by Ayesha Kidwai

1 December 2009, Tuesday

6.00 p.m.

Muktadhara Art Gallery
Banga Sanskriti Bhavan
18-19 Bhai Veer Singh Marg

New Delhi 110001

Between Gol Market and St. Columba's School

AYESHA KIDWAI teaches linguistics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi. A formal linguist by training, her academic focus is on the
syntax and semantics of India's minority languages.

Jana Natya Manch

ALL ARE WELCOME

Email: jananatyamanch@...

o o o

(iv) CORPORATE CRIMES, ENVIRONMENT PLUNDER: Peoples’ Struggle
against Vedanta company and its powerful supporters

PUBLIC MEETING AND FILM SCREENING
Thursday, 17 December, 2009 4.30 to 7 PM

·       What is it like for those most directly affected by Vedanta
plc and its subsidiaries?

·       What is the role of the government, the judiciary, Hindutva
forces International agencies and NGOs?

   Samarendra Das activist, film-maker and researcher will discuss
these and related issues at a screening of extracts from his
remarkable film Wira Pdika (Earthworm and Company Man) in which
people from the Adivasi Dongria Kondh and Majhi Kondh communities,
activists, singers and dancers, forest dwellers and fisher people
speak about their lives and their struggles against ‘the company’.

Samarendra  has been an activist for the past 16 years  with the
Kondh communities, and his research includes extensive studies of
transnational companies, NGOs and the institutional architecture of
the global elite.

His path-breaking book ‘Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and
the Aluminum Cartel’, co-authored with Felix Padel is likely to be
released soon.

Vedanta’s record

On the 23 September, more than a hundred people lost their lives in
one of the worst accidents in India's recent construction history at
a power plant being commissioned by the Vedanta-controlled Bharat
Aluminium Company (Balco) in Chhattisgarh state. In India, health and
safety rules are routinely flouted, even so, this was one of the
worst accidents in recent history. While a state-level inquiry was
launched, Balco officials fled Chhattisgarh leaving local people
rescuing the survivors. Meanwhile Vedanta officials in London
ascribed it all to ‘bad weather’. In fact, Vedanta  and its
subsidiaries are routinely implicated in  death and  destruction in
other parts of India too,  most notably in the state of Orissa state
where their mining activities are causing:

*The drying up of streams and major rivers, which are the lifeline
for tens of thousands of people leading to unprecedented
environmental disasters in drought and famine prone districts

* The pollution of fertile agricultural lands and  contamination of
drinking water sources in vast areas

*The destruction of the Niyamgiri hills – known as the most
beautiful mountains in India - which  will wipe out the ancient
civilization of the Dongria Kondh adivasi community who regard the
Niyam Dongar mountain and forests of the area as their Gods.

*Mass Unemployment and Destitution as farmers, fishing communities
and forest dwellers are being displaced and abandoned in shanty-towns.

*The destruction of the social structure in the areas where the
company and its subsidiaries are involved leading to a sharp rise in
illegal liquor shops, fraudulent money-lenders, domestic abuse and
suicides.

You are requested to attend  and  strengthen peoples’ struggle
against corporate crimes and environment plunder.

Date: 17th December, 2009 Thursday : 4.30 PM to 7 PM

Venue : Plenary Hall, Indian Law Institute,

(Opposite Supreme Court of India)
Bhagwan Dass Road, New Delhi-110001


Uma Chakravarti (Phone: 011-24117828)
N.D.Pancholi        (M: 09811099532)
Convenors
On Behalf of : Champa – the Amiya and BG Rao foundation


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 21-23, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2668 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1]  India - Burma: Spirit of Panglong in Kolkata Court (Nandita Haksar)
[2]  US pours millions into anti-Taliban militias in Afghanistan (Jon
Boone)
[3]  Pakistan - India:  Talk sooner than later (I. A. Rehman)
[4]  Climate Change:
        (i) Breaking The Global Climate Impasse: India should seize
the moment! (Praful Bidwai)
        (ii) Privatising atmosphere (Vandana Shiva)
[5]  India: Adivasis, Salva Judm and the State: who is provoking
whom? (Ashok Mitra)
[6]  India: Resources For Secular Activists - Shiv Sena's attack on
the media
        (i) Wither idea of India (Kuldip Nayar)
        (ii) He doesn't roar but mews (Dileep Padgaonkar)
        (iii) The fist is mightier than pen in India (Mahesh Rangarajan)
[7]  Announcements:
   -  Report Release & Panel Discussion : Democracy 'Encountered'
Rights Violations in Manipur (New Delhi, 23 November 2009)


_____


[1] India - Burma:

mizzima.com, 20 November 2009

SPIRIT OF PANGLONG IN KOLKATA COURT

by Nandita Haksar

Mizzima News - For the lawyers practicing at the city sessions court
in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal Thursday, November 12th, 2009
was just another busy day. They passed by the court of Ms Kavita Dey
without as much as a second look. For them the scene was familiar –
lawyers dressed in their black gowns, the court clerks sitting at the
table and the judge dictating to the stenographer.

The curiosity of some lawyers was aroused when they heard some
passionate arguments and they may have drifted into the room in the
hope of hearing some interesting point of law. The Public Prosecutor
was telling the Judge that foreigners could not be allowed to depose
without proper summons. He argued that summons for foreigners had to
be served in accordance with the proper procedure laid down under the
Code of Criminal Procedure.

A look at the large wooden cage at the back of the airy courtroom
held 34 men.

Most of them were too tired to stand and were squatting on the cold
stone floor. In any case they could not understand English or the
intricacies of the legal points being debated. There were, however,
some men who were holding the bars straining to listen to the
arguments. Anxiety writ large on their faces.

On the last of the three rows of chairs in the large court room sat
two men, looking calm and unperturbed, but listening carefully.

Finally the lawyer for the 34 men inside the wooden cage had
persuaded the judge to allow him to call his witness. The lawyer
informed the Judge that the first defence witness was Mr Harn Yawnghwe.

Mr Yawnghwe stood up and walked to the witness box. The other person
sitting next to him was requested to go out of the court. The rules
did not allow the defence witnesses to listen to each other before
they themselves had deposed.

Harn Yawnghwe stepped into the rickety wooden witness box and was
told to take oath and was ready to depose. The men in the wooden cage
could not hear him but his dignified presence and his calm demeanor
commanded respect. The Bengali stenographer‘s struggle with Burmese
names and unfamiliar accent lent a slightly comic air.

Harn Yawnghwe was born in Burma 62 years ago. Both his parents came
from Shan aristocracy and that was evident in his bearing. In quiet,
measured words he told the Court that his father had been the first
President of the Union of Burma in 1948. However, when Gen Ne Win
staged a coup his father was imprisoned and died in jail. His older
brother was executed by Gen Ne Win. These tragic circumstances had
forced his family to take refuge in neighbouring Thailand and after
that Harn got asylum in Canada and was a Canadian citizen.

It was not only his parentage but his professional qualifications
that were impressive. He was a trained mining engineer and financial
analyst, living in Canada. But all his life he had been involved in
the movement for the restoration of democracy in Burma.

Harn Yawnghwe had traveled all the way from Canada to testify in the
court. He told the Judge that the 34 Burmese being held inside the
wooden cage at the back of the court were genuine freedom fighters.
He also told the court that he was now the executive director of the
Euro Burma Office with its headquarters at Brussels. The Euro Burma
Office had released funds for the costs of the trial. There was no
way that such funding could be given if there was even a suspicion
that the 34 were gun runners involved in violating Indian security
interests.

After he finished his deposition he stepped down and the second
witness was called. The second witness was Dr Tint Swe. Dr Tint Swe
told the Court that he was a professional doctor and had practiced
for 15 years before resigning from his job and joining the National
League for Democracy, the party of the legendary Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi. The doctor stood for election in 1990 and won. But the military
junta refused to hand over power to the democratically elected
representatives of the people. Instead they sentenced Dr Tint Swe to
25 years of imprisonment and he had to leave his home and country by
walking six days and five nights to reach Mizoram, India.

Dr Tint Swe told the court that he knew that the 34 Burmese accused
were framed by an Indian military intelligence officer called Lt Col
Grewal. He told the court that he knew Grewal personally and he had
been instrumental in deporting 11 other Burmese in 1996. Dr Tint Swe
conveyed to the court that the Prime Minister of the Government in
exile (National Coalition Government of Union of Burma) had wanted to
depose in the court but he had not been given a visa.

That afternoon Mr Harn Yawnghwe and Dr Tint Swe were given permission
to meet the men in the cage. Each of them shook hands with all the 34
freedom fighters, Arakans and Karens.

At that moment it seemed that Gen Aung San’s spirit descended in the
court. Here were the leaders of the Burmans and ethnic nationalities
working together for the release of Burmese freedom fighters. The 34
Burmese were Arakans and Karens, Harn Yawnghwe, a proud Shan,
representing the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC) and Tint Swe, a
nationalist Burman, representing the NCGUB. Was it the Spirit of
Panglong that had come alive in the Kolkata court?

The majority of the Burmese media had failed to fully grasp the
relevance of the moment, capture the poignancy of the handshakes. For
47 years the Burmese military has justified itself by following Buda-
batha Myanmar-lumyo policy. The military has denied the people
democracy and sought to obliterate the memory of Gen Aung San’s
vision of a democratic and federal Burma. And that vision came alive
in a Kolkata court.

In defiance of the Myanmar Junta the representatives of the Ethnic
nationalities and the Burman majority community had come together to
fight for the lives of 34 Burmese freedom fighters.

Indian human rights activists and Indian media were both absent.
There was neither a sense of solidarity with the Burmese peoples’
struggle against the most brutal regime in the world, nor were they
outraged by the fact that democratic India had kept Burmese freedom
fighters in jail for more than 12 years. Indians could have learnt
important lessons on the Panglong spirit and the need to build an
inclusive democracy based on federalism.

As I walked out of the court that day I knew that the Panglong spirit
had touched the court and perhaps the 34 Burmese freedom fighters
would be free soon.  But I felt an overwhelming sadness that we,
Indians and Burmese, had missed an opportunity to learn a lesson from
the moment in history when the Panglong spirit came alive in the
court in Kolkata.

The author is a prominent Indian human rights lawyer and a writer.
She had taken up the case of 34 Burmese freedom fighters since 1999.
Her latest book “Rogue Agent: How India's Military Intelligence
Betrayed the Burmese Resistance Movement” reveals that an Indian
Military Intelligence officer named Lt. Col V.S. Grewal as the man
masterminding the plot to betray the Burmese freedom fighters.


_____


[2]

The Guardian, 22 November 2009

US POURS MILLIONS INTO ANTI-TALIBAN MILITIAS IN AFGHANISTAN

• Special forces funding fighters in Afghanistan
• Fears strategy could further destabilise country

by  Jon Boone in Kabul

A former Taliban fighter hands over his arms to join government
troops in Herat. Photograph: Reza Shirmohammadi/AFP/Getty Images

US special forces are supporting anti-Taliban militias in at least 14
areas of Afghanistan as part of a secretive programme that experts
warn could fuel long-term instability in the country.

The Community Defence Initiative (CDI) is enthusiastically backed by
Stanley McChrystal, the US general commanding Nato forces in
Afghanistan, but details about the programme have been held back from
non-US alliance members who are likely to strongly protest.

The attempt to create what one official described as "pockets of
tribal resistance" to the Taliban involves US special forces
embedding themselves with armed groups and even disgruntled
insurgents who are then given training and support.

In return for stabilising their local area the militia helps to win
development aid for their local communities, although they will not
receive arms, a US official said.

Special forces will be able to access money from a US military fund
to pay for the projects. The hope is that the militias supplement the
Nato and Afghan forces fighting the Taliban. But the prospect of re-
empowering militias after billions of international dollars were
spent after the US-led invasion in 2001 to disarm illegally armed
groups alarms many experts.

Senior generals in the Afghan ministries of interior and defence are
also worried about what they see as a return to the failed strategies
of the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan.

Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said
the US risked losing control over groups which have in the past
turned to looting shops and setting up illegal road checkpoints when
they lose foreign support.

"It is not enough to talk to a few tribal elders and decide that you
trust them," Ruttig said. "No matter how well-trained and culturally
aware the special forces are they will never be able to get to know
enough about a local area to trust the people they are dealing with."

Another controversial aspect of the programme is the involvement of
Arif Noorzai, an Afghan politician from Helmand who is widely
distrusted by many members of the international community.

Although many western officials want to sideline Noorzai and give
oversight to the Afghan army and police, some of the CDI militias
will build upon the 12,500 militiamen in 22 provinces Noorzai helped
to set up this summer in the run up to the presidential elections on
20 August, an official said.

Despite the lack of any announcement about the programme, which could
radically affect conditions in unstable areas across Afghanistan, it
has begun in 14 areas in the south, east and west, but is expected to
extend far beyond that.

Another diplomat in the south-east of the country said in the last
six weeks special forces have held several meetings with elders in
restive districts in Paktia, close to the Pakistani border, seeking
to embed themselves with the local people.

The diplomat said: "It is not clear anything has happened yet, but
the elders in the area are all seeing dollar signs and very much want
to qualify for this programme."

According to some western officials, the US government will make a
pot of $1.3bn (£790m) available for the programme, although the US
embassy said it could not yet comment on CDI.

A US military spokesman also declined to comment saying the programme
was still in its early phases and public discussion could jeopardise
the lives of some of the Afghans involved.

The plan represents a significant change in tack from a scheme
promoted just last year by General McChrystal's predecessor, David
McKiernan. The Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) was piloted in
Wardak province and involved the rigorous vetting of recruits who
were then given basic training, a uniform and came under the
authority of the Afghan police.

"McChrystal was always quite dismissive about APPF," a senior Nato
official in Kabul said. "It was too resource-intensive and so slow we
would have lost long before it had been spread to the whole country."

He added: "He wanted to move to a much more informal model, which is
far less visible and unaccountable, using Noorzai to find people
through his own networks and then simply paying out cash for them to
defend their areas."

The US has shared few details of its plans with its allies. The
programme is controlled by a newly created special forces group that
reports directly to McChrystal as head of US forces in the country,
but which sits outside the authority of the International Security
Assistance Force, the Nato mission in Afghanistan.

_____


[3] Pakistan - India:

The News on Sunday, 22 November 2009

TALK SOONER THAN LATER

If the governments of India and Pakistan cannot start cooperating
against the common enemy soon enough, today's accusations will become
facts and tenets of belief tomorrow and serious exchanges will become
harder than ever

by I. A. Rehman

Hopes of resumption of India-Pakistan dialogue, aroused by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh's speech in Srinagar last month, have not
borne fruit as early as one had expected or wished for. But there is
some consolation in the fact that both sides seem to be trying to
overcome whatever reservations on picking up the thread they have.

Mr Manmohan Singh referred to ties with Pakistan at the end of his
address on building a "new Kashmir", in the course of which he
declared that "the perpetrators of the acts of terror must pay the
heaviest penalty for their barbaric crimes against humanity". Then he
added:

"It is a misplaced idea that one can reach a compromise with the
ideology of the terrorists or that they can be used for one's own
political purpose. Eventually they turn against you and bring only
death and destruction. The real face of the terrorists is clear for
the people of Pakistan to see with their own eyes. I hope that the
government of Pakistan will take the ongoing actions against the
terrorist groups to their logical conclusion. They should destroy
these groups wherever they are operating and for whatever misguided
purpose. I call upon the people and the government of Pakistan to
show their sincerity and good faith. As I have said many times
before, we will not be found wanting in our response… I appeal to
the government of Pakistan to carry forward the hand of friendship
that we have extended. This is in the interest of the people of India
and Pakistan".

Mr Manmohan Singh was not as eloquent a seeker of peace as he was in
January 2007 when he had declared: "I dream of a day, while retaining
our respective national identities, one can have breakfast in
Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That is how my
forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live".
Still, considering the hiatus in India-Pakistan relations throughout
the past 12 months the Indian Premier's gesture could only be
welcomed. This was duly done by the Pakistan Foreign Office but
subsequently it gave the impression that while Islamabad wanted to
resume negotiations New Delhi's response was not wholly positive. One
should like to hope that this impression is not correct and that Mr
Manmohan Singh sincerely meant what he had said.

It is not difficult to imagine what the obstacles to resumption of
talks are. Nobody in Pakistan should quarrel with India about its
reaction to the terrorist raid on Mumbai a year ago. India was
wounded materially and in its pride at the exposure of a security
lapse no one could comfortably live with. Not only the government but
also the people of India were outraged. On the eve of a critically
important general election the Indian government was under pressure
to talk tough and reject negotiations with Pakistan until those
believed to be responsible for terrorism in Mumbai were surrendered.

The impasse caused by Islamabad's inability to concede New Delhi's
demand was a somewhat expanded version of the earlier disruptions
following acts of terrorism in Delhi (parliament house) and Mumbai
(trains). Since Pakistan is unlikely to hand over the persons named
by India it is required to offer satisfaction in some other form, as
had happened earlier. General Musharraf was able to keep the
composite dialogue going without surrendering the man wanted by India
by promising New Delhi relief in Kashmir. And, after a couple of
abortive attempts, he did manage to deliver what he had promised. Can
the present Pakistan government accomplish something similar? And,
what is more important, can this government be credited with the
strength to honour its commitments?

This must be one of the critical questions faced by former Foreign
Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan during his Track Two mission to India.
One does not know whether his choice for backdoor diplomacy was meant
to be an atonement for the ungainly way of his removal from the
Foreign Office, or whether it was an acknowledgment of his
professional competence, or whether he was given a broad mandate.
(Incidentally, without questioning Mr Riaz Mohammad Khan's impressive
credentials, the difficulties Track One diplomacy veterans face in
descending to Track Two cannot be overlooked.)

It is difficult to believe that meaningful talks with India can be
revived without a shared understanding that both India and Pakistan
will give top priority to the task of preventing terrorist attacks
from across the borders and a clear promise of a joint struggle to
rid the subcontinent of the spectre of suicidal terrorism.

The reasons for attaching priority to the composite dialogue begun in
2004 are obvious. It has been the most mature concept of all India-
Pakistan normalisation exercises. It covers a wide range of issues:
confidence-building measures related to peace and security; the
Kashmir issue; Siachin, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage; terrorism and drug
trafficking; economic cooperation; and friendly exchanges in various
fields.

Nobody can deny that some progress has been registered in each of the
areas indicated above, however small it may appear, especially to
people who are in a hurry to claim trophies. The point to be
understood is that the composite dialogue by itself will not end all
India-Pakistan disputes, disagreements and differences but the
process could enable the two countries to start appreciating the
benefits of mutual understanding and friendly cooperation. Only then
will it be possible to tackle the serious causes of the illogical and
unaffordable confrontation that has grievously harmed the people of
both India and Pakistan.

A fresh reason for resuming India-Pakistan dialogue is a palpable
worsening of their relations. Islamabad continues to accuse India of
interference in Balochistan. And now it has started blaming India for
aiding the militants challenging the Pakistan state in the tribal
region, although one cannot imagine the Indians to have forsaken
wisdom and prudence to the extent of feeding the genie that is
threatening not only Pakistan but also India and the rest of South
Asia. If the governments of India and Pakistan cannot start
cooperating against the common enemy soon enough, today's accusations
will become facts and tenets of belief tomorrow and serious exchanges
will become harder than ever.

Meanwhile, both India and Pakistan will do themselves a great deal of
good by easing the restrictions on the people-to-people exchanges.
The people on both sides of the frontier perhaps have a much clearer
comprehension of the imperatives of normal relations between their
countries than their rulers do. They are quite capable of helping
their governments in an orderly descent from the bastions of
confrontation where they have perched themselves longer than
warranted by good sense.

_____


[4] Climate Change:

(i) BREAKING THE GLOBAL CLIMATE IMPASSE: INDIA SHOULD SEIZE THE MOMENT!

www.prafulbidwai.org, November 6, 2009

by Praful Bidwai

As the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen approaches, the
North is trying to shirk its responsibility for climate change and
pass on a good portion of its burden on to the South’s
underprivileged people.

A yawning rift has opened up in the climate negotiations just ahead
of the Copenhagen conference of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change beginning on December 7. It centres on the twin issues
of responsibility for climate change—unfolding through extreme
weather events, rising sea-levels and rapid melting of ice-sheets and
glaciers—, and sharing the burden to remedy it. Going by climate
science, the responsibility rests primarily with the industrialised
Global North for its emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The North
accounts for more than three-fourths of GHG concentrations in the
atmosphere.

However, going by the brutal logic of power, the picture is
different. The North is trying to shirk its responsibility and pass
on a good portion of its burden on to the South’s underprivileged
people. This is doubly unjust: it’s the South’s poor who are most
vulnerable to climate change. They’re already suffering its
consequences through more frequent and ferocious cyclones, erratic
rainfall, increased water scarcity, and growing destruction,
devastation and death.

The UNFCCC negotiations are deadlocked not just over the percentages
by which the North must reduce its GHG emissions, or its financial
obligation to compensate the South. There’s an impasse on
fundamentals—the principle of “common but differentiated
responsibilities” enshrined in the Convention, and a clear
distinction between the North’s legally binding obligations and the
South’s voluntary Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs),
for which it must be paid.

These distinctions were written into the UNFCCC’s 1997 Kyoto
Protocol and the 2007 Bali Action Plan after protracted debate. Kyoto
mandated the Northern countries, called Annex 1, to cut their
emissions from their 1990 levels by a modest 5.2 percent during the
“first commitment period” ending 2012. The target will be missed.
In the European Union, “the good boy in the climate cast”, only
Germany, Britain and Sweden will achieve their targets. The worst
culprit is the United States, which refused to ratify Kyoto, and has
raised its emissions by 14 percent.

The US under President Obama says it’ll return to the UNFCCC
process, but at a price: dismantle the Kyoto Protocol, abolish the
principle of North-South (or any other) differentiation, and
negotiate an altogether new agreement, which sets ineffective, sub-
critical targets. Australia has developed such a draft with national
“schedules” but no internationally binding commitments. If it
prevails, there’ll be no Kyoto, no differentiated North-South burden-
sharing, no stringent compliance or penalties. Such a single,
artificially homogenous and paltry agreement won’t prevent
dangerous, irreversible climate change.

No deal would be clearly preferable to such a bad deal. But so
desperate are most Northern countries to bring the US on board at any
cost that they’re prepared to renege on their own past commitments,
including each rich country’s “comparable effort” at mitigating
climate change in proportion to its responsibility and financial-
technological capacity. This poses a conundrum. The Kyoto Protocol is
far from perfect; in fact, it’s full of flaws, including low
emission reduction targets which aren’t firmly linked to GHG
concentrations and temperatures; omission of aviation and shipping;
and lack of compliance requirements and penalties. Kyoto promotes the
Clean Development Mechanism under which polluting Northern
corporations get generous emissions quotas. If they exceed them, they
needn’t cut emissions, as would be logical. Instead, they can buy
cheap carbon credits from Southern projects, which supposedly cut or
avert emissions.

Most CDM projects do nothing of the sort. For instance, two-thirds of
Indian credits are earned by two companies which first produce a GHG
refrigerant called HFC-23, and then destroy it! Most of the dams for
which credits are claimed worldwide were already under construction
or completed before applying for CDM. The Corrupt Destructive
Mechanism lets the North buy its way out of emissions cuts—and buy
it cheap.

Kyoto needs reform. But it does have a rational kernel. That lies in
its acknowledgement of the rich countries’ historical responsibility
for climate change. Kyoto imposes quantifiable emissions reduction
obligations on them. It’s the only legally binding climate agreement
the world has, with time-bound targets. It would be dangerous to
abandon it for a loose unenforceable deal. The US wants to do just that.

The Southern countries, represented by the G-77+China bloc, have
strongly defended the Protocol as “an international and legally
binding treaty and the most important instrument embedding the
commitment of Annex 1 parties”, collectively and individually. The
proposed new agreement would “drastically water down” their
commitments. Most Northern countries’ rationale for supporting it is
that it might be able to include the US. However, says the G-77,
going out of a binding protocol with collective and individual
targets into a new agreement without internationally binding targets
means “taking the international climate regime many steps
backwards”. Besides, the US may not even sign the agreement.

The developed countries indeed want to dilute their commitments.
Instead of the 25-40 percent emissions reductions by 2020 (over
1990), recommended by climate scientists in 2007, and the 40-45
percent needed in the light of recent scientific developments, they
have only made reduction pledges of 16-23 percent, excluding the US.
If the US climate bill’s target is included, the figure falls to
11-18 percent and 10-23 percent, according to different estimates.
Such reductions won’t stabilise the climate. The G-77+China is right
in criticising these measly offers as a breach of trust. The Climate
Convention was a grand bargain, under which the North would lead in
emissions reductions as part of a global cooperative effort.

India must stiffly oppose the North’s attempt to renege on that
bargain. Yet, certain lobbies want India to dump the G-77 for more
exclusive groupings. The G-77 represents 130-odd Southern countries,
the bulk of them poor and backward, as are most of India’s people.
But these lobbies want India to join the world’s High Table by
signing a bad climate deal that pleases the North. Most Indian
diplomats privately speak of the developing countries and Non-
Alignment with contempt and antipathy. Some want India aligned with
the US in the climate talks.

That’s the crux of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s leaked
letter to Prime Minister Singh, in which he explicitly asks that
India should “not stick with G-77 but be embedded in G-20 …” Mr
Ramesh also writes: “If the Australian proposal … maintains this
basic distinction … of differential obligations we should have no
great theological objections.” But the Australian proposal
demolishes the distinction.

This is a recipe for a confused, unprincipled climate stand, which is
unworthy of a nation that aspires to global leadership. Its advocates
are only concerned with the narrow interests of the Indian elite,
barely one-tenth of the population, which is addicted to high-
consumption lifestyles and rising emissions. The elite doesn’t want
a strong climate deal because that’ll restrain its consumption. A
majority of Indians, by contrast, have a stake in a strong deal
because the burden of climate change which falls disproportionately
on them will grow under a weak deal.

A principled approach to the climate negotiations must put the poor
at the centre and acknowledge that the climate crisis and the
developmental crisis—which perpetuates poverty—are integrally
linked. Climate change will aggravate poverty and exacerbate
inequality, undoing the right of the poor to fulfil their basic human
needs and live with dignity. It’s imperative to combine
developmental equity and poverty eradication with climate
effectiveness. A defining criterion of a strong climate deal is that
it reduces the burden on the underprivileged.

India will face hard choices at Copenhagen, where several scenarios
are conceivable—from optimistic to middling outcomes, to complete
collapse. The best scenario is one where the North makes deep, early
emissions cuts (40 percent by 2020); the bigger Southern countries
agree to 15-25 percent voluntary cuts (NAMAs); and there’s adequate
funding. Under a middling scenario, there’ll be a strong agreement
on fundamentals, but not on emissions cuts and finances;
nevertheless, all agree to negotiate numbers within a time-bound period.

Of course, the talks may collapse because there’s no agreement on
anything and some countries walk out. This would be unfortunate. But
the truly nightmarish scenario is one which “greenwashes” a bad
agreement: the North agrees to low and paltry cuts such as 7-15
percent by 2020, with no compliance or penalties, and only a fraction
of the funding needed materialises. Such a deal will fail to
stabilise the climate, but lock the world into an emissions-intensive
trajectory that aggravates both climate change and the developmental
crisis.

India should walk out of the talks rather than agree to such
“greenwash”. In the few weeks left before Copenhagen, India should
do its utmost to consolidate the G-77+China position, lobby Northern
governments, including the US, when Dr Singh meets President Obama
late this month, and make voluntary commitments to show that it’s
more serious about combating climate change than appears—thanks to
its ambivalence on Himalayan glacier melting and its lip service to
poverty eradication, even while practising elitist policies. India
must be flexible on transparency and generous on delivering modern
energy services to its poor. But it should be hardnosed about holding
the North’s feet to the fire. There must be no compromise here.


o o o

(ii)

Deccan Chronicle, 20 November 2009

PRIVATISING ATMOSPHERE

by Vandana Shiva

The UNITED Nations climate change conference at Copenhagen next month
is meant to further the goals of a global environmental treaty — the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In
1988, a resolution of the UN General Assembly considered the climate
change matter as a “common concern for mankind”, and the Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change was created. On May 9, 1992, the
UNFCCC was adopted in New York and opened for signing in June 1992 at
the Earth Summit in Rio. It came into effect on March 21, 1994.
The goal of the Convention, according to Article 2, is to “stabilise
the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level
that prevents all dangerous anthropogenic disturbance of the climate
system”. Since the historic polluters were the rich, industrialised
countries, the Convention required that by 2000 they stabilise their
greenhouse gas emissions at their 1990 level.
Under the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto on
December 11, 1997. The Kyoto Protocol set binding targets on
industrialised countries for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions
to an average of five per cent against the 1990 levels over a five
year period, 2008 to 2012.
However, in 2007, America’s greenhouse gas levels were 16 per cent
higher than their 1990 levels. The much-announced Waxman Markey
“American Clean Energy and Security Act” commits the US to 17 per
cent emissions reduction below 2005 levels by 2020. However, this is
a mere four per cent below their 1990 levels.
Further, the emissions trading or offsets, in fact, are a mechanism
to not reduce emissions at all. As the Breakthrough Institute in
United States, “a small think tank with big ideas”, states “If
fully utilised, the emissions ‘offset’ in the American Clean
Energy and Security Act would allow continued business as usual
growth in the US greenhouse gas emissions until 2030, leading one to
wonder: where’s the ‘cap’ in the ‘cap and trade’”.
The Kyoto Protocol allows industrialised countries to trade their
allocation of carbon emissions among themselves (Article 17). It also
allows an investor in an industrialised country (industry or
government) to invest in an eligible carbon mitigation project in a
developing country and be credited with Certified Emission Reduction
Units that can be used by investors to meet their obligation to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is referred to as the Clean
Development Mechanism under Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. The
Kyoto Protocol gave 38 industrialised countries, that were the worst
historical polluters, emissions rights. The European Union Emissions
Trading Scheme rewarded 11,428 industrial installations with carbon
dioxide emissions rights. Through emissions trading, Larry Lohmann,
the co-author of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate
Change, Privatisation and Power, observes, “Rights to the earth’s
carbon cycling capacity are gravitating into the hands of those who
have the most power to appropriate them and the most financial
interest to do so”. That such schemes are more about privatising the
atmosphere than preventing climate change is made clear by the fact
that emissions rights given away in the Kyoto Protocol were several
times higher than the levels needed to prevent a two-degree-celsius
rise in global temperatures.
Just as patents generate super profits for pharmaceutical and seed
corporations, emissions rights generate super profits for polluters.
The Emissions Trading Scheme granted allowances of 10 per cent more
than 2005 emission levels; this translated to 150 million tonnes of
surplus carbon credits which, with the 2005 average price of $7.23
per ton, translates to over $1 billion of free money.
The UK’s allocations for the British industry added up to 736
million tonnes of carbon dioxide over three years, which implied no
reduction commitments. Since no restrictions are being put on
northern industrial polluters, they will continue to pollute and
there will be no reduction in CO2 emissions.
Market solutions in the form of emissions trading are thus doing the
opposite of the environmental principle that the polluter should pay.
Through emissions, trading private polluters are getting more rights
and more control over the atmosphere which rightfully belongs to all
life on the planet. Emissions trading “solutions” pay the polluter.
Carbon trading is based on inequality because it privatised the
commons. It is also based on inequality because it uses the resources
of poorer people and poorer regions as “offsets”. It is considered
to be 50 to 200 times cheaper to plant trees in poorer countries to
absorb CO2 than reducing it at source. The Stern Review states,
“Emissions trading schemes can deliver least cost emissions
reductions by allowing reductions to occur wherever they are
cheapest”. In other words, the burden of “clean up” falls on the
poor. In a market calculus, this might appear efficient. In an
ecological calculus, it would be far more effective to reduce
emissions at source. And in an energy justice perspective, it is
perverse to burden the poor twice — first with the externality of
impacts of CO2 pollution in the form of climate disasters and then
with the burden of remediating the pollution of the rich and powerful.
It is because of this failure of the rich countries to cut back on
emissions that the global climate negotiations are not moving
forward. When secretary of state Hillary Clinton visited India in
April 2009 and tried to apply pressure on India to cut back on
emissions, Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh responded:
“Even with eight-nine per cent GDP annual growth for the next decade
or two, our per capita emissions will be well below developed country
averages. There is simply no case for the pressure we face to reduce
emissions”.
When Ms Clinton stated that the per capital argument “loses force as
developing countries rapidly become the biggest emitters”, Mr Ramesh
replied that India’s position on per capita emissions is “not a
debating strategy” because it is enshrined in international
agreements. “We look upon you suspiciously because you have not
fulfilled what developed countries pledged to fulfilled”, he said
candidly. The failure of the rich countries to fulfill their climate
obligations has created a “crisis of credibility”.
The US is leading the dismantling of the UNFCCC. At the Bangkok
negotiations, the lead negotiator of the US said: “We are not going
to be part of an agreement that we cannot meet. We say a new
agreement has to be signed by all countries. We cannot be stuck with
an agreement that is 20 years old. We want action from all
countries”. The proposal of the US is to get out of the legally-
binding UNFCC, to set targets nationally which could be noted down in
a new international agreement, without it being legally binding
internationally and without a people compliance mechanism.
Copenhagen is supposed to evolve new commitments for Annexure I
countries for the post-Kyoto period. The science of climate change
tells us the five per cent reduction commitments of Kyoto are too
small, 80 to 90 per cent reduction is needed to keep air pollution at
350ppm and temperature increase within 2°C to avoid catastrophic
climate change. Instead of taking on their legally-binding
commitments and deepening cuts, the rich countries want to abandon
UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol.
The press release of October 9, 2009, from the G-77 and China
categorically stated: “This is simply unacceptable. It would betray
the trust of the world public that is demanding a major step forward
and not a major step backwards, in developed countries commitments
and actions. We will also consider the Copenhagen COP meeting to be a
disastrous failure if there is no outcome for the commitments period
of the Kyoto Protocol”.
The UNFCCC is the only international agreement we have in the context
of climate change. The challenge at Copenhagen is to prevent its
dismantling. The global environmental movement needs to throw its
weight behind the countries of the South who are trying their best to
uphold the climate treaty.

* Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust


_____


[5] India:

The Telegraph, 20 November 2009

THE SPLIT REALITY - Adivasis, Salva Judm and the State: who is
provoking whom?
by Ashok Mitra

Bastar tribal people at the Araku Valley market

Some news is considered more worth publicizing than some other news.
This is part of an essential discipline, for otherwise we will remain
perennially buried under an avalanche of data, information and
gossip. The wheat, never mind the change of metaphor, has to be
separated from the chaff. The media perform this task. Occasionally
the government of the land helps the media to do the choosing: the
authorities have their own views on what is printable and what is not.

The prime minister had recently convened a conference of chief
ministers to discuss the ways and means for implementing the
Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition
of Rights) Act, passed by Parliament in 2006. The Union ministers of
state for environment and forests as well as for tribal affairs were
in attendance. Most of the chief ministers, however, stayed away;
they obviously had more important matters to deal with on the day.
The only exception was the chief minister of Orissa.

The absence of chief ministers did not deter the prime minister from
unburdening himself. There has been, he said, a systemic failure in
giving the nation’s adivasis a stake in the breathtaking economic
progress the country is experiencing. On the other hand, the
development process has actually led to an encroachment on both the
living space and the means of livelihood of the tribal population.
Such alienation of the adivasis from the national mainstream has
persisted over decades. But enough ought to be enough, the social and
economic exploitation of the tribal communities could not be
tolerated any longer. The 2006 act, the prime minister told his
listeners, embodies the government’s resolve to reverse the trend.
The nation’s energy and resources must be fully mobilized to make
effective the provisions of the act. The Union and state governments
have to move together in the matter, and it would be necessary to
‘factor in’ the different nuances of tribals living in different
parts of the country.

The prime minister drew attention to the need to improve rules and
procedures to ensure prompt and adequate compensation to tribal
people displaced from their habitat because of on-going development
projects. That apart, the tribal people, he emphasized, must also
directly benefit from these projects. Mere monetary compensation for
land taken over and provision of alternative sources of income could
hardly be the end of the matter. Preservation of traditional culture
is of equal importance. The act, the prime minister asserted,
addresses itself to these problems. He urged the chief ministers to
post committed and competent officers in tribal areas who could cope
with the challenge of the responsibilities assigned to them and
interact with the tribal communities with tact, understanding and
friendliness. At the same time, he urged the adivasis to eschew acts
of violence; sustained economic activity is not possible under the
shadow of the gun.

The media spared no efforts to give wide coverage to the contents of
the prime minister’s speech. It was of tremendous significance in
the context of aggravated Maoist violence in the country’s tribal
hinterland. The prime minister, it was generally recognized, had
spoken with great restraint as well as great civilization.

But the media happen to be choosy too, and the authorities encourage
them to be choosy. While the prime minister’s address, oozing noble
intentions, received saturation coverage, a veil of silence has
descended on the findings of a certain official committee. The
committee on state agrarian relations and unfinished tasks of land
reform was set up in January last year under the chairmanship of the
then Union minister for rural development under the auspices of his
ministry. The committee submitted its report in March this year to
the present Union minister for rural development, and is now
available as an official publication. Chapter IV of the report has a
couple of concluding paragraphs, which are being quoted in full.

“A civil-war-like situation has gripped the southern districts of
Bastar, Dantewada and Bijapur in Chattishgarh. The contestants are
the armed squads of tribal men and women of the erstwhile Peoples War
Group now known as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the one
side and the armed tribal fighters of the Salva Judm created and
encouraged by the government and supported with the firepower and
organization of the central police forces. This open declared war
will go down as the biggest land grab ever, if it plays out as per
the script. The drama being scripted by Tata Steel and Essar Steel
who wanted 7 villages or thereabouts, each to mine the richest lode
of iron ore available in India. There was initial resistance to land
acquisition and displacement from the tribals. The state withdrew its
plans under fierce resistance. An argument put forward was ‘you
don’t play foul with the Murias’, it’s a matter of life and
death and Murias don’t fear death. A new approach was necessary if
the rich lodes of iron ore are to be mined. The new approach came
about with the Salva Judm, euphemistically meaning ‘peace hunt’.
Ironically the Salva Judm was led by Mahendra Karma, elected on a
Congress ticket and the Leader of the Opposition and supported
wholeheartedly by the BJP led government. The Salva Judm was headed
and peopled by the Murias, some of them erstwhile cadre and local
leaders of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Behind them are the
traders, contractors and miners waiting for a successful result of
their strategy.

“The first financiers of the Salva Judm were the Tata and the Essar
groups in the quest for ‘peace’. The first onslaught of the Salva
Judm was on Muria villagers who still owed allegiance to the
Communist Party of India (Maoist). It turned out to be an open war
between brothers. 640 villages as per official statistics were laid
bare, burnt to the ground and emptied with the force of the gun and
the blessings of the state. 350,000 tribals, half the total
population of Dantewada district are displaced, their womenfolk
raped, their daughters killed, and their youth maimed. Those who
could not escape into the jungle were herded together into refugee
camps run and managed by the Salva Judm. Others continue to hide in
the forest or have migrated to the nearby tribal tracts in
Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. 640 villages are empty.
Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and
available for the highest bidder. The latest information that is
being circulated is that both Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing
to take over the empty landscape and manage the mines.”

One is suddenly made aware of the two-level reality defining our
nation. At one level, we have the gushing rate of GDP growth, the
ever-expanding list of Indian billionaires, perfunctory talk of
making the growth process inclusive, and the prime minister’s
stentorious declaration to put an end to tribal exploitation
alongside advice to the adivasis to abjure violence. The other level
is the state of things depicted in the paragraphs reproduced from the
report submitted to the Union minister for urban development. It is
not a report prepared by some civil liberty zealots. It is a formal
official report which narrates in lurid detail what is happening on
the ground notwithstanding the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional
Forest Dweller (Recognition of Rights) Act and in total contradiction
of the prime minister’s honey-soaked words.

It would be outrageous for the authorities to pretend innocence about
the gruesome occurrences in the 640 villages in the district of
Dantewada. Officers must have known, ruling politicians must have
known too. A few officers and influential politicians must have also
colluded with the perpetrators of the grisly acts of massacre and
pillage that took place there. No development activity is possible,
according to the prime minister, under the shadow of the gun. Will
he, please, identify the wielders of the guns in this instance? Or
will he repudiate the findings of a committee set up by his own
government?

A goody-goody piece of legislation passed in New Delhi cannot
override ground reality. There is, beside, an issue of semantics as
well: what is violence and what is counter-violence? A small news
item last week mentioned that a guesthouse run by an industrial group
in the forests of Orissa was attacked by a group of tribals. This
particular industrial group is one of the major financiers of the
Salva Judm in Chattisgarh. Who provoked whom?


_____


[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i)

The Daily Star, November 21, 2009

WITHER IDEA OF INDIA

by Kuldip Nayar

IT is happening too often and it is too vicious. Parochialism is
rearing its ugly head in Mumbai too frequently. The Shiv Sena is
threatening to throw out "outsiders" from the city and the rest of
Maharashtra. Self-centred party chief Bal Thackery has created a
ruckus once again, this time dragging into controversy Sachin
Tendulkar, the world's best batsman, who said after the 20th year of
playing cricket that he was proud to be a Maharashtrian but he was
Indian first. How should this remark irritate anybody? Still the
shrill voice is coming from Mumbai.

I think it is time that Mumbai be made a Union Territory.
Industrially and commercially, it is the hub of India's financial
activity. Delhi is a Union Territory because it is the centre of the
country's political activity. Why should Mumbai, which is India's
financial capital, have a different status from that of Delhi?

People from the various part of the country have settled in Mumbai,
making large investments and contributing their labour and
entrepreneurship for decades to make Mumbai what it is today. More
money has come from others, not the Maharashtrians. Even population-
wise, my impression is that the non-Maharashtrians are a bit up. (A
claim for joint control by Andhra Pradesh of Madras was rejected
because two-thirds of the latter's population was Tamil speaking.)

If nothing else, the contribution by "outsiders" should shut up the
Shiv Sena and its ilk, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, from saying that
they are a burden on Mumbai or that the jobs in the state should be
given to the Maharashtrians alone. This pernicious thesis, the son-of-
the-soil articulation, was advanced by many states, including
Maharashtra, before the Fazl Ali States Reorganisation Commission in
1955. It firmly rejected the various claims and held: "It is the
Union of India that is the basis of our nationality." In its report,
the Commission said that "it (Bombay) has acquired its present
commanding position by the joint endeavour of the different language
groups."

The proposal that Bombay should be constituted as a separate unit was
first mooted by the Dar Commission when the Constituent Assembly was
debating in 1949 the formation of linguistic states. The then ruling
Congress party accepted the proposal for the reorganisation of states.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru took fancy to the idea of keeping
Bombay apart. He pushed it when Maharashtra and Gujarat were
agitating against the Commission's recommendation to integrate them
into one, bi-lingual state. Nehru presented before the cabinet a
proposal to have three units: Maharashtra, Gujarat and the city of
Bombay. The then finance minister, C.D. Deshmukh, agreed to the
formula. But he changed his stand following the furore in Maharashtra
and submitted his resignation from the government. Bombay was made
part of Maharashtra.

Nevertheless, the linguistic states have not been of much help to the
country. They are increasingly becoming "islands of chauvinism." The
son-of-the-soil thesis is having precedence. This was the danger to
which Nehru drew attention after new boundaries were drawn on the
basis of language. The BJP-run Madhya Pradesh is the latest one to
announce that it does not want the Bihari labour.

Unfortunately, the manner in which certain administrations have
conducted their affairs has partly contributed to the growth of
parochial sentiments. The rulers have an eye on elections, not
realising that the idea of India gets defeated if people have the
domicile considerations at the top.

After the formation of states, it was understood that the regional
language could be learnt after the recruitment. But now its knowledge
has been made compulsory before a person is eligible for a job. This
is making the state services an exclusive preserve of the majority
language group of the state.

The prosperity of some states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu
and Karnataka has raised questions in UP, Bihar and Orissa, the
economically backward areas, that they were not getting their due.
Relations between the centre and the states have become strained on
this count, and they get aggravated when the states are hit by flood
or scarcity.

Such dangers have beleaguered India since independence. The country's
unity has been the uppermost in the mind of policy makers. There have
been a few movements here and there, raising the standard of
autonomy. But the democratic system with a federal structure,
established firmly after the introduction of the constitution in
1950, has taken the wind out of the separatists' sail in the country.
Except for a few militants' organisations in the Northeast, the
people's heart is in the country's unity.

In the late fifties, the southern states generally felt that they
were not getting their share. There were agitations and public
rallies. Nehru was quick to convene a National Integration Conference
to discuss the different grievances and points of view. The
conference appointed many committees to give their recommendations on
how to bring about national integration.

Before they could submit the reports, China attacked India in 1962.
All committees made just one comment: The Chinese invasion had united
the entire country. Indeed, this was true because all dissenting
voices died in no time. Even the Chinese were surprised because their
assessment before hostilities was that India was disintegrating.

The country had a jolt in the eighties. The Akalis in Punjab
revolted. The state was in the midst of militancy for about a decade.
The Sikhs themselves turned against the militants who had made their
life hell. Punjab is today one of the peaceful states.

The odd voice of linguistic chauvinism, the fallout of the
reorganisation of the states in 1955, has been heard in some areas
off and on. The real purpose has been to gain votes in the name of
the "step-motherly treatment" meted out to a particular community. It
must be admitted that slogans in the name of language or caste have
helped.

The only state where parochialism has been constantly fostered by
Shiv Sena is Maharashtra. The group even once won an election with
the support of the BJP, on the slogan: "Throw out outsiders from
Maharashtra." The Bihari labourers were beaten up, something which
Raj Thackery, nephew of Bal Thackery, repeated after breaking away
from the Shiv Sena.

No doubt, the basis of nationality is the Union of India. The states
are but the limbs of the Union. Yet the limbs must be healthy and
strong. Some states have too many poor people concentrated in their
territory. Yet, what keeps India together is its diversity. By
dividing the country into linguistic spheres or by injuring the
rights of those who are in a minority, the parochial elements are
posing a danger to the very idea of India. It is better that
organisations like the Shiv Sena understand this.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.

o o o

(ii)

The Times of India, 21 November 2009

HE DOESN'T ROAR BUT MEWS

by Dileep Padgaonkar

For three decades Bal Thackeray has ranted about one issue or the
other with dollops of coarse humour to the delight of his flock and
the wrath

of his detractors. Early in his political journey he realized that to
achieve success he needed to exploit the insecurities of the urban,
middle and lower middle class Maharashtrians. They had been left far
behind by the enterprising Jains, Gujaratis, Sindhis, Punjabis, south
Indians and north Indians. The feverish rhetoric of regional
identity, he reckoned, would mobilise the Marathi manoos more
effectively than the tall talk of progress, secularism and national
pride.

And so it is that he directed his ire first at the 'Madrasis', then,
high on the heady brew of Hindutva, at the Muslims and finally
against the 'Bhaiyyas' of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Time and again the
arms he deployed against these communities proved to be lethal:
intimidation, threats, harassment and, with growing intensity, raw
violence. These were the times when one statement at a Shivaji Park
rally, one editorial in the party organ Samnaa, one order issued from
Matoshri, his Bandra residence, could shut down Mumbai and send his
opponents cowering for cover.

Thackeray had the means, and the gall, to "teach a lesson" to anyone
who crossed his path: a defector, builder, film star, businessman,
underworld don or journalist who failed to pay obeisance to the
Supremo. In such instances, he showed a sovereign disregard for the
rule of law and constitutional niceties. He placed himself on a
pedestal higher than the highest court in the land.

That is why he could gloat over his 'achievements' that included the
felling of the Babri masjid and the wave of violence he unleashed
against Muslims in Mumbai. None of this would have been possible had
his declared adversaries, the Congress and especially the NCP, not
played footsie with him. But that Faustian deal was Thackeray's
insurance against arrest and prosecution.

The idyll was too good to last. The deaths of a son and of his wife
shattered him. He became more vulnerable when close associates began
to abandon the ship. Age, too, had started to take its toll. But what
crippled him was the crisis that gripped the family. In the bitter
fight between his son, Uddhav, and his nephew, Raj, to take control
of the party, Thackeray cast his lot with the son. But the son could
simply not match his cousin's charisma, organisational abilities,
determination or his rapacious ambition.

The result was obvious in the recent assembly polls when the MNS
outsmarted the Shiv Sena reducing it to a sideshow. This should have
encouraged Bal Thackeray to introspect. He did nothing of the sort.
Instead, he chose to revile the Marathi manoos for stabbing him in
the back. Later he sought to make some amends. His statement, he
argued, was made not in a fit of anger but merely to express a benign
patriarch's feelings of hurt over the conduct of his errant progeny.
It triggered a fusillade of ridicule.

Hardly had the dust raised by the display of 'hurt feelings' begun to
settle down than Thackeray fired another diatribe. This time the
target was none other than a national icon: Sachin Tendulkar. The
nation, and the world at large, applauded him as a cricketer beyond
compare. But India discovered another, immensely attractive side of
him when he declared that he placed his Indian identity above his
Maharashtrian identity. He took great pride in both but his
priorities were clear. Add to this his assertion that Mumbai belonged
to all Indians.

Bal Thackeray, ever eager to seize the initiative from nephew Raj,
gave Sachin an 'affectionate' earful. The ploy misfired. Sachin has
emerged from this episode as an enlightened citizen of the republic,
one who bears not the slightest taint of any sort of parochialism
and, by that token, represents the face of a modern, self-confident
and pluralistic India. In the process, he has exposed Bal Thackeray
the troubadour of communal strife and regional chauvinism and the
destroyer of Bombay's much cherished cosmopolitan character for what
he has become today: a caricature of his former self with nothing but
bile flowing in his veins. He cannot, or will not, read the writing
on the wall. It says: your time is up.

o o o

(iii)

Mail Today, 23 November 2009

THE FIST IS MIGHTIER THAN PEN IN INDIA

by Mahesh Rangarajan

THE attack on the leading Marathi editor Nikhil Wagle and two offices
may be shocking but are not surprising.

There has been, in urban Maharashtra a palpable sense of crisis in
the Shiv Sena about the new outfit by Raj Thackeray having stolen its
thunder. The leading writer Shobha De, no less, even singled out the
younger man as having “ felt the pulse of the street” in the
recently concluded State Assembly polls.

The Shiv Sena was in crisis. What better way to retrieve lost ground
than intimidating an editor and his staff whose only defence lies in
pen, camera and computer board? The fist it appears in India of 2009
is far mightier than the pen, the muscle of the bully over the word.
It is not a party or a leader who alone should be singled out. It is
the very nature of politics that sees bravery and courage in the
politics of intimidation.

It is not an editor or a media house that is under threat. It is the
right of free speech, the freedom to express one’s views, the
freedom, within bounds of the law and decency, to cause offence.

Were dissent to die, democracy would be lifeless. Were free speech to
end, the country would be akin to a prison. The very defence of the
Shiv Sena speaks volumes. The editor, its leaders say, had caused
offence several times to the Marathi people. The people of one of
India’s largest states, one that gave this country some of its
finest sons and daughters, the home of reformers who reshaped the
course of our joint history, are now said to be in crisis.

First, it was the campaign against the so called outsiders, the taxi
drivers and chatwalahs who make Mumbai their home so they can remit
money to pay for a child’s education, lessen the burden of farm
family back home in the plains of the Ganga.

Now, it is Maharashtrians who dare to differ with the tiger of the
Shiv Sena. After all, more than four decades ago this was how a
cartoonist launched a career in the arena of politics. First it was
Communists, and then it was south Indians. Over the last two decades,
the targets have shifted, sometimes this minority and sometimes that
one.

All along the larger parties have watched, waited and struck deals
when it suited them. The Congress saw in the rise of the Sena in VP
Naik’s long tenure as chief minister, the perfect stick to beat
labour unions and leftists with. By the late Eighties, defence of
saffron, a colour associated traditionally with renunciation, was
pressed into service for the pursuit of power.

Protest

The tighter of the Sena and the lotus flower of the ascendant
Bharatiya Janata Party took them to the position of a powerful
Opposition in Mumbai and New Delhi and made them partners in power in
the state as well as Centre.

It is striking how nearly 17 years on, the massacres of Mumbai have
gone unpunished, the leader of a party who day in and out referred to
practitioners of faith as ‘ harive saap’ or green serpants, found
the police and the ministers could not find a clause in the Criminal
Procedure Code that he had violated.

What the elder Thackeray did, the younger soon excelled at. In 2004,
aspirants coming to Mumbai to appear for a railway entrance exam were
beaten up on the railway stations, with the police as mute
spectator. ‘ Ask not for whom the bell tolls’, the poet John Donne
wrote, ‘ it tolls for thee.’ But what is striking about the
Maharashtra of today like the Gujarat of today, is how few voices are
raised in protest. In Pune, where a mob attacked and vandalised the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, barely a few down men and
women, mostly aged litterateurs, many since deceased, gathered to
protest.

This ability to garner support for the right to speak is lifeblood
for democracy.

It is but natural that an opinion should cause offence and that a
view should provoke others to disagree with its proponent.

Of course, the tradition of trying to wrest the public space over to
one group and deny others any voice at all is not new or novel to
India or Maharashtra in particular.

Precedent

Ramakrishna Govind Bhandarkar, the great historian and Orientalist
himself was witness to the power of the mob when he clashed with Bal
Gangadhar Tilak on the issue of the Age of Consent Bill. In the
1890s, the government, under pressure from social reformers embarked
upon a new legislation. This was not a revolutionary measure: it
would simply have raised the age of consent for Hindu girls from ten
to the age of twelve years.

The measure, much like prohibitions on Sati earlier in that century,
was attacked by conservatives.

Leading the group were nationalists who were proud to be extremists
in opposition to the Raj. The law they felt would endanger the family
and interfere with religion. The Shastra would give way to secular
legislation.

Voices were raised in support of the measure.

Among them was Vivekananda who asked if religion meant being a mother
at a tender age.

There was Jyotiba Phule who saw this as the orthodoxy shackling
women’s rights. Bhandarkar for his part contested the readings of
the Shastra. He drew on his formidable knowledge of Sanskrit to show
there was no such sanction in the Shastra for under age marriage.

The extremists were not able to hold ground. But they struck at a
weaker target. The Parsi social reformer Bahram Shah Malabari was
assaulted in public. The Reform Conference had its stage broken up
and its speakers forcibly dispersed. Malabari was publicly attacked
and in print. He was, the articles said, a Parsi who dare not meddle
in the affairs of Hindus.

Community came before nation, and culture before women’s rights. And
needless to add, coercive power ranked above free speech.

The campaign against the age of consent had an ugly side, a mood of
intolerance, a streak of fanaticism.

It did not merely differ with its opponents. It sought to crush them,
literally and physically. It is a different matter that social reform
continued. Its spirit did not break.

Failure

Such incidents are easy to dismiss as the products of personal
ambition and the petty affairs of parties and factions. But this
might be to err and err seriously. It is not a paper or a channel, an
essay or its contents that are at stake. It is the failure all round
of so much more.

First, the failure of the government to do its minimal duty to
protect those that need the shield of the law. Equally so, it has to
wield the law to bring to account the accused. Further, it is the
silence of the many. It is this as much as state inaction that
emboldens the bully.

It is the idea of an India that gives us all our space to live,
breathe and speak in. How can a country be part free and part
silenced? If the ruling party is serious about being claimant to a
liberal space, the time for deeds has come. Deeds, not words. Or else
the nightmare in Mumbai and Pune will be one for all of India.

The writer teaches history in Delhi University

_____


[7] Announcements:

Invitation to  Report Release of the Independent Citizens’ Fact
Finding Mission to Manipur (5th – 8th November 2009) & Panel
Discussion

Democracy 'Encountered' Rights Violations in Manipur


To be released by Prof. Randhir Singh

Followed by a panel discussion with Tapan Bose, Shoma Chaudhury and
Babloo Loitongbam

Date: 23rd November    Time: 3:00pm

Venue: Basement Lecture Hall, India International Centre (IIC) Annex,
Lodhi Road, New Delhi

The widely reported fake encounter killing of Chungkham Sanjit and
Rabina Devi (5 months pregnant) on July 23rd 2009 and the arrests and
arbitrary detention of several noted environmental and human rights
activists under various laws like National Security Act, 1980;
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, created a ripple of
reactions, within the media, the general public and the Government.
In this context, a team of concerned citizens undertook a fact
finding mission to Maniour from 5-8 November to investigate and
report their findings on the state of heightened tensions and civil
unrest in Manipur.


The Independent Citizens’ Mission comprised of Dr. K.S. Subramanian,
IPS (retd.), formerly of the Manipur-Tripura cadre and currently
Visiting Professor, Jamia Millia University, New Delhi, Shri. Sumit
Chakravartty, Editor - Mainstream, Kavita Srivastava, National
Secretary PUCL, and Vasundhara Jairath representing Delhi Solidarity
Group. Shri. Prabhash Joshi, veteran Hindi journalist and a
consistent voice against violation of human rights, who was to join
the team on November 6 and had expressed grave concern over the
situation in Manipur, sadly passed away due to a cardiac arrest on
5th night. This report will also be a dedication to his un-daunting
commitment to justice, peace and free speech, particularly in the
field of journalism.


The report will be released by Prof. Randhir Singh, former Professor
of Political Theory, University of Delhi and author of several books
on left politics in India.The release will be followed by a short
panel discussion on the situation in Manipur and the report findings.
The panelists are:

      * Tapan Kumar Bose, General Secretary, Pakistan-India Peoples’
Forum for Peace and Democracy and is also associated with the South
Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR)
      * Shoma Chaudhury, noted journalist and Editor (Features), Tehelka
      * Babloo Loitiongbam, Executive Director, Human Rights Alert,
Manipur


On behalf of organising groups,

Purnima, Intercultural Resources (9711178868)
Benny, Focus on Global South (9873921191)
Vijayan, Delhi Forum (9868165471)
Wilfred, INSAF (09825171919)
Madhuresh, NAPM Delhi (9818905316)



_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 15-20, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2667 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1] Sri Lanka: Authoritarianism and the Constitution (Shanie)
[2] Pakistan: Prof Nauman passes away
[3] Nepal: The Andolan in Kathmandu and the Revolution to Follow
(Gary Leupp)
[4] India:  Critiquing the Programme of Action of the Maoists
(Sumanta Banerjee)
[5] Harvard Kennedy School Inaugurates Kashmir Initiative
[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists
    (i) Concerned citizens statement in response to Jamait Ulema's
resolutions
    (ii) Mumbai probe fiasco: bad intelligence or poor media? (Jawed
Naqvi)
    (iii) After The Karnataka Quake: The BJP as political franchise
(Praful Bidwai)
    (iv) More Indus Junk Science in The Hindu (Steve Farmer" on Indo
Eurasia Research List)
[7] Announcements:
(i) Invitation to National Convention / Demonstration on Displacement
and Development (New Delhi, 18-21 November 2009)
(ii) Inviting you to join the Rally for the RIGHT to FOOD   (New
Delhi, 26 November 2009)
(iii) 'The Joan P. Mencher Lectures: We Are what We Eat' (20-22
November 2009)
(iv)  Demo In Support of Irom Sharmila (Bombay, 21 November 2009)
(v) Condolence Meeting for Prof.Nauman (Karachi, 5 December 2009)

_____


[1] Sri Lanka:

The Island, 31 October 2009

AUTHORITARIANISM AND THE CONSTITUTION

by Shanie / Notebook Of A Nobody

We have captured all the positions
And on the heights we have planted
The banners of our revolution
You imagined that that was all we wanted
We need more
We want all
Your hearts are our goal
It is your souls we want.

A fascist regime requires more than outward obedience to its
commands; it seeks to control the inner person, to shape thoughts,
feelings and attitudes in accordance with its own ideology. It
demands total allegiance and submission. It was this goal that was
expressed by an anonymous Nazi poet in the words quoted above. The
Third Reich was organised on the basis that the leader (the Fuehrer)
embodied and expressed the will of the German people and commanded
their supreme loyalty. A Nazi political theorist stated at that time:
"The authority of the Fuehrer is total and all-embracing�..The
Fuehrer�s authority is subject to no checks or controls; it is
circumscribed by no �.individual rights; it is �.overriding and
unfettered."

Sri Lanka has had a long history of liberal democracy; the
authoritarianism of the present political system is of recent origin.
We were one of first countries in the world to introduce full
universal suffrage in 1931, with every adult citizen having an equal
and unfettered right to elect a representative to the country�s
legislature. Even out then colonial rulers had introduced full
universal suffrage only three years earlier. These liberal democratic
principles were enshrined in our 1931 Donoughmore Constitution as
well as in Soulbury Constitution which we adopted for independent
Ceylon in 1947. Both Constitutions were drafted by the colonial
rulers. The 1947 Constitution was contained in a White Paper
presented by the colonial government passed by the then State Council.

The values of a liberal democracy � a free and vibrant Media, an
independent Public Service, Police and Judiciary, free and fair
Elections � were gradually being eroded in independent Ceylon. At the
1970 Election, the United Front had secured a two-third majority in
Parliament. They promptly set about drafting a new Constitution
basically on their own terms. The views of the minorities and the
opposition were given little credence but the essentials of a liberal
democratic government were still retained � though the abolition of
institutions like the Public Services Commission and bringing the
public services directly under the political authorities has led to
the politicisation of these institutions.

But worse was to come when at the 1977 Election, the UNP also secured
a two-third majority and proceeded to draft yet another new
constitution. That Constitution created the monster of the Executive
Presidency with authoritarian powers similar to what the Fuehrer
enjoyed in the Third Reich. The President�s authority is also total
and all-embracing with no checks and balances and is not
circumscribed by any individual or group rights for the citizens. J R
Jayewardene once famously boasted about powers � that he enjoyed
total authority and the only power he lacked was to make a man a
woman. Presidents who came after him, including the present
incumbent, have acknowledged the absurdity of investing the Head of
State in a democracy with the authoritarian powers of a Nazi
dictatorship. But once comfortably ensconced in position, they have
not only been reluctant to let go these powers, but have happily
exercised them, even blatantly violating the provisions of the
Constitution, knowing they enjoyed legal immunity. It must however be
said to the credit of President Chandrika Kumaratunga that she was
the only President who had the vision and the courage to bring
forward in 2000, soon after her re-election to a second term,
constitutional proposals to abolish the Executive Presidency. Sadly,
this was lost in controversy over her devolution proposals brought up
after consensus had been reached. But that is another story.

The need for constitutional reform

All parties seem basically agreed on the abolition of the Executive
Presidency, though there now seems some doubt on the part of the
present incumbent. The need for overall constitutional reform,
including the Executive Presidency, was the subject of a well-
organised public forum sponsored by the National Peace Council this
week. None who spoke, both among the panellists and from the
audience, opposed getting rid of the legal immunity enjoyed by an
incumbent President and the dire need to revive the Constitutional
Council and the independent Commissions. There was disagreement as to
whether the executive presidency should be abolished or subject to
some reform; there was also fair consensus that there should be a mix
of the proportional representation and first-past-the-post electoral
system and the need for a comprehensive Bill of Rights. Many of these
issues have been addressed by Parliamentary Select Committees whose
reports lie somewhere on the President�s Office and have not been
released even for public debate. Even a full Bill of Rights formed
part of President Chandrika Kumaratunga�s 2000 constitutional
proposals, and she paid a public tribute to her political opponent N
K Choksy for his part in having drafted that chapter.

Sri Lanka today stands on the crossroads. It is over sixty years
since we achieved independence. Our political leaders prior to
independence had the vision, in addition to universal adult suffrage,
to provide free education up to university level, to establish a
network of Central Schools that were not second to any of the older
established schools in the cities, to introduce the concept of
providing education up to university level in Sinhala and Tamil, to
provide a network of community-run village level cooperative stores
that provided basic food items at affordable prices and to provide an
administrative structure, hierarchical from the village, division to
province, that attended to the problems of the people at all levels
with reasonable efficiency. But over the past sixty years, all that
has been eroded in various degrees.

Our primary task today is not just constitutional reform but also the
need to rid ourselves of the Third Reich mindset. Our neighbours
India faced numerous problems, not least on religious, linguistic,
social and regional grounds, at the time of their independence. But
they survived remarkably well and have succeeded in integrating
themselves as a modern nation-state. They succeeded because they had
visionary political leaders who resisted chauvinistic pressures from
even within the Congress Party to forge a multi-religious, multi-
linguistic, multi-caste secular democracy. The drafting committee of
the Constituent Assembly was headed by Dr B R Ambedkar, a prominent
Dalit (a scheduled "caste"). The Constituent Assembly included and
accommodated the views of all minorities. The result was a consensus
document that all constitution-makers would be proud to achieve.
India is now home to eight major religions (two states are largely
Muslim, three Christian, one Sikh and the others Hindu) and 18
languages are recognised as official languages at state level (there
are over 1600 languages and dialects spoken in India). Despite the
horrors of partition, India has welded herself into a modern secular
democratic nation-state through a federal constitution.

Do we lack such visionary leaders? It is true that there are, as
India had then, chauvinists who claim that Sri Lanka is the only home
to a Sinhala Buddhist majority who have been in this country for 2300
years. There were chauvinists in India too who claimed that Hinduism
should be the state religion because it had been the religion of the
people for even longer. But the Indian leadership at the time of
independence had the vision to reject chauvinistic demands recognise
that secularism as the only way to national integration. There can be
little doubt that the framers of the 1972 and 1978 Constitutions also
understood the same need. But they just did not have the political
will and the political courage to challenge chauvinism and tamely
succumbed to political expediency.

Over the last sixty years, the country has overcome three major
insurgencies, the last being the biggest and costliest, both in terms
of human and material costs but also in terms of the deep divisions
that have been created in our society with a lack of tolerance and
appreciation of those who hold different views. It is a tragedy for
democracy when society accepts with resignation extra-judicial
violence and killings, abductions and arbitrary arrests, intimidation
and death threats to dissidents labelled as "traitors" who support
Tamil terrorists. The LTTE did the same to its dissidents or
"traitors". Having crushed the insurgency, we now need a new
beginning, not clone the terrorists by adopting their methods.

For a start, the national interest demands that President Mahinda
Rajapakse implement the 17th Amendment of the Constitution, and not
take cover behind the immunity he enjoys as President. The
nominations for the Constitutional Council, as provided for in the
Constitution, are before him and he must do his constitutional duty.
The electoral reforms proposed by the Parliamentary Select Committee
are also before him and this must be presented to Parliament. These
are measures that have wide consensus and does not require elaborate
constitutional reform. But there must be a political will to put
nation before party or any individual. President Rajapakse and the
senior leaders of the SLFP and the opposition parties have the
capacity to exercise that political will.


_____


[2] Pakistan: Prof Nauman. Widely respected, political activist /
scientist and peoples advocate will be remembered by large numbers
across left and social movement circles in Pakistan. Prof Nauman died
in Karachi on the 15th of November 2009.

(Condolence Meeting for Prof.Nauman will be held on Friday 5 December
2009 at the City Campus of NED University, University Road, Gulshan e
Iqbal, Karachi)

   o o o

dawn.com, 16 Nov, 2009

PROF NAUMAN PASSES AWAY

KARACHI, Nov 15: An associate professor at the NED University of
Engineering and Technology, a social activist and well-known Marxist,
Mohammad Nauman, passed away here on Sunday morning.

Thousands of his friends and students, political leaders and
activists bode him farewell at the University of Karachi graveyard
where he was laid to rest in the evening.

Prof Nauman had been suffering from asthma for the last couple of
years. He is survived by an ailing mother, an elder brother and a
sister.

Born in Bahawalpur on Dec 19, 1951, he got his secondary education at
the Cadet College, Petaro. He graduated from the NED University in
1974 and then proceeded to North Carolina, where he did his master�s
in electrical engineering.

After completing his education, he joined the Karachi Nuclear Power
Plant but later opted for teaching. Despite having a brilliant
academic record, he ignored lucrative jobs at multinational companies
and joined the NED University, where he taught for about 30 years.

He was a prominent student leader associated with the National
Students� Federation during the late 1960s and the early 1970s. He
actively participated in the upsurge against military dictator
General Ayub Khan in 1969.

Committed to the well-being of the common man right from the
beginning, he helped the Edhi Foundation to develop its wireless
service on a voluntary basis and also served as a technical adviser
to the defunct Karachi Municipal Corporation in the early 1990s. He
wrote several research papers on bonded labour, water and power. He
also campaigned for the displaced people of Chotiari Dam and for
other similar causes.

Prof Nauman was quite well till Saturday and attended a dinner in
honour of a friend Prof Tauseef Ahmed Khan, who has been recently
awarded PhD, at the residence of a common friend. �At about 6 am, he
came out of his room complaining of breathing problem,� his uncle,
who lived with him, said.�Staff Reporter

_____


[3]  Nepal:

Counter Punch.org, November 16, 2009

"I Want to Dance With the Real Hero of My Country"

THE ANDOLAN IN KATHMANDU AND THE REVOLUTION TO FOLLOW

by Gary Leupp

"So far,� notes Peter Lee of the Asia Times, �Western media have
reported remotely and somewhat uncomprehendingly on the massive
demonstrations in Kathmandu led by the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist), with a marked lack of interest. This perhaps reflects the
shared desire of the Indian, Chinese and Western governments not to
inflame the situation with excessive attention and rhetoric.� He
refers to the two-day action in the Nepali capital Thursday and Friday.

But those demonstrations should be of enormous interest.  According
toAsiaNews, �The second phase of the so-called �people�s movement-
III� saw more than 150,000 participants, including former Maoist
guerrillas and United Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPM-M)
members of parliament and militants, gathered around the  Singha
Durbar, Nepal�s official seat of government.�

The Maoists virtually paralyzed the government in a stunning display
of power. All the top Maoist leaders marched through the city, some
meeting the police at the barricades and breaking through  to assume
positions around Singha Durbar where they addressed the huge crowd.

It was overwhelming a peaceful, even festive andolan or mass
demonstration, although there were some clashes with police. A senior
Maoist leader, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, was among those wounded. He
told Agence France-Presse, �We are now giving the government and
other parties an opportunity to look into our demands.  The ball is
in the government�s court.� The most powerful Maoist figure, former
prime minister Prachanda, issued a sharper warning to the regime,
giving it a seven-day ultimatum (to November 20) to restore �civilian
supremacy� or face a general strike and other strong protests.
When you watch video of Baburam Bhattarai, the brilliant academic who
became the number two figure in the Maoist movement and served as
finance minister under the administration of Pushpa Kamal Dahal
(Pranchanda), leading the marchers confronting the helmeted police,
successfully pressing through, you get a sense of genuine historical
momentum gathering here.

Rekha Thapa, one of Nepal�s most popular young actresses, arrived as
one of many who sang and danced for the huge crowd. She told those
assembled, �I�ve always danced with film heroes. Now I want to dance
with the real hero of my country.� A rather embarrassed looking
Prachanda briefly accommodated her, the images captured on national
television and on newspaper covers.

It was brilliant political theater.

According to S.D. Muni, a professor at the Institute of South Asian
Studies in Singapore and authority on the Nepali Maoist movement,
�The numbers they were able to mobilise and the fact they were able
to keep control and maintain the peace indicate the protest was a
success. It also showed the government is incapable of dealing with
this kind of challenge.�

I�ve followed the Maoist movement in Nepal since the inception of the
People�s War in 1996. I�m always struck by the creativity of the
Nepali Maoists� strategy and tactics. From 1996 to 2006 the Communist
Party of Nepal (Maoist) (now the United Communist Party of Nepal-
Maoist)---originally a parliamentary party, the leadership of which
had determined that armed struggle was the only way towards
liberation---waged a guerrilla war against the monarchy. Its success
was breathtaking. It controlled 80% of the country by 2005 when the
very unpopular King Gyandendra seized absolute power sidelining the
seven main political parties.

It then, having surrounded Kathmandu Valley with its People�s
Liberation Army, agreed to the 2006 Comprehensive Agreement with the
political parties whereby they would all jointly work to bring down
the king, restoring parliamentary democracy, while the Maoists would
lay down their arms under UN supervision, ending the war. A key
provision of the Agreement was that the soldiers of the People�s
Liberation Army be integrated into the Nepali Army (formerly the
Royal Nepali Army).

The Maoists also demanded the convening of a Constituent Assembly to
write a new constitution, and the proclamation of a republic. They
won these demands, and in the April 2008 elections for the assembly,
won 38% of the vote, twice the number of the next party. In August
Prachanda became Prime Minister. So much for the �End of History�
thesis. A Maoist having established his credentials by the barrel of
a gun was having them further validated by the ballet box. Jimmy
Carter was there to confirm that yes, indeed, it was a fair election.

But this was not yet revolution. This was not state power. This was
communists who had control of the countryside, who did not want to
bludgeon their way into Kathmandu Valley (or were not sure that they
could do it, not necessarily confident that they had enough urban
support), savvily working out a strategy to gain a presence in this
zone where over a million of Nepal�s 28 million people live so that
they could develop their political base here prior to a real seizure
of power. The strategy seems to have worked out very well.

First the Maoists, playing by the parliamentary rules, swept the
polls. Then they exposed the shamof the system to which they were
being asked to conform. So many had praised them, for laying down
their arms, for agreeing to participate in normal electoral politics!
But they for their part had pointed out that their army needed to be
merged with the Nepali Army as part of the Comprehensive Agreement.

And the Nepali Army, still ridden with pro-Royalist sentiment, had
refused to implement the provisions in the agreement pertaining to
PLA integration and instead sought to recruit new troops.

This was really the crux of the problem.

I�m quite sure at least some of the Maoists had anticipated this
scenario all along. That is, they had foreseen that the old state
power reliant ultimately on armed force would not submit to the terms
of the agreement or to the will of the people as expressed in elections.

The real issue is of course state power, and you can�t obtain state
power when you don�t control the army. In May Prime Minister
Prachanda asked the head of the Army, Gen. Rukmangad Katwal, to step
down and appointed a new army chief. The President, Ram Baran Yadav,
a member of the Nepal Congress Party, countermanded the order keeping
Katwal at his post. It is widely thought that he enjoyed India�s
support in this action. At that point Prachanda did something quite
unexpected: in a televised address he denounced the president�s move
as �illegal and unconstitutional� and  resigned.

The Maoists not only quit the government, but pronounced the
selection of a new one by the parliament as an unconstitutional
process. They boycotted the election of Prachanda�s successor, party
leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha declaring, �Without restoring civilian
supremacy and correcting the president�s move, the new government
will be unconstitutional. This government has wrong political ground
as it is being formed as a ploy to sabotage the peace and
constitution-making process and restore military supremacy. I want to
give you a benefit of doubt, if you are nationalist, you will come
back to the path drawn by the people�s movement.�

In the six months since the Maoists have made it impossible for the
22-party coalition government to function, accusing it of being
unwilling to enforce the Comprehensive Agreement integrating the two
armies. They have focused on this issue of �civilian supremacy,�
which is really a matter of focusing upon the fact that there remain
two headquarters of real power in the country.

There�s the status quo in the Singha Durbar complex, where the
Maoists have tried to negotiate their way as parliamentary
politicians but where power is ultimately guaranteed by the old
state�s army backed up by India and U.S., the army that the Maoists
confronted and humiliated big-time. And there�s the new order being
built elsewhere.

Last week, Maoists in the state of Kirat declared the autonomy of
that state. This was in accordance with the �first phase� plans for
the People�s Movement III prior to the mass show of strength in the
capital. But the announcement of ethnic-based states in a federal
system had been postponed after some discussion and it�s not clear
whether local party leader and politburo member, coordinator of Kirat
State Uprising Committee, Gopal Kirati actually had Central Committee
permission. The plan to shut down the international airport was
cancelled after ambassadors� protests but the plan to cut off all
roads to Kathmandu was executed efficiently after November 1.
Ambulances and other essential vehicles were allowed egress and
ingress; the Maoists having acquired much valley support are not
looking to lose it.

But they are making the point to their political colleagues, with
whom they�ve worked through the Comprehensive Agreement but who they
see as for the most part only temporary allies at best, that just
because they�ve put down their arms doesn�t mean they can�t use their
mass organizational skills to scare the hell out of them. The next
step is a general strike.

In the meantime, the plan is for a no-confidence vote in the
parliament. Meanwhile, the Maoists control access to the valley and
it�s quite likely that activists are pouring in for the next round of
andolan. The �Prachanda Path� as articulated since 2001 has involved
a fusion of the Chinese People�s War model and the October
Revolution. Which of course means: urban insurrection.

Meanwhile UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, noting the obvious---that
the PLA demobilization under UN certification, which was supposed to
result in the integration of the two armies under the terms of the
Comprehensive Agreement, wasn�t happening---in late October
criticized the current Nepali government for proceeding �with a fresh
round of recruitment into the Nepal Army� and resuming �the import of
lethal military equipment.�

In the assessment of UNMIN [United Nations Mission in Nepal], either
step would violate the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and
the Agreement on Monitoring the Management of Arms and Armies. UNMIN
has continued to consistently convey this position to the Government
and the public. The Minister of Defence, Bidhya Bhandari, has called
for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to be revised, claiming that
restrictions it places on recruitment, arms purchases and training
had been detrimental to the effective functioning of the Nepal Army.
UCPN-M has strongly protested her statement.

Prachanda cited this report at the andolan last week. And I believe
he cited this passage in Ban�s report:

�In my meeting with the Prime Minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal, at Sharm
el-Sheikh in July, I conveyed the strong concern of the international
community at the lack of progress in the peace process and stressed
the need for a time-bound effort to resolve the impediments hampering
the process. My Representative in Nepal and other senior officials
have consistently encouraged consensus and dialogue between the
parties, recommending the establishment of a more formal dialogue
mechanism to streamline negotiations and find creative solutions to
overcome the current impasse. At the same time, my Representative has
also underlined the need to avoid provocative statements or actions
in order to maintain a positive climate for dialogue.�

That is to say, Ban�s urging the reintegration of the Maoists into
government, realizing they�re organizing outside government from a
position of strength. And the Maoists naturally use this report to
strengthen their case at this time.

The South Korean diplomat has absolutely no personal interest in
facilitating the consummation of the twenty-first century�s first
revolution led by a self-pronounced Maoist party. But he apparently
thinks it�s best to recognize the reality of Maoist political
strength and to stick to the 2006 agreement.

Given this statement, the Maoists who now boast they have all
Kathmandu behind them can say much of the world as represented by the
UN secretary general agrees with their goal of �civilian supremacy,�
and that the 22-party coalition with the UML and Congress at its
head, linked to the Army, India and ultimately U.S. imperialism is
the isolated, marginalized force.

There are so many logical and moral arguments to assemble as Nepal�s
October approaches. It�s the mix of models, and ever-shifting
tactics, and adaptability and revolutionary competence of these
communists that never ceases to impress me. I truly think they may
pull it off.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct
Professor of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and
Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The
Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is
also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars
on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.


_____


[4]  India:

Economic and Political Weekly, 14 November 2009

CRITIQUING THE PROGRAMME OF ACTION OF THE MAOISTS

by Sumanta Banerjee

A response to the Communist Party of India (Maoist) comment (19
September 2009) on  Sumanta Banerjee's earlier article (2 May 2009),
raising larger questions on the CPI(Maoist) strategies and tactics.

I  thank the spokesperson of the CPI(Maoist) for his response ("On
the Election Boycott Tactic of the Maoists", EPW, 19 September) to my
article, "The Maoists, Elections, Boycotts and Violence" which
enables me to raise some basic questions regarding his party's
strategy and tactics, that go beyond the immediate controversy over
the boycott of the May Lok Sabha polls.
But let me first dispose of the spokesperson's objections to my views
on election boycott. I accept the explanation that the stoppage of
the train at Hehegada station in Jharkhand was not a hijacking, but a
stopping of the train, which as he says had nothing to do with the
poll boycott. I share the anger of the villagers demanding a judicial
enquiry into the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) killing of five
youths. But could not their anger had been directed by the CPI
(Maoist) towards more effective channels (like encirclement of the
district administration headquarters demanding punishment of the
guilty), instead of choosing a soft target like a train, holding it
up for four hours, totally indifferent to the plight of the common
passengers travelling by it? Have the Maoist leadership ever
considered how many among them might have been patients going for
medical treatment, or students sitting for some examinations, or some
similar urgent work? The most horrendous example of such utter
indifference by the Maoists to lives of the common people was the
Kakatiya train incident (which the spokesperson now admits was a
"blot" in his party history).

Poll statistics

As for people's participation in elections,  I am being questioned
for relying on the Election Commission (EC) statistics and the "Delhi-
centric press" which had reported "moderate to high percentage of
Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and West
Bengal. I thank the spokesperson for supplying us with alternative
statistics (collected by his party) showing less turnout at polling
booths in certain constituencies in those areas where the Maoists
wield power. But then why is the party spokesperson depending on
figures from the same EC, regarding polling trends in the Lok Sabha
elections in Mumbai of all places? He has selectively accepted the
Commission's statistics of 43.2% of voting in Mumbai and even less in
Thane, to prove his point that his party's poll boycott campaign had
caught up in these areas. Do the Maoist leaders seriously believe
that the low percentage of voting in Mumbai was in response to their
call for poll boycott? Do they claim that the 57% of the electorate
of Mumbai who refused to vote were all inspired by their
revolutionary theory of rejection of the parliamentary system - or
was it sheer apathy and cynicism on their part (including the upper
and middle class citizens)? Mumbai anyway is never known to be a base
of the Maoist party's activities or even propaganda.
If the EC's figures for the Mumbai elections are acceptable to the
party spokes- person, what prevents him from giving credence to its
statistics regarding other states and constituencies also where the
party's poll boycott had no impact? The statistics indicate that the
percentage of votes polled in the 2009 Lok Sabha election has not
been any different from the 2004 election - hovering around 58%.

CPI(Maoist) therefore cannot claim that its call for boycott of polls
(described as a "dominant form of struggle" in its politburo
statement of 12 June 2009) had made any impact on the vast masses of
the electorate all over India. The percentage of voting was highest
in Andhra Pradesh -  72 - a fact which even the party recognises when
it attributes the "increase in polling percentage" to "a setback to
the revolutionary movement" and "deployment of the police (which) can
ensure a high percentage of polling even in Maoist strongholds". Let
us look at the polling percentage in a few other states where the
Maoists have a significant presence -  the so-called "Red Corridor"
stretching from the north to the south. In only  Bihar the percentage
was low - 44.85 - while Chhattisgarh (the main Maoist bastion)
registered 55.30, Jharkhand 51.52, Madhya Pradesh 50.87, and
Maharashtra 50.76.

What do these statistics indicate? At least half of the Indian
electorate could have exercised their vote out of what the party
spokesperson describes as "material and other incentives, caste,
communal, ethnic, regional and other factors..." or a hope of some
change through the electoral process. The other half which did not
vote had either lost faith in the process, or had no respect for the
candidates whom they were asked to vote for. In other words, large
sections of the Indian people are not yet prepared for the rejection
of the parliamentary system, lock stock and barrel, from any deep
ideological commitment.  As the spokesperson himself admits, it is
only the "emergence of an alternative to the parliamentary
institutions (that) will bring about a qualitative change in the
perception of the people". It will therefore be a long haul for the
Maoists to win over these vast masses who have to be convinced first
about the viability and effectiveness of governance by the
alternative "organs of people's power" that they claim to have
established in their areas of control, and to be assured of the
Maoist party's commitment to humanitarian values and democratic norms
in its operations in public.  on 'developmental' Activities As for
the party's policy towards the government's "developmental"
activities, I generally agree with its critique of the Indian state's
model of "development", and with its contention that the
administration has taken up road-building at a hectic pace, primarily
to "exploit the entire natural wealth from Raoghat to Maad", and is
using school buildings to "provide fortified shelters to the CRPF".
But while opposing these state-sponsored "developmental" activities,
the party should take alternative measures to help the villagers to
gain access to education, roads and power supply. It is reassuring
that the CPI(Maoist), according to its spokesperson, had " reviewed
this and decided to take  up such sabotage activities in a selective
manner with least inconvenience to the people at large".  dangerous
Portents Let me take off from this to go beyond the poll boycott
issue, and take up the post- poll position of the CPI(Maoist). I am
in general agreement with its assessment of the election results and
the post-electoral scenario, as described in its politburo statement
of 12 June 2009 ("Post-Election Situation - Our Tasks"). It is also
good to see that the party has recognised its mistakes and is
promising to "take extra pre- cautions not to take up reckless
actions, not to cause damage to people's property or cause
inconvenience to people..." There is, however, no evidence of such
precautions, as apparent from the continuing "reckless actions" by
its cadres like destruction of railway stations and tracks,
disruptions in public life by frequent bandhs in the Bihar-Jharkhand
stretch, and indiscriminate killing of poor villagers and their
families including children, just because they happen to be
supporters of the CPI(M) or some other political party in Midnapore,
Purulia and Bankura in West Bengal.

Moreover, I find a dangerously opportunistic line in the CPI
(Maoist)'s sympathetic assessment of ethno-nationalist insurgencies
of a fascist nature (e g, LTTE in Sri Lanka and ULFA in Assam) and
fundamentalist religion-based terrorist acts of vengeance (e g, by
Taliban in Swat Valley and the north west in Pakistan), as ex-
pressed in the politburo statement, as well as certain utterances and
statements by its spokespersons (e g, Koteswar Rao's recent
interviews in Lalgarh). Although it is well known that the LTTE
hijacked the just cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils, dragged down the
national liberation struggle  into a personality-based (Prabhakaran-
led) autocratic militarist misadventure by ruthlessly decimating
other Tamil representatives of the struggle and dividing the Sri
Lankan Tamil community thereby,  the politburo sheds tears over its
failure:

"The setback suffered by the LTTE and the Tamil liberation struggle
in Sri Lanka also has a negative effect on the revolutionary movement
in India as well as south Asia and the world at large". On the
contrary, the revolutionary movements in south Asia should heave a
sigh of relief at the elimination of a fascist chauvinistic party
that had besmirched the cause of national liberation of the Sri
Lankan Tamils. Let us wait for the emergence of a new Tamil
leadership which may be able to re-conceptualise their demand for
self- determination in a new programme of strategy and tactics,
committed to socialist and democratic reforms.  sympathy for
Terrorist Acts The politburo statement also betrays a sneaking
sympathy for the terrorist acts of Islamic fundamentalist forces. It
includes such acts as part of "the national liberation struggles in
the contemporary world", by describing them as "militant uprisings in
several parts of Pakistan such as the Swat Valley, North West
Provinces, FATA and other regions...". Still later, it bemoans that
"the massive offensive on Islamic jihadist forces in Pakistan" had
been a "negative factor" in the present international situation. The
CPI(Maoist) senior leader Koteswar Rao (known as Kishanji) has come
out openly in support of the Islamic jihadis in a recent news paper
interview, where he said: "...we feel that the Islamic upsurge should
not be opposed as it is basically anti-US and anti-imperialist in
nature. We therefore want it to grow." When the newspaper reporter
interviewing him pointed out at the loss of hundreds of innocent
lives caused by the terror attacks in Mumbai, he came out with the
amazing comment: "We do not support the way they attacked the
Victoria station, where most of the victims were Muslims!" (Hindustan
Times, 9 June 2009). As if  had the majority of the victims been non-
Muslims, even if they were innocent, it would not have mattered to
the Maoist party!

Is such sympathy for the Islamic jihadist militants in consistence
with the ideology of the CPI(Maoist)? By their own public statements,
the Islamic jihadist forces (Taliban, Al Qaida, Lashkar-e-Taiba and
other militant outfits operating in the sub- continent) had
repeatedly made it clear that their goal is the setting up of an
Islamic state based on strict religious shariat laws, which ban
democratic political activities, curtail women's free movement,
impose orthodox feudal practices and customs, etc. Judging by
Koteswar Rao's statement, the CPI(Maoist) is supporting these Islamic
religious fundamentalist jihadists, just because they are opposing
the US. So, any stick is good enough to beat the US? The party fails
to analyse their class character and opportunist politics, and
forgets that the Taliban, Al Qaida, etc, which lead the "Islamic
upsurge" today, were created by the US CIA to overthrow the pro-
Soviet regime in Afghanistan. It is strange that the CPI(Maoist)
supports these Islamic terrorist groups (who are totally feudal and
anti-communist), but ignores the Latin American socialist forces,
both armed and parliamentary, who are putting up resistance against
US hegemony in a more meaningful way.

A similarly dangerous opportunist line is evident from the CPI
(Maoist)'s statements about ULFA and some other north-eastern
insurgent outfits. Koteswar Rao in another interview (taken by
Romeeta Datta and Aveek Datta and posted by
www.livemint.com on 29 May 2009) said:

We support all outfits fighting state-sponsored oppression - the
likes of ULFA, NSCN and PLA - because our enemy is common.
We have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the NSCN,
ULFA and PLA for helping each other in our fight against the state.
  From both the statements and actions of the ULFA, it is quite
evident that it is a xenophobic ethno-nationalist group, which while
fighting for a separate homeland, is targeting non-Assamese innocent
citizens (e g, migrant labourers from Bihar and other north-Indian
places), as well as Assamese dissidents and democrats who dare to
oppose their ideology.  By entering into opportunist military
alliances with such outfits, the Maoists seem to be following the age-
old unprincipled doctrine of "My enemy's enemy is my friend", and
justifying it in the name of supporting self-determination of
nationalities.

A similar expediency led the Maoists in West Bengal to get into
underhand opportunist deals with the Trinamool Congress leader Mamata
Banerjee (who is now the Railways Minister of the UPA government), to
make use of popular discontent against CPI(M) gangsterism in
Nandigram. This fact was revealed, in an unguarded moment, by the
same Koteswar Rao in an interview with the Bengali TV Star Ananda
channel sometime ago, where he expressed the hope that Mamata would
protect his party from police persecution since it had supported her
in the past!  need for introspection The basic debate therefore is
not over poll boycott per se, but revolves around the Maoist
leadership's ideological under- standing of the present overall
Indian situation, and their moral integrity. Instead of recognising
the various forms of struggles by which different sections of the op-
pressed people try to exhaust the available democratic opportunities,
and accommodating these forms in an inclusive programme of action,
the CPI(Maoist) leaders in an immature overestimation of the Indian
public mood are jumping the queue of options, and prioritising armed
struggle as the sole means. In a further step of immaturity - which
sad to say, also makes them morally culpable - they prefer to strike
deals with ethno-chauvinist armed outfits, or opportunist politicians
like Mamata Banerjee. It is these militarist priorities and political
expediencies that are eroding the ideological commitment of their
cadres. The latter (in West Bengal today in particular) seem to be
degenerating into roving gangs of paranoid revengeful killers -
recalling the dark days of the fratricidal warfare between the
Naxalites and CPI(M) youth cadres in the 1970s. The party leadership
does not seem to have any control over its cadres even in its own
strongholds - as evident from the spokesperson's admission that "the
unfortunate attacks on poll officials (in Chhattisgarh) were an
aberration...".

Thus, despite its achievements in building up alternative "organs of
people's power" in a few spots in Chhattisgarh and neighbouring
areas, the CPI(Maoist) has failed to expand its base - whether
politically or organisationally - in the rest of India. Besides, the
oft-reported acts of murders by its cadres (as gruesome as by the
Indian security forces) have robbed the party of public sympathy.
Taking advantage of the isolation of the party and its confinement to
a narrow zone, the Indian state is launching a massive military
offensive against Maoist bases. While human rights groups are
justifiably trying to rally worldwide public opinion against such an
offensive that would result in the massacre of the rural poor, may I
request the spokesperson of the CPI(Maoist) to persuade his
leadership to have a second look at their hitherto followed programme
of action?

Sumanta Banerjee is best known for his book In the Wake of Naxalbari:
A History of the Naxalite Movement in India (1980).

_____


[5]  Harvard Kennedy School Inaugurates Kashmir Initiative

HARVARD Kennedy School
CARR CENTER for Human Rights Policy

Carr Center Hosts Discussion on 62 Years of Unrest in Kashmir

16 November, 2009 (Cambridge, MA): On 12 November 2009, Harvard
Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights Policy inaugurated the
Kashmir Initiative with the first panel of its Speaker Series: Human
Rights Policy for "The World�s Most Militarized Dispute." The event
was attended by students and faculty from Harvard, Tufts, Boston
University, MIT, as well as Kashmiri and other South Asian community
members from across the Boston area.

Carr Center Director Rory Stewart welcomed the guests to the panel
entitled �62 Years of Unrest: Regional & International Ramifications
of the Kashmir conflict.� Dr. Sugata Bose, the Gardiner Professor of
History and Director of the South Asia Initiative at Harvard
University, moderated the two hour panel discussion.

The three panelists were Dr. Angana Chatterji, Professor of Social
and Cultural Anthropology at California Institute of Integral Studies
and co?convener of the International People�s Tribunal for Human
Rights and Justice in Indian Administered Kashmir; Mr. Alexander
Evans, currently Yale World Fellow and on sabbatical from the British
Foreign Office; and Dr. Ayesha Jalal, the Mary Richardson Professor
of History and the Director of Center for South Asian and Indian
Ocean Studies at Tufts University.

Attendees included Carr Center senior fellow Rose Styron, a poet,
journalist, and long term human rights activist, as well as Nigel
Pont, Program Director for the Center�s State Building and Human
Rights in Afghanistan and Pakistan Program.

The panelists weaved together many nuances of the past, present, and
future of the Kashmir conflict. By broaching less often heard
dimensions of the conflict, such as the water resource competition or
the current civil disobedience in Kashmir, the panelists raised
several challenging questions about civil?political as well as social?
economic?cultural rights in Kashmir. The issue of the extensive
militarization and its ramifications was brought home through footage
of mass graves in Kashmiri towns and villages.

Carr Center�s Kashmiri Initiative is an effort to encourage
discussion about a region which is seeing increased geopolitical
importance with the continuing war along Pakistan�s untamed western
border and Afghanistan. The new U.S. administration�s renewed
attention to human rights and security concerns in the region makes
the time ripe this discussion. Kashmir has been divided and disputed
between India and Pakistan for the past 62 years; has been identified
by the U.S. government as the world�s most militarized dispute, with
more than 500,000 troops in Indian-administered Kashmir alone. At the
same time, the voices of Kashmiris who have suffered internal
conflict and human rights abuses are often missing from current
scholarship and discourse. Carr Center Director Rory Stewart has over
the last year implemented his vision of combining rigorous academic
thinking with practice and reality on the ground. Mallika Kaur
Sarkaria, a Masters in Public Policy student at Kennedy School and a
joint Law student at University of California, Berkeley, has assisted
the Center in formulating this Initiative, in collaboration with the
Center�s Advocacy and Outreach Manager, Steven Brzozowski. The panel
series with continue next year, with �The Two Kashmirs: Present
Realities in Indian & Pakistani Administered Kashmirs� on February
23, 2010 at Harvard Kennedy School.

Video footage from the first panel (forthcoming) and further
information about the Initiative is available on the Carr Center�s
�Kashmir Initiative� webpage.

For More Information and Poster, see:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/sbhrap/projects/kashmir/
speaker_series_09.php
Also: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/sbhrap/projects/kashmir/index.php

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/sbhrap/projects/kashmir/
CarrCenterKashmirPanel1.pdf


_____


[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i) India: Concerned citizens statement in response to Jamait Ulema's
resolutions
the below statement was released on the 18th November 2009 at a press
conference which was addressed by Zafar Agha, Shabnam Hashmi, Gauhar
Raza and Sohail Hashmi.
among the signatories there are prominent names like Nasiruddin Shah,
Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Shaid Mehdi etc.
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/india-concerned-citizens-
statement-in.html

(ii) Mumbai probe fiasco: bad intelligence or poor media?
by Jawed Naqvi (dawn.com, 16 Nov, 2009)

THE Americans have caught two men for plotting attacks in India and
the Netherlands. One of the suspects is an American, the other a
Canadian of Pakistani origin. According to the Indian media both men
are linked to the Mumbai terror attacks of last November.

At least one Indian paper has blamed poor Indian intelligence for not
unearthing the important lead themselves. They had to wait for the
Americans to unravel the sinister plot, which may have had grave
implications for India�s security and for its future ties with Pakistan.

But what have the Indian media themselves done to help with the
Mumbai probe? They can�t say it is not their business. Just across
the border, it was the Pakistani media that exposed the lie that was
being dished out by their government and state institutions � that
Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving suspect in the Mumbai attack, was not
a Pakistani. It was the Pakistani media that provided the clinching
proof of Kasab�s Pakistani identity to the chagrin of their
government. It was Pakistani TV and newspaper journalists who exposed
the lie. They deserve to be applauded for helping the Mumbai probe.

The Indian media can legitimately plead that they didn�t know enough
to reveal anything of consequence. Of course, it is often the case
that what they do know they do not always share with the public. That
is how the audio-visual details of the terror attack were made
available by a British channel, not an Indian one.

Murdochian media everywhere is an acknowledged part of the system,
often an extension of the state. In India senior editors are often
too busy vying for a Raja Sabha seat to play the people�s sentinel.
Barring a few exceptions, much of the so-called mainstream media
cannot claim to be the peoples� watchdog it once was.

That the Mumbai attack was possible because of poor intelligence is a
fact acknowledged by Indian intelligence agencies. So there�s no
point accusing someone who has already confessed to a failure. The
Indian media, however, have not said mea culpa, not yet. There are
some ways by which they could yet redeem themselves.

One way would be to heed important questions raised by the wife of
Hemant Karkare, the head of Maharashtra�s anti-terror squad who was
killed under mysterious circumstances on the first night of the three-
day reign of terror in Mumbai�s Colaba district. The latest query
raised by Kavita Karkare � a brave and candid lady of rare grace �
pertains to the mystery of her husband�s missing bullet-proof jacket.
What happened to the dead police officer�s bullet-proof vest? It may
hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death.

According to a new book by a former chief of Inspector General of the
Maharashtra Police, there are strong reasons to bifurcate the terror
attacks into two separate episodes and to investigate them
separately. One part of the attacks had a Pakistani connection. These
took place in two hotels and a Jewish hostel in a posh area of the
Colaba district. The other attacks happened at a busy railway station
and in its vicinity. Most people were killed and injured there. Mr
Karkare was also killed in the same area off the Rangabhavan Lane.

The book � Who killed Karkare? The real face of terrorism in India �
by S.M. Mushrif raises questions on the basis of the media coverage
of the sensational crime that went on for almost three full days.
Mushrif has himself predicted what the fate of the book is likely to
be. �It will be either ignored or it will be trashed without being
read.� I read it in bits and found it asking pertinent questions
about the terror attack that brought the peace process between India
and Pakistan to a grinding halt and which killed a pivotal officer
investigating India�s own rightwing upper caste extremists.

Mushrif brings out an intense rivalry between the country�s external
spy agency RAW and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). He squarely blames
the IB for allegedly withholding information provided by RAW about
the imminent attack on Mumbai. Karkare, a secular police officer, had
worked for RAW before his assignment as head of the ATS.

Subhash Gatade also asks some of the questions raised by Mushrif. In
an article carried by Communalism Combat, Gatade noted how before him
the ATS had �earned lot of disrepute - especially in the eyes of the
minority - for its functioning�.

The manner in which it had handled the Nanded bomb blasts (April
2006) or Malegaon bomb blasts and also the bomb blasts in local
trains (2007) had come under scanner. �Perhaps the powers that be
were keen that someone with a professional approach takes up the
mantle and Hemant Karkare was found to be the ideal person for it.
One can presume that there were strong political considerations
behind this choice as the �secular� image of the parties in power -
at the state and the centre - had taken a lot of hit because of these
mishandlings.�

And Karkare demonstrated in a short span of time that he meant
business, says Gatade. �It was evident in the manner in which he led
the investigations into the bomb blasts in Gadkari Rangayatan, Thane
and Panvel (June 2008) and ultimately nabbed the Hindutva terrorists
belonging to the Sanatan Sanstha and filed a few hundred page charge-
sheet against the accused in the stipulated time.

�Looking back it is clear that if the ATS would have been led by any
other person who was less professional, it would have been impossible
to expose the machinations of this �spiritual cult� for whom
�destruction of evil-doers� was part of �spiritual practice�.
Although the main charge-sheet against the accused did not contain
names of the Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janjagruti Samity to which
they belonged, he had promised in an interview that in a
supplementary charge-sheet this omission would be corrected. It is a
different matter that the day did not arrive,� Gatade said.

Kavita - Karkare�s wife - had learnt from newspapers that leaders of
RSS, BJP, VHP and Shiv Sena were trying all possible means to
decelerate the pace of investigations and were exerting lot of direct-
indirect pressure on Karkare to go slow with the investigations. A
few amongst them had even accused ATS of being on a witch-hunt and
some had even demanded that ATS officers should be subjected to narco-
analysis to establish their motives.

Lal Kishan Advani, BJP�s prime ministerial candidate had even
demanded a change in the ATS and an enquiry into the torture
accusations made by the accused. All the top leaders of the BJP-Shiv
Sena - who swore by the Indian constitution - had no qualms in
declaring full support to the perpetrators and even arranging legal
support for them.

In a write-up - The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Need For A Thorough
Investigation, R.H., 08 December, 2008 www.countercurrents.org -- the
author provides details of the inconsistencies in the reports about
the killing.

�...The earliest reports, presumably relayed from the police via the
media, said that Karkare had been killed at the Taj, and Salaskar and
Kamte at Metro. If this was not true, why were we told this? And why
was the story later changed? Was it because it conflicted with
eyewitness accounts? Indeed, under the heading �ATS Chief Hemant
Karkare Killed: His Last Pics�, IBNlive showed footage first of
Karkare putting on a helmet and bullet-proof vest, and then a
shootout at Metro, where an unconscious man who looks like Karkare
and wearing the same light blue shirt and dark trousers (but without
any blood on his shirt or the terrible wounds we saw on his face at
his funeral) is being pulled into a car by two youths in saffron
shirts...�

Is there a lead in this that newspapers should ideally follow? Or is
it to be dismissed as wild rant of a few perennially disgruntled
people? In which case how do we place the latest embarrassing
question posed by Kavita Karkare?


(ii) After The Karnataka Quake: The BJP as political franchise by
Praful Bidwai (16 November 2009)

http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/after-karnataka-quake-bjp-as-
political.html

(iv) Indus junk science (once more)
Message from: "Steve Farmer" on Indo Eurasia Research List ( http://
groups.yahoo.com/group/Indo-Eurasian_research/ )
Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:45 am (PST)

OK, can�t leave humanity yet. I have to be the first to post this new
article on the Indus published in �The Hindu�, which someone just
shoved at me.
It is about the work of B. Wells and (even worse) Steve Bonta on a
supposed �volumetric system� in Indus inscriptions.
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article48883.ece
The claims here are pure garbage. Bonta was invited to give a talk at
one of the Harvard Roundtable meetings on the Indus�back in 2003 --
when he made similar claims. It took us about 30 seconds to falsify
his claims about strokes being metric devices in Indus symbols, as
Michael and others on the List who were there will remember. (Bonta
was told by a very senior researcher after he gave his talk to �keep
a low profile� at the rest of the meeting.)
Pure crud, and the world is going mad. This goes beyond �junk�
science.  We know a lot about how seals were used all over the
ancient world. They weren�t used in any of the ways imagined in this
idiotic article.
Why aren�t Indian researchers (including many who read this List)
protesting the steady stream of junk science being pushed in the
Indian press, especially in The Hindu?
Off to live off wild berries and roots in the mountains.

Steve

_____


[7]  Announcements:

(i)  Invitation to National Convention / Demonstration on
Displacement and Development in the context of proposed Land
Acquisition (Amendment) and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bills

November 18th � 21st, New Delhi

   November 12 2009

Friends,

Since March 2007, NAPM, NFFPFW, National Hawkers Federation, Nadi
Ghati Morcha, Him Niti Abhiyan and many other mass organisations of
the country came together under the banner of Sangharsh, and resisted
the government�s machinations of enacting a faulty Resettlement and
Rehabilitation Act and introducing amendments to the Land Acquisition
Act, promoting private and corporate interests over public good. We
gathered recently in Delhi in July 2009 and our struggle gained a
significant boost when the Acts could not be passed in the Budget
session of the Parliament.

              The land related conflicts and ensuing violence and
divide across the country today have brought the issue of
displacement and resettlement onto the front pages of news papers
once again. There have been numerous demonstrations against
displacement in Orissa, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh in
recent months. All across, there is a simmering discontent in the
country side and unrest in the urban areas as well.  Continuing with
our past efforts and series of ongoing actions across the country and
our resolve to struggle for a people-friendly, democratic Act on R&R
and least displacing development model, we invite you all to a four
day programme in Delhi from November 18th -21st . (Please see details
below.)

              The idea is not only to demonstrate, but also to capture
the civil and democratic space in this charged times of undeclared
emergency, when the government is planning major offensive apparantly
against armed resistance by Maoists, but in the process is also
clamping down on peaceful mass struggles that are challenging
dispossession and inequity.  In such difficult times of state-
sponsored militarisation, it is important to remind the government
and the society at large that there is a large mass of people in the
country who have been struggling democratically, for decades, to
retain community control over natural resources and resist any
attempt at displacing them from their land and livelihood. We wish to
make it clear to the government and send out a loud message that
these Bills, in their current form, far from providing justice to the
millions of displaced people across the country, will only accentuate
their misery and anger.

We demand that UPA government MUST :

     1. NOT pass the proposed Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill and
Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill in their current form in the
Parliament. UPA attempted this towards the end of the 14th Lok Sabha
and also on the last day of the Monsoon Session in extremely
secretive manner without any debate and adequate prior information.

     2. ENACT a National Development, Displacement and Rehabilitation
Act based on the Draft National Development, Displacement, and
Rehabilitation Policy passed by the National Advisory council in 2006
enunciating the principle of least displacement, just rehabilitation
and a decentralized development planning based on Article 243 of the
Constitution, PESA 1996 and Forest Rights Act, 2006.

     3. ISSUE a White Paper on all the land acquisitions, displacement
caused and rehabilitation completed since independence. The White
Paper must also make public the extent of land utilized, unutilized
and land acquired for public purpose but remains occupied by sick and
non-functional industries and other infrastructure projects.

     4. and all the state Governments should come out publicly with
the MoUs signed with different corporations, companies and others,
which have land acquisition requirements and hold public dialogue -
especially with affected people.

We do hope that you will be able to join all of us in this national
endeavour to bring out long-lasting legal and political change in
favour of the struggling millions.

Important dates are :

November 18 � Convention at Kanjhawala, (Venue near the Kanjhawla
main bus stand) Rohini, Delhi. Get off at the Pritampura Metro
Station and take a local RTV, mini bus to Kanjahwala to reach to the
dharna site. Call Rawat  : 011 20506929.

November 18th - Remembering Prabhash Joshi, Gandhi Peace Foundation,
5:00 pm onwards
November 19 � 20 � Massive demonstration at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi
November 21 � �Development, Displacement and Land Conflicts Today�
Public meeting at Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi. (3-6 pm)

Please do try and join us in large numbers and join us in the
struggle of the masses of the country in securing just livelihood and
dignity.

In Solidarity,

Medha Patkar, Narmada Bachao Andolan & NAPM
Ashok Chowdhury, National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers
(NFFPFW)
Gautam Bandopadhyay, Nadi Ghati Morcha, Chattisgarh
Dayamani Barla, Adivasi Mulnivasi Astitva Raksha Manch, Jharkhand
Roma, Kaimur Kshetra Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, NFFPFW
(Sonbhadra)
Pushpa Toppo, Jharkhand Jungle Bachao Andolan, NFFPFW Jharkhand
Dr. Sunilam, Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, Betul
Guman Singh, Himalaya Niti Abhiyan, Himachal Pradesh
Sandhya Devi, Kalahandi Mahila Mahasangh, Orissa
Shaktiman Ghosh, National Hawkers Federation, West Bengal
Advocate Aradhana Bhargav, Pench Sangharsh Samiti, Madhya Pradesh
Niketan Palkar, Tata Dharangrast Sangharsh Samiti and Sahyadri Bachao
Andolan, Maharashtra
Hansraj Gheora, Bhumi Bachao Andolan, Delhi
Akhil Gogoi, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, NAPM Assam
Anand Mazgaonkar, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, NAPM Gujarat
Aruna Roy, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, NAPM
Bhupinder Singh Rawat, Jan Sangharsh Vahini, NAPM Delhi
Debjit Dutt and Murad Hussain, NAPM West Bengal
Faisal, NAPM Haryana
Gabriele / Geeta Ramakrishnan NAPM, Tamilnadu
Geo Jose / Hussain Master, NAPM, Kerala
Mukta Srivastava, NAPM Maharashtra
P Chennaiah, Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vruthidarula Union (APVVU), NAPM
Rajendra Ravi, NAPM, Delhi
Ramakrishnam Raju, United Forum for RTI, Andhra Pradesh
Praffula Samantray, NAPM Orissa
Sandeep Pandey, Aasha Parivaar (U.P.) NAPM
Sanjay M G, NAPM Maharashtra
Simpreet Singh, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, Mumbai, NAPM
Suniti S R, Visthapan Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti, NAPM Maharashtra
Ulka Mahajan, SEZ-Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti, NAPM Maharashtra
Venkatesh, Sr. Celia and Sudhir Vombatkare, NAPM, Karnataka
Vimalbhai, Matu Jan Sangathan, NAPM Uttarakhand

--
National Alliance of Peoples' Movements (NAPM)
Mobile +91 9818 905316
email : napmindia@... | kmadhuresh@...
Web : www.napm-india.org

o o o

(ii) Inviting you to join the Rally for the RIGHT to FOOD   26
November 2009 (New Delhi)

A rally outside Parliament demanding the passage of a comprehensive
Food Entitlements Act and effective interventions in drought stricken
areas.

      Organized by The Right to Food Campaign.
Route: Mandi House to Parliament Street (followed by demo outside
Parliament.
Assembly time: 10 am.  Rally and demo: 11.00 am- 5.00pm

      Dear All,

      Greetings from the Right to Food Campaign Secretariat, New Delhi.

      This is to invite you once again for a rally on the 26th of
November, 2009 to demand the passage of a comprehensive Food
Entitlements Act and effective interventions in drought stricken areas.

      The country is faced by severe drought and spiraling food
prices. The situation of hunger and malnutrition in the country is
exacerbated even more than usual.  The UPA government's response to
rampant and growing hunger has been mere talk of a farcical National
Food Security Act which does nothing to address food security
concerns. Now, even this inadequate attempt has been shelved on the
pretext of tackling the drought first, though in fact, there is total
inaction on the drought.

      The campaign's essentials demands, and working draft of a Food
Entitlements Act, emerged out of a collective process including
consultations held in Delhi on 18th June, 11th July and 17th
September (for details, see �Right to Food Act� section at
www.righttofoodindia.org).

      To press these demands, the Right to Food Campaign is planning a
mass rally and demonstration on 26th November, 2009 outside
parliament house (at Jantar Mantar). The rally will begin from Mandi
house (assembly time 10 am).

      We appeal to you to join this rally in full strength. We also
request you to support this initiative by:

      a) Organising signature campaigns in your area and bringing the
signatures for display in the rally. The signatures can be collected
on sarees or banners using the attached documents as a mobilising tool.
      b) Distributing and communicating the charter of demands for the
march
      and mobilising as many as possible to participate in the rally.
      c) Helping to mobilise participants for the 26th November rally.
      d) Helping to raise funds for the rally.

      We attach the following documents: (a) Charter of demands for
the rally in English and Hindi; (b) Summary of the demands as parcha
in english and Hindi; (c)  Invitation to the rally in Hindi.

      Please consider translating some of these documents in the local
language.

      Please drop us a line about your participation, including the
number of people from your group so that we can make adequate
logistic arrangements. Please help us spread the word regarding this
rally.  You can contact those below for enquiries. Let us make this
rally a success!!

With regards,
Right to Food Campaign Secretariat
(On behalf of the steering group of the campaign)

Contacts:
Secretariat Office: 011-26499563
Kavita Srivastava- 009351562965
Annie Raja- 9868181992
Biraj Patnaik-09868828474
Eklavya- 09810828817
Trishna- 09891768050
Trilochan-09899952724

Where to Assemble: Mandi House at 10.00am

[...]
Secretariat - Right to Food Campaign
C/o PHRN
5 A, Jungi House,
Shahpur Jat, New Delhi 110049.
India
website: www.righttofoodindia.org


o o o

(iii) Invitation to 'The Joan P. Mencher Lectures: We Are what We
Eat' (20-22 November 2009)

Renowned anthropologist Dr. Joan P. Mencher has been working for many
years in India on topics that are increasingly acquiring urgency
across the globe- sustainable agriculture, inequitable food
distribution, climate change, the condition of the farmers. It is an
honor for Bangalore Film Society to present �The Joan P. Mencher
Lectures: We are What We Eat�, a series of film screenings and
discussions, as the professor herself introduces us to the complex
world of our daily bread- the history, the systems, the structures,
the intrigues, the deceits, the stories of tragedy, and of hope.
Friday 20th November, 2009 Time: 6.30pm
Screening of the �The Story of Stuff� (20min)

  From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in
our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is
hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-
filled look at the underside of our production and consumption
patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge
number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to
create a more sustainable and just world. It�ll teach you something,
it�ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all
the stuff in your life forever.

Introduction to �The Joan P. Mencher Lectures: We Are What We Eat� by
Dr. Mencher.
Screening and discussion of �Fresh� (90min) A Film by Ana Sophia Joanes
Filmmaker Ana Sofia Joanes takes a close look at the innovative
alternatives to industrial food production
Saturday 21st November, 2009 Time: 6.30pm
Talk by Dr.Joan Mencher �Women and Alternative Visions for the Future
of food in India�
Screening and discussion of �The Power of Community: How Cuba
Survived Peak Oil� (53min)

Sunday 22nd November, 2009 Time: 6.30pm
Screening and discussion of �Thirst� (65min) A film by Alan Snitow
and Deborah Kauffman
Global corporations are rapidly buying up local water supplies.

ADMISSION FREE
Venue: Ashirvad, 30, St. Mark�s Road cross, Op. State Bank of India
Tel:25493705/9886213516
Email:bangalorefilmsociety(at)gmail.com


Joan P. Mencher is an Emerita Professor of Anthropology from the City
University of New York�s Graduate Center, and Lehman College of the
City University of New York. She is the chair of an embryonic not-for-
profit called The Second Chance Foundation, which works to support
rural grassroots organizations in India and the United States who
work with poor and small farmers on issues of sustainable
agriculture. She has worked primarily in South India but also in West
Bengal briefly, on issues of ecology, caste, land reform,
agriculture, women, and related issues over the last half century,
and has published widely both in the United States and in India on
all of these subjects, primarily in academic journals.


o o o

(iv) DEMO IN SUPPORT OF IROM SHARMILA
21st November 2009, 4-6 p.m., Marine Drive pavement, opp Jazz by the
Bay, down Churchgate [Bombay].

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act [AFSPA] can be introduced in
any part of India declared by the Union as   'disturbed'; this
declaration essentially amounts to declaring a state of emergency but
by-passes the Constitutional safeguards. In an area under the AFSPA,
any person in the army or paramilitary in the region, even a non-
commissioned officer, can:
Arrest citizens and enter their property without warrant, Shoot and
kill anyone on mere 'suspicion'.
No legal proceeding against the army's abuse of power can be
initiated without the prior permission of the Central government.
The AFSPA has been in operation in Manipur almost continuously since
1980, purportedly to crush insurgency. However, the AFSPA has become
a tool of state abuse, oppression and discrimination. In this
situation death comes easy. So does rape, fake encounters, abduction,
arbitrary detention, torture and sexual assault. Destruction and
looting of property is common.
Yet, India's landscape little acknowledges the ravages of Manipur and
its vast human tragedy.
On 2 November, 2000, Irom Chanu Sharmila, a Manipuri poet, went on a
hunger strike after the Indian Army massacred ten civilians in Malom,
Manipur.
She has a single demand: Repeal the AFSPA.
She was arrested on 6th November. On 21 November, 2000 a plastic tube
was inserted into her nose and liquid nutrient inserted into her body.
21st November, 2009 will mark the 10th year that Sharmila has been
living on this liquid diet; every day for ten years she has been
force-fed through her nose.
In support, women's organisations in Manipur have been on a relay
hunger fast since December 2008. On 15 July 2004 to highlight the
rape and killing of Manorama Devi and asking for the repeal of the
AFSPA, the Meira Paibis, women activists, held a nude protest in
front of the headquarters of the Assam Rifles. On 27 December 2004 a
congregation of 32 civil society organisations of Manipur, called for
a 'public curfew' for the Act's repeal. There have been other,
innumerable protests, dharnas, marches and petitions, cased filed and
acts of great courage across the Northeast against the AFSPA.
Can the Indian government not hear? ... Mr. Chidambaram, Dr. Singh,
are you even listening?
It is important that we all lend solidarity against the
unconscionable, oppressive and unacceptable AFSPA.
We call for its immediate and complete repeal!

"I'll spread the fragrance of peace, From Kanglei, my birthplace; In
the ages to come, It will spread all over the world.
Committee for the Release of Binayak Sen
DEMO
21st November 2009, 4-6 p.m., Marine Drive pavement, opp Jazz by the
Bay, down Churchgate.

o o o

(v) Condolence Meeting for Prof.Nauman (Karachi, 5 December 2009)

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 13-14, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2666 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1]  How Could This End Well? Short Cuts in Afghanistan (Tariq Ali)
[2]  Bangladesh: Obituary - Enayetullah Khan (New Age)
[3]  Pakistan:  "A nation of sleepwalkers" (Nadeem F. Paracha)
[4]  USA Debate on Health Care: Time for the theocrats and male
chauvinists to give something up for the greater good (Katha Politt)
[5]  India: A Trapped People Between Violence of Left Insurgents vs
State Violence - Resources
        - Interview: Himanshu Kumar (Jyoti Punwani)
        - Maoists and Government Forces Should Not Repeat Past Abuses
(Human Rights Watch)
        - Two faces of extremism: A Spring Long Past  (Dilip Simeon)
        - An Open Letter to the Maoists (Sujato Bhadra)
        - Book review: Only Blood And No Power Flowed From The Barrels
Of Those Guns
        - �Flawed programme and practice� : Interview with Prakash Karat
        - What is Maoism?  (Bernard D�Mello)
        - The Ongoing Political Struggle in India (Saroj Giri)
        - A Nowhere Approach to India�s Nowhere Revolution by Ajay K.
Mehra
        + [Kashmir] Supremacy of Security Agencies (Editorial, Kashmir
Times)
[6]  India: Resources For Secular Activists
         (i)  Remembering 1984 - The nightmare endures (Teesta Setalvad)
         (ii) Special Courts fail to give justice to the victims of
the communal violence in Orissa (John Dayal)
         (iii) Book Review: Invading the Secular Space in India (Ram
Puniyani)
         (iv) India: Wake up to take on terrorism of the Hindutva kind
(Subhas Gatade)
[7] Miscellanea:
-  Daring to remember Bulgaria, pre-1989 (Maria Todorova)
-  Empires and the Sullying of Anthropology (Robert Lawless)
[8]  Announcements:
(i)  Remembering Prabhash Joshi (New Delhi, 18 November 2009)
(ii) Public Discussion: Land Violence And Development In Chhattisgarh
(Chennai, 18 November 2009)
(iii) A Public Discussion: Secularism in Contemporary India (New
York, 16 November 2009)
       + Workshop: Religion, Conflict and Accommodation in India (New
York, 17-18 November 2009)
_____


[1] Afghanistan:

counterpunch.org, November 13-15, 2009

HOW COULD THIS END WELL?: SHORT CUTS IN AFGHANISTAN

by Tariq Ali

It�s been a bad autumn for Nato in Afghanistan, with twin disasters
on the political and military fronts. First, Kai Eide, the UN headman
in Kabul, a well-meaning, but not very bright Norwegian, fell out
with his deputy, Peter Galbraith, who as the de facto representative
of the US State Department had decreed that President Karzai�s
election was rigged and went public about it. His superior continued
to defend Hamid Karzai�s legitimacy. Astonishingly, the UN then fired
Galbraith. This caused Hillary Clinton to move into top gear and the
UN-supported electoral watchdog now ruled that the elections had
indeed been fraudulent and ordered a run-off. Karzai refused to
replace the electoral officials who had done such a good job for him
the first time and his opponent withdrew. Karzai got the job.

Karzai�s legitimacy has never been dependent on elections (which are
always faked anyway) but on the US/Nato expeditionary force. So what
was all this shadowboxing about in the first place? It appears to
have been designed in order to provide cover for the military surge
being plotted by General Stanley McChrystal, the new white hope of a
beleaguered White House. McChrystal seems to have inverted the old
Clausewitzian maxim: he genuinely believes that politics is a
continuation of war by other means. It was thought that if Karzai
could be painlessly removed and replaced with his former colleague
Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik from the north, it might create the
impression that an unbearably corrupt regime had been peacefully
removed, which would help the flagging propaganda war at home and the
relaunching of the real war in Afghanistan. For his part, Abdullah
wanted a share of the loot that comes with power and has so far been
monopolised by the Karzai brothers and their hangers-on, helping them
to create a tiny indigenous base of support for the family. Did the
revelation that Ahmed Wali Karzai was not simply the richest man in
the country as a result of large-scale corruption and the drugs/arms
trade, but a CIA agent too come as a huge surprise to anyone? I�m
told that in desperation Nato commissars even considered appointing a
High Representative on the Balkan model to run the country, making
the presidency an even more titular post than it is today. Were this
to happen, Galbraith or Tony Blair would be the obvious front-runners.

Citizens of the transatlantic world are becoming more and more
restless about the no-end-in-sight scenario. In Afghanistan the ranks
of the resistance are swelling. The war on the ground is getting
nowhere: Nato convoys carrying fuel and equipment are repeatedly
attacked by insurgents; neo-Taliban control of 80 per cent of the
most populous part of the country is recognised by all. Recently
Mullah Omar strongly criticised the Pakistani branch of the Taliban:
they should, he said, be fighting Nato, not the Pakistan army.

Meanwhile the British military commander, General Sir David Richards,
echoing McChrystal, talks of training Afghan security forces �much
more aggressively� so that Nato can take on a supporting role.
Nothing new here. Eupol (the European Union Police Mission in
Afghanistan) declared several years ago that its objective was to
�contribute to the establishment under Afghan ownership of
sustainable and effective civilian policing arrangements, which will
ensure appropriate interaction with the wider criminal justice
system�. This always sounded far-fetched: the shooting earlier this
month of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman they were
training confirms it. The �bad apple� theories with which the British
are so besotted should be ignored. The fact is that the insurgents
decided some years ago to apply for police and military training and
their infiltration � a tactic employed by guerrillas in South
America, South-East Asia and the Maghreb during the last century �
has been fairly successful.

It�s now obvious to everyone that this is not a �good� war designed
to eliminate the opium trade, discrimination against women and
everything bad � apart from poverty, of course. So what is Nato doing
in Afghanistan? Has this become a war to save Nato as an institution?
Or is it more strategic, as was suggested in the spring 2005 issue of
Nato Review:

The centre of gravity of power on this planet is moving inexorably
eastward � The Asia-Pacific region brings much that is dynamic and
positive to this world, but as yet the rapid change therein is
neither stable nor embedded in stable institutions. Until this is
achieved, it is the strategic responsibility of Europeans and North
Americans, and the institutions they have built, to lead the way �
security effectiveness in such a world is impossible without both
legitimacy and capability.

Whatever the reason, the operation has failed. Most of Obama�s
friends in the US media recognise this, and support a planned
withdrawal, while worrying that pulling troops out of both Iraq and
Afghanistan might result in Obama losing the next election,
especially if McChrystal or General Petraeus, the supposed hero of
the surge in Iraq, stand for the Republicans. Not that the US seems
likely to withdraw from Iraq. The only withdrawal being contemplated
is from the main cities, restricting the US presence to the huge air-
conditioned military bases that have already been constructed in the
interior of the country, mimicking the strongholds of the British
Empire (minus the air-conditioners) during the early decades of the
last century.

While Washington decides what do, Af-Pak is burning. Carrying out the
imperial diktat has put the Pakistan army under enormous strain. Its
recent well-publicised offensive in South Waziristan yielded little.
Its intended target disappeared to fight another day. To show good
faith the military raided the Shamshatoo refugee camp in Peshawar. On
4 November I received an email from Peshawar:

      Thought I�d let you know that I just got a call from a former
Gitmo prisoner who lives in Shamshatoo camp and he told me that this
morning at around 10 a.m. some cops and military men came and raided
several homes and shops and arrested many people. They also killed
three innocent schoolchildren. Their jinaza [funeral] is tonight.
Several people took footage of the raid from their cell-phones which
I can try to get a hold of. The funeral of the three children is
happening as I�m typing.

How could this end well?

Tariq Ali's latest book, The Protocols of the Elders of Sodom and
other Essays,  has just been published by Verso.


_____


[2] Bangladesh:

New Age, 12 November 2009

WE DEEPLY MOURN ENAYETULLAH KHAN�S ABSENCE

This is a sad day for many in the city, and beyond, for, AZM
Enayetullah Khan, a journalist of regional repute, died four years
ago on this day. An editor of his own genre, Khan never hesitated to
speak up his mind, and that too loudly, under any circumstances � a
quality not displayed by many in his time. A leftwing political
activist in the university days, Khan, along with some of his
friends, founded the English language weekly, Holiday, in 1965.
Enayetullah Khan took over as its editor the next year. Initially a
soft publication, Holiday under Khan�s editorial leadership came out
of its holiday mood to become a serious views-weekly with biting
analysis of the political and economic order of the day. Holiday was
the fiercest critic of the Pakistani military regimes that ruled our
country during those years.
     Again, in the independent Bangladesh, Khan�s Holiday provided an
intellectual platform for the mavericks critical of the undemocratic
forces both in and outside the power and committed to protect as well
as promote democratic rights of the people. While Holiday addressed
many a controversial issues under his editorial leadership,
particularly in the trying times of the country�s post-liberation
years in the 1970s, there has been no controversy over the fact that
Holiday was the most influential and most respected weekly of the
time. And the influential people on both sides of the divide, the
rulers and the ruled, used to wait eagerly for his column that most
of the time used to provide perspectives entirely different from
those of his contemporaries, both in forms and contents. His was an
elitist style in dealing with the issues of public importance �
political, economic and cultural. Khan�s extra-ordinary journalistic
ability to go deeper into issues of the day forced both the friends
and foes to take him seriously. Naturally, he was hated by some,
admired by others, but ignored by none. And here lay his success as a
journalist. Without Enayetullah Khan, Dhaka journalism is indeed poorer.
     Khan�s commitment to democratic values and passion for freedom
often led him to take up social and political activism. He was in the
forefront of the Buddijibi Nidhon Tathyanushandhan Committee formed
on December 18, 1971 to investigate murders of the intellectuals by
the killer wings of Jamaat-e-Islami in the closing days of our war of
national independence, an organiser of the Civil Liberties and Legal
Aid committee formed in 1974 to defend the political victims of the
infamous Rakkhi Bahini, the Famine Resistance Committee in 1974 to
help those affected by the devastating famine, the Farakka March
Committee of Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani the same year to secure
equitable share of Ganges water from India, and the Committee Against
Communalism to protect the rights of the religious minority
communities in 1981. He was truly an activist journalist � a
proposition hitherto unknown in this part of the world.
     Khan had nurtured a dream to launch a daily for long. But he did
not do so until the middle of 2003, only a couple of years before his
death at 66. He was aware of the fact that the daily of his dream
would require not only a genuinely passionate set of intellectually
accomplished journalists, but also a huge investment. For him it
would not have been difficult to assemble the best journalists of the
time for the cherished daily; but a financially poor editor, Khan had
always the fear of �big money� to be invested by others, lest it
should stand in the ways of his journalistic independence. It took
him long, long years to combine the both � a group of thinking
journalists committed to the democratic growth of the society and
state on the one hand and some non-interfering investors with similar
conviction on the other � to launch the daily, New Age that is. But,
alas, killer cancer took him away from New Age in less than three
years of its inception. While New Age continues to grow, with its
head held high � bowing to none but democratic ideals, we at the
paper miss our founding editor Enayetullah Khan, a truly free spirit.

     � Editor

_____


[3] Pakistan:

"A NATION OF SLEEPWALKERS"

by Nadeem F. Paracha

The day after the terrible terrorist attack at Islamabad�s Islamic
University that took the lives of eight innocent students, certain TV
news channels ran a footage of a dozen or so angered students of the
university pelting stones. The first question that popped up in my
mind after watching the spectacle was, what on earth were these
understandably enraged young men throwing their stones at?

So I waited for the TV cameras to pan towards the direction where the
stones were landing. But that did not happen. It seemed as if the
students were pelting stones just for the heck of it.

So I called a fellow journalist friend who was covering the story for
a local TV channel and asked him about the protest. He told me the
students were pelting stones at a handful of cops. Now, why in God�s
good name would one throw stones at cops after being attacked by
demented men who call themselves the Taliban?

The very next day another protest took place outside the attacked
University in which the students, both male and female, were holding
banners that said: �Kerry-Lugar Bill namanzoor!� (Kerry-Lugar Bill
Not Acceptable).

I could barely stop myself from bursting into a short sharp fit of
manic laughter. It was unbelievable. Or was it, really?

Here we have a university that was attacked by a psychotic suicide
bomber who slaughtered and injured dozens of students so he could get
his share of hooris in Paradise. The attack was then proudly owned by
the Tekrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. And in its wake, we saw enraged
students protesting against the Kerry-Lugar act? What a response!

What did the Kerry-Lugar act have to do with the suicide attack?
Wasn�t this remarkably idiotic �protest rally� by the students
actually an insult to those who were so mercilessly slaughtered by
holy barbarians?

But then, some would suggest that in a society like Pakistan, such
idiosyncrasies should be swallowed as a norm. And I agree. What else
can one expect from a society living in a curiously delusional state
of denial, gleefully mistaking it as �patriotism� and �concern.� It
seems no amount of proof will ever be enough to dent Pakistanis�
resolve to defend the unsubstantiated, wild theories that they so
dearly hold in their rapidly shrinking heads.

Take for instance the recent case of a famous TV anchorman who
visited a devastated area in Peshawar that was bombed by a remote-
controlled car bomb. He talked to about 10 people at the scene. More
than half of the folks interviewed spouted out those squarely
unproven and thoroughly clich�d tirades about RAW/CIA/Mossad being
the �real perpetrators� and that �no Muslim is capable of inflicting
such acts of barbarity.�

A friend of mine who was also watching this hapless exhibition of the
usual top-of-mind nonsense suddenly announced that he wanted to jump
in, hold these men by the arms, and shake them violently so they
could be �awoken from their dreadful sleepwalking state.�

Pakistanis routinely continue to deny the fact that the monsters who
are behind all the faithful barbarism that is cutting this country
into bits are the mutant product of what our governments, military,
intelligence agencies, and society as a whole have been up to in the
past 30 years or so.
Well, this is exactly what happens to a society that responds so
enthusiastically to all the major symptoms of fascist thought.
Symptoms such as powerful and continuing nationalism; disdain for the
recognition of human rights; identification of enemies/scapegoats as
a unifying cause; supremacy of the military; obsession with national
security; the intertwining of religion and government; disdain for
intellectuals and the arts; an obsession with crime and punishment, etc.

Have not the bulk of Pakistanis willingly allowed themselves to be
captured in all the macho and paranoid trappings of the above-
mentioned symptoms of collective psychosis. It clearly smacks of a
society that has been ripening and readying itself for an all-round
fascist scenario.

This is the scenario some among us are really talking about when they
speak of �imposing the system of the Khulfa Rashideen� or shariah, or
whatever profound buzzwords adopted to explain Pakistan�s march
towards a wonderful society of equality and justice? Words that mean
absolutely nothing, or systems and theories either based on ancient
musings of tribal societies or on glorified myths of bravado.

I felt bad for the few bystanders at that Peshawar bombing site who
kept contradicting their more gung-ho contemporaries by reminding
them that for months the shopkeepers where receiving threatening
letters from the Taliban warning them that they should stop selling
products for women and ban the entry of women in the area.

One shop-owner who said he lost more than millions of rupees worth of
goods in the blast was slightly taken aback when the anchor asked him
who he thought was behind the bomb attack. For a few seconds he
looked curiously at the anchor�s face, as if wondering why would a
major TV news channel be asking a question whose answer was so
obvious. �What do you mean, who was responsible?� he asked. �The
Taliban, of course!�

Fasi Zaka wrote a scathing piece on the floozy response of some
students who chanted slogans against the Kerry-Lugar Bill outside the
freshly bombed Islamic University. He was battered with hate mail,
even from those who did agree with him that it were the Taliban who
bombed the unfortunate university. But these folks turned out to be
even worse than the deniers. They are apologists of all the mayhem
that takes place in the name of Islam in this country.

Every time the barbarians set themselves off taking innocent men,
women, and children with them, these apologists suddenly emerge to
write letters to newspapers and try to dominate internet forums
explaining the intricate �socio-economic problems� that are turning
men into terrorists. Or worse � as is expected from reactionary news
reporters like Ansar Abbasi � they will start giving details about
the infidel targets that the terrorists were really after at the
place of the attack.

Zaka told me that he got letters suggesting that the Taliban attacked
the canteen of the Islamic University because �women students were
not behaving and dressing according to Islam.� The state under Ziaul
Haq had the Hudood Ordinance for such �loose women,� but now the
Taliban have bombs for them. And mind you, those who were trying to
justify the bombing in this respect at the University were �educated�
young men and even women.

Recently, we also heard about a hijab-clad female student at the
prestigious and �liberal� Lahore University of Management Sciences,
who bagged her 15 minutes of fame by capturing images through her
mobile phone of students indulging in �immoral activities� on campus.
Of course, the same lady�s �concern� and righteousness ends at
becoming a self-appointed paparazzi for the reactionaries, whereas it
was young women (in hijabs) and men with beards who died so
senselessly at the Islamabad Islamic University campus.

Pathetic, indeed.

http://blog.dawn.com/2009/11/12/a-nation-of-sleepwalkers/


_____


[4]  USA:

The Nation, November 11, 2009

WHOSE TEAM IS IT, ANYWAY? SUBJECT TO DEBATE

by Katha Pollitt

Katha Pollitt's new book of poems, The Mind-Body Problem, has just
been published by Random House.

You know what I don't want to hear right now about the Stupak-Pitts
amendment banning abortion coverage from federally subsidized health
insurance policies? That it's the price of reform, and prochoice
women should shut up and take one for the team. "If you want to
rebuild the American welfare state," Peter Beinart writes in the
Daily Beast, "there is no alternative" than for Democrats to abandon
"cultural" issues like gender and racial equality. Hey, Peter,
Representative Stupak and your sixty-four Democratic supporters, Jim
Wallis and other antichoice "progressive" Christians, men: why don't
you take one for the team for a change and see how you like it?

For example, budget hawks in Congress say they'll vote against the
bill because it's too expensive. Maybe you could win them over if you
volunteered to cut out funding for male-exclusive stuff, like
prostate cancer, Viagra, male infertility, vasectomies, growth-
hormone shots for short little boys, long-term care for macho guys
who won't wear motorcycle helmets and, I dunno, psychotherapy for
pedophile priests. Men could always pay in advance for an insurance
policy rider, as women are blithely told they can do if Stupak
becomes part of the final bill.

President Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help
him out by sacrificing your denomination's tax exemption. The
Catholic Church would be a good place to start, and it wouldn't even
be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the US Conference of
Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on
electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions. Why should
antichoicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes
support something they dislike? You don't want your tax dollars to
pay, even in the most notional way, for women's abortion care, a
legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in
her lifetime? I don't want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and
sour-old-man hierarchies.

Women Democrats have taken an awful lot of hits for the team lately.
Many of us didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary because the
goal of electing a woman seemed less important than the goal of
electing the best possible president. Only a self-hater or a
featherhead didn't feel some pain about that. And although women are
hardly alone in this, we've seen some pretty big hopes set aside in
the first year of the Obama administration. The Paycheck Fairness
Act, which would expand women's protections against sexism in the
workplace, is on the back burner. Meanwhile, the Office of Faith-
Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is not only alive and well; it's
newly staffed with antichoicers like Alexia Kelley of Catholics in
Alliance for the Common Good, who, as Frances Kissling notes in
Salon, has compared abortion to torture.

I know what you're thinking: conservative Democrats like Stupak took
Republican districts to win us both houses of Congress. Thanks a lot,
Howard Dean, whose bright idea it was to recruit them, but those
majorities would not be there, and Obama would not be in the White
House, if not for prochoice women and men--their votes, talent,
money, organizational capacity and shoe leather. We knocked ourselves
out, and it wasn't so that religious reactionaries like Stupak--who,
as Jeff Sharlet writes in Salon, is a member of the Family, the
secretive right-wing Christian-supremacist Congressional coven--would
control both parties. Elections have consequences, you say? Exactly:
Obama, the prochoice, prowoman candidate, won. Stupak didn't put him
in the White House, and neither did the Catholic bishops or the white
antifeminist welfare staters of Beinart's imagination. We did. And we
deserve better from Obama than sound bites like "this is a healthcare
bill, not an abortion bill." Abortion is healthcare. That's the whole
point.

What makes the Stupak fiasco especially pathetic is the fumbling
response from prochoicers. Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill would
not be in the Senate today were it not for prochoice and feminist
supporters like EMILY's List. How does she thank us? By telling Joe
Scarborough that Stupak isn't so bad, that it won't affect "the
majority of America"--just low-income women--and that it's "an
example of having to govern with moderates." So people who'll tip
healthcare reform into the trash unless it blocks abortion access are
the moderates now! (McCaskill took it back later that day, but the
damage was done.) If I ever give that woman another dime, shoot me.

The big prochoice and feminist organizations are up in arms--NOW and
Planned Parenthood want to see healthcare reform voted down if Stupak
is retained--but writing in the Daily Beast, Dana Goldstein nicely
captures the bewilderment of leaders caught by surprise. "It's the
feeling that you've been rolled," said Eleanor Smeal, of Feminist
Majority. Or haven't been paying attention. Smeal was onto something,
though, when she told Goldstein, "Here we are playing nice guy again,
we didn't want to make a fuss." Consciously or unconsciously, by not
organizing in advance to insist on coverage of abortion, prochoicers
set themselves up to be out-maneuvered. In fact, as Sharon Lerner
reported on TheNation.com, Democrats stood by while antichoicers kept
contraception out of the reform bill's list of basic benefits all
insurers must cover. So much for the "common ground" approach where
we all agree that birth control is the way to lower the abortion rate.

Enough already. Prochoicers have been taking one for the team since
1976, when Congress passed the Hyde amendment, which Jimmy Carter
would later defend with the immortal comment, "There are many things
in life that are not fair." Time for the theocrats and male
chauvinists to give something up for the greater good--to say nothing
of the twenty prochoicers, all men, who supported Stupak out of sheer
careerism. After all, if it weren't for prochoicers, there wouldn't
be much of a team for them to play on.


_____


[5] India: Dangers of Deepening Militarisation

(i) Times of India: Q&A

'GREEN HUNT WILL RESULT IN GENOCIDE OF ADIVASIS'
13 November 2009

Gandhian Himanshu Kumar has been working among tribals in Bastar for
more than 17 years. Though he has rehabilitated 30 villages
devastated by the Chhattisgarh government's anti-Naxalite campaign
Salwa Judum, his ashram was demolished by the government in May this
year. Kumar spoke to Jyoti Punwani :

How did you rehabilitate the villages?

As a Gandhian, I could not just stand by and watch when Adivasis who
had fled their village because of Salwa Judum, were beaten up for
having returned to their village to depose before the NHRC. I decided
to set up camp in that village. If the Salwa Judum forces came to
burn it, they would have to burn me first. We persuaded the villagers
to come back. They had lost everything seeds, cattle because whenever
they tried to return, the Salwa Judum forces hounded them into camps
and burnt their village. We arranged for everything, helped them
plough their land. Slowly others began returning. Peace reigned in
those villages till last month when Operation Green Hunt began.

The Supreme Court has directed the government to rehabilitate the
tribals. If the government is not willing, let me do it. I can bring
peace in a week. You withdraw your forces and provide the amenities
that were stopped after Salwa Judum started: doctors, schools,
aanganwadis.

Will the Maoists allow these to run?

Medical officers tell me ruefully that it's the CRPF that beat up
their doctors who go into the jungle to treat patients. They beat up
teachers too. They are furious that these people can travel safely
inside the jungle, while they get blown up. I pointed out that
doctors and teachers don't go there with weapons like the CRPF does!
Naxalites have said they will not interfere with my rehabilitation
work because i have no political ambitions.

Is a dialogue possible?

What stops the government from talking to the Adivasis? You are a
democratically elected government, find out what your people want. As
for the Maoists, how can the Centre tell them to stop violence
without stopping it first? Every day, your forces demand liquor,
chickens, women... they behead a child in front of his grandfather,
rape Adivasi women at will... And when the Adivasi picks up a lathi,
they cry foul. Why are the forces there in Bastar? The Maoists
weren't marching into Delhi. Nor did the Adivasis plead for
protection from them. When the police, the administration, the
judiciary has turned against the Adivasis, the Maoists have stood by
them. The forces are there only to hunt the tribals from their land,
so that the state can hand it over to corporates. The state has no
desire for peace and is too arrogant to acknowledge its crimes. We
have tried to file 1,000 FIRs against the police; not one has been
registered.

Salwa Judum saw a 22-fold increase in Maoist numbers. Green Hunt will
result in genocide of Adivasis. Those who survive will become Naxalites.

o o o

(ii) India: Protect Civilians In Anti-Maoist Drive
Maoists and Government Forces Should Not Repeat Past Abuses
Human Rights Watch , November 5, 2009
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/05/india-protect-civilians-anti-
maoist-drive

(iii) Two faces of extremism: A Spring Long Past
        by Dilip Simeon
        http://www.himalmag.com/Two-faces-of-extremism_fnw15.html

(iv) An Open Letter to the Maoists
        by Sujato Bhadra
        http://tt.ly/F

(v) Only Blood And No Power Flowed From The Barrels Of Those Guns
       Naxalbari Before And After: Reminiscences And Appraisal By
Suniti Kumar Ghosh, New Age Publishers, Rs 495
       http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091106/jsp/opinion/
story_11698415.jsp

(vi) �Flawed programme and practice� : Interview with Prakash Karat
         http://www.flonnet.com/fl2622/stories/20091106262201200.htm

(vii) What is Maoism?
        by Bernard D�Mello
        http://www.monthlyreview.org/091106dmello.php

(viii) The Ongoing Political Struggle in India
          by Saroj Giri
          http://monthlyreview.org/091106giri.php

(ix)  A Nowhere Approach to India�s Nowhere Revolution
         by Ajay K. Mehra
         http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1732.html

(x)  Kashmir Times, November 14, 2009

Editorial

SUPREMACY OF SECURITY AGENCIES
Discordant notes at the Centre apart, endless powers to forces are
destructive

The defence ministry shooting down home ministry's proposal of
shifting some battalions of Rashtriya Rifles from Jammu and Kashmir
to the Maoist infested areas demonstrates two aspects of New Delhi's
perspective about the Kashmir issue. First is the clear manifestation
of contrasting lines of ideas and actions regarding the Kashmir
situation within various departments and ministries of the central
government. New Delhi's plans for Kashmir are seriously marred by the
confusion springing from different agencies, officials and political
leaders in corridors of power. All of them work in absolute contrast
with each other, often at cross-purposes, aiding the process of
greater damage than doing any good. This is not the first instance of
the defence ministry and the home ministry being at loggerheads about
the Kashmir issue. Just two days after prime minister Manmohan
Singh's recent Kashmir visit, marking a fresh beginning with his
promise of a dialogue, the GOC Northern Command got busy briefing
media persons in Jammu to caution against 'agitational terrorism',
equating it with threat of Talibans and defining all organised
agitations in Kashmir Valley as the brain-child of terrorists. This
came close on the heels of union home minister P. Chidambaram's
assertion about 'quiet diplomacy' in Kashmir. This jarring mismatch
between the home ministry and the security agencies is a symptom of a
much larger phenomenon of different power centres in New Delhi
adopting differing lines of action when it comes to the troubled
state of Jammu and Kashmir. Their assessments, perceptions and their
actions just do not match. The rift is not confined to the defence
and the home ministries. The ministry of external affairs, with its
own set of concerns, also often throws a spanner at the efforts made
by the other two, demonstrating the absence of a consensus,
indecisiveness, and the dilemmas with which the Centre can function
on an issue of vital importance. The inability to take a decisive
course of action in Jammu and Kashmir springs from the lack of vision
that is blurred by a cacophony of different noises within the
government.

The second aspect of the problem may be equally alarming, if not
more. At no cost the security agencies are willing to compromise
their authoritative position in Jammu and Kashmir. Any decisions
taken at the top level are obviously grounded in some basic feedback
from the security agencies. Even as official statistics have for
quite a few years revealed level of militancy reducing and numbers of
militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir diminishing, New Delhi is
not guided by a sense of reason in beginning the process of thinning
down troops. It only relies on a feedback that seeks to perpetuate
the authority and brutal might of the security forces, whose
disproportionate presence and increasing number of cantonments and
camps are highly undemocratic and unjustified. All this is wrongly
legitimised in the name of security concerns and national interest,
which are better served by also keeping the interests of the people
in mind. The refusal of the defence ministry to even allow a few
battalions to be shifted out, despite the security situation
providing no cause for alarm, points out to the dangerous carrot and
stick policy that New Delhi is embarking on. On one hand, it is going
ahead with a probable talks process and on the other, facts point out
to the bitter reality that the state, whatever its political future,
may be doomed to a future of enormous presence of troops and their
interference even in political decisions. Security concerns have
always been invoked to ensure that there is no erosion of the
authority and unlimited power of the security agencies and their big
bosses sitting in New Delhi. The inability of the Centre to amend the
Armed Forces Special Powers Act, as per a pending proposal, not even
revoke it totally, and the haste with which the government has banned
the pre-paid mobile phones in this part of the world are evident
pointers in this direction. That security agencies should be bestowed
with such unlimited powers, even if in some pockets, can make the
forward journey of a democratic country perilious.


_____


[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i) Communalism Combat, November 2009

REMEMBERING 1984: THE NIGHTMARE ENDURES

by Teesta Setalvad

Twenty-five years ago, in November 1984, as Delhi burned, no Sikh
life in the capital was safe. Eminent writer Khushwant Singh sought
shelter at the Swedish embassy. Justice SS Chadha of the Delhi high
court had to move to the high court complex. His residence was no
longer secure.

Though the official death toll in Delhi was 2,733, victims� lawyers
submitted a list to the officially appointed Ranganath Misra
Commission in 1985 detailing the 3,870 Sikhs who had been killed.
Twenty-six persons were arrested by the police on November 1 and 2,
1984; unbelievably however, all of them were Sikhs! So far only nine
cases of murder related to the 1984 carnage have led to convictions.
Only 20 persons have been convicted for murder in 25 years, a
conviction rate of less than one per cent.

The cover-up

Within weeks of the massacre, a fact-finding report prepared by the
civil liberties groups, People�s Union for Civil Liberties and
People�s Union for Democratic Rights (�Who are the Guilty�, PUCL-PUDR
report, November 1984), named senior Congress leaders on the basis of
allegations made by victims who had taken refuge in relief camps.
However, no action against the perpetrators was forthcoming. The
report listed HKL Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and Lalit
Maken among the Congress leaders active in inciting mobs against the
Sikh community. The media had named only one, Dharam Das Shastri, a
former MP.

Riding the wave of nationwide sympathy following Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi�s assassination, the Congress party swept to power in
the general elections held in late December. Her son, Rajiv, failed
to isolate the leaders who had been specifically named for their role
in the massacre. Far from being politically isolated, these men were
instead given tickets for the polls by the party leadership. Worse,
they contested and won the election.

Within a short and bloody spell of 48 to 72 hours, nearly 4,000
Sikhs, residents of Delhi, were massacred or burnt to death in cold
blood. The central government announced no judicial steps for
redressal, to identify and punish the guilty and offer justice to the
victim survivors. Within weeks of the assassination and the massacre,
the ruling party had switched to election mode and, winning a
landslide victory in the polls, came to power with an overwhelming
majority in the newly formed Lok Sabha. When Parliament met in
January 1985, resolutions were passed condemning the assassination of
the former prime minister; another condemned the loss of life in the
Bhopal gas tragedy of December 1984. No official condolence motion
was moved to mark the massacre of Sikhs. To date, the Indian
Parliament has not rectified this shocking lapse.

None of the four politicians named for leading the mobs have so far
been punished. Instead, their election to seats in Parliament, from
the city where they were accused of leading mobs, signalled brute
democratic sanction for the massacres. HKL Bhagat, who was named by
several eyewitnesses as leading mobs, was chosen as the Congress
party�s candidate from East Delhi, the worst affected area. Of the
whopping 76.97 per cent of votes polled, Bhagat cornered a staggering
59.8 per cent (3,86,150 votes as opposed to the BJP�s 73,970). The
majority of constituents chose to back a man identified as leading a
murderous mob. Was this democratic sanction for carnage?

Similarly, Jagdish Tytler, chosen by the Congress party to contest
elections from Sadar in Delhi, won with a whopping 62 per cent of the
total 71.83 per cent of votes polled. His opponent, Madan Lal
Khurana, won the remaining 35.78 per cent. Lalit Maken, another
accused, fielded by the party from South Delhi, received 61.07 per
cent of the 64.68 per cent of votes polled, capturing 2,15,898 votes.

Amidst the euphoria of the electoral victory that followed the
massacre, these men were also elevated to more powerful positions in
government. HKL Bhagat, previously a minister of state, was elevated
to cabinet rank and Jagdish Tytler was made minister of state for the
first time. Lalit Maken, formerly a councillor, had already been
rewarded with a ticket for the polls in which he had won.

By early 1985 the Congress party was in the seat of power, with a 90
per cent majority in the Lok Sabha. Not surprisingly, the new
government did not set up a commission of inquiry until forced to do
so, five months after the massacre. It was under pressure to initiate
talks with the more moderate Akalis (remember the Rajiv-Longowal
accord) that Rajiv Gandhi, the new prime minister, was forced to
accede to the precondition for talks set by the Sikh leadership �
their demand that an inquiry commission be established to investigate
the massacre. The Akalis had even threatened a nationwide agitation
on April 13, 1985 to press their demand. Two days before the
threatened stir, the Congress government finally announced the
establishment of an inquiry commission.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Ranganath Misra, was
appointed to head the commission set up in May 1985. But the
commission did little to advance the cause of justice as the judge,
who was subsequently associated with the Congress party�s human
rights cell for several years, in fact covered up the role of the
ruling Congress party in the violence, failing to summon top Congress
leaders and subject them to the rigours of cross-examination.
However, even the Misra Commission was compelled to concede that
during the carnage the police refused to register any first
information reports (FIRs) that named any policeman or person in
authority as the accused:

"It is a fact and the commission on the basis of satisfaction records
a finding that first information reports were not received if they
implicated the police or any person in authority and the informants
were required to delete such allegations from written reports. When
oral reports were recorded, they were not taken down verbatim and
brief statements dropping out allegations against police or other
officials and men in power were written" (Misra Commission report).

The Jain-Banerjee Committee (one of three committees set up on the
recommendation of the Misra Commission and which investigated
omission in registration of cases) actually instructed the Delhi
police in October 1987 to register a case of murder against Sajjan
Kumar, who was a Congress MP from the Outer Delhi constituency in
1984, on the basis of an affidavit filed by a riot widow, Anwar Kaur.
However, no action was taken until the cover-up was exposed by
journalist Manoj Mitta in The Times of India. (An individual named
Brahmanand Gupta, who was also named in the affidavit, obtained a
stay order against the Jain-Banerjee Committee from the Delhi high
court and the court allowed the matter to languish for two years,
furthering injustice to the victims.)

The CBI finally registered a case against Sajjan Kumar only in 1990
and completed its investigations two years later. Apart from charging
Sajjan Kumar with murder, the CBI also charged him with hate speech,
invoking Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. This required central
government sanction before prosecution, which was obtained from the
Narasimha Rao government only in June 1994.

In 1991 the Jain-Agarwal Committee, a panel set up to continue the
unfinished task of the Jain-Banerjee Committee, had specifically
recommended the registration of two cases against HKL Bhagat. The
then lieutenant governor of Delhi, Markandey Singh, accepted the
committee�s recommendation but Bhagat made a representation before
him claiming that he had already been exonerated by the Misra
Commission, a plea that was finally turned down on the grounds that
the commission had not examined the matter beyond a prima facie look
at the case. Despite the firm stand taken by the lieutenant governor,
for five years no case was registered against Bhagat at all. It was
only in 1996, when the Congress party was out of power, that the
police registered the two cases in question.

The Jain-Agarwal Committee had in 1991 also recommended the
registration of cases against other politicians and Markandey Singh
had ordered the registration of those cases as well. But in a
Machiavellian ploy, the Rao government actively prevented the
registration of the stronger cases against politicians whilst
registering those that relied on flimsier evidence thus ensuring that
justice was not done. Manoj Mitta and HS Phoolka, co-authors of When
a Tree Shook Delhi (Roli Books, 2007), exposed this as a government
sham. They dug out, in affidavit form, the original testimonies of
witnesses against all these politicians, demonstrating that the
authorities, by replacing them with weak and false testimonies, had
suppressed the honest, unambiguous and strong testimonies on oath.

Another panel appointed on the recommendation of the Misra
Commission, the Kapur-Mittal Committee, which investigated acts of
omission and commission by police officers, had identified delinquent
police officials. A report submitted in 1990 by one of the two
committee members, Kusum Lata Mittal, recommended various degrees of
punishment for 72 police officials, including six IPS officers. But,
on one flimsy pretext or another, the government has so far not taken
any action against any of those indicted.

It was against this dismal background of legal deception and failure
to punish the perpetrators that the Vajpayee government took the
momentous decision in December 1999 to accept the demand for a fresh
judicial inquiry into the 1984 carnage. In Parliament, the members of
all political parties, including the Congress party, now under the
leadership of Sonia Gandhi, passed a resolution supporting the
government�s decision in this regard. The subsequent appointment of
the Justice GT Nanavati Commission in May 2000, nearly 16 years after
the killings, was an unprecedented development. The commission
submitted its report in February 2005.

Through the findings of the Nanavati Commission, many eminent persons
have for the first time been able to put on record how, during the
massacre of 1984, the then union home minister, PV Narasimha Rao, and
the then lieutenant governor of Delhi, PG Gavai, failed to take
constitutionally binding and firm measures when urged to call in the
army. Several depositions before the Nanavati Commission also
provided fresh evidence against Congress leaders HKL Bhagat and
Sajjan Kumar, reiterating their role in the violence. Analysis of the
evidence before the commission also brought to light an important
pattern/strategy followed by the police authorities during that
period, which was to first disarm Sikhs and then arrest them. The
Kusum Lata Mittal report, which revealed police complicity at the
highest level, was also revealed for the first time through documents
placed before the Nanavati Commission.

Communalism Combat has over the years revisited the 1984 carnage in
its commitment as a journal to examine and illustrate the breakdown
of the rule of law within a functioning, vibrant democracy. The 1984
Sikh massacre in the nation�s capital was also the first full-fledged
anti-minority pogrom in independent India. That justice has not been
done and perpetrators among policemen and politicians have not been
brought to book is a comment on our agencies and institutions. We
dedicate this issue to the pursuit of justice even as we pay homage
to the victims and salute the grit and courage of the survivors.

(ii) INDIA: SPECIAL COURTS FAIL TO GIVE JUSTICE TO THE VICTIMS OF THE
COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN ORISSA

  From John Dayal
12 November 2009

I have just come back from Orissa, very depressed at the way the
criminal justice system is working in that benighted state.
I had gone to take part in a rare Civil Society meeting with victims,
some law experts and some Human Rights activists on 3rd November 2009
in Bhubaneswar. In truth, barring some leaders of various Left
parties and Women's groups, there is not much of a civil society in
Orissa as far as violence on Christians or Muslims is concerned.
Fortunately, there are activists - and Dhirendra Panda is one such -
who are determined to press for justice. Fortunately again, there are
some more activists working in the defence of the rights of Tribals
and workers whose very existence is threatened by the entry of global
mining giants trying to profit from the underground riches of
Orissa.  About them, in another note.
Advocate Rasmi Ranjan Jena says "As we know in most of the cases
already tried in the Fast Track Courts in Kandhamal the accused
persons have been acquitted. This is nothing but a great failure of
the criminal justice system which has miserably failed to give
justice to the victims of the communal violence. At this juncture
there is an urgent need of critical analysis of the factors
responsible for the failure. Though nothing much should be expected
from a judicial forum in a communal society, but we need to have a
self introspection to develop a strategy for the upcoming days."
[. . .]
http://www.sacw.net/article1221.html

(iii)

INVADING THE SECULAR SPACE IN INDIA

by Ram Puniyani ( http://www.sacw.net/article1223.html )

Satya Sai Baba of Puthaparthi in his recent tour of Mumbai (Nov.
2009) was invited by the Maharashtra Chief Minister designate, Ashok
Chavan to his official residence, Varsha, for blessing the house and
for the associated puja (invocation). When criticsed for inviting the
Holy Guru to his official residence he said that since he is a
devotee of the Baba from last many decades it is a privilege for him.
There are many other news items where state functionaries mark their
presence for the programs of Gurus and Babas (God men).

As far as Satya Sai Baba is concerned he is regarded as the living
God by his devotees, while he himself claims to be the reincarnation
of Sai Baba of Shirdi. This Sai Baba is also a miracle person and a
spiritual Guru. His miracles have been exposed by the Rationalist
Associations and his trick of producing Gold chain was brought up in
the court, as production of gold is illegal. This case was not
pursued for various reasons. There are many charges of sexual abuse
by Sai baba. Magician of fame P.C. Sarkar also said his miracles have
nothing to do with divinity but are mere magical tricks.

Use of official residence for such functions is in total violation of
the secular constitution of the country where religion is a private
matter of the individual and state functionaries can�t wear their
religion on their sleeves in official capacity and in official
places. Contrary to that norm, lately this norm is known more for its
violation than by adherence to it. Gone are the days of Nehru when he
could stand up and snub such actions by whosoever it is in the
official capacity. Of course, Gandhi, Father of the nation and Nehru
the architect of Indian state were no devotees of any Baba or Guru.
Over a period of time such principles have been violated with
impunity. Uma Bharati during her brief tenure as the Chief Minister
ship of Madhya Pradesh converted her official residence in to a
Gaushala (Cow shed) with saffron robed Sadhus forming the main
residents of her official residence.

India has quite a broad fare of God men. There are Gurus, Sants,
Maharajs, Acharyas and Purohits (clergy) in the main. Their role has
been changing over a period of time. Last three decades seem to be
the time of their major glory, with their presence in all spheres in
a very dominating way. Their number has also proliferated immensely
and while some of these are big players, Sri Sri Ravishankar, Baba
Ramdeo, Asaram Bapu to name the few. There are hundreds of them
scattered in each state. Many of them are working in close tandem
with Hindu right, Swami Assmanand, Late Swami Laxmananad Sarswati,
Narendra Mahraj etc. These are the one�s who have created their own
niche with different techniques, while Shankarachayas, are associated
with the Mutts coming from historical times, the Akshrdham chain is
also not very old a tradition. The Pramukh swamis (Chief Guru) of
these temples wield enormous clout. One recalls Anand Marg came up
during the decade of seventies and not much is hearing of that now.

Overall religiosity has been on the upswing and not many are
protesting the promotion of blind faith by many such God men. The
rational thought and movement is on the back foot and political
leadership, social leaders, of many hues are bending over backwards
to please these Babas, some of whom are also dispensing health and
some of them claim to be looking into the crystal ball of future.

There is an interesting correlation between the coming up of adverse
effects of globalization, rise in the anxieties and deprivations and
the current dominance of God men. Many an interesting observations
about these God men are there, the major one being the rise in
alienation in last three decades along with the rising religiosity in
the social space. Many a remarkable studies on this phenomenon are
coming forth. One such is by a US based Indian scholar of repute,
Meera Nanda. In her book, The God Market, she makes very profound
observations. She points out that this rising religiosity is
manifested in boom in pilgrimages and newer rituals. Some old rituals
are becoming more rooted and popular. She sees a nexus between state-
temple-corporate complexes also. Secular institutions of Nehru era
are being replaced by boosting demand and supply of God market.

A new Hindu religiosity is getting deeply rooted in everyday life, in
public and private spheres. The distinction between private and
public sphere is getting eroded as the case of Sai Baba in
Maharashtra Chief Ministers official bungalow shows. Hindu rituals
and symbols are becoming part of state functions; Hinduism de facto
is becoming state religion. Hindu religiosity is becoming part of
national pride with the aspiration of becoming a superpower. She
observes a trend of increased religiosity. In India there are 2.5
million places of worship but only 1.5 million schools and barely
75000 hospitals. Half of 230 million tourist trips every year are for
religious pilgrimage. Akshardham temple acquired 100 acres of land at
throw away price. Sri Sri Ravishanker�s Art of Living Ashram in
banglore has 99 acres of land leased from Karnataka Government.
Gujarat Govt. gifted 85 acres of land to establish privately run
rishikul in Porbander. Most significantly Nanda argues that the new
culture of political Hinduism is triumphalist and intolerant, while
asserting to be recognized as a tolerant religion. While claiming to
have a higher tolerance, its intolerance is leading to violence
against minorities.

It is because of this that even if the BJP may not be the ruling
party, the political class and other sections of state apparatus have
subtly accepted Hindu religiosity and the consequent politics as the
official one, and so the justice for victims of religious violence
eludes them. The question is, can the struggle for justice for weaker
sections also incorporate a cultural-religious battle against the
blind religiosity and proactive efforts initiated to promote rational
thought.

o o o

(iv)

India: Wake up to take on terrorism of the Hindutva kind
by Subhash Gatade
http://tt.ly/G

_____


[7] Miscellanea:

The Guardian, 9 November 2009

DARING TO REMEMBER BULGARIA, PRE-1989

As the memory of communism fades, nostalgia is viewed as suspect �
but to lament losses is not to wish state socialism back

by Maria Todorova

This year's jubilee has been dominated by what all festive
anniversaries do: remembering and celebrating a victory. Because it
is an official victory, it is to a large extent a prescriptive
remembering, focused on two central pillars and their firmly
entrenched formulas: the "peaceful revolution" and the normative
Vergangenheitsbew�ltigung, as in Germany. In Bulgaria, 1989 is
popularly known, in a typically anticlimactic fashion, not as
revolution, but as "the change" (promianata), much like the German
Die Wende.

In fact, it started as a liberal intellectual revolution, soon to be
transformed into a drastic social revolution, turning a fairly
egalitarian society into one of enormous wealth differentiation and a
marginalised intelligentsia. Even in this anniversary year, 1989 is
not in the centre of popular attention except in small intellectual
circles, but I would argue � counter-intuitively � that alongside its
natural fading away, the memory of communism is growing in many and
novel ways. Communist presence diminished the fastest in the visual
and symbolic sphere: almost 100 populated areas were renamed, street
names were changed and a new coat of arms, national flag, anthem, and
holiday system were adopted. A huge number of communist-era monuments
were dismantled, the culmination being the dynamiting of the Dimitrov
mausoleum in 1999. Rival ones were constructed, commemorating the
victims of communism. While the monumental evidence from the
communist period is clearly diminishing, it is more noticeable now
when its presence is not mandated. It is acquiring the status of the
formerly cherished pre-communist monuments.

In the legal sphere the memory of communism is still present, but is
fading irreversibly. Legal proceedings against former communist
politicians (few of which ended with convictions) hardly achieved the
desired function of clearing up and catharsis. The repeal of
repressive legislation, the restoration of private ownership of land
and the restitution law sought to create a new owner class with a
market orientation but the formation of the new moneyed elite
followed different avenues. The secret files were opened but,
compared to other East European societies, the attempt to condemn the
past with the help of disclosures was unsuccessful. Only a small
number of Bulgarians views the pre-1989 system as undeniably
criminal. For the majority, the regime was restrictive of political
and economic freedoms, but provided security, and the plummeting
living standards in the 1990s contributed to this perception. The
blanket criminalisation of communist rule in Bulgaria is a failure.

Debates about the communist legacy were fierce in the first decade
after 1989, but the "rewriting of history" was almost entirely
confined to the mass media, memoirs and popular history. Since the
end of the 1990s, when the transition period ended and the
irreversibility of the process became clear, an exponentially growing
scholarly literature has reassessed the communist period within a
variety of frameworks: totalitarianism, state capitalism,
paternalism, economy of deficit, "second" and "third" network theory,
"domesticated" socialism, elitism, even Dada. "Modernisation" is
becoming hegemonic even as it attracts accusations of "normalisation".

Most interesting today is "post-communist nostalgia" as a special
memory case. Lamenting the losses that came with the collapse of
state socialism does not imply wishing it back. Not all aspects are
missed. Mainstream ideological treatment, however, would like us to
believe that it was all one package, that one cannot have full
employment without shortages, inter-ethnic peace without forced
homogenisation, or free healthcare without totalitarianism. And since
allegedly you cannot wish for a part without wishing for the whole,
any positive mention of the socialist past is seen as ideologically
suspect. We quickly label a video clip of socialist era commodities
as communist nostalgia, when we obviously would not apply the term
Ottoman nostalgia to a video clip of belly dancers gyrating to
oriental tunes. Post-communist nostalgia is not only the longing for
security, stability and prosperity but also the feeling of loss for a
specific form of sociability. Above all, there is a desire, among the
ones who lived through communism, even when they opposed it or were
indifferent to its ideology, to invest their lives with meaning and
dignity, not to be thought of, remembered or bemoaned as losers or
"slaves". Lastly, there is the tentative but growing curiosity among
the younger generation.

A joke encapsulates the ambivalent attitude toward the communist
past, as it exemplifies the traditional ironic response of Bulgarians
both before and after the fall of communism. A woman sits bolt
upright in the middle of the night. She jumps out of bed and rushes
to the bathroom to look in the medicine cabinet. Then, she runs into
the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. Finally, she dashes to the
window and looks out into the street. Relieved, she returns to the
bedroom. Her husband asks, "What's wrong with you?" "I had a terrible
nightmare", she says, "I dreamed we could still afford to buy
medicine, that the refrigerator was absolutely full, and that the
streets were safe and clean." "How is that a nightmare?" The woman
shakes her head, "I thought the communists were back in power."

o o o

counterpunch.org

FROM MALINOWSKI TO HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEMS - EMPIRES AND THE SULLYING
OF ANTHROPOLOGY

by Robert Lawless

In the September 30, 2009, online edition of CounterPunch in an
article titled �Country of Constant Sorrow:  McChrystal's Afghan
Desolation,� Vijay Prashad wrote,

      �Enter a war zone with the expectation that the heavy armor will
coerce the population into electing a favorable head of state; if
this fails, then take refuge in your anthropologists, who will find a
quick way to �nativize� the war and help you clamber onto the
helicopters.  The country you have left behind is now more of a
humanitarian disaster than when you self-righteously flew in on the
wings of humanitarian interventionism.�

The notion of anthropologists being helpmates in the First World
conquest of the Third World seems now to have become embedded in the
day-to-day understanding of the Bush-initiated Iraq-Afghanistan
cultural-military fiasco.  Whether political scientists,
philosophers, area specialists, or whoever actually fills the
�societal� expert position on the Human Terrain Systems (HTS) teams,
anthropologists apparently are to take the blame.  And
anthropologists themselves are not exempt from furthering this notion.

Perhaps the most notorious anthropologist associated with the U.S.
military�s HTS is Montgomery McFate, who writes primarily for
military publications and whose pivotal article �Anthropology and
Counterinsurgency� appeared in the April 2005 issue of Military
Review.  A hapless mix of shoddy history and misdirected
anthropology, her article was, nevertheless, reprinted in the 2007
edition of Annual Editions Anthropology -- along with articles by
Conrad Kottak, Richard Lee, and Ralph Linton, and in the 2009 second
edition of Classic Readings in Cultural Anthropology, edited by Gary
Ferraro -- along with brand-name anthropologists such as Horace
Miner, Clyde Kluckhohn, Edward T. Hall, Richard Lee, and E. E. Evans-
Pritchard.  Why McFate deserves to be in this company is unclear;
there are many other articles by respectable anthropologists that
clearly explained the HTS affair. [Among them have been  David
Price�s path-breaking contributions on this site and in our
CounterPunch newsletter. Editors.]  Making McFate�s piece widely
available only further sullies anthropology.

Anthropology hardly needs a renewed association with First World
empires; it has obviously had difficulty living down its close
association with colonialism in its formative recent past.  The great
British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the most
important founders of modern anthropology who provided a model for
nonjudgmental, systematic, long-term fieldwork -- the hallmark of
anthropology -- was director of the International African Institute
in London for a few years, and in that position he was concerned
primarily with helping British colonial officials with their
problems.  One specific problem for Britain centered on getting the
indigenes to work hard on the cash-crop plantations owned by the
Europeans.  In a 1929 article Malinowski wrote:

      �The simplest experience teaches that to everybody work is . . .
unpleasant, but a study of primitive conditions shows that very
efficient work can be obtained, and the Natives can be made to work
with some degree of real satisfaction if propitious conditions are
created for them. . . . In Melanesia I have seen this applied on some
plantations.  Use was made of such stimuli as competitive displays of
the results, or special marks of distinction for industry, or again
of rhythm and working songs. . . . Such things must never be
improvised -- an artificial arrangement will never get hold of native
imagination.  In every community I maintain there are such indigenous
means of achieving more intensive labour and greater output.�

And in further advising about the duties of the anthropologist
Malinowski wrote, "He should formulate his conclusions in a manner so
that they can be understood by those who carry out policies.  He also
has the duty to speak as the natives' advocate, without, however,
succumbing to an outburst of pro-native ranting.  Through comparative
study he can discover and define the common factor of European
intentions and of African response. . . . Knowledge gives foresight,
and foresight is indispensable to the statesman and to the local
administrator, to the educationalist, welfare worker, and missionary
alike."  Notice that it is European intentions and African response.
Notice that "knowledge" and "foresight" is for the European
colonialists, not for the �natives.�

No anthropologist in these early years suggested that anthropology
should be used to help the indigenes throw off the yoke of colonial
oppression or that anthropologists should study the contradictions
and weaknesses of colonial imperialism so that the indigenes could
strike at the heart of the oppressors.

Malinowski was, of course, a product of his time.  And before World
War II it was widely assumed in the colonial metropoles, that
colonialism was beneficial in the long run to everyone; backward
peoples were, after all, being civilized so that they could enjoy the
benefits of modernization and civilization in the future.  And these
early anthropologists strove to enlighten the rulers and protect the
ruled from the more brutal aspects of colonialism, such as forced
labor.  Today, however, most anthropologists have moved beyond this
1920s colonial version of the discipline.

Some anthropologists even at the time escaped this ethnocentric
perspective.  Franz Boas, the founder of U.S. anthropology, famously
critiqued anthropologists involved with the U.S. military in World
War I in his 1919 letter to the Nation titled �Scientists as Spies.�
His student, and my first anthropology instructor, the great Melville
J. Herskovits, refused government financial assistance for
Northwestern University�s African Studies program and he also refused
to accept government officials into the Ph.D. program.  These
towering figures certainly would not allow anthropology to be
sullied.  The discipline did, however, suffer some sullying during
World War II and the subsequent Cold War.  Anthropologists�
activities in World War II are examined in David Price�s 2008
Anthropological Intelligence, and the Thailand part of Project Agile
is examined in Eric Wakin�s 1992 Anthropology Goes to War.  One would
hope, however, that modern-day anthropologists have learned the
lesson and that such sullying and empire-helpmate activities would no
longer occur.

As Price wrote on October 1-15, 2009, however, in an article in
CounterPunch newsletter titled �Anthropology, Human Terrain�s
Prehistory, and the Role of Culture in Wars Waged by Robots,� �Human
Terrain Systems is not some neutral humanitarian project, it is an
arm of the U.S. military and is part of the military�s mission to
occupy and destroy opposition to U.S. goals and objectives.  HTS
cannot claim the sort of neutrality claimed by groups like Doctors
Without Borders, or the International Committee of the Red Cross.�
In October 2007 much to its credit the Executive Board of the
American Anthropological Association denounced HTS for its failure to
follow the fundamental principles of anthropological ethics.  Out of
the 261 comments from members of the American Anthropological
Association in the blog accompanying the statement of the executive
board the vast majority overwhelmingly condemn the participation of
anthropologists in HTS.

The few anthropologists engaged in these neocolonial enterprises
cannot be said to represent the discipline, but they have received
considerable publicity thereby sullying anthropology�s reputation.
Exactly what they expect to accomplish anthropologically is not
entirely clear.  They are a fairly motley bunch.  The ones that we
have information on seem to have little if any expertise in the
Middle East.  And most of them are not exactly forthcoming about
their activities -- nor is the U.S. military.

One who has written rather openly is Marcus Griffin, who has a Ph.D.
in anthropology from the University of Illinois and who, until
recently, was an assistant professor at Christopher Newport
University in Newport News, Virginia, a rapidly growing public
university with an enrollment of about 5,000.

Griffin has been the subject of several articles, has written about
his experiences in his own blog, and has briefly replied to criticism
in the anthropological blog Savage Minds.  In an article in the April
21, 2008, issue of Newsweek titled �A Gun in One Hand, A Pen in the
Other� written by Dan Ephron and Silvia Spring it is pointed out that
Griffin �had never been to the Middle East before he arrived in Iraq
last fall,� though he had spent much of his life in the Philippines
with his anthropologist father who does research on the Agta of
Northern Luzon.  Ephron and Spring noted that although he is a
civilian Griffin wore army clothing and carried a rifle.  The
reporters stated, �For their services, the anthropologists get up to
$300,000 annually while posted abroad -- a salary that is six times
higher than the national average for their field.�

The rest of the Newsweek article is largely critical of the HTS
program, which, it reported, �was handed to BAE without a bidding
process.�  BAE Systems is a company that apparently lives off U.S.
Department of Defense contracts.  According to their website, BAE
Systems currently has positions open for HTS Reachback Research
Center Analyst, Human Terrain Systems Analyst, Human Terrain Systems
Research Manager, and HTS Team Leader.

A more critical article by Dahr Jamail in the May 1, 2009, edition of
Truthout titled �An Anthropologist and Army Medics Work at a Medical
Clinic in the Shabak Valley in Afghanistan� pointed out that HTS
developed �into a $40 million program that embedded four or five
person groups of scholars in the aforementioned fields in all 26 US
combat brigades that were busily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.�
Jamail reported that Griffin, �while preparing to deploy to Iraq at
part of an HTS team, boasted on his blog, �I cut my hair in a high
and tight style and look like a drill sergeant . . . I shot very well
with the M9 and M4 last week at the range . . . Shooting well is
important if you are a soldier regardless of whether or not your job
requires you to carry a weapon.��

An article meant to be favorable toward HTS and toward Griffin was
datelined Baghdad and released by the American Forces Press Service
on January 25, 2008.  Titled �Anthropologist Helps Soldiers
Understand Iraqis� Needs� and written by Sgt. James P. Hunter, U.S.
Army, it characterized Griffin as �an anthropologist working for the
101st Airborne Division�s 2nd Brigade Combat Team� who is bringing
�his knowledge and experience to the fight� and �is helping soldiers
better understand the needs of the Iraqi people.�  The article
focuses on Griffin�s study of Iraqi local markets, which he toured
accompanied by an armed escort.

In responding to questions of ethics posed by anthropologists on the
popular blog Savage Minds in August 2007, Griffin wrote:

      �I am deploying in a few days and time is very short.  I work
sixteen hour days and can expect to do so from now on seven days a
week until I�m given R&R in six months.  That is not an
exaggeration.  I am not evading questions about ethics, I simply
cannot devote the time to my blog because my blog is not my job, just
a way to show my students how I am doing my job away from the
classroom.  I write in it when I can.

      �As for going native, how can I possibly help the Army use fewer
bombs and bullets to achieve the operational goal of securing
neighborhoods from sectarian, criminal, and political violence if I
don�t know anything about Army culture and don�t seem to care about
living as they do?  Living with the Iraqi population is simply not an
option -- the last time I checked people get their heads cut off or
are shot by a sniper for lingering around.  Personally, I think going
to Iraq tests the current relevance of anthropology.  We�ll see how
relevant the discipline is and how well or poorly I perform as an
anthropologist.  My blog will contain posts about it all.  My next
entry will be from downrange.  Ciao.�

Griffin�s blog is currently unavailable.  Griffin is no longer with
Christopher Newport University and is, in fact, now employed by BAE
Systems.  In response to questions I recently posed to Griffin, he
wrote on October 7, 2009, �I am currently getting ready for a trip to
Afghanistan and not able to give answering these questions priority.
Perhaps when I return next month I will have more time.�

In a similar fashion to the problems faced by psychologists dealing
with the role of a few of their cohorts� compliance with torture,
anthropologists will need to cleanse the standing of  the profession
not only by careful discussion of the issues but also by taking
action that clearly separates the discipline of anthropology from
war, spying, empire building, and military adventures.

Robert Lawless teaches anthropology at Wichita State University . He
has done fieldwork in the Philipinnes, Haiti , Florida and New York
(studying urban hippie communes in the early 1970s).  He can be
reached at robert.lawless@...


_____


[8]  Announcements:

(i)  REMEMBERING PRABHASH JI

Gandhi Peace Foundation, November 18 2009, 5:00 pm onwards

November 12 2009

Friends,

Prabhashji was known to almost all of us in his different avatars :
as a journalist, editor, writer, thinker, cricket connoisseur, peace
builder, fiercely secular but also a humanist and Gandhian whose
actions were guided by Gandhian thoughts. He lived in a way emulating
Gandhi's mantra, 'My Life is My Message'. Writing about him some
people did describe him as perhaps one of the last Gandhian
journalists. Today he is no more but his deeds will remain with us.

To many of us in different peoples movements and Andolans he was a
proactive supporter and he used everything within his powers to lend
voice to our struggles, be it Narmada, Bhopal, Gujarat riots, Human
rights violations in North East Manipur, Chattisgarh and other states.

To celebrate his life and contributions to movements and expanding
the boundaries of justice and truth we invite you to join us at
Gandhi Peace Foundation on November18, Wednesday, from 5 : 00 pm
onwards.

Yours Sincerely,

Surendra Mohan, Socialist Front
Kuldeep Nayyar, People's Political Front

Rajnder Sachar, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties

Medha Patkar, National Alliance of Peoples Movements
Surendra Kumar, Gandhi Peace Foundation
Mahadev Vidrohi, Sarva Sewa Sangh
Ajit Jha, Samwajwadi Jan Parishad

Prashant Bhushan, Sumit Chakrvarty and friends from Delhi Solidarity
Group, Jan Sangharsh Vahini, National Domestic Workers Union and many
others...

o o o

(ii) LAND VIOLENCE and DEVELOPMENT in CHHATTISGARH

Speakers

Sudha Bharadwaj, is a well known and long serving union leader, in
the forefront of Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, the movement initiated by
Shankar Guha Niyogi.

Himanshu Kumar, a gandhian, has spent his entire active life in
Chattisgarh and through his ashram has been trying to provide the
people what the Indian State that prides itself with the Gandhian
legacy has failed to provide. His ashram was bull dozed by the police
for his struggle against Salwa Judum.

Venue : Loyola College

Time:    4pm -- 8pm

Date:     18th Nov 2009

Organised by: PUCL Tamilnadu & Pondycherry, Department of social
work, Loyola College, Vettiver Collective, Makkal Nalvazhuvu Iyyakam

for information contact 9176079543


o o o

(iii) Secularism in Contemporary India
Monday, November 16, 10:30am-12:30pm
International Affairs Building, Room 1512
A discussion with CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT, Alliance Visiting Professor
at Columbia and Professor of Political Science at Sciences-Po, Paris,
THOMAS BLOM HANSEN, Professor of Anthropology at the University of
Amsterdam, and RAJEEV BHARGAVA, Director of the Center for the Study
of Developing Societies.
Co-sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life;
the Alliance Program; the South Asia Institute; the Department of
Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures; and the Center for the
Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.


Religion, Conflict and Accommodation in India
Tuesday-Wednesday, November 17-18, 9am-5pm
Common Room, Second Floor
Heyman Center for the Humanities
A workshop led by Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle East and Asian
Languages and Cultures, and Rajeev Bhargava, Director of the Centre
for Studies in Developing Societies (Delhi). Discussion will focus on
the role of religion in India throughout its history, particularly
the dynamics of conflict and accommodation between Buddhists and
conventional Vedic religion and among Saivas, Vaisnavas and Jains in
ancient and medieval society.
For schedule of presentations:
http://ircpl.org/events/religion-conflict-and-accommodation-in-india

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life,
the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion and
the Heyman Center for the Humanities. For directions to the Heyman
Center:
http://heymancenter.org/visit.php



o o o

(iv)
o o o

   (v)

o o o

(vi)

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 12, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2665 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

NOTICE to ALL: This issue of the sacw is specially dedicated to
honour and remember M B Naqvi the prominent journalist, humanist and
progressive voice. He played a very active role in the Pakistan India
People's Forum for Peace and Democracy, the Pakistan Peace Coalition,
among other platforms. Mr Naqvi died on the 7th of November 2009.
Since late 1990's Naqvi saheb's articles were regularly redistributed
via the South Asia Citizens Wire. His last article was carried in
SACW dispatch of November 9-11, 2009. "Naqvi Saheb we will sorely
miss you!".

____

[1] Sri Lanka: Interview with Dr. Asoka Bandarage (Ben Linden)
      + Time to revisit the citizenship debate (Lynn Ockersz)
[2] Pakistan:  M.B. Naqvi passes away (Dawn)
       + Les pots-de-vin du pr�sident pakistanais (Guillaume Dasqui�)
       + Al Jazeera Interview with Seymour Hersh on US and Pakistan
nuclear weapons
[3] Celebrating desertion (Jawed Naqvi)
[4] India: The medium, message and the money (P. Sainath)
[5] India: Fated To Fade Away - It is high time the Left wore its
thinking cap again (Ashok Mitra)
[6] Address on occasion of 2009 UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the
Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence (Madanjeet Singh)
[7] India: Resources For Secular Activists
         (i)   Encroaching Places of Worship (Editorial, Economic &
Political Weekly)
         (ii)  Not Relevant Indians? (Omar Khalidi)
         (iii) Intolerant politics a threat to urban living (Amritha
Ibrahim)
[8] Miscellanea:
- Human rights before religion (Seyran Ates)
- Catholic Church�s interference in Obama�s health bill robs women of
rights (Editorial, New York Times)
- When state and religion mix (Danny Rich)

_____


[1] Sri Lanka:

IA-FORUM SPEAKS WITH PROF. ASOKA BANDARAGE ABOUT SRI LANKA AND THE
TAMIL CONFLICT.
by Ben Linden (9 November 2009)

International Affairs Forum: Where does the situation in Sri Lanka
stand today? Is the humanitarian situation in the Tamil areas in the
North as bad as it was following this year's military offensive?

Dr. Asoka Bandarage:First of all, in Sri Lanka there are no areas
that are exclusively Tamil or Sinhalese or Muslim, and much of this
conflict is about that. In the Eastern Province, there are
populations from all the ethnic groups, and the Tamils are a minority
there. The notion that the North is a Tamil area is not true in that
there was ethnic cleansing of Sinhalese and Muslims from the area. I
want to make that clear from the outset.

Along with that, it needs to be said that the majority of Tamil
people in Sri Lanka live outside of the Northern Province and a very
large proportion of the Sri Lankan Tamils are also outside of the
country�one quarter or so is part of the diaspora. These demographics
are important to understand the situation.

With regard to the humanitarian situation, there is no question that
there has been a crisis, not just following the military offensive
but during the armed conflict as well. There is a lot of criticism of
the government for maintaining Tamil people in camps�over 300,000 of
them after the offensive. From what I�ve read, now there are less
than 200,000, so 100,000 or more have been resettled. There is no
question that this is the most important issue, but the issue is
nonetheless a very complicated one given that many of the people in
the camps came from areas that were under the control of the LTTE and
there is evidence that there are LTTE cadres in those camps. For the
security of all the people, it is important to make sure that
potential terrorists are not released into the larger population. So
checking and taking care of other security matters are important. And
de-mining the northern areas is also important, since so many mines
have been planted there over the years.

One of the criticisms that have been leveled at the government is
that it has not allowed media to go into the camps and that it has
stopped the rest of the world from finding out what is really going
on. I think that needs to be corrected, just as the rehabilitation of
all Tamil civilians needs to be addressed. But there is also the
reality faced by the government. It has been under a lot of attack
from the international media and there have been fabricated stories
and criticisms. So there is a reluctance on the part of the
government to open up certain areas to the media. For example, there
was a video that Channel 4 in London aired which supposedly
documented Sri Lankan soldiers shooting and killing Tamil civilians.
It received a lot of attention around the world. But later it was
revealed that this was a concocted video, and Channel 4 expressed
apologies accepting that it was duped by a group claiming to be a
human rights organization which had provided the video. I�m just
giving that as an example of why the government and certain segments
of the Sri Lankan population are wary of the international media and
human rights groups. This is not to justify keeping the media out
because we need to have accountability and transparency, but at the
same time, it is important to recognize the possible continuation of
the LTTE, which was the most ruthless terrorist organization in the
world. So, the government has to take the necessary precautions
against the LTTE rearming and reactivating itself.

IA-Forum:So are you saying that the current policies are purely
security-based? Seeing all the celebrations that occurred in Sri
Lanka following the military victory, one wonders if there was there
was any element of collective punishment or spoils going to the winner.

Dr. Bandarage:We have to move beyond seeing this as a Sinhala versus
Tamil primordial conflict, which is the dominant analysis of this
conflict, and I take this on in my book. I�m not denying there is an
ethnic dimension. But the fact is that the entire population�
Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims�were all victimized by the LTTE.
Terrorism is the greatest of all human rights violations. The Tamils
were more victimized in a way by the LTTE than any other group. They
were forced to give their children up as suicide bombers. In certain
regions, like for example the Eastern Province, each family
supposedly had to give a child for the cause. The LTTE established a
totalitarian regime which did not allow any kind of dissent. So not
having the LTTE opens up possibilities for Tamils and other groups to
come together and try to fashion a better future for all the people.

IA-Forum:What was the nature of this conflict as you see it? A civil
war? A regional conflict?

Dr. Bandarage:It is a separatist conflict with domestic, regional and
international dimensions. There are Tamils as well as Sinhalese and
regional and international actors supporting the creation of a
separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Likewise,
there are Sinhalese as well as Tamils and regional and international
actors supporting the continuation of the unitary state of Sri Lanka.

As I said before, there is an ethnic dimension to the conflict, but
the predominant tradition in Sri Lanka has been one of mutual
coexistence. Different ethnic and religious groups have lived
together side by side for hundreds if not thousands of years. But in
the course of this war, ethnic polarization deepened. But, it is
wrong to see this simply as a domestic conflict. In my book, I
present the broader regional dimension�the demand for a separate
Dravidian-speaking state of Dravidasthan in southern India and the
quashing of that separatist movement by India when it passed the 1963
anti-secessionist amendment to its constitution. The spread of Tamil
nationalism in southern India in conjunction with developments in Sri
Lanka produced this conflict. And then, as I discuss in my book, the
conflict became internationalized by the Tamil diaspora, which is
quite wealthy and influential in western countries, and which is
still supporting the separatist struggle in Sri Lanka.

IA-Forum:From a counter-insurgency perspective, what worked and what
didn't? Which tactics by the Sri Lankan government improved the
situation and which exacerbated it?

Dr. Bandarage:I�m not a counter-insurgency expert but from what I
understand there were a number of factors. The Sri Lankan government
started working with other governments in the international community�
and interestingly, it a was a Tamil, Lakshman Kadirgamar, who was a
former foreign minister, who initiated contact with some of the
western countries to ban the LTTE as a terrorist organization,
including in the US. Efforts to cut off funding for the LTTE and
efforts to separate the Tamil issue from the LTTE also had a role to
play because the LTTE presented itself as the sole representative of
the Tamils. Making that distinction was important.

Also, the country became war-weary. It had gone through several peace
processes and attempts at negotiation with the LTTE including the
2002 peace process. When that failed, not just the Sinhalese, but
also some Muslim and other Tamil groups became fed up with the LTTE.
So there were both internal and external factors which came together
to create a sense of urgency to bring the armed conflict to an end.
This doesn�t mean that the political conflict is resolved. There is
still a lot of work to be done, but, the conclusion of the armed
conflict opens the space to address those broader issues.

IA-Forum:What, if anything, did the insurgency achieve for the Tamil
people?

Dr. Bandarage:The Tamil people really lost a lot due to the
insurgency. The community lost its moderate leadership. It lost some
of the best and brightest people, who left the country. That is not
just a loss for the Tamil people�it is a loss for the entire country
because they were among the most talented and experienced
professionals. And with the insurgency, the Tamil culture and
community were destroyed and weakened. The Tamil community had been a
relatively advanced community, so this was a tremendous loss. So many
leaders were killed. That�s why it�s important not to continue this
conflict and start another cycle of war. Instead Tamils have to take
their rightful place in society because they have a lot to contribute
to Sri Lanka and they always have.

IA-Forum:Not to justify it in anyway, but through the use of violent
struggle, did the insurgency succeed at all in at least calling
attention to the legitimate grievances of those Tamils who felt they
were disadvantaged?

Dr. Bandarage:Yes, I think so. For example, if we look at some of the
post-independence legislation, which was meant to redress grievances
of the Sinhalese majority that had been discriminated against during
the British colonial era. In retrospect, the insurgency has made
people question if those were the right steps. So I think it has
opened up an opportunity to really look at the whole history of the
country and relations between different communities. The loss of all
those lives also raise questions about the meaning of democracy and
justice for all groups. I try to do this in my book�to look at Tamil
grievances but also the grievances of other groups, and how all of
that can be redressed.

One thing that often gets overlooked when we talk about the Sinhalese
or the Tamils as monolithic groups is the differences and
inequalities within groups. Within the Sinhalese, the majority are
underprivileged. Similarly, within the Tamil community, there are
differences between elites and masses and caste differences. And now,
of course, you have the difference between the diaspora and the
people on the ground. The diaspora supported the armed conflict,
which was the longest running armed conflict in Asia. Now, after the
military offensive is over, they are continuing the separatist
struggle outside of the country through political means. This makes
it difficult for the government and domestic Tamil groups to move
forward in terms of rehabilitation and development because the
political conflict has intensified. This is not to say that that
political issues should not be addressed, but it should be done in a
constructive way rather than in a way that polarizes communities and
continues the acrimony. The diaspora and other groups should be
focusing on how to bring communities together�and they should think
of the people on the ground, like the people in the camps, who are
the ones that have suffered the most. They are the real victims.
Meeting the basic needs - shelter, employment, land, access to water,
and education for children�needs to become the priorities over the
political interests of elites from all communities whether they be
Tamil, Sinhalese or Muslim.
[. . .]
FULL TEXT AT: http://www.ia-forum.org/Content/
ViewInternalDocument.cfm?ContentID=7468.

Asoka Bandarage is a professor in the Public Policy Institute at
Georgetown University. Her latest book is entitled �The Separatist
Conflict in Sri Lanka: Terrorism, Ethnicity, Political
Economy� (Routledge, 2009)

o o o

The Island, November 12, 2009

TIME TO REVISIT THE CITIZENSHIP DEBATE
by Lynn Ockersz

A mob attack on a place of religious worship in a Colombo suburb
recently, while drawing public attention to the simmering fires of
religious intolerance in some quarters in this country, provokes a
reexamination of unresolved issues at the heart of Sri Lanka�s
citizenship question.

The attack on the place of worship needs to be unequivocally
condemned by all, including, of course, the state. Rather than
withdraw into a state of self-induced inner paralysis, the wanton
attack should be condemned by the right-thinking, not only in the
name of religious harmony and unity but also in recognition of the
need to defend and uphold the Rule of Law.

If the laws of the land have been violated by anyone associated with
the place of worship in question, he should be subjected immediately
to the due process of the law and punished by the relevant organs of
the state. Under no circumstances should he be allowed to be a victim
of murderous mob violence. In this instance no persons were harmed
but the place of worship was vandalized, which is equally violative
of the law. Apparently, the �long arm of the law� was completely
inoperative when the acts of lawlessness were unleashed. This amounts
to undermining the Rule of Law and giving criminality and lawlessness
a further boost.

It was only the other day that a man who was described as mentally-
ill was done to death by persons who were identified as law-enforcers
in the seas off Bambalapitiya, in an unsettling reminder of the
degree to which the Rule of Law has crumbled. If this deleterious
trend goes unchecked, brutality could very well become
institutionalized.

It would amount to labouring the obvious if it is stated that it
would be none other than Sri Lanka which would suffer the ill
consequences if the Rule of Law is thus relentlessly undermined. One
of the tragedies of our times is that brutality is being seen by some
as synonymous with heroism, and conscience and reason are being
interpreted as signs of weakness. A terrible blight has indeed been
born.

The state has a lot of explaining to do in this latest instance of
destructive violence which has apparently been unleashed with
impunity, because a representative of a minor party in the UPFA has
been quoted as having justified the attack on the centre of worship.
If this is so, some sections of the ruling alliance stand accused of
fostering lawlessness. The government is obliged to put the record
straight and bring all wrong-doers in this incident to justice, if it
intends taking governance seriously. Besides, the state must ensure
that incendiary observations by its alliance partners, which have a
destructive impact on national unity, are henceforth put an end to.

Since then we have had a statement from the National Bhikku Front,
which, among other things, draws attention to the mutually-
reinforcing nature of �fundamentalisms�. This is a timely perception
which should not go unnoticed and unappreciated. There is no
disputing that fundamentalisms of all kinds militate against the
democratic health of a country.

What is equal in importance to this gamut of issues relating to law
and order, are the implications, some statements issued in the wake
of the attack on the place of worship by hard line nationalist
opinion, have, for fostering an equal citizenship in Sri Lanka and
consequently, for generating social peace.

Apparently, the opinion was voiced by the above sections that Sri
Lanka �belongs� to only those who profess the majority religion and
so, practitioners of other religions cannot be accommodated in the
Lankan fold. Implicit in such narrow sentiments is the opinion that
one�s identification with the majority religion, culture and ethnic
group is a �must� for being signified as a Sri Lankan. In other
words, those who do not possess these labels of identification are to
be considered �aliens�; in most cases, in the land of their birth.

Therefore, decades after the enactment of the infamous Citizenship
Acts of 1948, which resulted in tens of thousands of plantation
workers of Indian origin losing their citizenship of Sri Lanka, the
myths of who constitute Lankan citizens, are stonily present,
preventing the establishment of an inclusive Sri Lanka and precluding
the possibility of the expeditious founding of a united country.

Viewed superficially, Sri Lanka�s citizenship laws could be described
as, more or less, equitable in the sense that they do not allow for
any distinctions once Lankan citizenship is acquired by a person �by
descent or by virtue of registration�. In fact Article 26(1) of the
Lankan constitution states that, �There shall be one status of
citizenship known as "the status of a citizen of Sri Lanka"�.

Moreover, Article 12(2) of the constitution states that, �No citizen
shall be discriminated against on the grounds of race, religion,
language, caste, sex, political opinion, place of birth or any one
such grounds,�.

However, the truth is that discrimination against citizens on a
number of grounds, flourishes in some state institutions. Not all
functionaries of the state regard the above constitutional provision
as sacrosanct; this, this writer knows for a fact. The 30 year war in
Sri Lanka, growing out of the ethnic issue, was proof of the
inadequacy of these constitutional provisions, if not their near
total impotence.

Apparently, Sri Lanka needs to greatly expand on its constitutional
provisions regarding citizenship and also ensure their stringent
implementation. What we need are constitutional provisions that
clearly acknowledge and spell out the plural character of the Lankan
state. Citizenship needs to be defined as encompassing all the ethnic
and cultural groups of the land and should cease to be seen as the
sole preserve of this or that ethnic or cultural group. The current
provisions on citizenship fall short of these standards by being too
general in nature. By lacking specificity, they fail to meet the
country�s concrete requirements as regards minority rights.

Besides, and equally importantly, minority safeguards should be
emphatically incorporated into the constitution. In fact, the state
should seriously consider incorporating in the constitution and
rigorously implementing, measures that could contribute towards the
empowerment of minority communities, as is done in India, for instance.

It could be seen that plenty of awareness-raising needs to be done on
the above and related issues by the state and other sections who need
to evince a keen interest in them. If the groundwork in this
direction is laid, the appeal of the current �fundamentalisms� could
be greatly blunted and democratic development ushered in.

_____


[2] Pakistan:


Dawn, 8 Nov, 2009

M.B. NAQVI PASSES AWAY

Mohammad Baqir Naqvi, a senior journalist and human rights activist,
died at the age of 81.�File photo

Karachi: Mohammad Baqir Naqvi, a senior journalist and human rights
activist, died at a hospital here on Saturday afternoon. He was 81.
He left behind his wife, two sons and a daughter.

He had been facing cardiac problems for a long time, but his health
was stable. After he complained of pain and congestion on Thursday,
his wife took him to the National Institute of Cardio-vascular
Diseases, where doctors advised hospitalisation.

His condition suddenly deteriorated on Saturday morning and he died
in the afternoon.

Born in Amroha (India) in 1928, M.B. Naqvi, as he was popularly
known, got his education there. After migrating to Pakistan, he took
up journalism, joining Indus Times (Hyderabad). After some time, he
joined Dawn.

Then he moved to Rawalpindi and joined Radio Pakistan.  After return
from Rawalpindi to Karachi, he again started writing for Dawn and
later wrote for The News. He was also a contributor to Herald, a
monthly magazine.

For the past few years he was busy writing a book on the country�s
nuclear programme and foreign policy. The work remains unfinished.

A number of foreign publications used to solicit his articles. Among
them were Daily Star (Bangladesh), Deccan Herald (India), Gulf News
(UAE).

M.B. Naqvi was an untiring human rights activist and consistently
highlighted injustice against women and other oppressed sections of
society.

He had a long association with the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan, Aurat Foundation and similar forums.

o o o

Liberation, 11 Novembre 2009

LES POTS-DE-VIN DU PR�SIDENT PAKISTANAIS

Ali Zardari aurait touch� des commissions dans l�affaire des sous-
marins de la DCN.
par Guillaume Dasqui�
http://www.liberation.fr/societe/0101602179-les-pots-de-vin-du-
president-pakistanais

o o o

AL JAZEERA INTERVIEW WITH SEYMOUR HERSH ON US AND PAKISTAN NUCLEAR
WEAPONS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EDaSbMkrfY&feature=player_embedded

_____


[3]

Dawn, 12 Nov, 2009

CELEBRATING DESERTION

by Jawed Naqvi

IT may seem sinister but it is commonplace. Frenzied soldiers shoot
their fellow officers, also comrades, all the time. Or they desert
armies they otherwise served loyally. The more senior officers plot
military coups.

Sven Kempe and his wife Ann-Charlotte would favour desertion any day
to bloodletting. In the 1960s, the Swedish couple ran a virtual
asylum � though they called it a commune � for American army
deserters. It was located in a scenic spot in Uppsala, not far from
Stockholm.

Sven belongs to a wealthy industrialist family and heads a textiles
business in Sweden. His burly frame and capitalist pedigree mask a
gentle, giving human being. He speaks with nostalgia about the days
when a successful anti-war movement raged from Europe to the United
States. And he became an important part of it. The commune they ran
won the couple many friends from far and near.

Among them was their last week�s host in Delhi, a common friend at
whose farmhouse I met the couple over a lazy late afternoon lunch. My
interest was mainly to find out what opinions the more neutral
observers had managed to form of Major Nidal�s murder of 13 fellow
soldiers at Fort Hood. What I got in return was a glimpse into the
tragic story of the US army�s Major Jerry Bhagwan Das.

Bhagwan Das was an Indian orphan who somehow found himself cleaning
ships in Thailand. That was when an American naval officer and his
childless wife spotted him. They adopted the boy and brought him up
as an American patriot who would join the army. Jerry, as he came to
be called, was so good at his work that he was inducted as a member
of an elite force in Vietnam. He killed many Vietcong guerrillas and
civilians; too many, as he later told his friends.

During an R&R break in Germany in 1969, Jerry escaped to Stockholm,
which had become a sanctuary for deserting soldiers from the US army.
Often when the soldiers subsequently wanted to return home, even when
they were prepared to face the stigma and punishment (as pugilist
Muhammad Ali did for dodging the draft) they were set humiliating
conditions. They had to say their return was prompted by their
mistreatment in Sweden, which was a lie.

At the commune, Jerry befriended a Swedish girl and both were happy
together. Then, very quietly, almost stealthily, he one day doused
his body with kerosene and set himself on fire. His friends rushed to
save Jerry but he perished in hospital after a brief struggle. Sven
doesn�t quite know why the young officer took his life but their
horrific deeds in Vietnam did haunt many of his guests from the
world�s most powerful army.

Sven and Ann-Charlotte celebrated the desertion by the soldiers
because they were opposed to the Vietnam War. If asked, they would
also consider desertion the only proper way for the licensed killers
to atone for their deeds. The alternative is too forbidding to
contemplate. There must be so many Major Nidals lurking inside the
most disciplined armies across the world. They are just waiting to be
provoked.

It would be interesting to find out if there were peaceful ways for
Major Nidal Malik Hasan to say �no� to a proposed assignment in
Afghanistan without being branded a deserter, an option he did not
choose. This is assuming that he is not an Al Qaeda-like fanatic,
which he is being made out to be.

Al Qaeda and Taliban, though they lend themselves easily to the
description, are not the only fanatics in the business of
bloodletting. Not too long ago it was routine for violent military
coups to be staged at the behest of powerful democracies. A lot of
innocent blood was spilt and still continues to be wasted.

Desertion and killing of fellow officers has a history. Patriots in
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh rejoice in the great sepoy mutiny of
1857 against the British. On their part, the British bribed or
coerced local chieftains to switch sides not always without a bloody
mess. There is at least one familiar instance of a Gandhian leader
who exhorted the military to revolt, albeit peacefully, against a
rival civilian despot.

The exact phrase that Jaiprakash Narayan used in urging India�s
security forces to rebel against Indira Gandhi�s authoritarianism is
a matter of dispute. But bereft of the semantics involved it was
nothing short of a call to mutiny. However, Mrs Gandhi found a good
ruse in the exhortation and suspended democracy before she realised
her mistake and called elections, which she lost.

In India, it is not infrequent to hear of regular soldiers and
paramilitary troopers, particularly in the punishing terrain of
Kashmir, turning their guns on fellow officers. The Sikh rebellion in
Punjab of the 1980s shook the Indian army to its core but that was
not the end of the matter. It was Mrs Gandhi�s vetted security
guards, in the sanctum sanctorum of the state�s authority, who
murdered her in revenge for a military assault on the Golden Temple
in Amritsar.

Pakistan of course lost a large chunk of its army when many of its
officers became embroiled in the political turmoil that led to
Bangladesh. From the 1951 Rawalpindi case, which involved officers
and communist leaders in a plan to overthrow the state, to a more
eerie assassination plot against Gen Musharraf, Pakistani soldiers
have had their share of infidelity and bloody-mindedness. Reported
desertions by Pakistani soldiers during their ongoing war with the
Taliban were probably a more agreeable statement to make than the
unimaginable horrors of bloody subversion from within.

Of all the desertions that took place in history, the First World War
saw possibly the highest toll. As the seemingly endless war went on,
desertion and mutinies became an increasing problem. To deal with the
problem, commanders began tying deserters and mutinous troops to
poles where they would be executed by firing squad. The British shot
320 men and the French 700. The Germans shot about 50, according to
one estimate.

While it will deal with Major Nidal according to its sovereign laws,
the United States has been less than generous with rebels even from
rival armies. It induced large-scale desertions from the Iraqi army
following their 1990-91 conflict. Around 4,000 Iraqi deserters were
sent back to Iraq against their will in 1992 only, according to a
Canadian document.

�Some countries of resettlement, such as the US, were sensitive about
the security risk involved in the operation and were conducting
extensive background checks for criminal elements among the
candidates for resettlement,� the document by the Immigration and
Refugee Board of Canada stated. �For example, the US decided to
refuse all Iraqi army officers.� Sven and Ann-Charlotte still have a
job to do. They can start refurbishing their fabled commune.

The writer is Dawn�s correspondent in Delhi.


_____


[4]  India:

The Hindu, October 26, 2009

THE MEDIUM, MESSAGE AND THE MONEY
by P. Sainath

The Assembly elections saw the culture of �coverage packages� explode
across Maharashtra. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for
almost any coverage at all.

C. Ram Pandit can now resume his weekly column. Dr. Pandit (name
changed) had long been writing for a well-known Indian language
newspaper in Maharashtra. On the last day for the withdrawal of
nominations to the recent State Assembly elections, he found himself
sidelined. An editor at the paper apologised to him saying:
�Panditji, your columns will resume after October 13. Till then,
every page in this paper is sold.� The editor, himself an honest man,
was simply speaking the truth.

In the financial orgy that marked the Maharashtra elections, the
media were never far behind the moneybags. Not all sections of the
media were in this mode, but quite a few. Not just small local
outlets, but powerful newspapers and television channels, too. Many
candidates complained of �extortion� but were not willing to make an
issue of it for fear of drawing media fire. Some senior journalists
and editors found themselves profoundly embarrassed by their
managements. �The media have been the biggest winners in these
polls,� says one ruefully. �In this period alone,� says another,
�they�ve more than bounced back from the blows of the �slowdown� and
done so in style.� Their poll-period take is estimated to be in
hundreds of millions of rupees. Quite a bit of this did not come as
direct advertising but in packaging a candidate�s propaganda as �news.�

The Assembly elections saw the culture of �coverage packages� explode
across the State. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for
almost any coverage at all. Issues didn�t come into it. No money, no
news. This effectively shut out smaller parties and independent
voices with low assets and resources. It also misled viewers and
readers by denying them any mention of the real issues some of these
smaller forces raised. The Hindu reported on this (April 7, 2009)
during the Lok Sabha elections, where sections of the media were
offering low-end �coverage packages" for Rs.15 lakh to Rs.20 lakh.
�High-end� ones cost a lot more. The State polls saw this go much
further.

None of this, as some editors point out, is new. However, the scale
is new and stunning. The brazenness of it (both ways) quite alarming.
And the game has moved from the petty personal corruption of a
handful of journalists to the structured extraction of huge sums of
money by media outfits. One rebel candidate in western Maharashtra,
calculates an editor from that region, spent Rs.1 crore �on just
local media alone.� And, points out the editor, �he won, defeating
the official candidate of his party.�

The deals were many and varied. A candidate had to pay different
rates for �profiles,� interviews, a list of �achievements,� or even a
trashing of his rival in some cases. (With the channels, it was
�live� coverage, a �special focus,� or even a team tracking you for
hours in a day.) Let alone bad-mouthing your rival, this �pay-per�
culture also ensures that the paper or channel will not tell its
audiences that you have a criminal record. Over 50 per cent of the
MLAs just elected in Maharashtra have criminal charges pending
against them. Some of them featured in adulatory �news items� which
made no mention of this while tracing their track record.

At the top end of the spectrum, �special supplements� cost a bomb.
One put out by one of the State�s most important politicians �
celebrating his �era� � cost an estimated Rs.1.5 crore. That is, just
this single media insertion cost 15 times what he is totally allowed
to spend as a candidate. He has won more than the election, by the way.

One common low-end package: Your profile and �four news items of your
choice� to be carried for between Rs.4 lakh or more depending on
which page you seek. There is something chilling about those words
�news items of your choice.� Here is news on order. Paid for. (Throw
in a little extra and a writer from the paper will help you draft
your material.) It also lent a curious appearance to some newspaper
pages. For instance, you could find several �news items� of exactly
the same size in the same newspaper on the same day, saying very
different things. Because they were really paid-for propaganda or
disguised advertisements. A typical size was four columns by ten
centimetres. When a pro-saffron alliance paper carries �news items�
of this size extolling the Congress-NCP, you know strange things are
happening. (And, oh yes, if you bought �four news items of your
choice� many times, a fifth one might be thrown in gratis.)

There were a few significant exceptions to the rule. A couple of
editors tried hard to bring balance to their coverage and even ran a
�news audit� to ensure that. And journalists who, as one of them put
it, �simply stopped meeting top contacts in embarrassment.� Because,
often, journalists with access to politicians were expected to make
the approach. That information came from a reporter whose paper sent
out an email detailing �targets� for each branch and edition during
the elections. The bright exceptions were drowned in the flood of
lucre. And the huge sums pulled in by that paper have not stopped it
from sacking droves of staffers. Even from editions that met their
�targets.�

There are the standard arguments in defence of the whole process.
Advertising packages are the bread and butter of the industry. What�s
wrong with that? �We have packages for the festive season. Diwali
packages, or for the Ganesh puja days.� Only, the falsehoods often
disguised as �news� affect an exercise central to India�s electoral
democracy. And are outrageously unfair to candidates with less or no
money. They also amount to exerting undue influence on the electorate.

There is another poorly assessed � media-related � dimension to this.
Many celebrities may have come out in May to exhort people to vote.
This time, several of them appear to have been hired by campaign
managers to drum up crowds for their candidate. Rates unknown.

All of this goes hand in hand with the stunning rise of money power
among candidates. More so among those who made it the last time and
have amassed huge amounts of wealth since 2004. With the media and
money power wrapped like two peas in a pod, this completely shuts out
smaller, or less expensive, voices. It just prices the aam aadmi out
of the polls. Never mind they are contested in his name.

Your chances of winning an election to the Maharashtra Assembly, if
you are worth over Rs.100 million, are 48 times greater than if you
were worth just Rs.1 million or less. Far greater still, if that
other person is worth only half-a-million rupees or less. Just six
out of 288 MLAs in Maharashtra who won their seats declared assets of
less than half-a-million rupees. Nor should challenges from garden
variety multi-millionaires (those worth between Rs.1 million-10
million) worry you much. Your chances of winning are six times
greater than theirs, says the National Election Watch (NEW).

The number of �crorepati� MLAs (those in the Rs.10 million-plus
category) in the State Assembly has gone up by over 70 per cent in
the just concluded elections. There were 108 elected in 2004. This
time, there are 184. Nearly two-thirds of the MLAs just elected in
Maharashtra and close to three-fourths of those in Haryana, are
crorepatis. These and other startling facts fill the reports put out
by NEW, a coalition of over 1,200 civil society groups across the
country that also brought out excellent reports on these issues
during the Lok Sabha polls in April-May. Its effort to inform the
voting public is spearheaded by the NGO, Association for Democratic
Reforms (ADR).

Each MLA in Maharashtra, on average, is worth over Rs.40 million.
That is, if we treat their own poll affidavit declarations as
genuine. That average is boosted by Congress and BJP MLAs who seem
richer than the others, being well above that mark. The NCP and the
Shiv Sena MLAs are not too far behind, though, the average worth of
each of their legislators being in the Rs.30 million-plus bracket.

Each time a giant poll exercise is gone through in this most complex
of electoral democracies, we congratulate the Election Commission on
a fine job. Rightly so, in most cases. For, many times, its
interventions and activism have curbed rigging, booth capturing and
ballot stuffing. On the money power front, though � and the media�s
packaging of big money interests as �news� � it is hard to find a
single significant instance of rigorous or deterrent action. These
too, after all, are serious threats. More structured, much more
insidious than crude ballot stuffing. Far more threatening to the
basics of not just elections, but democracy itself.

_____


[5] India:

The Telegraph, November 6 , 2009

FATED TO FADE AWAY - It is high time the Left wore its thinking cap
again

Cutting Corners - Ashok Mitra

A faded group photograph one chances upon shows the faces of the
earnest members of the first national executive committee of the
Congress Socialist Party formed exactly 75 years ago, in 1934. The
CSP was put together within the folds of the Indian National Congress
as a kind of ginger group to push the lugubrious juggernaut of the
great parent party towards a more radical direction. The elderly
caretakers of the Congress listened � half-mockingly, half-
patronizingly � to the new breed who talked of such exotic things as
happenings in the Soviet Union and the rise of the Nazis in Germany
and the fascists in Italy as direct spin-offs of economic depression
and mass unemployment. Even in the United States of America,
capitalism was said to be malfunctioning, the ranks of hunger marches
swelled every day, extensive public works under State auspices were
somehow saving the system. The dedicated crowd milling within the CSP
were grappling with the significance of these events for India. The
nation must of course be freed, here and now, from foreign shackles,
but that was not enough. What sort of free India was it to be, what
would be the contours of its social and economic order? India
belonged to its masses: the overwhelming number of dispossessed
peasantry and underpaid workers and artisans of various descriptions
as well as the mute castes and tribes at the receiving end of
exploitation over centuries. The Congress must adopt concrete
programmes for a total reconstruction of the economy in post-
independent India so that a proper kisan-mazdoor raj emerged. The CSP
was going to see to all that.

Its first national executive committee, the faded photograph attests,
was a curious m�lange: Farid Ansari, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Dinkar
Mehta, Nabakrushna Choudhuri, Narendra Deva, P.Y. Deshpande, S.M.
Joshi, Soli Batlivala, S. Sampurnanand, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay,
Jayaprakash Narayan, N.G. Goray, Achyut Patwardhan, Purushottam
Trikamdas, Charles Mascarenhas. It was too improbable a combination
to last long; it did not.

Communists like Namboodiripad, Batlivala and Dinkar Mehta left this
clandestine shelter by 1941. Nabakrushna Choudhuri, the devout
Gandhiite, also soon detached himself, and later became Congress
chief minister of Orissa, and subsequently joined Vinoba Bhave in his
bhoodaan mission. Sampurnanand too, at some point, became Congress
chief minister of India�s largest state; by then he was an arch-
social conservative leaning towards Hindu orthodoxy. Minoo Masani, a
great admirer of Soviet collectivization in the 1930s, somersaulted,
ending up as a foaming-in-the-mouth anti-communist and co-founded the
Swatantra Party. Narendra Deva, the gentlest of souls, gradually
withdrew from active politics and remained satisfied with his role as
an ideologue of socialism, a slice of Marx, a slice of Gandhi, mostly
Rousseau. Jayaprakash Narayan, the underground hero of the 1942 Quit
India movement, mellower with the years; most of the time he was with
the Praja Socialist Party � the CSP�s direct legatee � but was also
with Vinoba Bhave. He finally led the nava nirman struggles in the
1970s to emerge as the father figure of the Janata Party, which
demolished Indira Gandhi�s Emergency. He was lucky to die before his
handiwork broke into smithereens.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was always a rebel of a woman in search of a
cause, which at the end she discovered in cottage crafts and the
theatre movement. Of the rest, S.M. Joshi, Achyut Patwardhan and N.G.
Goray clung for long years to the Praja Socialist Party and its later
incarnations, walked into the Janata Party when J.P. put it together,
then migrated to the Janata Dal or one of its innumerable factions.
Some of them had developed pockets of influence among a number of
caste groups, �other backward classes�; innate feudal instincts,
however, drove them to waste their strength in endless internal
squabbles until it was disaster time.

The Indian National Congress, it would seem, was both the curse and
the ultimate provider of shelter for several of those rebels who
loved to talk socialism in their calf days. It supposedly represented
�the stream of national consciousness�; its cloying charm was almost
impossible to resist. For quite a few of them, the expression,
�national consensus�, would have a bewitching effect: yes, engage in
debate, let arguments and rhetoric have free flow, yet, at the end of
it, it would be gross lack of patriotism not to fall in and join the
national mainstream.

Others had disappeared; for the past few decades it is, therefore,
only the communists who could claim the socialist inheritance. The
Left and the communists became synonymous. Given their ideology, the
communists, many had expected, would not get caught in the trap of
�national consensus�. Were not they the quintessential Left, the
other side in the class war, where there could be no scope for
compromise with adversarial forces? Their failure to tackle
satisfactorily the class-caste dialectic was, however, a major
problem. Equally ticklish was the issue of whether the global
brotherhood of the working classes transcended national priorities.
The communists have been extraordinarily cautious after the
experience of 1962, and have taught themselves to be careful so that
nobody could dub them as less than �patriotic�. The Left led by the
communists has, for instance, ceased to question the huge allocations
in the name of defence and national security. The nuclear agreement
signed with the US can be safely opposed; but courage fails when the
question is one of across-the-board reduction in defence outlay; to
argue for such reduction would not be �politically correct�. The Left
has thus modulated its ideology; it too must be an integral part of
the patriotic front.

Consider this other instance. The Left in the past used to advocate
the thesis that the Indian nation is a conglomerate of linguistic �
and sometimes ethnic � sub-nationalities, and overall national
progress was impossible if these sub-nationalities were left out in
the cold. Its emphasis on an equitable structure of Centre-state
relations stemmed directly from this understanding of the polity.
They availed of the opportunity of the temporary decline of the
Congress in the post-Emergency phase and were able to gain much
credibility for their demand for expanded financial powers for the
states. They dazzled only to disappoint. In the course of the past
couple of decades, they have swung completely in the other direction:
the state headed by the Left in West Bengal became most vocal in its
support for full fiscal integration across the nation, a cause dear
to the heart of the capitalists. It has indeed been a bizarre
spectacle, the Left campaigning for a financial regime where the
states will in effect be permanently at the mercy of the Centre.

Even on the issue of globalization, the Left has succumbed to
centripetal urges. The state governments under its control mouth the
formal party line against economic liberalization. This is
nonetheless being accompanied by a desperate zeal to invite capital,
including foreign capital, into their premises. In a competitive
environment, the Left, the argument goes, could not allow the
territories under its influence to turn into an industry-less desert
because of dearth of capital. Examining the feasibility of
industrialization via the public sector route is no longer on the
agenda.

Now for the tailpiece. The Congress ruling at the Centre, according
to party theorem, represents feudal-bourgeois oppressor classes
against whom the Left is to pursue a relentless battle. True, the
Left is under great stress since the Maoists, for their own reason,
have chosen the formal Left as their principal enemy. Even so, it is
altogether incongruous how, to combat the Maoists, the Left has
totally identified itself with the Centre. The incongruity appears
all the greater because not so long ago the Left was vociferously
opposed to the very concept of the Centre raising a police force; was
not law and order a state subject?

These are disturbing developments. Should not the Left re-wear its
thinking cap? And, while doing so, should not it ask itself how a
situation could be allowed to develop where Maoists can instantly
mobilize a few thousands to lay siege on a railway station in a
tribal belt, where a partisan of the Left dares not enter the area
without adequate security guard?

Or has a decision already been reached for self-destruction, the Left
is to fade away � like the faded faces in that group photo discussed
in the earlier paragraphs?

_____


[6] 2009 UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance
and Non-Violence

ADDRESS BY UNESCO GOODWILL AMBASSADOR MADANJEET SINGH
November 16, 2009

Excellencies, my UNESCO colleagues, friends:

May I at the outset warmly felicitate the 2009 UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh
Prize laureates, Abdul Sattar Edhi of Pakistan and Fran�ois Houtart
from Belgium, as well as the Honourable Mention nominees, the St.
Petersburg Government Programme on Tolerance, Russian Federation, and
the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, United Kingdom, for
promoting peace through intercultural dialogue, human rights,
tolerance, and non-violence.

It was an intense desire to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary
of Mahatma Gandhi that prompted me to fund the UNESCO Prize,
notwithstanding financial constraints. May I also mention a proximate
event of great significance: November 14 marks the 120th birth
anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, the apostle of secularism. I was
naturally delighted when, in 1995, the UNESCO Executive Board
unanimously created the Prize, and decided to award it biannually on
16th November, the day on which UNESCO was established and the United
Nations declared it as the Day of Tolerance.

The lifelong efforts by the 2009 UNESCO Prize laureates to promote
international cooperation is a corollary of the fall of the Berlin
wall in 1989 � the historic legacy of which we are celebrating this
week. It formally ended the cold war and spurred on the unity and
expansion of the European Union. The euphoria the fall of the wall
created among the people of a united Germany proved there is no such
thing as permanent enmity among nations � that peace is forged
horizontally as well as top down but basically from the bottom up.
The event heralded the triumph of multiculturalism over selfish
unilateral schemes.

UNESCO highlighted the cultural connotation of these concerns at the
33rd session of the General Conference when its 183 Member States
adopted a resolution on 'Convention on the Protection and Promotion
of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions'. The objective was to
create, in the context of an increasingly interconnected world, a
rich creative diversity in which all cultural expressions may be
affirmed. This strengthened the ties that bind the diversity of
cultures and their development to foster mutual understanding and
dialogue between peoples. UNESCO�s historic decision reiterated that
multiculturalism is essentially holistic, comprising global issues
such as protection of the environment, unfettered trade and commerce,
regional cooperation, and amicable partnerships, accessible to all
for the benefit of humanity.

There was a time when Europe greatly benefitted from Asian and
African cultures born and bred in India, China, Mesopotamia, Egypt,
and so on. Later the imperial European powers amassed enormous wealth
by exploiting their colonies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The
Second World War turned the tide and the winds of change began to
blow in the opposite direction. The fall of the Berlin wall was the
watershed, wrote Professor Brahma Chellaney of the Indian Centre for
Policy Research, because as  �Europe got freedom, Asia became rich.�
Barely six months before the wall crumbled, I recall asking the West
German Ambassador in Washington if East and West Germany would ever
unite. �Not in my lifetime,� he was convinced. But the world suddenly
changed in ways inconceivable only a few months earlier.

East has in fact met the West, contrary to Kipling�s adage "never the
twain shall meet." Against this background I am confident that the
wall of India�s Partition erected by the Indian and Pakistani vested
interests shall inevitably crumble as suddenly as the Berlin wall. I
am convinced that my vision of creating a rainbow partnership of
South Asian counties and a common currency shall become the anchor of
economic stability, security and regional cooperation -- as the
ASEAN, African, Latin American, and Gulf countries are planning to
launch a common currency by emulating the Euro.

Before I close, may I take this opportunity to heartily congratulate
Mme Irina Bokova, the first woman to be elected Director-General of
UNESCO. Her unprecedented appointment has shattered the wall of
UNESCO machismo since the organisation was established 65 years ago
on this day. Let us celebrate the breaching of this formidable wall
as well.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting and
participating in this exceptional event.

_____


[7] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i)

Editorial
Economic & Political Weekly, November 7, 2009

ENCROACHING PLACES OF WORSHIP
The Supreme Court delivers a bold interim order on construction of
places of worship on government land.

Those who occupy public places in the name of religion have received
a warning from the Supreme Court. An interim order of the apex court
has halted with immediate effect all fresh construction of temples,
churches, mosques, gurdwaras in public streets or public spaces
across the country until the Court finally resolves all cases
relating to illegal religious structures.  The bench directed the
state governments and union territories to review current disputes
over unauthorised worship places on a �case by case� basis.

The apex court was hearing an appeal by the central government
against an order of the Gujarat High Court. The high court had in
2006 given a directive to municipal corporations in Gujarat to
demolish all illegal religious structures in public spaces in the
state. The central government interfered in this matter when a riot
was triggered in Vadodara after the demolition of a dargah and the
army had to stage a flag march to restore order. The centre had
approached the apex court to stay the order of the Gujarat High Court
on the demolition drive. (On 17 September 2009, before the Supreme
Court gave its interim order, a meeting called by the Solicitor
General with the representatives of states and union territories to
discuss the issue of mushrooming religious structures on public land
reached a consensus to stop fresh construction of worship places on
all such land, a decision that was communicated to the Court.) The
tendency to encroach on public spaces and government wasteland
(�peramboke� land) for religious purposes has become a threat to our
definition of secularism as enunciated in the Con- stitution.
Hitherto, any religious institution or individual has been able to
install an idol or a cross anywhere on public land.  Such structures
are usually seen on waste or unoccupied land to avoid government
actions against the illegal occupation. The site gradually becomes a
full-fledged place of worship � be it a temple, a dargah or a saint�s
shrine. Public gatherings simultaneously increase and the performance
of daily rituals begins and a collection box is also installed; the
accountability of the collection is, however, not considered a public
matter.

The local administration initially does not take any action to stop
such activities on government land. The legality of such structures
becomes an issue only when the government decides it needs the site
for some activity. Then the authorities are unable to act, for
�sentiments� are likely to be affected. Because it is a matter of
religious sentiments, political parties are not to be left behind in
arguing in support of the illegal structure. It has not been uncommon
for civic action against such illegal structures to lead to a
communal conflagration. It is therefore not surprising that
government bodies are loath to remove these structures.  The interim
order of the Supreme Court only temporarily halts new religious
structures. It would be interesting to see to what extent the local
governments will feel empowered by the Supreme Court�s order and
prevent new buildings of worship from coming up on public land. As
far as the existing illegal structures are concerned, which is the
real problem, the apex court has passed the ball to the state
governments and union territories and asked them to deal with the
issue on a case by case basis. Various cases involving religious
structures constructed on public land are pending in the high courts
across the country and given the influence that religious sentiments
have come to exercise on public action, it is doubtful if any
municipal/state government will  want to take action clearing such
buildings.

(ii)

Outlook, Nov 10, 2009

NOT RELEVANT INDIANS?
NRIs are largely seen as rabid supporters of right-wing Hindutva, but
there is another category of them who like to see themselves as
having made the likes of Narendra Modi into a political pariah abroad

by Omar Khalidi

In the United States, Indian Americans are often seen as a highly
educated, tech savvy, upwardly mobile, wealthy minority along the
lines of other "model minorities", such as the Asian Americans and
Jews. Like other immigrant groups, most Indian-Americans have been
happy to be apolitical high achievers inhabiting upscale suburbs from
coast to coast.

Of those politically active NRIs within American politics, in the
past, almost all seemed to confine themselves to three broad areas:
uncritical support to India�s security concerns involving China and
Pakistan, US-India economic ties, and issues involving Indian
Americans within the United States.

For example, the US India Political Action Committee, (USINPAC),
consciously modelled after American Israeli Political Action
Committee (AIPAC), is the apex organization formally established in
2002, dedicated to providing uncritical support to India�s foreign
policies and furthering of Indo-US economic ties. It has never
concerned itself with India�s domestic issues.

However, there are NRIs who do concern themselves with India�s
domestic issues. Two obvious examples are some of the Kashmiri and
Sikh groups actively, and often successfully, influencing US
legislation and state policies on Punjab and Kashmir.

Leaving aside these two exceptional and regional groups, advocating
extra-Constitutional solutions, a third group of politically
conscious NRIs has emerged, particularly after the 2002 carnage in
Gujarat. They are increasingly visible as a critical voice in India�s
domestic politics, leveraging public opinion, US legislators, and
even the executive branch of the government, particularly the
Department of State.

Among these politically conscious NRIs who want to influence policy
outcomes in India are academics, journalists, community activists
working in conjunction not just within the diaspora Indians but also
Americans of a diverse set of political and social agendas. These
individuals and organizations have built coalitions, alliances and
networks based on a vision of India that is democratic,
decentralized, secular, pluralistic, and gender just. They lay a high
emphasis on economic and social justice along with accountability.

There is as yet no well-funded, central organization along the lines
of USINPAC, nor do these NRIs focus only on US government to the
exclusion of other states involved in relations with India. Informal
organization, shoe-string budgets, uncertain funding, and loose
coalitions characterize these organizations and individuals who
represent a new breed of NRI activism. But they are digitally
connected --  within United States, within India and everywhere else.
New technologies have created and connected communities out of a
world divided by space and time.

For starters, note some of the recent successful lobbying efforts:

In March 2005, the new breed of US NRIs successfully persuaded the US
State Department to revoke visa to Narendra Modi, the pogrom-tainted
Gujarat chief minister. The visa revocation sent shock waves into the
Gujarati Vaishyas, Modi�s staunch supporters, now chastened, are
beginning to see Modi as bad for business. In August 2008, the US
State Department confirmed in a letter to Congresswoman Betty
McCollum (D-MN), that Modi remains persona non grata despite lapse of
time since the pogrom of 2002.

In November 2007, a group of over one hundred professors at leading
American universities led by an Indian academic at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology wrote to World Economic Forum in Geneva
asking it not to invite Narendra Modi to its forum in Davos,
Switzerland. The professors� campaign was based on press reports
citing Gujarat government chief secretary�s claim that WEF had
invited Modi. In response to the professors� petition, the WEF
officially denied it ever invited the chief minister.

In May 2009, numerous NRI groups with the full support of Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch brought immense political
pressure, backed by an impressive array of medical practitioners and
academics, to force the Chhattisgarh government to release Dr.
Binayak Sen, the physician-turned human rights activist who was
jailed in Bilaspur.

In August 2009, the United States International Commission on
International Religious Freedom, a federally-funded organization
placed India on its Watch List of countries where there is absence of
religious freedom. This was a sequel to legislations in various
Indian states curbing freedom of faith. The Watch List, developed
with input from a broad spectrum of NRI opinion, effectively
bracketed India with habitual offenders of religious freedom such as
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and China.

In September 2009, following public criticism, the �FDI Asian
Personality of the Year� awards by FDI Magazine of the Financial
Times group given to Narendra Modi was withdrawn; instead the award
went to Gujarat state.

At the same time in September 2009, a group consisting of 21 members
of US House of Representatives, wrote to Orissa Chief Minister Navin
Patnaik expressing deep concern about the violence against Christians
and calling for immediate end to restrictions on religious freedom
and to bring perpetrators of violence to justice.

In October 2009, US and France-based activists launched a web
campaign asking the Sultanate of Oman to rescind an invitation that a
minister of that country had given to Narendra Modi. The Oman Embassy
in New Delhi, fearful of adverse publicity for hosting a pogrom-
tainted politician, took unprecedented action by purchasing
commercial space in two New Delhi-based Indian newspapers
disassociating itself with the invitation, thus effectively slamming
the door against Modi�s entry into Muscat. Stung by the rebuff, the
BJP spokesman was reduced to calling the ad � in bad taste�.

In November 2009, Jagdish Tytler, Congress politician accused in the
1984 pogrom of Sikhs was dropped out of a delegation to Britain
fearing arrest by Scotland Yard. A British MP had merely asked that
such an action be taken by Scotland Yard at the behest of his Indian
constituents.

While this sounds like a series of successes, there have been
failures too: In September 2006, RSS spokesman Ram Madhav met US
State Department officials despite NRIs protest, though the US
government was careful to say that the meeting did not amount to an
endorsement of RSS�s hate ideology. While the new breed of NRIs
succeeded in preventing Sadhvi Rithambra, the hate mongering ascetic
from speaking from the official platform of a Florida town hall in
2007, the NRI�s failed to persuade some Gujarati temples from
inviting her again in 2009.

What does the new political mobilization of NRIs in general, and in
the United States in particular, portend for India�s domestic issues?

Long dismissed as Not Relevant Indians, the NRIs now are highly
relevant for Indian domestic political issues. The era of old-
fashioned �patriotic� lobbying for anything Indian--regardless of
what some politicians do as represented by USINPAC--is over. The
series of rebuffs to Modi ruined his political career outside Gujarat
and if he remains caged in Ahmadabad, it is likely that business
savvy Gujarati corporate community will begin to see him as a
political liability to be shed as soon as possible. Controversial
politicians and good business are bad combinations.

The NRIs� political mobilization, despite its short life, has cast a
long shadow on Indian domestic politics. To the politicians who
thought they will remain immune from critical scrutiny of an alert
public opinion among overseas Indians, there is bad news. You are
under the radar. For those who want informed input for introducing
accountability in Indian political system, this may be the trend they
were hoping for.

As Modi begins to pack his suit cases for a trip to an obscure
province in Indonesia, there are already attempts across the world
asking Jakarta to fall in line with world public opinion. If
Indonesia rescinds the invitation that the South Sulawesi Governor
gave to Modi, will it unpack Modi�s suit cases for ever? The fear of
a law suit and arrest in Britain prompted Jagdish Tytler, the
Congress politician involved in the Sikhs� pogrom in 1984, to drop
out of a delegation to Britain.  Modi may not necessarily meet the
same fate, given Indonesia�s general indifference to India�s domestic
issues, but the Indonesian government may not want to be the one to
welcome a political pariah.

Hyderabad-born, MIT-based Omar Khalidi is the author of Muslims in
Indian Economy, and Khaki and Ethnic Violence in India

(iii)

INTOLERANT POLITICS A THREAT TO URBAN LIVING
by Amritha Ibrahim
http://tt.ly/y

_____


[8] Miscellanea:

The Guardian, 26 September 2009

HUMAN RIGHTS BEFORE RELIGION
Have we forgotten to protect women in our bid to accommodate
practices carried out in the name of Islam?

by Seyran Ates

Worldwide, women and children are among those most affected by human
rights abuses; women and children make up the majority of victims of
domestic violence; it is mainly women and girls who are deprived of
an education, or even denied an appropriate position in the labour
market despite a good education; political opportunities for women
are still minimal, despite active and passive suffrage. This is the
case regardless of culture or religion. In this sense, achieving
gender equality is one of the greatest political challenges of our
century.

This standardised picture requires one qualification. Without wishing
to relativise violence and human rights abuses or create a hierarchy,
there are grave differences between what has already been reached in
some countries and a standard that can be denoted as stable. While
women and girls in western countries generally no longer, for
instance, have to worry about whether or not they are allowed to work
or go to school, or whether they will soon be married off to a cousin
or a much older man, this is still a reality for countless women in
most Islamic countries and in South America, Asia and Africa.

This global perspective is necessary to understand the particular
situation for many Muslim women and girls in European countries,
especially those who live in parallel societies. In a plural, open
and liberal society such as Germany, different cultures and religions
jostle together so closely that conflicts are unavoidable and
solutions supposedly hard to find. The fear of ostracising foreign
cultures and religions and stoking xenophobia has led to a
politically precarious situation, in which every criticism of
Islamically justified misogyny can make you a racist, an enemy of
Islam or even a Nazi. Such labels are thrown around with abandon.

Those who still dare to criticise religious practices in the Islamic
community or other cultures often receive death threats or are the
victims of a character assassination. In both cases, the aim is to
strike from public discussion the issue of violence against women
done in the name of Islam or some other understanding of cultural
values. Some wish to do so because they are themselves rightwing
(Islamic fundamentalists and/or nationalists), others (those who are
allegedly political correct, leftwingers and do-gooders) because they
are afraid that such criticism will play into the hands of the
xenophobic rightwing Germans. But silence plays into their hands even
more. The elections in Austria and Switzerland are good examples of
this.

Five years ago, almost no one in Germany wanted to speak openly about
arranged marriages, genital mutilation and honour killings. The hijab
has led to strong political polarisation since roughly 1998. It is
fast becoming a matter of course to see it in the street and it has
changed something � people are talking more and more about the
issues. Yet just as German women in the 70s had to put up with a lot
of political malice, because they demanded women's centres and talked
openly about violence, these days we have to put up with hearing that
the public debate over the subjugation of women in the Islamic
community is more of an insult to Islamic women than a help.

In Germany's recent past, in the kaleidoscope of cultures and
religions in this multicultural society, many people have forgotten
that human rights must come before religious practices. I do not say
that as a critic of Islam � I don't know why people label me as such
� no, I say it as a practising Muslim and human rights activist, who
lives in a democratic state and would like to continue to express her
opinion freely.

o o o

The Ban on Abortion Coverage

Editorial, The New York Times
November 9, 2009

When the House narrowly passed the health care reform bill on
Saturday night, it came with a steep price for women�s reproductive
rights. Under pressure from anti-abortion Democrats and the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops, lawmakers added language that
would prevent millions of Americans from buying insurance that covers
abortions � even if they use their own money.

The restrictions would fall on women eligible to buy coverage on new
health insurance exchanges. They are a sharp departure from current
practice, an infringement of a woman�s right to get a legal medical
procedure and an unjustified intrusion by Congress into decisions
best made by patients and doctors.

The anti-abortion Democrats behind this coup insisted that they were
simply adhering to the so-called Hyde Amendment, which bans the use
of federal dollars to pay for almost all abortions in a number of
government programs. In fact, they reached far beyond Hyde and made
it largely impossible to use a policyholder�s own dollars to pay for
abortion coverage.

The bill brought to the floor already included a careful compromise
that should have satisfied reasonable legislators on both sides of
the abortion issue. The vast majority of people expected to buy
policies on the new exchanges would pay part of the premium and
receive government tax credits to pay for the rest. The compromise
would have prohibited the use of the tax subsidies to pay for almost
all abortions, but it would have allowed the segregation and use of
premium contributions and co-payments to pay for such coverage. A
similar approach allows 17 state Medicaid programs to cover abortions
using only state funds, not federal matching funds.

Yet neither the Roman Catholic bishops nor anti-abortion Democrats
were willing to accept this compromise. They insisted on language
that would ban the use of federal subsidies to pay for �any part� of
a policy that includes abortion coverage.

If insurers want to attract subsidized customers, who will be the
great majority on the exchange, they will have to offer them plans
that don�t cover abortions. It is theoretically possible that
insurers could offer plans aimed only at nonsubsidized customers, but
it is highly uncertain that they will find it worthwhile to do so.

In that case, some women who have coverage for abortion services
through policies bought by small employers could actually lose that
coverage if their employer decides to transfer its workers to the
exchange. Ultimately, if larger employers are permitted to make use
of the exchange, ever larger numbers of women might lose abortion
coverage that they now have.

The restrictive language allows people to buy �riders� that would
cover abortions. But nobody plans to have an unplanned pregnancy, so
this concession is meaningless. It is not clear that insurers would
even offer the riders since few people would buy them.

The highly restrictive language was easily approved by a 240-to-194
vote and incorporated into the overall bill, which squeaked through
by a tally of 220 to 215. It was depressing evidence of the power of
anti-abortion forces to override a reasonable compromise. They were
willing to scuttle the bill if they didn�t get their way. Outraged
legislators who support abortion rights could also have killed the
bill but sensibly chose to keep the reform process moving ahead.

The fight will resume in the Senate, where the Finance Committee has
approved a bill that incorporates the compromise just rejected by the
House. We urge the Senate to stand strong behind a compromise that
would preserve a woman�s right to abortion services.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 10, 2009, on
page A34 of the New York edition.

o o o

The Guardian, 29 October 2009

WHEN STATE AND RELIGION MIX
The JFS case shows that wherever religious groups accept state
funding, a tangle of problems is likely to arise

by  Danny Rich

The Jewish community of Britain has frequently made history, and its
appearance in the first ever case in Britain's new supreme court is a
further, albeit hardly auspicious, example.

The case involves the refusal by the Jews' Free School (JFS), a state-
funded secondary school, to admit a child, the mother of whom was
converted to Judaism by a Progressive synagogal authority. Despite
the fact that at least a third of Britain's Jews reject the authority
of the Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue, the JFS
defines "who is a Jew" for the purposes of entry by reference to the
regulations of that office. It was for this reason that I advised the
Treasury Solicitor that the policy was "politically motivated" in the
sense that the state funded JFS was showing a clear, unreasonable,
and discriminatory bias in favour of one part of the Jewish community
over its other sections.

Who is a Jew can be a complicated matter even for Jews! Most sections
of the British Jewish community use as a main criterion "birth to a
Jewish mother", and thus they faced falling foul of the appeal
court's decision that it is not permissible to discriminate on racial
grounds in the provision of services. Liberal Judaism was the only
sector of the mainstream British Jewish community which welcomed the
ruling, since � whilst birth may be a factor � it accords Jewish
status to an individual on the basis of self-expressed words of
recognition or acts of identification.
For much of history the state took a great interest in religious
identity but the rise of the democratic, secular state included a
demand for "the separation of religion and state" and the assumption
that religion was essentially a private matter. The United States of
America is the best constitutional example of this, although former
President Bush's affection for state/faith initiatives stood in
marked contrast to the position of his contemporary Tony Blair's
policy of the time: "We do not do God".

Although England has its established church, Britain's multifaith
environment is much in evidence, and the current government has built
increasing partnerships with religious communities. Statutory
services have been devolved to religious based charities; Hindu, Sikh
and Muslim schools have received public funding; "faith advisors"
have been appointed to a number of government departments, and there
is a special immigration track for ministers of religion.

It was inevitable in my view that if religious communities received
state funding it would not be long before religious institutions
providing public services would face legal and other challenges. Thus
secular, legal and other authorities have been drawn into areas where
it was not intended they be and where they may not be best equipped
to arbitrate.

Perhaps the result of the current case � whether the outcome (which
will take some time to be delivered) is to uphold the lower court or
not � will be to re-affirm the desirability of the separation of
religion and state, whereby the state meets its functions in an
impartial manner and religious groups fund their own particular needs
and keep their squabbles to themselves.

_____

Announcements

You are invited to the

Fourth Annual Discussion on State of Parliamentary Democracy in India

Speakers:
Manoranjan Mohanty, Durgabai Deshmukh Professor of Social
Development, Council for Social Development;
Achin Vanaik, Professor of Political Science, University of Delhi and
Vijay Naik, Consulting Editor, Sakal Group of Newspapers.

Discussants:
Interns from Lok Sabha

Chair:
Suhas Borker, Convener, Working Group on Alternative Strategies

12 November 2009  6.30 p.m.

India International Centre (Conference Room II)
40, Max Mueller Marg
Lodhi Estate
New Delhi 110 003

Conference Room II is located on the 2nd Floor.

If required please take the lift located in the Main Reception Area.

Jointly organised by

India International Centre &
Working Group on Alternative Strategies

In solidarity

Suhas Borker
Convener
Working Group on Alternative Strategies
[Vaikalpik Rananiti Karya Samuh]

Towards a secular, democratic, inclusive, participatory
and equitable development paradigm
1992-2009: 17 Years

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 9-11, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2664 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1] Nepal: Still Waiting for Justice: No End to Impunity in Nepal
(Human Rights Watch)
       + "India is protecting Nepal Army": Brad Adams
       + Somali Refugees in Nepal: Stuck in Waiting Room (Deepak
Adhikari)
       + Killing field: We must stop the Gadhimai sacrifices
immediately (Editorial, Respublica)
[2] Trouble at the top in Sri Lanka? (Charles Haviland)
       + Sri Lanka: Landmines, unexploded ordnance a barrier to return
[3]  Pakistan: Another activist falls  (Daily Times, Editorial)
       + In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?
(Seymour M. Hersh)
[4] Pakistan - India: The Indian overture (M.B. Naqvi)
[5] India: Will the mindset from the past change? (Amit Bhaduri &
Romila Thapar)
[6] India: Maoism’s other side (Dilip Simeon)
[7] India: Losing Connection With Kashmir (Harinder Baweja)
[8] India: Resources For Secular Activists
         (i) Muslims wear perfume, Maoists use Dettol! (Jawed Naqvi)
         (ii) RSS shock and awe in BJP (Editorial, Deccan Herald)
[9] Miscellanea:
      - 20 Years of Collapse (Slavoj Zizek)
      - Solidarity under strain (Adam Michnik)
[10]  Announcements:
(i) Interactive dialogue with Eve Ensler (Bombay, 12 November 2009)
(ii) Public Discussion: Insurgency And Counter-Insurgency: Challenges
of Building A Shared Prosperity (Bombay, 12 November 2009)
(iii) Public Discussion: "The World’s Most Militarized
Dispute" (Harvard, 12 November 2009)
(iv) Public Meeting: Say ‘NO’ to Government’s War on People (New
Delhi, 13 November 2009)
(v) Celebrating Children’s Day (New Delhi, 14 November 2009)
(vi) NYC premiere of The Salt Stories, a documentary by Lalit Vachani
(New York, 14 November 2009)
(vii) Honoring Hari Sharma at 75 (Surrey, 14-15 Nov)
(viii) Panel Discussion: The Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water
Conflicts in India (New Delhi, 16 November 2009)

_____


[1] Nepal:

STILL WAITING FOR JUSTICE: NO END TO IMPUNITY IN NEPAL
October 15, 2009

This 47-page report calls for the government to investigate and
prosecute those responsible for crimes committed during Nepal's armed
conflict. A lack of political will and consensus, prevailing
political instability, and a lack of progress in the peace process
has meant the government has not delivered on its promises to
prosecute these crimes, as set out in the 2006 peace agreement, Human
Rights Watch and Advocacy Forum said.

Read the Report
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/10/15/still-waiting-justice

o o o

INDIA IS PROTECTING NEPAL ARMY: BRAD ADAMS
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?
action=news_details&news_id=10954

o o o

Time Magazine

SOMALI REFUGEES IN NEPAL: STUCK IN WAITING ROOM
by Deepak Adhikari / Kathmandu Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009

Mahad Abdullahi Hassan had never heard of Nepal before the day he
landed in it. When the 28-year-old Somali boarded a flight from Dubai
to Kathmandu on May 23, 2007, he was hoping he would finally reach
his dream destination: Sweden. He had, after all, shelled out $4,000
to a human trafficker who promised to smuggle him to the Scandinavian
country.

Instead, when Hassan got off the plane, he found himself in the
airport in Kathmandu, where a taxi took him and the trafficker, who
was traveling with him, to a bustling tourist neighborhood in the
Nepalese capital. "It was a strange place," says Hassan. "All the
buildings looked the same. Everything was new to me." When they
booked a hotel there, the trafficker assured Hassan that he was
arranging the necessary documents to complete their journey to
Sweden. But the next morning, when Hassan woke up in an empty room he
realized he'd been duped. "I realized I was completely at a loss,"
Hassan recalls. (See pictures of the pirates of Somalia.)

At a loss, perhaps, but not alone. Gradually, Hassan integrated
himself into the close-knit community of 84 Somali refugees living in
Nepal, the largest nationality of some 300 United Nations-recognized
'urban refugees' now living in Kathmandu. The Somalis began to arrive
to Nepal in early 2006. Most of them are from Mogadishu, and nearly
all of them are victims of trafficking. Many say they, like Hassan,
were promised passage to Europe; some claim that they were supposed
to go to Naples, Italy, but ended up in Nepal because of the similar
sounding names.

The remote Himalayan nation of Nepal, freshly emerged from its own
decade-long Maoist insurgency, may seem an unlikely destination for
refugees. But the effects of war in faraway lands have now trickled
into this impoverished country. In fact, according to the U.N.,
developing nations like Nepal now host 80% of the world's 15.2
million refugees, nearly 20% of whom are designated as 'urban
refugees' living outside refugee camps. Unlike refugees living in
established camps, who are provided with food, homes, medical
services, training and education, urban refugees live in cities they
have fled to, at once more integrated with their new homelands, and
more vulnerable to it. Though the UNHCR supports urban refugees
through assistance and education, some are still vulnerable to
detention or deportation. In Nepal, the police have raided the
apartments of Pakistani urban refugees on several occasions while
searching for illegal immigrants.

Nepal is no stranger to people seeking shelter in its borders. Nearly
87,000 Bhutanese are now living in UNHCR-run refugee camps in
southeastern Nepal, having fled the tiny kingdom of Bhutan after the
government's policy stripped them of Bhutanese citizenship, and more
than 10,000 Tibetan refugees have been living in Pokhara, a western
tourist town and on the outskirts of Kathmandu, since 1959 after the
Chinese occupation of Tibet led to the eviction of several Tibetans,
including their spiritual leader Dalai Lama. But apart from these two
groups, the government of Nepal — which is not a signatory to the
1951 U.N. convention on refugees which ensures legal protection,
other assistance and economic rights of the refugees — does not
recognize the other nationalities living in its borders as refugees.
According to Basanta Raj Bhattarai, deputy coordinator of National
Unit for Coordination of Refugee Affairs at Ministry of Home Affairs,
the government has requested UNHCR not to recognize any more cases of
urban refugees living in its borders. There are fears, he says, that
the country might turn into a safe haven for illegal immigrants. "We
don't want Nepal to be a hub for human trafficking," says Bhattarai.
The government recently imposed a ban on issuing on-arrival visas for
the residents of a dozen countries, including Somalia, Burma, Iraq,
Iran, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Sudan.

Fleeing war, drought and hunger at home, Somali refugees are
scattered all over the world. The vast majority of them have escaped
to neighboring African countries. After surviving death threats,
kidnappings and the murders of their loved ones back home, the
relatively few Somalis in Nepal are just whiling away their time,
waiting for what Hassan calls a "durable solution" — repatriation to
Somalia, resettlement in another country, or local integration here
in Nepal. As in Hassan's case, they help each other out and also
celebrate festivals like Eid together. But they also complain angrily
about what they see as the indifference of the Nepalese government
and UNHCR toward their predicament. (Read "Somalia's Crisis: Not
Piracy, but Its People's Plight.")

For Sayeed Hassan Olow, 41, the patriarch of his family of nine, each
day begins with the household chores. Olow wakes up early at four in
the morning, prepares food for his kids, and sends them to the
school. By 8 a.m. he's already at the Lazimpat cafe, meeting his
countrymen, and he returns home only in the evening. Without the
legal right to work and a monthly allowance of $55 handed out by
UNHCR, keeping food on the table can be a challenge, and the sense of
isolation is strong. As Muslims living in a Hindu majority nation,
they have to travel several miles to reach the nearest mosque for
prayers. Kathmandu's syncretic Hindu-Buddhist culture is hard for
them to fathom. Some, like Zakaria Ahmed, a 20-year-old who lives in
a sleepy neighborhood of Kathmandu with his wife and 8-month-old
daughter, says he spends most nights at home watching TV because he
has nowhere to go. "Most of us don't have Nepali friends," says
Hassan, "All we do is say 'hi' when we meet them at the cafe." The
group is still treated as something of a novelty in Nepalese society:
On May 5, the Kathmandu Post published a front-page photo of a group
of Somalis acting as bodyguards in a local movie. Dressed in jeans
and black tank tops, they were toting toy guns to protect the lead
actress of the soon-to-be-released film.

The government's policy of designating Somalis like Olow, Ahmed and
Hassan as illegal immigrants places them in a precarious situation.
Every day they stay in the country, they accumulate a fee of $6 a
day. According to Bhattarai, only a handful of families in Nepal have
been accepted through the UNHCR for third-country resettlement, and
are slated they are ready to leave for Western countries. "The
resettlement countries should pay for their exit fines," says Bhattarai.

What's next for the rest of the Somalis trapped in this Himalayan
waiting room? Diane Goodman, acting representative of UNHCR in
Kathmandu, says despite its non-signatory status, Nepal is still has
obligations toward those who cross its borders seeking refuge on
humanitarian grounds. A year ago, the nation's Supreme Court ordered
the government to formulate new legislation to ensure, in keeping
with international laws, the rights for refugees, after a lawsuit was
filed by a local NGO on behalf of a Pakistani urban refugee. But the
government has yet to act on the ruling, citing lack of resources to
manage the refugees, and arguing that such legislation could provide
impetus for more refugees to come. Goodman and others watching the
situation are aware of the Somalis' desire to return home. But, she
says, "the situation in Somalia has regrettably deteriorated
significantly in 2009. We will not facilitate repatriation to a
country where the lives of a returning refugee and their family will
be in danger."

In the apartment Hassan shares with an Iraqi refugee and a fellow
Somali, he shows pictures of his wife, son and daughter in Mogadishu.
A calendar hangs on the wall as the sole decoration in an otherwise
spartan room with two beds and a lonely CD player. Had he made it to
Sweden, Hassan says he planned to bring his wife and children over to
meet him. Now, he thinks he made a mistake ever leaving. "Given a
choice," he says, "I would love to go back home."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/
0,8599,1936578,00.html#ixzz0WQJ0DRFY

o o o

Respublica
8 November 2009

Editorial KILLING FIELD: WE MUST STOP THE GADHIMAI SACRIFICES
IMMEDIATELY

Just a little over two weeks from now, Nepal will be in the
international spotlight but for a completely wrong reason: The
country will be hosting the Gadhimai festival in Bariyarpur, Bara
district, where approximately 500,000 animals – buffaloes, chicken,
goats, sheep, pigs, rats, rabbits – will be slaughtered as sacrifice
to the deity Gadhimai. Despite concerted protests from animal rights
activists, there are no signs that the festival, which takes place
every five years, will not be held this year. The festival falls on
Nov 24.

The Gadhimai festival primarily caters to Indians from across the
border. Mostly, people from the adjoining Indian state of Bihar come
to attend the festival and offer sacrifices. The barbaric fair
started being organized in Nepal following a ban on animal sacrifice
by most Indian states. It’s unfortunate and ironic that Nepal, which
is known across the world as a peaceful nation, is yet to come out
with strong legislations against animal sacrifice and cruelty.

Due to cross-border linkages, even animal rights campaigners from
India, including parliamentarian Maneka Gandhi, have joined hands to
apply pressure on the Nepal government to stop the sacrifices. They
have written to our prime minister and president, among others. Even
Ram Bahadur Bomzon, the “Buddha Boy” from Bara district, has urged
to stop the Gadhimai sacrifices. Despite all these calls, sadly, the
preparations to hold the festival are going on in full swing.

The festival is reminiscent of medieval brutality. During the fair,
about 250 men move around in drunken stupor hacking every animal in
sight to death soaking the land beneath in blood, turning the site
into a breeding ground of diseases. Following the 1995 Gadhimai
event, goats were detected of suffering from PPR disease (commonly
known as goat flu), which still haunts the country. On top of that,
perhaps what is being ignored are the psychological consequences of
such mass killings, especially on children, who take part in the fair.

If Nepal does not want to draw international flak and condemnation,
it must act fast. In the name of appeasing gods, we cannot continue
such inhumane and cruel practices. It does not befit a civilized
society.


_____


[2] TROUBLE AT THE TOP IN SRI LANKA? by Charles Haviland
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8352676.stm

SRI LANKA: LANDMINES, UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE A BARRIER TO RETURN
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86944

_____


[3] Pakistan:

Daily Times, November 10, 2009

EDITORIAL : ANOTHER ACTIVIST FALLS

Nisar Hussain Baloch, chairman of the Karachi NGOs’ Alliance and
president of the Gutter Baghicha Bachao Tehreek (GBBT), was shot dead
by unidentified persons near Old Golimar Bridge on Saturday. The
killers made good their escape. A case has been registered against
unidentified assassins at Soldier Bazaar police station.

After Baloch’s death, most of Old Golimar, Bada Board area and Pak
Colony, predominantly Sindhi and Baloch lower class neighbourhoods,
were shut down in protest. The police had to be called to control the
public outrage against the murder of a concerned citizen, known for
his long-standing campaign against the land grabbing mafia and the
indiscriminate conversion of parks, playgrounds, beach promenades,
sewage treatment plants, government building plots and even plots in
the sea into commercial projects by the authorities.

The City District Government Karachi is accused of having changed the
status of at least 26 parks and playgrounds in middle, lower-middle
and working-class neighbourhoods of the city. While a large tract of
land by the sea has been turned into a sprawling recreation point,
Bagh-i-Ibn-i-Qasim, in the heart of a posh locality, the right of the
lesser mortals in the metropolis to public spaces and amenity plots
is being flagrantly flouted. Several petitions are pending at various
levels of the courts against illegal conversion, grabbing and
disposal of land as well as amenity plots all over Karachi.

The latest victim of organized criminal gangs, Nisar Baloch embarked
upon his social service career in the mid-1970s when he opened a
street school in Old Lyari to provide free education to children.
While his passion for education remained unabated, his interests
diversified into the fields of environmental conservation and town
planning. For some time now, he was leading a campaign against
illegal encroachments on the 480-acre real estate of Trans-Lyari Park
(Gutter Baghicha) in Site Town. Reportedly, about 20 percent part of
this park has already fallen prey to the greed of those whose
penchant for profiteering, patronage, pillage and intimidation knows
no bounds. Nisar Baloch understandably became a thorn in the side of
the land grabbing mafia, reportedly backed by influential ethnic and
political parties of the city. Ironically, he had addressed a press
conference only a day before he was murdered where he highlighted the
issue in detail and pinpointed (perhaps fatally) the forces lending
administrative and political support to the illegal occupation of the
land of Gutter Baghicha. Importantly, Nisar Baloch had criticized
both the MQM and PPP in equal measure, the former for complicity in
coercion and the latter for its expedient tardiness. The Sindh Chief
Minister had slapped a ban on the disposal and leasing of plots by
the city government in July 2009. The ban was challenged by Nazim
Mustafa Kamal but this public interest matter was settled out of
court as if it was a compoundable dispute between two private
parties. Needless to say, this is neither the way to manage a 15
million strong metropolis nor does it dovetail with the stated claims
of the concerned political parties. *

o o o

New Yorker

Annals of National Security: Defending the Arsenal
IN AN UNSTABLE PAKISTAN, CAN NUCLEAR WARHEADS BE KEPT SAFE?
by Seymour M. Hersh November 16, 2009
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/16/091116fa_fact_hersh

_____


[4] India - Pakistan:

The Daily Star, November 10, 2009

THE INDIAN OVERTURE
by M.B. Naqvi

INDIAN Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a brief speech on the
Indian-controlled Kashmir's soil. This builds on what Indian Home
Minister P. Chidambram had earlier disclosed regarding back-channel
diplomacy. Manmohan Singh's overture is more authoritative and
direct. It deals with Pakistan-India relations in general as well the
disputes in particular.

It is true that the earlier formal Indian condition that Pakistan
should give up supporting non-state actors against India stays. This
can be a formulation that will make the idea acceptable to the Indian
Right. There are Pakistan's persistent demands and entreaties that
the dialogue between the two countries should restart and that
Pakistan is itself the victim of terrorism. It can scarcely favour
terrorism. Hardly a day goes by without any terrorist attack in some
place or other in Pakistan.

The Indian prime minister was specific about the developments he
desired in Kashmir and wanted the known benefits of more trade. He
used the word "trade" in a very comprehensive sense. He obviously
included in it economic cooperation and perhaps more.

As for the Kashmir issue, he wanted the CBMs that are already in
place to be expanded and made more effective. For instance, he says
there is trade across the LoC but it is pitifully small. People do
cross the LoC but only few are able to obtain the necessary papers
from the two governments. And so on.

This was a specific reference to what needs to be expanded. There
were other references to Kashmir's CBMs already in place. The idea he
was floating was to expand them all. This takes what Chidambram had
said a few days ago much further.

As for the general question of trade, he said it should increase east
and west of Pakistan, meaning that India-Pakistan trade should expand
and also that Pakistan should permit the transit of Indian goods
through Pakistan territory. India has long wanted transit facilities
through Pakistan. Given the Indo-Pakistan relationship hitherto, it
was far too much to expect. The relationship has to be much better
than what it has been before Pakistan will agree to that.

This is a sensitive question in Pakistan. The central bureaucracy is
not for it, though originally it was thought that most of the
opposition to increased links with India came from the old Muslim
League school of thought in Punjab. It is to be found more in Punjab
than elsewhere in Pakistan. As a result of recent changes, especially
recent developments in Punjab itself, opinion has veered toward
letting Indian goods transit through Pakistan territory. Its benefits
were to be realised. But there is some considerable way to go before
the Pakistan government will permit that.

There is no doubt that Indians are keen on it. And unless Pakistan
permits this trade, India will not be forthcoming in other matters
between the two countries. There is no doubt about the fact that the
Indian economy is expanding at a fairly rapid rate. Whether or not
India becomes a superpower, it will certainly become one of the great
powers. But it cannot attain that potential, which is inherent in the
Indian economy, without cooperation from Pakistan, particularly in
the matter of transit.

Actually, India-Pakistan friendship is what is required and
friendship is a two-way street. Both sides have to give something to
take something from each other.

In terms of potential, there are international schemes of connecting
Europe with the Far East, both in the southern and the northern
regions, by rail and road. The southern link-up is to pass through
India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Railways have to be laid.

Pakistan's rulers are said to be afraid of international spies
getting into the country. But there are few countries that can
prevent foreign spies from plying their trade. Every country has to
be strong enough to take all that in its stride. It happens
everywhere. Pakistan is not, or should not be, so weak as to be
destabilised by a few foreign spies working inside it. Against this
disadvantage, there are bewitching advantages of growing trade.
Pakistan's own development will get a fillip, and international trade
through Pakistan will earn some rent for it.

Once such international trade by rail and road gets going, Nepal,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka too will be benefited. Bangladesh and Nepal
both have differences with India over trade; India wants transit
route to its North-East through Bangladesh, which remains closed.

Nepal also wants new transit rights through India for its foreign
trade. A region-wide modus operandi is indicated, and would be
beneficial to all the states of Saarc. Maybe Saarc is waiting for
this particular stimulus for its growth and success.

But, for some such thing, India-Pakistan relations cannot remain what
they are if these international schemes are to fructify. Commonsense
and dogged enmity are mutually exclusive. India and Pakistan have to
reconcile, at least enough to permit economic cooperation and direct
trade between them, and letting all international trade through
Pakistan territory would go a long way in providing economic
incentives for rapid development in the country. The question is how
can relations between India and Pakistan be improved?

So far it has been a circular argument: since relations are bad,
economic cooperation cannot grow, and since there is not much of
trade and economic cooperation, relations between them are bad. Both
parts of the argument need to be changed.

Manmohan Singh talked about banking facilities and other matters. His
view seems to include far greater Indo-Pakistan cooperation than has
so far been discussed. The issue boils down to what makes Indo-
Pakistan relations so rigid and bad. What has happened recently to
ride out on that situation? The enormity of the trust deficits the
two must overcome is staggering because of having been inhibited by
the difficulties for so long. While it is true that where there is
will there is a way, here the question is of creating the will.

One way of looking at things is to concentrate on how the benefits
that will accrue will outweigh the disadvantages. In the Indo-
Pakistan disputes one thing that is lacking is the political will to
become friends. Both sides lack it or lack enough of it. But the
benefits of rapprochement between the two are so great that it is a
pity that things should remain as they have been, especially when
they are not in a position to take their "enmity" too far due to the
implications of nuclear deterrents, difficulties in Kashmir and
emerging water dispute.

While smaller territorial disputes can be resolved easily, the main
ones now are the opposing nuclear weapons sitting cheek by jowl and
the big and growing questions about the absolute water shortage that
is going to hit both countries due to climate change. They have to be
ready to sort these out. Both have to go a fairly long way before
this can happen.

M.B. Naqvi is a leading Pakistani columnist.


_____


[5]  India:

The Hindu, 9 November 2009

WILL THE MINDSET FROM THE PAST CHANGE?

by Amit Bhaduri & Romila Thapar

Those that have governed in tribal areas must share the
responsibility for the negligence of the adivasis. The proposals for
a multi-lateral dialogue should be set in that context.

There has been a flurry of concern as also vituperation over the
activities of the Maoists in the forests that are mostly home to
tribal society. There is a confrontation between the state and this
society through the intervention of the Maoists. One pauses while
reading the speeches of those in authority and thinks back to the
past. The texts of the past represent the people of the forest, the
forest-dwellers, largely as “the Other” – the rakshasas, and
those who moved like an ink-black cloud through the forest with their
bloodshot eyes, who ate and drank all the wrong things, had the wrong
rules of sexuality and, as strange creatures, were far removed from
‘us.’

Kautilya in the Arthashastra condemns them as troublemakers and
Ashoka threatens the atavikas, the forest-dwellers, without telling
us why. The interest of various kingdoms in extending control over
forests has an obvious explanation. The forests supplied elephants
for the army, mineral wealth including iron, timber for building, and
by clearing forests the acreage of cultivable land increased and the
consequent agriculture brought in revenue. In later times, even when
there were situations of dependence on forest people, the
conventional attitude towards them was that they were outside the
social pale and had to be kept at a distance.

So is this pattern essentially different from the present?

Naxal activity started in the 1960s and gained some support in the
rural and later urban areas of West Bengal and subsequently Bihar and
Andhra. It raised the ire of the state but did it make the state more
sensitive to problems of the adivasis? It was treated as a law and
order problem and put down although sporadic incidents kept occurring
to remind ‘us’ that ‘their’ problems have remained. So this
activity is not new but there is an increase in anger and with
attacks from both sides. This makes it far more palpable even in our
big cities, as yet far away from the ‘jungle areas.’

The government’s anxiety over Maoist activity has at this point
increased and needs explanation. Violence on both sides has been
stepped up. The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was banned. Now the
Maoists are being threatened with Operation Green Hunt but at the
same time are also being invited to cease their violence and
negotiate. The Maoists have slowly cut a swathe through the sub-
continent and the fear is that this may expand. Would this be
sufficient reason for a “hunt” or could there be other factors
changing the equations from 40 years ago?

The current violence on both sides is fierce enough but what happens
if the state launches a semi-military offensive trying to snuff out
the Maoists and the Maoists retaliate, as they are likely to? It
would displace and kill many hundreds of our people, villagers and
tribals living in areas of Maoist activity, including those who are
not sympathetic to the Maoist ideology or objective. Any “hunt”
would have to be on an enormous scale since groups claiming to be
Maoists are now widespread in over 200 districts in the country in
contiguous areas. Has this kind of hunt helped solve our problems
elsewhere? Manipur, Assam, and Kashmir continue to remain areas of on-
going civil strife.

Perhaps we should look at it less as an ‘us’ and ‘them’
situation and more as an ‘us’ and ‘us’ situation. At the end
of the day, we are all involved as people who live in this country
and what is more, as people who have to go on living in this country.
Even those whose lives have not been remotely touched by what goes on
in ‘tribal societies’ will find themselves ill at ease with
expanding civil strife.

If we see it as an ‘us’ and ‘us’ situation, then the need for
a dialogue with all the groups involved becomes the most immediate
concern. The question is who should be talking to whom and about
what. If the state has to start the dialogue — as the strongest
party in the conversation — it should be conversing with several
groups:

1. Those living in the rural areas and the forested areas affected by
the current civil strife, frequently referred to as ‘the people.’
This should be the primary and most important dialogue. It is not
about who is right and who is wrong but about what is it that is
leading to people becoming embroiled in revolts. People do not
support insurgent groups or get imposed upon by such groups unless
there is a reason. The adivasis live in areas where the benefits of
development hardly ever reach them. Education, health care,
communication, access to justice are mentioned sotto voce, since in
most places they don’t exist. Our Prime Minister and Home Minister
have had long tenures in earlier governments as finance ministers and
have been well aware of patterns of development. Did they and their
colleagues not recognise the injustice of unequal “development”
and the anger it could produce? The same applies to the State
governments of these areas who have not exactly distinguished
themselves in addressing the problems of the adivasis. The situation
now demands attention because it has turned violent.

2. Then there is the state. What has the state done in these areas to
annul the terror of poverty over the last 60 years? Perhaps terrorism
and its victims should be redefined to include many more varieties of
terror than the ones we constantly speak of. The spectacular increase
of wealth despite the recession has still done little to make poverty
less immanent in much of the country. As the arbiter of Indian
citizens, it might explain what it would propose to change in order
to remove the injustices that encourage poverty. For example, what
should be the terms and conditions that should prevail in a transfer
of land between adivasis and others?

3. Many areas under Maoist control are those that the corporate world
would like to “develop.” These have rich mineral resources —
once again, almost as in earlier times, the attraction is timber, and
water, and also mineral wealth such as coal, iron, bauxite. There is
of course a history to such “development” since colonial times:
except that it has now been intensified given the increase in the
number of corporates and more importantly, their hold on the state.
Are the corporates the new factor, as some would argue? The state
acquiring land to hand over to private corporations is not identical
with the appropriating of the land and resources of the forest-
dwellers in earlier times, but there are some echoes. Both the
appropriators and the appropriated have to have their say in any
dialogue with due respect to PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled
Areas Act, 1996), which recognises the right of the adivasis to
decide on the use of their land. For any successful dialogue, the
state has to be neutral without biases in favour of corporations in
its notion of “development” in these areas.

4. The Naxals/Maoists. Are they a unified party with a common
programme? And is their programme tied to development for the people
only through a revolution accompanied by bloodied violence? Do they
reflect immediate demands related to the daily life of the people
that sustains them or an ambiguous promised utopia that may never
come? Discussions between the state, the Maoists, and the people on
the implementation of development are far too compelling to be ignored.

If there is such a dialogue, what should the corporates be concerned
with? Clearly land is the key issue and most of it is in forested
areas. Is all and any land up for grabs? Surely there should be some
categories of land that should be left alone if we are to survive on
this planet. Is the demand for large tracts of land in these areas
not a subversion of the much-vaunted Forest and Tribal Act of 2006,
which promised 2.5 hectares to every tribal family that had rights to
the land? And what does the forest dweller get in return for selling
his land? He cannot use the money to secure his future income since
there are no such facilities available to him. He is left with money
with which to buy hooch — the pattern that was followed all over the
colonial world in North America, Australia, and Africa. Are we now
internalising a colonial history to repeat it on our own citizens?

And where lands have already been sold to corporations, one does not
hear of the corporate organisations first setting in motion the
essentials of development in education, health care, communication,
and access to justice among the displaced or resettled communities,
before they actually start working for profit on the land they
acquire. Should this not be considered as part of the sale deeds,
particularly as the state is the broker? Corporates are good at
drawing up contracts so there should be contracts with the people,
vetted by lawyers representing the people where agreements can be
examined and negotiated, and those that have been pushed around can
still make demands with the possibility that they might be heard.

Such actions may be more effective, certainly in the long run but
even in the short run, than an Operation Green Hunt. Violence is a
dead end even for the Maoists. When practised by the state on its own
citizens, its collateral damage is unacceptable in a democracy;
lasting civil strife escalating into a civil war in these areas will
create its own demons of the arbitrary repression of ordinary
citizens. An alternative form of intervention ushered in through a
multi-lateral dialogue involving all the concerned parties is not
merely an option, it is imperative.

(Amit Bhaduri is an economist and Professor Emeritus at the
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Romila Thapar is a historian
and Professor Emeritus at JNU.)

_____


[6] India:

Hindustan Times, November 09, 2009

MAOISM’S OTHER SIDE

by Dilip Simeon

There are crimes of passion and crimes of logic.
— Albert Camus

Spokesmen of Maoist extremism have recently expressed regret for
beheading a police officer and explained their actions as a defence
of the oppressed. Their comrades’ brutality, they say, is an
aberration. They cite instances of state violence to justify actions
they claim are undertaken in self-defence. There is more to this than
meets the eye. Maoist theory holds that India is a semi-colonial
polity with a bogus constitution that must be overthrown by armed
force. The comrades view all their actions as part of a revolutionary
war. Their foundational documents declare armed struggle to be “the
highest and main form of struggle” and the “people’s army” its
main organisation. In war, morality is suspended and limits cast
aside. War also results in something the Pentagon calls “collateral
damage”. Is it true that Naxalite brutality is only an aberration?

On August 15, 2004, the Maoists killed nine persons in Andhra
Pradesh, including a legislator, a driver and a municipal worker. On
August 14, 2005, Saleema, 52, a cook in a mid-day kitchen in
Karimnagar was beaten to death by Maoists for being a “police
informer.” This was the second woman killed by them in a fortnight.
A former Naxalite, Bhukya Padma, 18, was hacked to death in Marimadla
village on July 30. On September 12, 2005, they slit the throats of
17 villagers in Belwadari village in Giridih. Landmine blasts in
February 2006 killed 26 tribals and injured 50 in Dantewada,
Chhattisgarh. The victims were returning from religious festivals,
and some from anti-Naxalite rallies. Another blast on March 25 killed
13 persons.

Some of these killings may be incorrectly reported, some carried out
by local cadre on their own. But the comrades clearly believe in
political assassination. Moreover, the decisions to kill are taken in
a shadowy realm wherein the fault of the victim is decided by whim.
Truth and falsehood are dispensed with because the Party Is Always
Right. Their targets have no chance of appealing for mercy, and no
one will be punished for collateral damage. And all this is justified
because the Maoists are at war — a circular argument, because
whether or not we are at war is another whim.

But there is an elephant in India’s drawing room. Maoists openly
defy the Constitution, which they say is a mask for a brutal order.
Are not our mainstream parties equally contemptuous of the law? Why
did the NDA regime try and do away with Schedule 5 of the
Constitution that protects tribal lands from encroachment? Why is it
still being violated? Is there not prima-facie evidence of
politicians’ involvement in massacres in Delhi and Gujarat in 1984
and 2002? Why haven’t they been brought to justice? In 1987, 40
Muslims of Meerut were killed in custody. Why did the case take 18
years to come to court? The BJP and the Congress both supported the
private army named Salwa Judum with disastrous consequences for
Chhattisgarh’s population. Even the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court criticised the States’ recklessness. In 2007 the West Bengal
government despatched an illegal armed force to crush its opponents
in Nandigram. India’s rulers regularly protect criminals, and part
of the public is complicit in this. Policemen in dereliction of duty
get promoted. Mass murderers are hailed as heroes. Why are we
addicted to double-standard?

Those who believe in virtuous murder are today calling upon the
democratic conscience. Does democracy include the right to kill? Our
left-extremists have changed the world for the worse. Along with
right-wing radicals, they ground their arguments on passionate
rhetoric and a claim to superior knowledge. Fighters for justice have
become judge and executioner rolled into one — in a word, pure
tyrants. Every killing launches yet another cycle of trauma and
revenge. Will Francis Induvar’s son ever dream of becoming a
socialist? Should not socialists hold themselves to a higher standard
than the system they oppose?

Symbolism counts for a lot in Indian politics. If the Maoist party is
interested in negotiations, I suggest a demand that will expose the
hypocritical nature of our polity: ask the government to remove the
portrait of

VD Savarkar from the Central Hall of Parliament, placed there in
2003. If it cannot do that, ask it to place Charu Mazumdar’s
portrait alongside. Why not? Both were extreme patriots. Both
believed in political assassination, both hated Gandhi and both
insisted that the end justifies the means.

My suggestion will meet with indignation. But the deep link between
these two currents of extremism is the unutterable truth of Indian
history. Hindutva is the Maoism of the elite. In 1969, an ultra-
leftist Hindi writer penned a diatribe titled Gandhi Benakaab that
praised Godse as a true son of India. In 42 years of activity,
Naxalites hardly ever confronted the communalists; although to be
fair, one ultra-left group in Punjab did combat the Khalistanis. The
assassination of a VHP Swami in Kandhamal in August 2008 is the only
example. The Maoists owned the crime, but the Sangh parivar vented
its wrath upon Christian villagers. Thousands were displaced and over
30 were killed. The comrades were unwilling or unable to prevent the
carnage.

Savarkar’s acolyte Nathuram Godse murdered Mahatma Gandhi. In 1969,
the Justice Kapur Commission concluded that the conspiracy was
hatched by Savarkar and his group. Sardar Patel said as much to Nehru
in February 1948. If Savarkar deserves to be honoured by the Nation,
so does Charu. Since the government is unlikely to accept either
option, we may finally come to a debate about why one kind of
political murder is anti-national, while the other is patriotic virtue.

Dilip Simeon is a Delhi-based historian

_____


[7] India Administered Kashmir:

  From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 45, Dated November 14, 2009

LOSING CONNECTION WITH KASHMIR
Would a blanket ban on prepaid mobile phones in any other state of
India be acceptable?

by Harinder Baweja

FIRST THINGS first – the powerful government of India and its
agencies do not sewem to consider Kashmiris as their own citizens.
Too strong a statement, some would say, but here are some choice
examples of insensitivity: a Kashmiri model incarcerated for months
before being let off for lack of evidence, the Services team refusing
to go to Srinagar to play a match and now, 39 lakh innocent
Kashmiris — Indians, we keep repeating — without mobile
connectivity, only because Home Minister P Chidambaram has decided
that pre-paid SIM cards are a security risk.

This is not the first time communications in the Valley have been
curtailed. For some years now, phone lines between Kashmir and
Pakistan have been jammed and families divided by the Line of Control
for no fault of theirs have no means of talking with each other.
Every now and then, when troops are being moved in and out of the
Valley, Internet connectivity is frozen. But this summary ban of pre-
paid connections has literally left Kashmiris speechless. Consider
the timing too — the ban was imposed immediately after Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi returned
from the state where the Prime Minister offered a dialogue for peace.
That they also inaugurated a railway line between Qazigund and
Anantnag for better connectivity is irony that has not escaped the
Kashmiris and Kashmiri youth, the constituency that the Prime
Minister tried to reach out to.

Sensitivity and compassion apart, the Home Ministry’s order lacks
common logic – supposedly, the standards of proof of identity
required for pre-paid connections are not stringent enough. How come
all the babus in North Block could come up with no plan to strengthen
these standards short of a blanket ban? And if post-paid numbers can
be monitored, why does the same principle not apply across the board?

The problem is that we are either a wimp state or a plain paranoid
one Either way, it shows us up as an unthinking lot. Some years ago,
when the bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad was still on
the table, the Home and External Affairs ministries were concerned
that terrorists would be its main passengers. Perhaps Ajmal Kasab and
his nine accomplices could have saved themselves the trouble of going
through marine training – if they had bothered merely to purchase a
bus timetable.
The SIM cards used in the 26/11 attacks were procured not from
Srinagar, but from Delhi and Kolkata

If Manmohan Singh’s recent trip to the Valley was aimed at
addressing the deep-seated alienation that every Kashmiri feels, his
advisors should be letting him know that the Home Ministry’s move
has touched a raw nerve. If mobile connectivity is important to each
one of us — no matter which part of the country we live in — it is
of that much more importance in Kashmir. In all the years of the
insurgency, when cellular phone towers had not scaled the Valley, men
would not leave home without tucking a scrap of paper with their
address on it into their pockets. Unsure of returning home safely,
they carried those pieces of paper with them so that if they were
killed, at least their bodies could reach home. In today’s
smothering atmosphere of insecurity that still surrounds Kashmiri
families, the mobile phone has replaced that piece of paper. But this
is not something that will strike the bureaucrats occupying the
corridors or power. For them – Kashmir remains a piece of prime real
estate; the crown on India’s head; an unalienable part that has to
be kept at any cost.

Surely Chidambaram knows that the 10 terrorists of 26/11 carried
Indian SIM cards that they activated as soon as they reached Mumbai.
Those cards had not been procured from Srinagar but from Delhi and
Kolkata. Does the solution lie in banning mobile connectivity for 39
lakh people or in improving intelligence? The answer is a no brainer.

_____


[8] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i)  Dawn, 9 November 2009

MUSLIMS WEAR PERFUME, MAOISTS USE DETTOL!

by Jawed Naqvi

Mr P. Chidambaram’s state is programmed to see organic signs of
conformism and dissent. –Photo by Reuters

Let me share with you Prashant Rangnekar’s report in the Sunday
Express (8th Nov) headlined: Goa bombers tried to leave Muslim
imprint [ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Goa-bombers-tried-to-
leave-Muslim-imprint/538736 ]. Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram
too should read Rangnekar’s dispatch from Mumbai. After all, as a
senior leader of the majority community, the home minister last week
reiterated a solemn pledge to Wahhabi clerics of the Deoband seminary
that Hindus will and should always protect the minorities.

He obviously doesn’t subscribe to the more tenable view that the
only real minority in India is the ruling elite and they need
nobody’s protection, much less sympathy. The rest of us are
commoners – Dalits, tribals, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis,
Christians, Jews, Jains, Buddhists, non-believers, pagans, everyone.
If these people need anyone’s protection it is that of the state,
not any community.

That the clerics showed scant interest in Chidambaram’s promise of
security is of a piece with their experience of vacuous resolves made
to them since decades with an eye on their votes. The dismissiveness
shown to the senior minister also subsumes Deoband’s own
obscurantist agenda. The ageing clerics went into paroxysms, on their
part, about how the singing of Vande Matram was not acceptable to
Muslims.

Of course Vande Matram is not an ideal song for a secular republic.
It would be, had the Indian constitution made provisions for God in
the preamble. But it didn’t. But scores of Muslim, Sikh, Christian
and agnostic singers have sung praises of Hindu deities in classical
and popular music. I even know of Pakistani men who carry ‘sindur’
and ‘mangalsutra’ from Delhi, insignia of married Hindu women, to
adorn their Muslim spouses with. These are cultural gives and takes.
If we make them a test of patriotism the patrons of a fine culture
would turn away.

So while Chidambaram and his sparring partners from Deoband were
locked in a fruitless and diversionary discourse about physical
security and an obscurantist song, the real-life Muslim citizens,
like the Dalits, like the tribals, like the majority of impoverished
and abused Indians were engaged in assiduously disabusing the state
of its blinkered view about them. A part of this struggle involves
explaining to the state that they are not all terrorists.

Mr Chidambaram should also read a powerful message, if he reads
Hindi, which we can see on the back of Delhi’s three-wheeler taxis
these days. The simple lines throw a mighty challenge to the state,
by asking: When a truthful citizen is stricken with fear of the
police, the law courts and the government, is it freedom or is it
slavery? But Mr Chidambaram’s state is programmed to see, much like
the fire-spitting robot in the Hollywood movie – Terminator –
organic signs of conformism and dissent.

In the West, it is called profiling and is generally frowned upon by
decent people. We are different. In the malaria-infested forests of
Chhatisgarh, anyone carrying quinine tablets or even a bottle of
Dettol is identified as a Maoist. What about Muslim terrorists, how
can we tell them from a distance, particularly if they have been shot
or have blown themselves up? Rangnekar’s eerily funny report reveals
how at least some of the Hindu extremists visualise what a Muslim
terrorist should look like.

According to the Express story, investigators in Goa now believe that
the Sanatan Sanstha men who were killed while apparently planting
bombs in the coastal state during Diwali celebrations last month were
hoping to fan communal tensions.

How? Well they were planning to mislead the police through items they
wanted to leave behind at the site: a shopping bag from Delhi’s
‘Khan Market’, a bottle of traditional perfume ‘popular among
Muslims’ and an empty bag of branded Basmati rice on which all the
words were in Urdu.

The items were recovered by policemen from the site of the crude bomb
blast in Margao on October 16 in which two Sanatan members, Malgounda
Patil and Yogesh Naik, were killed. According to Rangnekar, it was
found after investigations and the subsequent arrest of two men
suspected to be linked to Patil and Naik that they were carrying
these items to leave them behind at the blast site in order to signal
a Muslim hand.

‘The material was enough to spark communal trouble in Margao and
extremist elements from outside would have found it easy to aggravate
it,’ an officer was quoted as saying. Margao, Goa’s main
commercial city, is represented by Chief Minister Digambar Kamat in
the state assembly and has a large Muslim population. Kamat,
incidentally, was near the site of the blast, taking part in the
Diwali celebrations but was not hurt.

The alleged plan to blame the bomb blast on Muslim groups had echoes
of the Malegaon bomb blast last year, the officer said. Members of
Hindu extremist group Abhinav Bharat, accused for that blast, had
parked the motorbike packed with the bomb below the defunct first-
floor office of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

Patil and Naik are accused of planting three bombs at the crowded
Diwali celebrations in Margao and another at a celebration in
Sancaole town 20 km away. Of these, only one of the bombs in Margao
exploded, prematurely, police say. While Patil died within hours,
Naik succumbed to his injuries in hospital days later.

Patil worked as an administrator at the Ramnathi headquarters of
Sanatan while Naik, a teacher at a school for mentally challenged
students, supplied milk to the organisation and circulated its
mouthpiece Sanatan Prabhat.

Subsequently, the Special Investigating Team constituted by the Goa
police to probe the blast arrested Vinay Talekar and Vinayak Patil,
alleging that they were linked to the conspiracy. Sanatan has denied
it had anything to do with the blast.

It would be far more purposeful for Mr Chidambaram and his sparring
partners from Deoband to focus on more crucial issues, such as the
trail of evidence with which the state could pin down groups that use
false flag attacks to implicate members of a different community with
an intent to cause social ruptures. He must reopen the probe into
what has come to be known as the dubious Batla House encounter
killings in Delhi.

In fact the accidental deaths of suspected Hindu extremists in the
Goa blasts may have a link with the firebombing of the Samjhauta
Express in February 2007. Press Trust of India reported on October 19
that India’s federal police (CBI) and Rajasthan Police had
questioned four persons in Indore, including a local leader of
Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), in connection with the Samjhauta
Express blast.

According to the news agency, during the initial investigation, the
CBI had stumbled on some clues ‘which hinted that material used in
the (Samjhauta) explosion might have been bought from Indore
following which some people came under the scanner of the CBI’.

BJYM is the youth wing of India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata
Party.
Sixty-eight persons, including many Pakistanis, were killed and other
passengers sustained injuries when explosions ripped through
Samjhauta Express during its transit through Panipat on its way to
Lahore from Delhi.

In a separate dispatch from Panaji, state capital of Goa, PTI said
the local government was examining the possibility of banning Sanatan
Sanstha, the right wing group being seen behind the blast in Margao.

The outfit is allegedly linked with Sadhvi Pragya Singh who has been
probed in a spate of attacks in the Muslim localities of Malegaon. Ms
Singh is believed to be ideologically linked with an army colonel
being probed in the Samjhauta blasts.

Last year, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had revealed
that Purohit supplied the RDX used in the Samjhauta Express. The
police officer investigating the case was, however, killed during the
terror attack on Mumbai in November last year. If the state wishes to
appear credible with the common people, which is what Muslims really
are, it needs to look into this and countless other shady happenings.
But that may be a difficult mission for a programmed robot seeking
out traces of Dettol and Basmati rice to combat terrorism.


(ii) Deccan Chronicle, 8 November 2009

EDITORIAL  :  RSS SHOCK AND AWE IN BJP

Rarely, if ever, has the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) expressed
itself as unambiguously on the selection and composition of the top
leadership of the BJP, a party it has spawned but has kept a formal
distance from for the sake of appearances, as Mr Mohan Bhagwat, the
organisation’s chief, did on Friday, leaving BJP leaders apoplectic.
The so-called “cultural” outfit has, thus, come out into the open
as the machine that gives dictation to the BJP which is meekly
accepted. Political movements and parties develop their own cultures.
This is in part shaped by the ideology they follow, and is in part
the outcome of the wider milieu in which they operate. As a party of
the Hindu right, the BJP had broken its confines of being no more
than the sum total of RSS workers and their families and friends, and
gained a wider acceptance in the post-socialism phase of Nehru and
Indira Gandhi as Congress went into a decline. A wide variety of
individuals, who wouldn’t see themselves as communal in outlook,
veered toward the party in several evolutionary steps. They believed
they were making the shift to a clean, transparent, democratic
political vehicle that was better suited than any other formation to
take India forward in the changed era. It will be interesting to see
how this constituency views the flagrant interference of the RSS in
BJP affairs. Mr Bhagwat may direct the choice of the next BJP chief,
but will his command help keep the party together? A leader like
former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh has already found his
trust had been misplaced. It is not unlikely that the BJP has a
considerable following of similarly inclined individuals. The new
type of politically inclined but non-RSS constituency that had also
been drawn to the party on account of the presence of leaders such as
Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mr Lal Krishna Advani is today apt to be
disillusioned. This segment had something to do with helping the BJP
gain a wider appeal and establish a partial hegemony within Indian
polity. Mr Bhagwat’s shockingly frank announcement makes it plain
that none of the vaunted younger generation BJP leaders operating in
the country’s capital can match the young guns of the Congress —
the BJP’s main rival — led by Mr Rahul Gandhi, whose energy,
operating style, thinking, and charisma have been a revelation after
he had been written off by most. When the rabbit is sprung out of Mr
Bhagwat’s hat, we shall know who Mr Rajnath Singh’s successor is
going to be. But no one in the BJP today looks forward to the
announcement of the new chief with any sense of anticipation, such is
the party’s degraded morale. Worse, the new chief, operating under
the RSS leader’s direct mentorship, is likely to begin with a
handicap if he is seen by the party’s current big wigs, who have
nursed deep ambitions of their own, as an interloper. These are not
easy times for the main Opposition party. The mountains and forests
are moving in a Macbethian sense.

o o o

SEE ALSO:

REGIONAL CHAUVINISM MUST BE FOUGHT (Editorial, Mail Today, November
9, 2009)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/regional-chauvinism-must-be-
fought.html

STOP THE HOOLIGANS (Editorial, The Times of India,10 November 2009)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/stop-hooligans.html

_____


[10] Miscellanea:

New York Times, November 9, 2009

20 YEARS OF COLLAPSE

by Slavoj Zizek

TODAY is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During
this time of reflection, it is common to emphasize the miraculous
nature of the events that began that day: a dream seemed to come
true, the Communist regimes collapsed like a house of cards, and the
world suddenly changed in ways that had been inconceivable only a few
months earlier. Who in Poland could ever have imagined free elections
with Lech Walesa as president?

However, when the sublime mist of the velvet revolutions was
dispelled by the new democratic-capitalist reality, people reacted
with an unavoidable disappointment that manifested itself, in turn,
as nostalgia for the “good old” Communist times; as rightist,
nationalist populism; and as renewed, belated anti-Communist paranoia.
The first two reactions are easy to comprehend. The same rightists
who decades ago were shouting, “Better dead than red!” are now
often heard mumbling, “Better red than eating hamburgers.” But the
Communist nostalgia should not be taken too seriously: far from
expressing an actual wish to return to the gray Socialist reality, it
is more a form of mourning, of gently getting rid of the past. As for
the rise of the rightist populism, it is not an Eastern European
specialty, but a common feature of all countries caught in the vortex
of globalization.
Much more interesting is the recent resurgence of anti-Communism from
Hungary to Slovenia. During the autumn of 2006, large protests
against the ruling Socialist Party paralyzed Hungary for weeks.
Protesters linked the country’s economic crisis to its rule by
successors of the Communist party. They denied the very legitimacy of
the government, although it came to power through democratic
elections. When the police went in to restore civil order,
comparisons were drawn with the Soviet Army crushing the 1956 anti-
Communist rebellion.
This new anti-Communist scare even goes after symbols. In June 2008,
Lithuania passed a law prohibiting the public display of Communist
images like the hammer and sickle, as well as the playing of the
Soviet anthem. In April 2009, the Polish government proposed
expanding a ban on totalitarian propaganda to include Communist
books, clothing and other items: one could even be arrested for
wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.

No wonder that, in Slovenia, the main reproach of the populist right
to the left is that it is the “force of continuity” with the old
Communist regime. In such a suffocating atmosphere, new problems and
challenges are reduced to the repetition of old struggles, up to the
absurd claim (which sometimes arises in Poland and in Slovenia) that
the advocacy of gay rights and legal abortion is part of a dark
Communist plot to demoralize the nation.

Where does this resurrection of anti-Communism draw its strength
from? Why were the old ghosts resuscitated in nations where many
young people don’t even remember the Communist times? The new anti-
Communism provides a simple answer to the question: “If capitalism
is really so much better than Socialism, why are our lives still
miserable?”

It is because, many believe, we are not really in capitalism: we do
not yet have true democracy but only its deceiving mask, the same
dark forces still pull the threads of power, a narrow sect of former
Communists disguised as new owners and managers — nothing’s really
changed, so we need another purge, the revolution has to be repeated ...

What these belated anti-Communists fail to realize is that the image
they provide of their society comes uncannily close to the most
abused traditional leftist image of capitalism: a society in which
formal democracy merely conceals the reign of a wealthy minority. In
other words, the newly born anti-Communists don’t get that what they
are denouncing as perverted pseudo-capitalism simply is capitalism.

One can also argue that, when the Communist regimes collapsed, the
disillusioned former Communists were effectively better suited to run
the new capitalist economy than the populist dissidents. While the
heroes of the anti-Communist protests continued to dwell in their
dreams of a new society of justice, honesty and solidarity, the
former Communists were able to ruthlessly accommodate themselves to
the new capitalist rules and the new cruel world of market
efficiency, inclusive of all the new and old dirty tricks and
corruption.

A further twist is added by those countries in which Communists
allowed the explosion of capitalism, while retaining political power:
they seem to be more capitalist than the Western liberal capitalists
themselves. In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over
Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are
now beating capitalism in its own terrain.

This is why today’s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always
seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion
of capitalism in the People’s Republic, many analysts still assume
that political democracy will inevitably assert itself.

But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to
be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What
if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of
economic development, but its impediment?

If this is the case, then perhaps the disappointment at capitalism in
the post-Communist countries should not be dismissed as a simple sign
of the “immature” expectations of the people who didn’t possess
a realistic image of capitalism.

When people protested Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the large
majority of them did not ask for capitalism. They wanted the freedom
to live their lives outside state control, to come together and talk
as they pleased; they wanted a life of simplicity and sincerity,
liberated from the primitive ideological indoctrination and the
prevailing cynical hypocrisy.

As many commentators observed, the ideals that led the protesters
were to a large extent taken from the ruling Socialist ideology
itself — people aspired to something that can most appropriately be
designated as “Socialism with a human face.” Perhaps this attitude
deserves a second chance.

This brings to mind the life and death of Victor Kravchenko, the
Soviet engineer who, in 1944, defected during a trade mission to
Washington and then wrote a best-selling memoir, “I Chose
Freedom.” His first-person report on the horrors of Stalinism
included a detailed account of the mass hunger in early-1930s
Ukraine, where Kravchenko — then still a true believer in the
system — helped enforce collectivization.
What most people know about Kravchenko ends in 1949. That year, he
sued Les Lettres Françaises for libel after the French Communist
weekly claimed that he was a drunk and a wife-beater and his memoir
was the propaganda work of American spies. In the Paris courtroom,
Soviet generals and Russian peasants took the witness stand to debate
the truth of Kravchenko’s writings, and the trial grew from a
personal suit to a spectacular indictment of the whole Stalinist system.
But immediately after his victory in the case, when Kravchenko was
still being hailed all around the world as a cold war hero, he had
the courage to speak out passionately against Joseph McCarthy’s
witch hunts. “I believe profoundly,” he wrote, “that in the
struggle against Communists and their organizations ... we cannot and
should not resort to the methods and forms employed by the
Communists.” His warning to Americans: to fight Stalinism in such a
way was to court the danger of starting to resemble their opponent.

Kravchenko also became more and more obsessed with the inequalities
of the Western world, and wrote a sequel to “I Chose Freedom” that
was titled, significantly, “I Chose Justice.” He devoted himself
to finding less exploitative forms of collectivization and wound up
in Bolivia, where he squandered all his money trying to organize poor
farmers. Crushed by this failure, he withdrew into private life and
shot himself in 1966 at his home in New York.
How did we come to this? Deceived by 20th-century Communism and
disillusioned with 21st-century capitalism, we can only hope for new
Kravchenkos — and that they come to happier ends. On the search for
justice, they will have to start from scratch. They will have to
invent their own ideologies. They will be denounced as dangerous
utopians, but they alone will have awakened from the utopian dream
that holds the rest of us under its sway.

Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute
for the Humanities in London, is the author, most recently, of
“First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.”

o o o

The Guardian, 9 November 2009

SOLIDARITY UNDER STRAIN
We in Poland began the Berlin Wall's collapse. But for all the gains,
people remain deeply dissatisfied

by Adam Michnik

I belong to a generation that liked to repeat the words of the 19th-
century Russian writer Pyotr Chaadaev. "I didn't learn to love my
nation blindfolded, gagged and with my head lowered. I believe that a
man can only be useful to his country when he can look at it clearly."

This was something we often said to ourselves when our rebellion
against the dictatorship in Poland seemed hopeless. We thought we
would not live to see it gone, but still we refused the blindfold and
the gag. We carried on protesting, as writers and intellectuals; in
student actions, workers' strikes and demonstrations during religious
festivals; and by founding the first opposition organisations. They
called us troublemakers and bandits. But it turned out we were doing
the right thing.
The Workers' Defence Committee started in 1976 – after a wave of
workers' protests – with just a few hundred people, scattered across
Poland. By August 1980, after the great strikes of the Baltic and
Silesia, it had become Solidarity, a movement that numbered several
million people from every social class, a national confederation
pushing for a free, independent and just Poland. It was driven
underground – but not destroyed. Solidarity survived further years
of dictatorship until, in 1989, it became an open partner in the new
administration.

It was in Poland that the Berlin Wall began to crumble. As 1989
dawned, the Polish people, and the Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians,
Hungarians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Ukrainians – and Russians
themselves – were all praying for the same thing: the collapse of
the Soviet Union. This event would help not just us, but our Russian
friends as well.

Early in the year negotiations between Poland's communist regime and
the Solidarity opposition began. Talks culminated in elections –
only semi-democratic – on 4 June 1989. But something genuinely
historic took place. For the first time, elections in a communist
state led to the crushing defeat of the Communists. The opposition's
victory - supported by the Catholic Church and the authority of John
Paul II - was complete.

But it was not this victory that made the world's headlines the
following day. Instead it was the massacre of students demanding
democracy in Tiananmen Square, in Beijing.

Thus on the same day the world saw the two faces of communism, its
two possible reactions when threatened. One regime, in Beijing, used
the language of tanks and executions; the other, in Poland, chose
instead the language of the ballot box, opening up a road to
democracy and change that would soon reach the other nations of
eastern and central Europe.It was in Poland that the first stones of
the Berlin Wall started to crumble. ItPoland had overcome the curse
of its own history, a history marked by partitions, which wiped our
country off the political map of Europe; of tragic insurrections
doomed to failure, and hundreds of thousands of victims of hopeless
battles for freedom.

We know that nothing in history ever has just one cause. Poland's
change was also a result of the changes in Russia; of sensible US
politics; of Pope John Paul II and the Catholic church; of the Afghan
people, who opposed the Soviet invasion. And there was also the deep
economic crisis in the Soviet Union itself.
But I will never forget that it was the Poles who created the model
for compromise between ruler and ruled, for a peaceful dismantling of
dictatorship, and for an equally peaceful transition of power into
the hands of those who had won in parliamentary elections.
How Poland has changed in two decades. It has become a democratically
lawful country with a healthy economy. For Poland, the last two
decades have been the best in the last 300 years. And yet so many
Poles today are deeply dissatisfied. Why?

The great Russian writer Anton Chekhov wrote of his homeland: "Under
the banners of education, art and free expression, a type of toad and
crocodile will come to power more frightful than anything that ever
came out of Spain's Inquisition – a narrow-minded, self-righteous,
overbearingly ambitious type, totally lacking in conscience.
Charlatans and wolves in sheeps' clothing will be able to lie and
dissemble to their heart's content." The Russian genius foresaw what
happens to a nation when it acquires freedom after years of slavery.
This is what has happened in the new post-communist democracies.
In Poland, it was the workers in the great factories who won change,
their strikes forcing the authorities to give way. But those same
factories were also the first victims of the ensuing transformation.
Modernised to compete in the marketplace, they cut their workforces.
Instead of a miracle of freedom, people found themselves staring
redundancy in the face.

The revolutions of 1989 had not mentioned mass privatisation or
social inequalities; or sudden growth in crime, corruption and mafia
activity; or, worst of all, permanent unemployment. This was the
reality of the post-communist period offered up to the Poles and
their neighbours. Political freedom, a free-market economy, the end
of censorship and the opening of borders, had not been enough to
effect a balance. The destruction of a despotic regime had led not
just to liberal democratic values – it had also marked the start of
a wild rush for wealth. A people enslaved for decades, unable to
measure the worth of their own work, instead began to seek instant
miracles and gratification by applying the exigencies of brute force,
cynicism and bribes.

Of course, there has been change. A new generation of politicians has
been created. Those who had previously been excluded from legitimate
political and economic activity are its leaders today. But at the
same time we have had to deal with the growth of corruption on a
massive scale, and with unfulfilled promises about social progress.
The chasm dividing rich and poor has deepened – the only difference
is that many of the richest people today were prominent activists.

In some post-communist countries an aggressive ethnic nationalism is
on the rise. In others, religion is being used by those in power as
an anti-democratic ideology, an instrument of intolerance and
exclusion. Post-communist transformation creates not just winners,
but many losers: those who are unemployed, rejected, pushed into
poverty. The often brutally greedy new elites are slow to learn
democratic habits, respect for the law of the land, pluralism or
tolerance.

So our world is now one of open questions. We ask: what is the future
for our democratic systems? And we are comforted to know that this
same question is being asked throughout democratic Europe. Despite
all the mistakes, blunders and scandals, Poland today – 20 years
on – is a normal, democratic European country. It's the kind of
country I wanted my generation to bequeath to our children. Although,
to tell the truth, I wish that it was a rather better one.


_____


[11]  Announcements:

(i)  INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE WITH EVE ENSLER

Dear Friends,
Press Club, Mumbai and Akshara are pleased to invite you to an
interaction with Eve Ensler with members of women’s organizations,
social activists and the Press on 11th November 2009, Wedensday at
4:00 pm to 5.30 pm at Press Club, Mumbai, opposite Azad Maidan Police
Station, CST.
Eve Ensler is a well known playwright, performer and activist. She is
the award-winning author of The Vagina Monologues, which has been
published in 45 languages and performed in over 120 countries. She
now returns to India for the World Premier of her new play, ‘I am an
Emotional Creature: The Secret Lives of Girls Around the World’ on
12th November 2009 at the NCPA theatre.
She is also the founder and artistic director of V-Day, the global
movement to end violence against women and girls, which has raised
nearly 60 million dollars and recently celebrated its tenth anniversary.
This is an opportunity to have an inter-active dialogue with Eve
about our movements, strategies and social contexts.
Please do come,

Regards,
Nandita Gandhi                       Swati Deshpande
Co-director                               Secretary
Akshara                                 Press Club, Mumbai

o o o

(ii)

Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Citizens for Peace
Gateway House
and
Tata Institute of Social Sciences invite you to a discussion on

INSURGENCY AND COUNTER-INSURGENCY: CHALLENGES OF BUILDING A SHARED
PROSPERITY

Thursday, November 12th, 2009
National Gallery of Modern Art(NGMA), Sir Cowasji Jehangir Hall, Fort,
Mumbai
6.15 pm Tea
6:30 to 8:00pm Discussion
Chair:
Dr. Parasuraman, Director, Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Panel will include:
Dr. Ajit Ranade, Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group
Himanshu Kumar,Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, Bastar, Chhattisgarh
M.D. Nalapat, Professor of Geopolitics and UNESCO chair, Manipal
University
Dr. Nandini Sundar,Professor of Sociology, Delhi
University Author: Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological
History of Bastar

The escalation of hostilities between Naxal/Maoist insurgents and
government para-military forces has put millions of lives in deep
peril. While the conflict seems to be in the hinterland it has grave
implications for both rural and urban India, its democracy, society,
security, economy and foreign policy. How has business come to be
embroiled in this? What role can it play as stakeholder? What is the
environmental impact of this insurgency? What is the foreign policy
implication of the spread of the ‘red corridor?’ Finally, can
citizens develop a constructive and creative response to this crisis?
Can business evolve ideas for resolution of the conflict that ensure
peace and justice for the affected and economic growth for all?


o o o

(iii) The Kashmir Initiative Speaker Series

Human Rights Policy for
"THE WORLD’S MOST MILITARIZED DISPUTE"

November 12, 2009 4:30-6:30 PM
L-230 Gundle Family Classroom, Littauer Building 2nd floor

62 Years of Unrest: Regional & International Ramifications
with Angana Chatterji, Ayesha Jalal, Alexander Evans
Moderated by: Sugata Bose

6:00-6:30 PM

Film screening and discussion (of work in progress)
KASHMIR with John Halpern
6:30 Reception at the Carr Center

Co-sponsored by
South Asia Initiative at Harvard
Harvard Pakistan Student Group (HPSG)
For More Information See: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/sbhrap/
projects/kashmir/index.php

o o o

(iv) Public Meeting : SAY ‘NO’ TO GOVERNMENT’S WAR ON PEOPLE

Date: 13th November 2009, 12.00 pm onward
Vivekananda Statue, Delhi University

Speakers:

Madan Kashyap, Journalist
Prashant Bhushan, Civil liberties lawyer
Saroj Giri, Dept. of Political Science, DU                  Gautam
Navlakha, Civil liberties activist
Harish Dhawan, PUDR                                             Dr.
N. Bhattacharya, Jan Hastakshep
Poonam, Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan                    Sanjay
Kumar, NSI
Sandeep Singh, AISA
Banjyotsna, DSU
Abhinav,
Disha                                                         Mayur
Chetia, PSU

Representative of Peoples organisations form North Eastern states
Representative of JNU Forum Against War on People

o o o

(v) Music Basti would like to invite you to a program we are hosting
at Khushi Home (run by Aman Biradari)
Celebrating Children’s Day, November 14th, 2009
(1.00 pm, Khushi Home, Okhla Industrial Area Phase II, New Delhi)

o o o

(vi) NYC premiere of The Salt Stories, a documentary by Lalit
Vachani, at the MIAAC film festival.

Date :Saturday, the 14th of November 2009 at 12 PM
Venue: The Quad Cinema (34 West 13th Street, between 5th and 6th
Avenues).
http://miaacfilmfest.org/Films#SALTSTORIES

o o o

   (vii) LIFE IN STRUGGLE CELEBRATION

November 14-15, 2009
Honoring Hari Sharma at 75
Dear Friends,
ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT for the "Life in Struggle Celebration" to honor
Hari Sharma at his 75th birthday. It will take place on November 15
at the Grand Taj Banquet Hall, 8388-128 St, Surrey, BC and will start
at 5.30 pm.  The ticket for the event, including dinner and
entertainment, is $30.00, and there will be a cash bar. A book,
"Celebrating Life in Struggle: A Tribute to Hari Sharma, "scheduled
to be published in November, will be presented to Hari at the party.
It will be available to all the guests and is included in the cost of
the ticket.
If you have not obtained your ticket already, we urge you to do so
now. The caterer has to be given a precise figure of those attending
the event.
Tickets can be obtained from Café Kathmandu (2779 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver). Or, phone Harinder Mahil (604 761 9235) or Bhanu Poudyal
(604 376 7329).
We also remind you that there is a conference on November 14 (10 AM
to 4 PM) at which some of the articles included in the book mentioned
above in the section, 'Perspectives on Imperialism, Socialism and
People's Struggles Today' will be presented and discussed. Venue:
Newton Community Recreation Centre, 7120 - 136B Street, Surrey, BC.
Lunch provided.
Hari Sharma @75 Organizing Committee:
Abi Ghimire, Amarjit Chahal, Bhanu Poudyal, Charan Gill, Chinmoy
Banerjee, Harinder Mahil, Raj Chouhan, Sarabjit Hundal, Satinder
Sidhu, Shinder Brar

o o o

(viii) The Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India is
happy to invite you to the panel discussion on "Can water conflicts
in India be resolved by putting water in Concurrent list,
particularly in the context of impact of climate change on
hydrological cycle?" to be held on 16 November from 5 to 8 pm at
Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. A provisional programme
is given below.

Provisional Programme
Venue of the meeting:  Indian National Science Academy, Bahadur Shah
Zafar Marg, New Delhi - 110 002
5 pm to 8 pm; 16 November 2009

Welcome and introduction
Lead Presentation
Prof. Ramaswamy Iyer, Ex-Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources,
Government of India and presently with the Centre for Policy
Research, New Delhi

Panel Discussion (Some of the panelists are yet to be confirmed)
Biksham Gujja, Policy Advisor of the Living Water Programme at WWF
International, Gland, Switzerland and also Team Leader of WWF-ICRISAT
Project on Water Productivity in Agriculture
M. K. Prasad, Executive Chairman and Director, Information Kerala
Mission & former president of KSSP, Trivandrum
M. K. Ramesh, National Law School, Bangalore
Medha Patkar, Narmada Bacho Andolan and National Alliance of
Peoples’ Movements (NAPM), Mumbai
Mihir Shah, Member, Planning Commission, Government of India, New Delhi
N K Premachandran, Minister for Water Resources, Government of Kerala
Navroz Dubhash, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
Pawan Kumar Bansal, Minister of Water Resources, Government of India,
New Delhi
Prashant Bhushan, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, New Delhi


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 5-8, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2663 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1]  Life is cheap in Bangladesh (Rater Zonaki)
[2] Sri Lanka: Pariahs of the fourth Estate (Editorial, The Sunday
Leader)
       + Politics and the war in Sri Lanka: To which victor the spoils?
[3]  Pakistan: Boxing the faith (Nadeem F. Paracha)
[4]  Pakistan - India: The limits of coercive diplomacy (Happymon Jacob)
       + Pakistan must accept India’s offer of peace (I.A. Rehman)
       + Jailed Fishermen Await Thaw in India-Pakistan Relations
(Zofeen Ebrahim)
[5] India: The Honest Leftist - K. Balagopal was the conscience of
Andhra society (Ramachandra Guha)
[6] India: Two Parallel Narratives (Sumanta Banerjee)
[7] India: Press Release by Independent Citizens Fact Finding Mission
to Manipur
[8] EU tramples on India's poor (David Cronin)
[9] India: Resources For Secular Activists
         (i)  Sign the Online Petition to Indonesian Authorities to
Rescind Their Invitation to Narendra Modi
         (ii) Lamb Allies with Wolf!  The Myth of Love Jihad (Ram
Puniyani)
[10]  Announcements:
(i) Two Day National Seminar on Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and the
National Education System (New Delhi, 11-12 November 2009)
(ii) Applications are sought for the Ambedkar Sanskrit Fellowship at
Columbia University in the City of New York

_____


[1] Bangladesh:

LIFE IS CHEAP IN BANGLADESH

by Rater Zonaki

Published: November 05, 2009
http://www.upiasia.com/Human_Rights/2009/11/04/
life_is_cheap_in_bangladesh/4465/

Hong Kong, China — "Life is so cheap in Bangladesh ,” a senior
journalist pointed out to a Bangladesh Army colonel who had come to
his office to intimidate him. “My life can be ended at any time …
by any of the violence that goes on around us. Why are you so
concerned about my life?”

The colonel, an officer of the Directorate General of the Forces
Intelligence, had come to warn the journalist to stop speaking out
against lawlessness during the two-year state of emergency that ended
in December, 2008.

The DGFI is known for the specialized torture cells it maintains in
the country’s garrisons, used to interrogate suspects. Many of the
country’s politicians have experienced the taste of torture in those
cells.

Bangladeshi authorities routinely prove that life is cheap in the
country. The poor man’s life is cheapest of all. An incident
occurred last Saturday at Tongi in Gazipur district, near the capital
Dhaka , that illustrates this point.

Around 1,500 workers reporting for work Saturday morning at Nippon
Garments, a readymade garment factory, were met by a notice stating
that the factory would be closed for a month. They had not been told
of this closure when they ended their day’s work on Friday, and
their monthly wages of US$30 had not been paid.

This is a frequent occurrence in the country’s readymade garment
industry. Employers or their loyal staff terminate ordinary workers
whenever they wish, often by verbal notice, as most workers do not
have written contracts that detail their employment status and salaries.

It is a “national tradition” in Bangladesh that the laws favor
those in power, not the ordinary people. This has often caused
frustration among the people, who then demonstrate to express their
demands, regardless of their legitimacy or logic.

The outraged workers of the closed garment factory demonstrated on
the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway. When factory authorities failed to meet
the workers or respond to their demands, they got impatient and began
vandalizing vehicles.

The government sent riot police to control the situation. The police
suddenly started firing indiscriminately at the demonstrators,
killing at least three people – a rickshaw-puller who had gone to
rescue his garment-worker wife, a pedestrian and a mason. Many others
were wounded by police bullets.

The media claimed there were even more deaths, and accused the police
of a cover-up to suppress the truth. But Home Minister Sahara Khatun
denied that anyone was killed by police gunfire. Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina seems to have ended the issue simply by declaring that
none would be spared if found guilty.

Unfortunately, Bangladeshis already know that they cannot expect
justice from their politicians. Deaths due to police gunfire or other
unwarranted violence are quite common. The police torture or kill
people in custody. Political parties also kill their rivals in open
attacks.

In recent years, for example, a number of people were killed in
Sherpur, Jamalpur and adjacent districts when police opened fire on
farmers who were demanding fertilizer to grow their crops.

Around eight villagers of Shibganj in Chapainawabganj district were
killed by police gunshots for demanding electricity, after being
forced to pay electric bills without having received even the minimum
power supply.

A similar incident occurred in Fulbari of Dinajpur district when
locals protested against a multinational company that wanted to mine
coal without regard for the local environment and without adequate
compensation for local people displaced by the mines. Several were
killed by police gunfire.

After each of these shocking incidents, the ruling party made
rhetorical speeches and promised compensation to the victims. But
they failed to even identify the perpetrators or investigate the
situation. No comprehensive or sustainable solution was offered, and
the suffering of the victims was ignored.

After each such incident, the opposition parties became government
critics and voiced their sympathy to the victims while lamenting
their inability to change things because they were not in power. But
no progress is made even when the same opposition becomes the ruling
party.

There is no remedy or explanation for the unruly violence caused by
law enforcement authorities.

It is the political parties that have always benefited from violent
acts. Bangladeshi politicians have repeatedly demonstrated their
penchant for weak and bad policies, irresponsible practices,
uncontrollable desire to plunder state property, and greed for power
and money.

While they survive with all their drawbacks, they have no time or
ability to overcome them – let alone helping ordinary citizens or
solving problems of state and public institutions.

The police – regardless of whether they are riot, traffic or normal
police – are part of Bangladeshi society, which has grown impatient
with such behavior. This situation prevails in all public
institutions, including the basic legal institutions, which fail to
address the problems calmly and fairly.

People die unnatural deaths every day, but nobody cares. Such
carelessness deserves to die its own death in an "intellectual
firing.” The nation should immediately start building an
intellectual infrastructure to kill this ongoing carelessness.
Otherwise, life will remain as cheap as the lives of the laborers in
the garment industry.

-
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in
Hong Kong , working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a
Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights
activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of
publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)


_____


[2] Sri Lanka:

(i)

The Sunday Leader, October 31, 2009

Editorial : PARIAHS OF THE FOURTH ESTATE

Given the deafening silence the local media greeted the news of two
death threats received by two editors at this newspaper last week we
reached just one conclusion. That The Sunday Leader is seen to be the
pariah of the fourth estate – and its editors and staff are easily
expendable.

It is in the same manner that the local media pontificated and almost
justified the brutal killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge  – whispering
amongst themselves that he was no journalist.  That he in fact
tarnished the very image of this August profession – trashed the
altar upon which it stands by prostituting “quality” journalism
for “petty and personal political gain.”

Thus convinced, the Editor’s Guild, The Sri Lanka Newspaper Society,
Free Media Movement and the Sri Lanka Press Institute decided it was
good enough reason not to pay tribute to him — not to  honour him or
even remember him on a night when The Journalism Awards for
Excellence was held in all its glory on Tuesday, July 14, this year.

Brow beaten to complacency and mediocrity the local media will not
dare rear its head or stand tall – too afraid anymore to voice
solidarity or condemn a cowardly and dastardly act as the sending of
death threats to two women editors in this country.  Two colleagues
– who obviously the local press, believe — do not matter – if
they are indeed killed.  That we were threatened we were told was our
fault – for having “upset” the sensitivities of a person or
persons who remain paranoid, jittery, trigger-happy of any adverse
publicity.

A senior editor of another English language weekly in fact said that
if indeed anyone did want to kill us they wouldn’t warn us in
advance.  Perhaps, Lasantha too was of similar thought which is why
he discounted the deadly but all too real threat that came to him
three weeks before he was murdered.

A written threat which elsewhere on our pages today a professional
graphologist maintains when compared with the two death threats sent
to us on October 22, could have been written by the same fist.

But none of this is of importance. At least, not to those
institutions and press organisations which lobby and receive millions
of rupees by way of foreign funding, pontificating to foreign donors,
professing to fight and stand up for freedom of expression and media
rights which includes protection to journalists under threat. Not a
single one of these organisations issued a line last week condemning
the death threats sent to editors at this newspaper.

Not a single member from any one these organisations bothered to even
telephone the offices of The Sunday Leader and express any kind of
concern or solidarity – despite the fact their phone bills are met
by foreign donors to do just that.  Publishers and editors in fact
went a step further, barring their newspapers from reporting the
issue.  Actions which speak volumes as to where the threat even the
media believe originated.  Which is why, they dare not speak his
name. As they cower – glad that The Sunday Leader continues to be
picked out as – for the moment at least – they all remain safe. It
is not their turn yet. And will never be as long as The Sunday Leader
even when it crouches would still continue to stand taller than all
the horses in this trade.

But this is nothing new. When The Sunday Leader was sealed on an
arbitrary order issued by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga none
of these institutions bothered so much as to issue a statement
condemning her unlawful action – which was subsequently overruled by
the Supreme Court.

As a result, Lasantha resigned as a member of the Editor’s Guild
followed by his brother and Chairman of Leader Publications Lal
Wickrematunge who also tendered his resignation from the Newspaper
Publishers Society.  Up to the day that Lasantha was killed he never
returned to the Editors Guild as a member despite repeated requests
from the latter to do so – ultimately even relinquishing any and all
ties with the Sri Lanka Press Institute too, before he was killed.

Of course the fact that The Sunday Leader continues to stand alone in
its fight for freedoms and democratic rights must make the current
political administration delirious with joy.  After all, when a
couple more journalists need to be picked out for slaughter there is
no guessing as to where the die will be first cast.

While the rest of the media fraternity can whisper little self-
congratulatory messages to themselves content they can no longer be
seen nor heard — never mind the fact that 11 journalists have been
killed in the last two years and more than 30 attacked – the media
fraternity have acceded to an unseemly pact – they will simply play
ball.

At least at The Sunday Leader – we remain unbowed and unafraid. We
stand proud that we do not bury our head ostrich like in the sand.
Lasantha was only one in a long line of journalists who have laid
down their lives for their profession. The threat facing the
country’s media continues. Any event and/or organisation that
represent media professionals must take a stand to defend a
profession that continues to being terrorised into submission.   And
we are not afraid to take that stand.

The Sunday Leader will continue to function courageously. We are
convinced that being so will finally allow the media in this nation
to survive as a meaningful and moderating influence on this
country’s society and governance.

Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it
does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the
opposition it is only because we believe that  there is no point in
bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our
existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest
thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it
occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing exposés we
published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that
government.

Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that
we support or have supported the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most
ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested this
planet. There is no gainsaying that we applaud this government for
having eradicated its menace from our shores. But to do so by
violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them
mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim
to be custodians of the Dhamma is forever called into question by
this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of the
self censorship carried out by the local press.

It is indeed opportune to reproduce a favourite quote that inspired
Lasantha during his career as a journalist.  That of the German
theologian, Martin Niem”ller.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for
you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual,
dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid,
with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take
that commitment for granted.  Let there be no doubt that whatever
sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory
or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve our
sacrifice is another matter. God knows – we try.

o o o

(ii)

The Economist print edition, Nov 5th 2009

POLITICS AND THE WAR IN SRI LANKA: TO WHICH VICTOR THE SPOILS?

The mysterious ambitions of Sri Lanka’s victorious army commander

Reuters Fonseka keeps his testimony under his hat

NOT even six months has elapsed since the protracted war with Tamil
Tiger rebels ended in a bloody climax, leading to the Sri Lankan
government’s triumph. But already the leaders of the military
campaign are sparring ahead of an election due next year. For weeks
the press has been speculating about friction between the
administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka, the
hawkish army general who commanded troops in the final assault
against the Tigers.

Jittery over rumours, spread mostly by opposition parties, that
General Fonseka will challenge Mr Rajapaksa in the election, the
government in October banned reports about his political ambitions. A
communiqué from the army’s spokesman warned the press that several
laws would be used against those who published “false reports”
using the names of serving senior army officers.

General Fonseka is no longer army commander. But as chief of the
defence staff, a post obtained after the defeat of the Tigers in May,
he is the highest-ranking military officer in service. He cannot
contest elections while in uniform. But his term ends in December and
he has hinted that he might reject any offer of an extension.

During a visit to America which ended abruptly this week, General
Fonseka, who holds an American green card (ie, permanent residence),
told Sri Lankan expatriates he would step out of uniform to bring the
country back on track “if it continues to go on the wrong path even
after defeating terrorism.” Such statements, combined with goading
from the opposition, have increased agitation in government, and
particularly presidential, quarters. Some ministers are already
cautioning the public about the pitfalls of a military regime. Others
have claimed ownership of the victory for Mr Rajapaksa himself,
rather than his military chiefs.

The plot thickened this week when General Fonseka notified the
government that America’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had
sought his testimony in a probe into alleged human-rights violations
by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s defence secretary and the
president’s brother, a naturalised American citizen.

General Fonseka was hastily flown back from America on the day the
DHS interview was to have taken place. Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry
said no American government agency had questioned him before his
departure. Still, it had taken several days of feverish diplomacy to
prevent the meeting, which, intriguingly, General Fonseka had
consented to two days before notifying the defence secretary.

The government’s obvious anxiety about General Fonseka’s possible
candidacy is a consequence of Mr Rajapaksa’s plans to call a
presidential election in early 2010, nearly two years before the end
of his six-year term. He naturally wants to capitalise on the
popularity generated by the military victory. But this strategy may
backfire if he is challenged by the former army commander, who is
hugely popular among the president’s main support base, the
Sinhalese Buddhist majority.

As one independent Tamil analyst put it, the ruling regime’s main
achievement has been to win the war. But with the victors apparently
squabbling among themselves, which ones should people support?
Mangala Samaraweera, a parliamentarian who defected to the opposition
from Mr Rajapaksa’s party, says his former leader will now “not
have the guts” to hold an early poll. Judging by the president’s
actions this week, that prediction sounds premature. At the
convention of a big trade union, he promised a pay rise in January
for all public-sector employees. The next day, as General Fonseka
flew back to Colombo, the president took a helicopter to previously
Tiger-controlled areas and told soldiers that the salaries of all
security-force personnel would be raised with immediate effect. This
hardly sounds like a man shy of an early dash to the polls.


_____


[3] Pakistan:

Dawn, 8 November, 2009

BOXING THE FAITH

by Nadeem F. Paracha

Once upon a time, charity boxes of so-called Islamic welfare
organisations were a ubiquitous sight at shops in our cities. These
boxes were claimed to have been put there by the shopkeepers and
Islamic welfare groups to raise money for the building of mosques and
madressahs.

They started appearing in shops during Pakistan’s involvement in the
so-called anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad in the 1980s — a decade that saw
a proliferation of mosques and madressahs across the country, mostly
funded by aid from the Gulf countries, and patronised by the Ziaul
Haq dictatorship. By the 1990s, however, it became quite apparent
that the funds collected through these boxes weren’t necessarily
being used to build mosques and madressahs that were already thriving
and in abundance.

The money in this case was largely ending up in the laps of various
Kashmiri and Afghan Jihadi organisations, and from 1989 onwards,
sectarian organisations too started to place their respective charity
boxes at shops. Most of the charity boxes belonged to the Jamaatud
Dawah Pakistan, a so-called charity organisation formed in Lahore in
1985 by a former university professor of Islamic Studies.

The Dawah collected funds to provide healthcare to wounded Afghan and
Kashmiri Jihadis, and also claimed to be providing financial support
to the families of Islamist guerrillas killed in action. According to
the celebrated investigative journalist, Amir Mir’s book ‘The
Talibanisation of Pakistan,’ the Dawah became closely associated
with the notorious Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT) in 1990, an organisation
that eventually became the ‘military wing’ of the Dawah.

After the tragic 9/11 episode when Pakistan became an ally in the
West’s ‘War on Terror,’ the LeT was banned by the Musharraf
regime, but the Dawah was allowed to continue with its ‘charity
activities.’ Musharraf’s regime was constantly accused by American
and Indian intelligence agencies of taking only selective action
against Jihadi groups. According to Mir’s book, most of these groups
were said to be the handiwork of Pakistani intelligence agencies to
‘wage low intensity insurgencies in Indian Kashmir and Afghanistan.’

After the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks undertaken by Pakistani Jihadis
that India says were trained by the LeT, the democratically elected
government of Yousuf Raza Gilani finally banned the Dawah. The
organisation was also accused by the United Nations for aiding LeT
men in planning and conducting the Mumbai attacks. The Dawah chief,
Hafiz Saeed — a former member of the Jamat-i-Islami’s student
wing, the Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT) — denied his group’s
involvement in the Mumbai attacks.

The other prominent ‘charity organisation’ that fully utilised the
services of the charity box, was the Al-Rashid Trust. Formed in 1996,
the trust described itself as a ‘welfare organisation’, and one of
its original charters was to carry out welfare projects within
Pakistan, with financial resources provided by public donations. It
then expanded its mandate to carry out ‘relief activities’ for
Muslims in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan. It perceived the various
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) currently working in
Afghanistan as ‘enemies of Muslims.’

The trust also promoted the concept of Jihad. One of its numerous
booklets states: ‘The holy war is an essential element of Islam’
and that ‘every Muslim must carry weapons if the need would be felt
to fire on a non-Muslim.’ Suspected of raising funds for Al-Qaeda
and the Taliban, the Al-Rashid Trust was also banned by the UN in
December, 2008.

Earlier, the placing of charity boxes in shops by so-called Islamic
charity organisations was finally banned by the Musharraf regime in
2003 when Pakistan cracked down on certain Islamist organisations.

Shopkeepers defying the ban were heavily fined and some were arrested
for having links with the banned organisations. The Jihadi charity
box phenomenon across the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s was aided by
three main factors associated with the shopkeepers.

Firstly, a bulk of shop owners in urban Pakistan belongs to the
conservative petty-bourgeois class that heartily supported Ziaul
Haq’s ‘Islamisation process.’ Many shopkeepers actually believed
the charity was being used to build mosques.

Secondly, many shopkeepers could not decline to keep these boxes,
because those who did were harassed by Islamist organisations and
labelled as ‘American/Indian agents’ and ‘Quadianis.’ Lastly,
some shopkeepers actually did have links with Jihadi organisations,
and played a central role in raising funds through their business
connections with some wealthy overseas Pakistanis residing in various
Middle Eastern countries as businessmen, doctors and engineers.

Today, shops in Pakistan do not carry these charity boxes. Boxes
having logos and pleas of various Islamic charity organisations and
sectarian groups have now been replaced by boxes belonging to genuine
charity organisations, such as the Edhi Foundation, The Shaukat
Khanum Hospital Foundation, SUIT, The Kidney Centre, etc.

But some congested shopping areas in Karachi and Lahore still have a
few shops that have boxes pleading charity for mosques. Some believe
these are harmless, while others claim that the presence of these few
boxes proves that the ‘Islamist’ charity box menace is not fully
taken care of and may continue to raise funds for organisations bent
on creating havoc in the name of Islam.

_____


[4] India - Pakistan:

The Hindu, November 4, 2009

THE LIMITS OF COERCIVE DIPLOMACY

by Happymon Jacob

PTI PEACE IS AT HAND: In this July 16, 2009 photo Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani greet
each other during a bilateral meeting at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt.
Photo: PTI

India has achieved all it can hope to with its silence; there is
nothing more it can reasonably hope to gain by refusing to restart
the dialogue process with Pakistan.

The so-called ‘peace overture’ that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
made to Pakistan from the Kashmir Valley last week, came almost a
year after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and New Delhi’s
subsequent indefinite halt of the peace process with Islamabad. The
major dialogue channels between the two countries — the composite
dialogue and the back-channel negotiations — continue to remain
closed. Since November 2008, there have only been some underdeveloped
and half-hearted attempts towards a thaw in the prevailing icy state
of relations between the two countries. There seems to be no way
forward.

However, following mounting international pressure and an increasing
number of jihadist attacks on its soil, including an audacious
assault on the Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi and a
series of attacks on police installations in Lahore, Pakistan has
urged a resumption of dialogue with India. Dr. Singh’s peace
overture has come at a time when there is an urgent need to re-
examine India’s policy of ‘no-dialogue’ with Pakistan.

Has it worked?

It is perhaps an opportune time to ask whether the Indian strategy of
coercive diplomacy has worked against Pakistan. What has India gained
by not talking to Pakistan for 11 months, and what more is India
likely to gain if it continues along this path? Do New Delhi’s
foreign policy mandarins think India profits strategically by
refusing to engage Pakistan in discussion?

Do they assume that India can indefinitely retain the moral high
ground it thought it had when it broke off relations with Pakistan
last year? They seem to hold this assumption, erroneous though this
might be. As a result, New Delhi is not only losing precious time by
isolating itself from Pakistan, but is harming its own strategic
interests.

India has achieved all it can hope to with its silence; there is
nothing more it can reasonably hope to gain by refusing to restart
the dialogue process. Pakistan has accepted that the perpetrators of
26/11 came from its territory and has, in principle at least, agreed
to prosecute them. India also helped focus the attention of the
international community on Pakistan post-26/11. However, New Delhi’s
insistence that it will talk to Islamabad only after Jama’at-ud-
Da’wah (JuD) chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed is prosecuted may indeed be
demanding too much. India should work with Pakistan to initiate
Saeed’s prosecution rather than hounding Islamabad to go it alone: a
strategy of pure coercion and compellence with no reasonable payoff
is clearly counterproductive.

If New Delhi continues along this route, Pakistan may well up the
ante against India (through border incursions, for example) in an
attempt to bring India to the negotiating table: states have a
tendency to behave irrationally when pushed to the corner. India’s
strategy of compellence has never really worked against Pakistan. And
it is unlikely to work in the future.

Counterproductive

Not only is a ‘no-dialogue’ policy towards Pakistan not useful, it
is indeed counterproductive. Consider the following. First of all,
the former Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, is increasingly
becoming a ‘persona non-grata’ among the ruling elites of
Pakistan — both civilian and military. There is an emerging tendency
among many Pakistani politicians and retired generals who once worked
under Gen. Musharraf, to feign ignorance of his statements and
actions (especially vis-À-vis India) and to distance themselves from
him.

In other words, there is today a clear unwillingness in Pakistan to
own the political legacy of its former military dictator. It is now
widely recognised that the 2004-2008 peace process — which was
seriously considering out-of-the-box solutions to resolve outstanding
rifts — not only had the full support of Dr. Singh and Gen.
Musharraf but, through its back-channel route, had even prepared a
tentative blueprint for peace. More precisely, it is believed that
the bilateral back-channel negotiations had taken the peace process
on Jammu and Kashmir to a new level. If the new government and the
strategic community in Pakistan renege on Gen. Musharraf’s past
promises, there will be serious implications for Indo-Pakistan
relations, especially with respect to Kashmir.

Therefore, undoing Gen. Musharraf’s legacy will also mean undoing
the Indo-Pakistan peace process and all that it may have achieved
over time. If this process of demonising and demolishing Gen.
Musharraf’s legacy is already under way in Pakistan, then India’s
consistent refusal to engage Islamabad will only further contribute
to the undoing of the gains of the Indo-Pakistan peace process. In
other words, the Indian unwillingness to engage Pakistan will reverse
the gains that India had made in recent years in resolving its
conflicts with Pakistan.

Another emerging trend in Pakistan is to accuse India of sponsoring
terrorism against Pakistan. Today many in the Pakistan establishment
are making serious allegations that India supports the Baloch
insurgents as well as some Pakistan Taliban groups. While such
allegations may not be wholly new, what is perhaps new is the
focussed and predetermined manner in which these accusations are
being made today and the manner in which this argument is gaining
currency within Pakistan’s strategic elite. Although this may be
purely for domestic consumption — as the international audience is
unlikely to buy this line of argument — a Pakistani population and
civil society unfavourably disposed towards India is not something
New Delhi should ignore. It will be genuinely counterproductive for
Indian interests in the long term.

More so, this shows that there is a perceptible change in Pakistan’s
attitude: from being defensive and cornered in the months immediately
after 26/11, it is now on the offensive. To some extent this has been
a result of India’s overuse of coercive diplomacy, which it
continues to indulge in without properly weighing its options in a
cost-effective manner. Quite apart from the fact that this approach
has degraded relations between the two countries and made Pakistan
feel more insecure (which in turn may prompt it to be more
belligerent), it has led the international community to regard the
two countries as part of the problem rather than as part of the
solution. More so, the more time India spends refusing to have a
dialogue with Pakistan, the more difficult it will be for the country
to start talking if and when it decides to talk.

Status quo bias

New Delhi’s unwise handling of Pakistan is a result of a deep-seated
status quo bias that permeates New Delhi’s policy towards Pakistan,
terrorism, and even Kashmir which in many ways is the ‘ground
zero’ of Indo-Pakistan relations and India’s struggle against
terrorism. This status quo bias has manifestly narrowed the Indian
government’s understanding and approach to terrorism in the region.

New Delhi sometimes appears to consider terrorism a problem that is
unique to India, as though no other country has ever suffered its
consequences. It therefore persists with its demand that others (that
is, Pakistan) ‘fix’ the problem first before it (the perpetual
victim) will discuss other political and security issues.

This head-in-the-sand approach ignores the reality that terrorism is
a global/regional problem requiring a global/regional solution. This
solution can only be achieved in a cooperative mode and by creating
cooperative mechanisms to contain the menace of terror in the region.
And India needs to take the lead in this process, however challenging
and long-drawn-out it may turn out to be. It is imprudent to attempt
to enact unilateral measures to ‘control’ terrorism, precisely
because terrorists respect no borders and are by their very nature
extremely difficult to control.

A status quo bias may ‘benefit’ the painfully slow-moving Indian
political and bureaucratic apparatus, but it is not beneficial for a
country that desires to become a great power in an age of fast-
changing international politics. To start with, therefore, New Delhi
needs to shed its status quo bias and restart the dialogue with
Pakistan in its own long-term strategic interests.

o o o

Deccan Chronicle, November 6, 2009

PAK MUST ACCEPT INDIA’S OFFER OF PEACE

by I.A. Rehman

REGARDLESS of the views of the hawks in Pakistan’s establishment,
and howsoever strong they may be, Islamabad must give a positive
response to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s offer of peace.
Normal relations and mutually-beneficial cooperation between the two
closest South Asian neighbours has always been desirable for many
reasons but their urgency has been increased many times over by the
extremists’ challenge to the Pakistan state.
No sane person on either side of the border can deny that the threat
to the stability of Pakistan is also a threat to India’s vital
interests, and their joint efforts are needed to ensure victory over
the terrorists.
That Pakistan needs peace along its border with India in order to be
free to deal with the conflict in its tribal areas is only part of
the argument for establishing peace in the subcontinent. Much more
urgent is the need for India-Pakistan cooperation for winning the
battle for democracy, tolerance and social justice. Losses in this
battle will plunge the people of both India and Pakistan into
unimaginable ordeals.
Hitherto a common view in Pakistan has been that India is ignoring
the threat to itself posed by the terrorists’ campaign against
Pakistan.
There was reason to believe that the pro-confrontation lobby in India
saw in Pakistan’s predicament an opportunity to squeeze it for
concessions it might not be willing to make in normal times. Such
elements should not be expected to stop undermining the Indian Prime
Minister’s initiative.
It is in Pakistan’s interest to ensure that he is not forced by
anyone to withdraw his offer.
The Pakistan government too will be under pressure from hardliners in
its ranks and outside. Any compromise with such elements will cause
Pakistan irreparable harm. Islamabad should, therefore, press for the
earliest possible resumption of the composite dialogue with India.
Unfortunately, several new factors have fuelled tension between India
and Pakistan. One of them is the way the Ajmal Amir Kasab affair has
been dealt with by both sides.
The unnecessarily prolonged haggle over Kasab’s confessional
statement merely exposed the size of the trust deficit. Was it
impossible for India to supply Pakistan with an English translation
of the court and police record in Marathi and was it impossible for
Pakistan to get this work done?
Questions regarding the admissibility of a text not officially
admitted by India could have been sorted out in due course. The two
sides have to act in a spirit of cooperation to put the Mumbai
outrage behind them. Pakistani authorities have been accusing India
of interference in Balochistan and the tribal areas. One hopes they
have much more credible evidence to support their charges than the
use of Indian-made weapons by the Taliban in Waziristan or the
receipt of some funds by the Baloch nationalists from Afghanistan.
The extremists’ access to arms manufactured in a particular country
is no decisive proof of that country’s support for their cause and
experts in money-laundering have considerable experience in using
channels through any country. In any case, these complaints should be
addressed on an urgent basis at India-Pakistan joint meetings.
This matter will assume greater seriousness as India’s relations
with Afghanistan are likely to grow with faster speed than at
present. If Pakistan succumbs to the temptation of opposing India’s
overtures to Afghanistan it will only reduce the chances of
normalisation of relations with both Afghanistan and India.
A better way of protecting Pakistan’s interests in a democratic
Afghanistan would be to grant the latter its due place in South Asian
councils and develop a regional response to the twin curse of foreign
intervention and civil war that are perpetuating the Afghan people’s
three decades-long tribulations. No single power can guarantee
Afghanistan’s recovery and peaceful progress; the task can only be
accomplished by countries in Afghanistan’s vicinity (all of them,
including Pakistan and India) acting in concert.
The significance of the fact that Dr Singh chose to extend his hand
of peace while on a visit to Srinagar is unlikely to be missed by
Pakistani hawks. They will again advance settlement of the Kashmir
issue as a precondition for normal relations with India.
Nobody can deny the importance of the Kashmir issue, especially to
the people of Jammu and Kashmir who have been wronged by both India
and Pakistan.
But the disastrous consequences of sustaining a costly confrontation
until the Kashmir issue is resolved are too apparent to permit
persistence in this policy.
While talks to move towards a Kashmir settlement acceptable not only
to India and Pakistan but also, and more essentially, to the people
of Jammu and Kashmir, should continue, progress or setbacks in this
area must not obstruct other initiatives for cementing India-Pakistan
friendship and cooperation. More and more people are realising that a
Kashmir settlement will follow India-Pakistan friendship and not
precede it.
Above all, peace-loving people in both India and Pakistan are getting
weary of meetings and talks that do not result in increasing India’s
stakes in a stable and prosperous Pakistan and Pakistan’s stakes in
a stable and prosperous India. Apart from giving a boost to India-
Pakistan trade it is necessary to think of joint industrial ventures
and meaningful cooperation in the fields of agriculture, education,
health and culture.
It is possible that the current political crisis in Pakistan will be
advanced by one side or another to put India-Pakistan bilateral talks
on hold. The time for using such arguments has passed. In today’s
situation the only sensible course is to press on with establishing
peace in the subcontinent regardless of the political crises in
either country or a change of regime here or there.


o o o

JAILED FISHERMEN AWAIT THAW IN INDIA-PAKISTAN RELATIONS
by Zofeen Ebrahim
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49130

_____


[5]  India:

The Telegraph
7 November 2009

THE HONEST LEFTIST
- K. Balagopal was the conscience of Andhra society
Politics and Play - Ramachandra Guha

In a recent lecture, delivered in Mumbai in memory of Nani
Palkhivala, the home minister, P. Chidambaram, attacked “left-
leaning intellectuals” and “human rights groups”, who, in his
view, “plead the naxalite cause ignoring the violence unleashed by
the naxalites on innocent men, women and children”. “Why are the
human rights groups silent?” asked the home minister.

The short answer is that they aren’t, and haven’t been, silent.
There are very many intellectuals and rights activists who have
regularly condemned — in newspapers as well as in specialist
journals — Maoist methods such as the recruitment of juveniles as
militants, the indiscriminate use of landmines, the killings of
alleged informers, and the murders of forest guards and police
constables who cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be dubbed
‘class enemies’.

It may just be that Chidambaram is new to the job, and that in his
previous assignments his reading chiefly consisted of business
magazines and stock market reports. It seems that he has been ill
served by his assistants, who are paid precisely to avoid their
ministers making such obvious factual mistakes in public.

If this assumption is correct, then the deficiencies can be remedied
easily enough by the home minister being asked to read the writings
of an intellectual who died the very week of his Palkhivala lecture.
His name was K. Balagopal. Balagopal was described (by a younger
friend) as “the conscience of the collective self known as Andhra
society” — with reason, as for 30 years and more his chief focus
of work and writing had been the politics and culture of his home state.

However, he was revered outside Andhra Pradesh too — in Kashmir,
which he once referred to as the “only foreign country I have
visited”; in Chhattisgarh, where he was among the first to document
the excesses of the vigilante movement that goes under the name of
Salwa Judum; in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and other cities,
where his work for human rights was admired by those who sought to
emulate him while knowing that they could never match his
intellectual originality or his physical and moral courage.

Indians active in human rights usually come from a humanistic
background — they are most often lawyers, social scientists, or
journalists. Among the exceptions are the man who founded the first
human rights organization in independent India — the engineer, Kapil
Bhattacharya — and Balagopal. After taking a PhD in mathematics from
Warangal, Balagopal taught for several years at Kakatiya University.
Then, in the mid-1980s, he was forced to quit his job, and turned to
working fulltime on civil liberties. In the late 1990s he acquired a
law degree; now, his vocation complemented his activism, for the
cases he fought in court were usually on behalf of subaltern groups
victimized or harassed by the State.

In person, Balagopal could appear forbiddingly austere. Small talk
and invocation of common friends got one nowhere — as I discovered
when we were once placed on a panel together. But it was enough to
hear him speak, and more so, to read him in print. His fellow Andhras
read him in Telugu; the rest of us, in the Economic and Political
Weekly, where he wrote regularly from the early 1980s until his
death. His English prose was direct and economical — as befitting a
mathematician, although I am told that in his own language he would
allow himself an occasional flourish, as befitting the grandson of a
major Telugu poet.

Like some others of his generation, Balagopal was powerfully shaped
by the Emergency, against whose authoritarian excesses it was then
automatic to juxtapose the youthful idealism of the Naxalites. And it
was undeniably the case that in his native Andhra only the Naxalites
worked among the very poor — such as the sharecroppers and landless
labourers of Telengana, and the poor and often destitute tribals of
the Agency areas.

Over the years, Balagopal arrived at a less romantic view of the
Naxalites. He deplored their cult of violence in articles in English
and, perhaps more effectively, in articles in Telugu that were
directed at and read by the objects of his criticism. In the late
1990s, he wrote a brilliant essay that anatomized the means, foul and
often brutal, used by Maoists to enhance their power and dominance
over recalcitrant individuals and groups. (In what follows, I rely on
a translation by the historian Rajagopal Vakulabharanam.) Here
Balagopal dealt in detail with various cases of harassment,
intimidation and murder practised by Maoist groups in Andhra Pradesh.
He wrote that “we should publicly interrogate those who claim for
themselves the right to kill for the sake of ‘progress’ and the
wisdom to define what is progress. We need not hesitate to critique
those who do not hesitate to usurp the rights of others, including
their right to live, for the sake of revolution”. “[If] Naxalites
had any respect for the humanistic values or the sentiments of those
close to whom they kill,” he remarked, “they will not kill them by
smashing their faces in such a way that they are virtually
unrecognizable.”

To be sure, Balagopal also wrote often (and perhaps more often) of
crimes and errors on the other side, of how the police and
paramilitary brutalized innocent citizens in the name of Law and
Order, of how politicians and industrialists seized the land of poor
peasants in the name of promoting ‘Development’ while in fact
lining their own pockets. In his last years, he was particularly
active in opposing the acquistion of farmland for special economic
zones in Andhra Pradesh. In sum, Balagopal refused to accept, from
either State or Maoist, the justification of “a culture and
mentality which celebrates power and use of force in society”.

Balagopal was that altogether rare animal, a genuinely independent
Indian intellectual, whose moral clarity and commitment to the truth
meant that he could not resort to special pleading for any party or
interest. The flawed institutions of our imperfect democracy were all
subject to his rigorous scanner — the police, the judiciary, the
bureaucracy, and not least, corrupt and authoritarian politicians.
When Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy was first elected chief minister,
Balagopal wrote that while a pliant media sought to clothe him with
“the image of a good doctor who has turned to politics to cure
society”, in truth YSR was “anything but a vendor of humane
visages. His rise to power has been accompanied by more bloodshed
than that of any other politician in this state”. As it happens, he
was also among the first to see through YSR’s predecessor, pointing
out that “Chandrababu [Naidu] is merely an ambitious political
schemer who has managed to con quite a lot of intelligent people
because he knows their hunger for the image he has put on — a third
world politician in the mould of a corporate executive spewing IT
jargon and the verbiage of the World Bank’s development policy
prejudices — is too acute for the normal functioning of their other
senses”.

Those concerned with the security of the State often criticize human
rights workers for living in an ivory tower, for not knowing the law,
and for making excuses for the Naxalites. When (or if) made against
Balagopal, none of these charges held any water. He knew rural India
intimately: a tireless fieldworker, he had explored, on foot or in
crowded buses, almost every district of Andhra as well as many
districts in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and Kashmir. He was extremely well
acquainted with the Indian Penal Code as well as the Constitution,
and hence could pinpoint how, and in what measure, the State had
violated its own laws. And no one could accuse him of being a Maoist
apologist.

His friends and readers shall mourn Balagopal’s death, at the
comparatively young age of fifty-seven. On the other hand, the
ideologues and leaders of the Maoist movement are probably quite
relieved at his passing. That caveat ‘probably’ can be dispensed
with when it comes to the Andhra police, Andhra politicians, and the
Union home ministry. For the most credible critic of their crimes and
impunities has unexpectedly been removed from their midst.


_____


[6]

The Economic and Political Weekly, October 31 - November 06, 2009

TWO PARALLEL NARRATIVES

by Sumanta Banerjee

The case of the Sri Ram Sene leader Pramod Muthalik, who is facing
some 40 criminal cases in Karnataka, epitomises the Indian state's
pussyfooting in dealing with Hindu religious extremists, while that
of the Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy typifies the same state's trampling
down on dissenters upholding the cause of the poorer classes.  In
parallel, the confrontation between the morality of those who govern
the Indian state and that of their Maoist opponents can best be
encapsulated in a recapitulation of the careers of Union Home
Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram and the Maoist ideologue Kobad Ghandy.

Two recent incidents in New Delhi suggest how the Indian state
applies different yardsticks to treat its  opponents. On 19
September, Pramod Muthalik, the Sri Ram Sene leader, who is facing
some 40 criminal cases in Karnataka for attacking women in pubs,
vandalising churches, and delivering inflammatory speeches directed
against religious minorities, had free access to an ashram in
Pahargunj in Delhi, where he addressed hundreds of delegates of some
18 militant Hindu organisations from 11 states. In his public speech,
he exhorted them to follow his tactics to defend Hinduism, and
announced the formation of a 15-member body to co- ordinate such
activities all over India. The deputy commissioner of  police, under
whose jurisdiction Pahargunj falls, later told reporters that he had
no  information of the meeting. Muthalik is still at large, moving
around and recruiting cadres.  Two days later - 21 September - the
Delhi police announced the arrest of Kobad Ghandy,  a member of the
Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)] politburo.  The
national press reported that the Andhra Pradesh police, the Delhi
police and the  Intelligence Bureau, had nabbed this top Maoist from
a hideout in Delhi the previous day, in a joint operation. They
accused him of "preaching Maoism" in Pune, Nagpur, Mumbai, Patna,
Bhubaneshwar and other places. When on 24 September, a lawyer met him
in jail, Kobad Ghandy gave out the real story. He was  actually
kidnapped by the police on 17 September at Bhikaji Cama Place, and
was then kept under  illegal detention for four days, during which
time he was subjected to grilling and torture for hours. A cardiac
patient, and also suffering from prostate cancer, Ghandy had come to
Delhi for treatment.  He now remains incarcerated in Tihar Jail.  The
two incidents epitomise the Indian state's dual policy of
pussyfooting in dealing with Hindu religious extremists on the one
hand, and trampling down on dissenters upholding the cause of the
poorer classes on the other. The Congress-led  government in
Maharashtra till today has refused to take action against the Sangh
parivar goons who had been indicted by the Srikrishna Commission for
killing Muslims in 1992-93. It allows the Shiv Sena and other Hindu
armed outfits to go on the rampage against exhibitions and cultural
functions by secular organisations in Mumbai. Conceding to their
demand, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government
at the  centre continues to deny protection to  India's famous artist
Maqbool Fida  Husain, who because of the threat to his life by the
Hindu extremist groups, is forced to live in exile.  In sharp
contrast to this appeasement of Hindu  religious armed outfits, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh has come out with an aggressive policy
targeting the Maoists as the "gravest threat". In other words, he is
willing to ignore those (the Sangh parivar leaders) who are openly
defying the basics of the Indian Constitution enshrined in its
Preamble - belief in a "...Socialist, Secular Democratic Republic and
to...promote...  Fraternity assuring the dignity of the indi- vidual
and the unity and integrity of the Nation..." Yet, he is keen on
pouncing upon the Maoists, who, ironically enough, openly announce
their commitment (in their  Sumanta Banerjee (suman5ban@...) is
best known for his book In the Wake of Naxalbari: A History of the
Naxalite Movement in India (1980). party programme) to these very
basics of the Preamble. In fact, in their areas of control (described
as the "Red Corridor" by the media), they have been able to  secure
to the villagers at least two of the three conditions guaranteed by
the Indian Constitution's Preamble - "Justice, social, economic and
political" and "Equality of status and opportunity..."  This has been
confirmed not only by non-partisan media reports, but also by the
government's own Planning Commission expert group. (As for the other
condition - "Liberty of thought, expression,  belief, faith and
worship" - the Maoists, one has to admit, have shown a woeful
disregard for such concerns, there- by  besmirching their positive
image.) That there is a deliberate design in this lopsided reversal
of priorities of the Indian state (whether under the present UPA or
the previous National Democratic Alliance government) is confirmed by
the union home minister's recent stress on apprehending the political
ideologues of the Maoist movement. "Besides taking them (the Maoists)
on in jungles, the union government has decided to pluck out the top
leadership to render the Maoists rudderless..." (www.ex-
pressbuzz.com, 25 September 2009). The arrest of Kobad Ghandy - one
such ideo- logue - is therefore being claimed as a "big catch" by the
union home ministry. But if we look at the other end of the pole, it
is surely not mere oversight that the political ideologues of the
Sangh parivar - leaders like Pramod Muthalik, Bal Thackeray, Vinay
Katiyar, Praveen  Togadia, who openly preach violence against
religious minorities and secular forces - are seldom touched by the
police. The Indian state winks at them - since they pose a threat
only to the minority section of the population, whose interests have
been already sacrificed by the politicians at the altar of
majoritarian  nation alism. The concept of the Indian  nation state
is fashioned either by the  ideal of "Hindu Rashtra" of the Sangh
parivar, or the "soft Hindutva" of the Congress Party, which is
generally shared by the various other political parties, whether
regional or national, which may claim to be secular.

A Tale of Two Leaders

In the meantime, the confrontation between the morality of those who
govern the Indian state and that of their Maoist opponents can be
best encapsulated in a recapitulation of the careers of two
participants in the contest. One of them  is the Union Home Minister
Palaniappan Chidambaram and the other is the Maoist ideologue whom
the former's police have captured as a prime catch - Ghandy. Both of
them are contemporaries - Chidambaram born in 1945, and Ghandy a year
later. Both shared a common background of upper class upbringing and
education. Chidambaram hails from the aristocratic family of
Chettiars of Tamil Nadu, did his Masters in Business Administration
from Harvard, came back to India to practise law, and then joined
politics to  finally occupy the present position of the union home
minister.  Ghandy comes from a Mumbai-based upper- class Parsi
family, his father being a prosperous businessman. He completed his
schooling from the prestigious Doon School and joined Bombay's St
Xaviers' College.  He then went to London to pursue studies in
chartered accountancy. While in  England, he became initiated into
leftist politics. On returning to Mumbai, he became active in the
anti-Emergency movement during 1975-77.

The careers of the two individuals are  a study in contrast. Let us
examine Chidambaram's biodata. During his tenure as a minister of
state in the union commerce ministry under Prime Minister  Narasimha
Rao, he was found to have invested in Fair-growth, a company
allegedly involved in the securities scam - an exposure which
compelled him to resign from the government on 10 July 1992. In 1997,
during his next stint as a minister at the centre, he came up with
the dubious proposal called "voluntary disclosure of income scheme"
which granted income tax defaulters indefinite immunity from
prosecution!  The proposal invited condemnation from the Comptroller
and Auditor General of India, who in his report that year described
it as "abusive and fraud on the genuine taxpayers of the country".
There is no end to Chidambaram's unsavoury associations. He
represented the controversial British mining conglomerate Vedanta
Resources (of whose board of directors he was a member) in the Mumbai
High Court till 2003, when he became the union finance minister.
After assuming the ministerial office, significantly enough, he is
not known to have taken any measure to recover the massive tax dues
that the Vedanta group company Sterlite Optical Technologists Ltd
owed the government.

While Chidambaram worked his way up in the political ladder through a
combination of profitable legal practice on behalf of the corporate
sector, and party-hopping (from Congress to Tamil Manila Congress and
then again to the Congress when the UPA came to power in 2004),
Ghandy chose a different path on his return to India from London.
After having taken part in the anti-Emergency movement, he played a
leading role in  establishing the Committee for the Protection of
Democratic Rights (CPDR) in Mumbai in the late 1970s. Under his able
leadership, the organisation took up the  issue of human rights of
the oppressed poor, not only in Maharashtra, but other parts of India
through coordination with similar organisations like the People's
Union of Democratic Rights, the People's Union of Civil Liberties,
the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, and the Association for
the Protection of Democratic Rights.  It was in this capacity that he
came to be known to us in the civil liberties movement. All through
the 1980s, Ghandy campaigned for the persecuted poor on the human
rights platform, through the available democratic means. But down the
line, at one stage, may be from his frustrating  experiences as a
human rights activist, he could have realised that neither the
administration nor the judiciary was prepared to listen to the voices
of the oppressed. He joined the Maoist movement, and went underground
at the end of the 1990s. With his wife Anuradha Shanbag (an equally
brave woman who left her comfortable upper middle class home to join
the move- ment), Ghandy moved to Nagpur where he lived amongst the
poor, and took up the responsibility of propagating and publicising
the ideology and practice of his party.  While underground,  Anuradha
was struck by cerebral malaria, and deprived of proper medical
treatment in the conditions in which they lived, she passed away in
April 2008. Kobad also developed cardiac problems and suffered from
prostate cancer - ailments which led him to seek treatment in Delhi,
where he was  arrested.  Babes in the Wood, or Snakes  in the Grass?

Meanwhile, while Ghandy languishes in jail, his contemporary in
politics, Union Home Minister Chidambaram has come up, apparently
with the blessings of his prime minister, with the ill-conceived
militarist measure, pompously called Operation Green Hunt. It
threatens to clear the Maoist-dominated "Red Corridor" through an all-
out offensive (including possible air-attacks on their bases in
densely populated tribal areas), after which "developmental
activities" (the  euphemistic term used to describe the state's
permission to the corporate sector's unbridled exploitation of the
natural resources) can be undertaken in those areas. At the same
time, in the face of stiff resistance by the Maoists and widespread
criticism of such an operation by human rights groups, Chidambaram is
now announcing his  willingness to talk to the Maoists if they abjure
violence. But the talks can take place only when the state also
abjures violence.  The Maoists (in Lalgarh in West Bengal - the
present boiling point)  demand the withdrawal of the security forces
whose atrocities there on the tribal populace provoked the violent
retaliation against the state. In Chhattisgarh again, the Maoists are
demanding an end to the violence by the state-sponsored Salwa Judum
and the security forces. These are legitimate demands which have
attracted worldwide attention (through reports by human rights
groups).  But instead of responding to these de- mands in a positive
humanitarian way, the cabinet duo - the prime minister and the home
minister - seems to be marching to- wards disaster, from either
monstrous innocence, or bloated self confidence. Their bungling is
not confined to the Maoist problem. Whether it is the insurgencies in
the north-east or Kashmir, or popular  upsurges against special
economic zones (SEZs) in other parts of the country - the two are
responding with knee-jerk reactions to the "sea of troubles" that are
overwhelming the Indian state. In the trouble-torn north-eastern
state of Manipur, for instance, the UPA government digs its head in
an ostrich-like position in retaining the infamous Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act, against which the Manipuri people have been
fighting for decades - their  protest exploding into public outbursts
following the exposure of the recent killing of innocent men and
women in the name of an "encounter" with terrorists. Demanding the
withdrawal of the Act, Irom Sharmila had been fasting for the last
nine years - being forcibly fed in  police custody.  Although the
case has drawn worldwide condemnation from  human rights activists,
neither the Indian prime minister nor the Congress president (both of
whom enjoy reputation as humanitarian personalities among world
politicians) has cared to show an iota of concern for the plight of
Sharmila and her people.

In Kashmir, the centre continues to bungle over one incident after
another - the latest being its confusion over the state government's
handling of the Shopian rape case, which provoked a resurgence of
mass demonstrations in the streets of Srinagar, and which were met
again with the usual response of shooting down of protestors.  The
UPA government's worst militarist response however is reserved for
those who are known as Maoists or Naxalites - who have been described
by the prime minister as "the gravest threat". Lauded by his admirers
for his sober and discerning stance on controversial issues, he seems
to lose his cool whenever it comes to the Maoists.  Strangely enough,
neither he nor his home minister appears to be perturbed in the least
by what should be considered as the "gravest threat" to Indian
democracy.  It is posed by the home-grown armed outfits (as distinct
from the terrorist infiltrators from Pakistan) of the Sangh parivar -
publicly operating in the names of the  Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu
Parishad, and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It is they who by their
violence have accounted for the largest number of killings of
innocent members of the minority communities all over India - during
Advani's infamous Rathyatra, the demolition of Babri Masjid, the
aftermath of the Godhra train fire in Gujarat, the massacre of
Christians in Orissa, and the continuing onslaughts that are taking
place in  Karnataka and other places. The Bharatiya Janata Party's
recent defeat in the elections should not blind  us to the still
alive monster of terrorism represented by the Sangh parivar's thugs
and militia.

Yet, we find the prime minister and his home minister totally
impervious to this threat, and are instead aiming their guns at
outbursts of popular protests which stem from genuine grievances -
whether the denial of political rights to the  Kashmiris or the
Manipuris, or the  deprivation of economic and social rights of the
adivasis in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal's Jangalmahal. At
times, I wonder whether these two eminent members of the union
cabinet are babes in the wood being led up the garden path by their
advisers in the bureaucracy and the intelligence services - who have
acquired over the years the unsavoury reputation of always misreading
the ground reality, misleading their ministers with wishful thinking,
and misdirecting them into a suicidal path. Or, are these two
gentlemen, hitherto known for their sagacity, deliberately treading
into the grass of an unknown territory - obsessed with the delusion
of a militarist solution to the explosion of popular grievances?


_____


[7] INDEPENDENT CITIZENS FACT FINDING MISSION TO MANIPUR

Imphal, 7th November, ‘09

PRESS RELEASE

A team of concerned citizens comprising Dr. K.S. Subramanian, IPS
(retd.), formerly of the Manipur-Tripura cadre and currently Visiting
Professor, Jamia Millia University, New Delhi, Sumit Chakravartty,
Editor, Mainstream, Kavita Srivastava, PUCL National Secretary, and
Vasundhara Jairath of Delhi Solidarity Group is on a fact finding
mission to Manipur from 5th of November onwards in the wake of the
heightened tensions in the State since July 2009.

http://www.sacw.net/article1210.html

_____


[8]

The Guardian, 6 November 2009

EU TRAMPLES ON INDIA'S POOR

The EU is pushing an unsavoury free trade deal that would force India
to give up control of its banking sector and drugs industry

by David Cronin

The punishing schedules that world leaders follow don't leave much
room for reflection. So I suspect that senior EU figures visiting New
Delhi today are not dwelling on the enduring relevance of Mahatma
Gandhi's teachings, even as they lay a wreath in his honour at the
Raj Ghat memorial. Nor are they sifting through the abundant evidence
in present-day India that proves Gandhi's aphorism: "Poverty is the
worst form of violence."

The European commission hopes that the latest annual summit can give
a new impetus to talks aimed at reaching a comprehensive free trade
agreement between the two sides. Three years ago India was identified
as the second most important "emerging" market on the radar screen of
trade officials when the commission issued Global Europe, a blueprint
for enabling rich multinational companies to penetrate every corner
of the globe. The first was South Korea, with which the EU clinched a
trade agreement in October.

Peter Mandelson, the EU's trade commissioner for much of this decade,
continues to present India as an economic titan, telling the UK-India
Business Council that he viewed the launching of free trade talks
with New Delhi as one of his greatest achievements. When he arrived
in Brussels in 2004, Mandelson was "struck by a sense that Europe
didn't quite get the pace of Indian change and the implications for
the global economy", he said.

What Mandelson didn't say is that hundreds of millions of Indians
have been excluded from the benefits of the robust growth that left
him so mesmerised. Just as he famously mistook mushy peas for
guacamole, he seems to think that India comprises only a burgeoning
middle class and gleaming skyscrapers. That India has one of the
highest concentrations of poor people on this planet has escaped his
attention. Estimates of what proportion of its billion-plus
inhabitants subsist on less than a dollar a day vary from about 40%
(according to the World Bank) to nearly 80% (according to a report in
2007, commissioned by the Indian government). Regardless of which
source is most accurate, it's clear that extreme hardship is widespread.

Mandelson's successor in Brussels, Catherine Ashton, isn't any
better. She has kept the trade talks with India high on her list of
priorities. She has also kept the details of the discussions secret
to ensure that they will not be subject to anything as irksome as
democratic scrutiny. Still, drafts of the agreement that her aides
are pushing India to sign have leaked. And their contents are
frightening.

An analysis by the fair trade organisation Traidcraft has exposed how
the EU's preferred agreement is driven by the flawed thinking that
helped cause the financial crisis. As part of a deregulation agenda,
India would be required to effectively cede control of its banking
sector to the masters of global capitalism. Foreign banks are
currently allowed to open only 12 new branches in India per year; the
EU is pushing vigorously for that restriction to be scrapped.

Worse, the EU is demanding that India should accept standards of
intellectual property that go beyond those agreed at the World Trade
Organisation. Once the related provisions enter into force, India
would have to tailor its evolving patent regime more to serve the
profits of pharmaceutical corporations than the medical needs of its
population. India's status as a leading manufacturer of low-cost
generic drugs would be imperilled if EU trade officials and their
chums in the pharmaceutical industry have their way.

It is scandalous that the unsavoury consequences of the free trade
agreement are receiving scant attention from the mainstream press in
both Europe and Asia. Awed by free trade rhetoric, The Business
Standard in India has reported that the negotiators are striving to
create an "almost Lennonesque utopia", where Indian lawyers will be
able to practise freely in Spain and aspiring epicures in Delhi could
"enjoy a buttery glass of French wine without having to spend a
month's wage on it". The Japan Times, meanwhile, has noted that the
EU is vying with Japan to first sign a free trade agreement with the
Delhi government. "The race for India is on," the paper says, a
conclusion that should make anyone with a knowledge of the country's
history shudder.

"The weak can never forgive," Gandhi also said. "Forgiveness is an
attribute of the strong." India's poor have every right to be
incensed at how their government is being pushed into signing trade
agreements that are inimical to their interests. Forgiveness for the
harm inflicted on the poor probably won't be sought; it certainly
won't be granted.


_____


[9] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i) Sign the Online Petition to Indonesian Authorities to Rescind
Their Invitation to Modi

http://www.petitiononline.com/modi09/petition.html

To:  Government of Indonesia

Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia
50-A, Chanakyapuri
New Delhi - 110 021
INDIA

Email: iembassy@...

Your Excellency, Mr. Ambassador:

This is in reference to a published report on October 9th, 2009 by
DeshGujarat (http://deshgujarat.com/2009/10/09/gujarat-cm-narendra-
modi-accepts-invitation-to-visit-indonesia/) that the Chief Minister
of Gujarat, Mr. Narendra Modi has been invited to visit Indonesia by
Mr. Syavral Yasin Limpo, Governor of Indonesia’s South Sulawesi
province.

In February 2002, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi presided
over and orchestrated widespread riots in which about 2000 hapless
Muslims were massacred and more than 200,000 were rendered homeless.
The execution of what has been called the Gujarat Genocide has been
widely reported and documented by the media (http://www.tehelka.com/
home/20071103/ ; http://bit.ly/qR7fO ; http://bit.ly/qOdTB)

Tens of thousands of displaced Muslims are still unable to return to
their homes fearing further attacks. The process of justice has been
subverted to deny justice to the victims. There have been many
incidences of harassment of Christians and burning of Churches.

Mr. Modi and 61 others that include cabinet colleagues, policemen and
civil servants currently are under criminal investigation by the
Special Investigation Team (SIT) specially constituted by the Supreme
Court of India for their role into allegations of mass murder and
criminal conspiracy.

The US and many European countries have already denied entry visa to
Mr. Modi in punishment for his role in the Gujarat carnage. More
recently Sultanate of Oman denied Mr. Modi’s claim that he was
invited by Oman (http://twocircles.net/2009oct25/
oman_modi_sorry_we_have_not_invited_you.html). With the well-deserved
harvest of global condemnation, Mr. Modi is desperately courting
foreign investments and collaboration to mend his image as a
progressive in an effort towards a political restitution, through a
visit to Indonesia. The question is - Will Indonesia offer Mr. Modi
that restitution, by legitimizing his record of promoting hatred and
violence against the minority Muslims and Christians of Gujarat.

We, the signatories to this petition, request the genteel, peace and
justice loving people of Indonesia, and the enlightened government of
His Excellency Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to rescind visa to Mr. Modi
and make investments and collaborations with the Gujarat government
contingent on justice to the innocent victims of the Gujarat
Massacre. This will reaffirm the morality-based friendship of
Indonesia and India, without the stain of appearing to condone Mr.
Modi’s crimes against humanity.

Respectfully,

Najid Hussain: najidhussain@...
Mirza A. Beg: mirza.a.beg@...
Zafar Iqbal: raabta1@...
Tariq Farooqi: tfarooqi2000@...
Fazal R. Khan: fazalr_khan@...
Nishrin Hussain: nishrinh@...


o o o

(ii) LAMB ALLIES WITH WOLF!  The Myth of Love Jihad

by Ram Puniyani

At a point of time there was a slogan by RSS combine, Pehle Kasai
Phir Isai (First the Muslims then the Christians). And lo and behold
that was the pattern of communal violence. First it began against
Muslims and in the decade of 1990s Christians were also put on the
chopping block. It must be a real ingenuity of RSS combine, popularly
called Sangh Parivar to rope in the Kerala Bishops Council to fight
against the Love-Jihad, a word coined by their propaganda mill, a
word which combines two words and converts them in to a tool to
torment the lovers, in case the boy happens to be a Muslim and the
girl a non Muslim. It is the latest tool to launch attack against
Muslim minorities.

http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/myth-of-love-jihad.html


_____


[10] Announcements:

(i)  TWO DAY NATIONAL SEMINAR ON MAULANA ABUL KALAM AZAD AND THE
NATIONAL EDUCATION SYSTEM

Organised by the National University of Educational Planning and
Administration (NUEPA)
& Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi

Date: November 11 & 12, 2009
Venue:   NMML, Teen Murti House, New Delhi

Programme

11 November 2009

Inauguration: 10 AM to 11 AM
Welcome: R. Govinda (Vice Chancellor, NUEPA)
A Brief Introduction: S. Irfan Habib
Inaugural Address: Shri  Somnath Chatterjee (Former Speaker,  Lok
Sabha)
Vote of Thanks: Mridula Mukherjee (Director, NMML)

Tea

Session I: 11.30 AM to 1.30 PM

CHAIRPERSON:  Deepak Kumar
S. Irfan Habib: ‘Maulana Azad and the Beginnings in Education and
Culture’
Syeda Hameed: ‘Reflecting the Educational Philosophy of Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad and K. G. Saiyadain’
Mushirul Hasan:  ‘Images of Jamia‘

Lunch

Session II: 2.30 PM to 5.30 PM

CHAIRPERSON: Arjun Dev
Salil Mishra: ‘Challenges in the Writing of History Textbooks’
Vinod Raina: ‘Maulana’s Commitment to Free and Compulsory
Education and the Right to Education Bill 2009’
Akhtar Siddiqui: ‘Maulana Azad and Teacher Education’

5.45 PM

High Tea with the Hon’ble Minister Shri Kapil Sibal

6.15 PM

Address by Shri Kapil Sibal

6.30 PM to 7.30 PM

Widely acclaimed Solo Play “Maulana Abul Kalam Azad” by veteran
actor Tom Alter, directed by Dr. Sayeed Alam

Dinner

12 November 2009

Session III: 10 AM to 11.30 AM

CHAIRPERSON: Dipankar Gupta
Krishna Kumar:  ‘Combating Divisive Forces through Education’
Rizwan Qaiser:  'Madarsa Islamia, Ranchi: Maulana Azad's
Experimentation with Madarsa Education'

Tea

Session IV: 12.00 AM to 1.30 PM

CHAIRPERSON: Mridula Mukherjee
Geetanjali Surendran: ‘Looking Back at the Institutions of Art and
Culture ‘
Mukul Priyadarshini: ‘Implications of the Choice of Medium of
Instruction’
Sanaya Nariman: ‘Disadvantaged Groups, Democracy, Drop-out Rates and
Curriculum Reforms’

Lunch

Session V: 2.30 PM to 4.00 PM

CHAIRPERSON: Harsh Sethi
Dhruv Raina: ‘Dr. Zakir Husain’s Notion of a Modern University for
India’
Sudhanshu Bhushan: ‘Policy Processes in Higher Education’
Dinesh Abrol: ‘Evolution of Higher Education: From UGC to HEC’

o o o

   (ii)

Applications are sought for the Ambedkar Sanskrit Fellowship at
Columbia University in the City of New York. This is a five-year
award covering tuition and stipend. One fellowship will be awarded
for the academic year 2010-11 (deadline for application to the
Department of Middle East, South Asia, and African Studies is January
4, 2010), and, it is anticipated, two more in each of the following
two years. Applicants are expected to have completed work at the
Master's level prior to admission. Preliminary inquiries, including a
brief statement of purpose explaining what the applicant intends to
study and why that course of study, may be directed to Sheldon
Pollock, sp2356@...


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | October 19 - November 4, 2009 | Dispatch
No. 2662 - Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1]  The Afghan election: a five-star debacle (Simon Tisdall)
         + Remember the Women? (Ann Jones)
[2] Sri Lanka outcry over police brutality (Charles Haviland)
        + Growing strains (B. Muralidhar Reddy)
[3]  Pakistan: Stories from the Baloch resistance movement  -
Interview with Chakar Khan (Malik Siraj Akbar)
        "We Refuse to Be Held to Ransom By Terrorism" - Beena Sarwar
interviews Veena Masud
[4]  Can petty minds create a South Asian confederation? (Jawed Naqvi)
[5]  India: War on Terror & counter terror, Impunity, Lack of Justice
& Eroding Human Rights
        -  SC has failed country on Batla case (Editorial, Mail Today)
        -  'Give me one week to bring peace' (Anita Aikara)
        -  A Citzens Fact Finding Report on the Demolition of Vanvasi
Chetna Ashram, Dantewada, Chhattisgarh
        - What made Mahato a political fugitive (Monobina Gupta)
        - NDTV Panel Discussion on Maoism
        - Mr Chidambaram’s War - How many soldiers will it take to
contain the mounting rage of hundreds of millions of people?
(Arundhati Roy)
        - Concerned Citizens Statement on the “Maoist” Violence
        - India must change the discourse from violence to democracy
(Manoranjan Mohanty)
        - Madhya Pradesh: A Social Movement for People's Rights under
attack - NBA activists arrested and intimidated - Peaceful protest
continue
[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists
         (i) The MF Husain controversy: Identity, intent and the rise
of militant fascism (Beena Sarwar)
         (ii) Protect me? They can’t even protect my art: M F Husain
(Anubha Sawhney Joshi & Himanshi Dhawan)
         (iii) And now politics of cultural virginity (Charu Gupta)
         (iv) Love or Holy War (Vidyadhar Gadgil)
[7]  Announcements:
Sunil Janah's photographic epic: India 1939 - 1971 (New Delhi, 7
November 2009)

_____


[1] Afghanistan:

(i)

The Guardian, 1 November 2009

THE AFGHAN ELECTION: A FIVE-STAR DEBACLE

With the UN's reputation in tatters and Washington in denial over
Abdullah's exit, Obama must turn this round or look like a loser

by Simon Tisdall

In Afghanistan's disreputable 2009 presidential election, everyone's
a loser. Hamid Karzai's "victory", achieved by fraud and now by
default, has left him a tarnished, diminished figure. The US
administration that orchestrated the whole process still lacks the
credible partner in Kabul it says is essential for success.

The UN's reputation for probity lies critically wounded in the
gutter, a victim of inaction and bitter infighting among officials.
Nato's mission looks even more rudderless and ill-defined than
before. The cause of the Afghan people, bemused and terrorised by
turns, is no further forward and may in truth have been set back.

US officials risked ridicule by claiming the election process
remained credible, despite the decision of Abdullah Abdullah,
Karzai's only remaining rival, to pull out of a second round run-off.
Referring to wildly dissimilar American election precedents,
secretary of state Hillary Clinton said his withdrawal did not
necessarily destroy the validity of the run-off – even if only one
candidate was running.

"It's not surprising that he [Abdullah] is not going to contest an
election he wasn't going to win," an unnamed White House official
told the Washington Post. "This is not a challenge in any way to the
process of choosing the next Afghan president. This is politics." The
official went on: "However this shakes out, it does not affect the
legitimacy of the process."

This creative interpretation of the weekend's events ignored the fact
that it was Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the US special
Afghanistan-Pakistan representative, who only a few days ago strong-
armed Karzai into accepting a second round. It was essential, they
said, given that his supposed first-round victory was fraudulent to
the point of farce.

The White House spinners also dodged the obvious conclusion, arising
from Abdullah's withdrawal, that notwithstanding all their power and
influence, the US, the UN, and assembled western diplomats, plus
Afghanistan's discredited Independent Election Commission were
unable, in the final analysis, to ensure a free and fair vote.

Abdullah's call for the replacement of compromised election officials
was ignored. The UN's wish that the number of polling stations be
reduced to lessen the chance of a repeat fraud received similar short
shrift. It had become clear in recent days that there was little or
nothing to prevent further pro-Karzai ballot-rigging on an epic scale.

Whether the run-off will go ahead remains uncertain at this point. If
Abdullah cuts some kind of power-sharing or national unity deal with
Karzai, it may be cancelled and further embarrassment avoided. Or it
may go ahead – but more "smoothly", given that there will be no
actual contest. Some western officials seem to be privately hoping
for this sort of fudge.

Peter Galbraith, a former senior American diplomat who was sacked
from the UN mission in Kabul in a row over its turning a blind eye to
ballot rigging, warned last week that a fraud-stained second round
would be "catastrophic for Afghanistan and the allied military
mission battling the Taliban and al-Qaida". For this reason, others
might say, rendering a second round irrelevant has obvious attractions.

Galbraith said a Karzai second term, however achieved, would be
"tainted at home and abroad". To overcome this crisis of legitimacy,
he urged the adoption of reforms put forward by Abdullah that would
allow greater power-sharing among ethnic groups, the election of
provincial governors, increased power for local governments, and the
appointment of a prime minister and cabinet by parliament, not by the
president.

Barack Obama may insist on such reforms as part of his still
unfinished Afghan policy review. Reducing Karzai's powers in these
ways would provide a fig leaf for Washington's abject failure to
secure the democratic and governmental advances that it hoped would
justify ever more costly, and ever more unpopular, US and Nato
military involvement.

As of last Friday, Obama, like an ivory tower professor struggling to
engage with reality, was still calling for more option papers from
the Pentagon on future troop levels. The latest word in Washington is
that he will increase US forces, though by fewer than the 40,000
additional troops requested by his commander, General Stanley
McChrystal. They will be used to defend key Afghan cities and
population centres from Taliban attack. In the countryside, US and
Nato forces may shift to guerrilla-style, counter-terrorist tactics.

Maybe, given time, Obama can turn things around. But his inability to
prevent the US-promoted election turning into a five-star debacle was
damaging. It has left him looking like something he has rarely been
in his lifetime – a loser, just like everyone else. The only winners
yesterday were the bad guys.

(ii)

The Nation (in the November 9, 2009 edition of The Nation)

REMEMBER THE WOMEN?

by Ann Jones

What happens to women in Afghanistan is not merely a "women's issue."
It is the central issue of stability, development and durable peace.


Women are made for homes or graves.   -- Afghan saying

Gen. Stanley McChrystal says he needs more American troops to salvage
something like winning in Afghanistan and restore the country to
"normal life." Influential senators want to increase spending to
train more soldiers for the Afghan National Army and Police. The
Feminist Majority recently backed off a call for more troops, but it
continues to warn against U.S. withdrawal as an abandonment of Afghan
women and girls. Nearly everyone assumes troops bring greater
security; and whether your touchstone is military victory, national
interest or the welfare of women and girls, "security" seems a good
thing.

I confess that I agonize over competing proposals now commanding
President Obama's attention because I've spent years in Afghanistan
working with women, and I'm on their side. When the Feminist Majority
argues that withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan will return
the Taliban to power and women to house arrest, I see in my mind's
eye the faces of women I know and care about. Yet an unsentimental
look at the record reveals that for all the fine talk of women's
rights since the U.S. invasion, equal rights for Afghan women have
been illusory all along, a polite feel-good fiction that helped to
sell the American enterprise at home and cloak in respectability the
misbegotten government we installed in Kabul. That it is a fiction is
borne out by recent developments in Afghanistan -- President Karzai's
approving a new family law worthy of the Taliban, and American
acquiescence in Karzai's new law and, initially, his theft of the
presidential election -- and by the systematic intimidation, murder
or exile of one Afghan woman after another who behaves as if her
rights were real and worth fighting for.

Last summer in Kabul, where "security" already suffocates anything
remotely suggesting normal life, I asked an Afghan colleague at an
international NGO if she was ever afraid. I had learned of
threatening phone calls and night letters posted on the gates of the
compound, targeting Afghan women who work within. Three of our
colleagues in another city had been kidnapped by the militia of a
warlord, formerly a member of the Karzai government, and at the time,
as we learned after their release, were being beaten, tortured and
threatened with death if they continued to work.

"Fear?" my colleague said. "Yes. We live with fear. In our work here
with women we are always under threat. Personally, I work every day
in fear, hoping to return safely at the end of the day to my home. To
my child and my husband."

"And the future?" I said. "What do you worry about?"

"I think about the upcoming election," she said. "I fear that nothing
will change. I fear that everything will stay the same."

Then Karzai gazetted the Shiite Personal Status Law, and it was
suddenly clear that even as we were hoping for the best, everything
had actually grown much worse for women.

Why is this important? At this critical moment, as Obama tries to
weigh options against our national security interests, his advisers
can't be bothered with -- as one U.S. military officer put it to me
-- "the trivial fate of women." As for some hypothetical moral duty
to protect the women of Afghanistan -- that's off the table. Yet it
is precisely that dismissive attitude, shared by Afghan and many
American men alike, that may have put America's whole Afghan
enterprise wrong in the first place. Early on, Kofi Annan, then
United Nations secretary general, noted that the condition of Afghan
women was "an affront to all standards of dignity, equality and
humanity."

Annan took the position, set forth in 2000 in the landmark UN
Security Council Resolution 1325, that real conflict resolution,
reconstruction and lasting peace cannot be achieved without the full
participation of women every step of the way. Karzai gave lip service
to the idea, saying in 2002, "We are determined to work to improve
the lot of women after all their suffering under the narrow-minded
and oppressive rule of the Taliban." But he has done no such thing.
And the die had already been cast: of the twenty-three Afghan
notables invited to take part in the Bonn Conference in December
2001, only two were women. Among ministers appointed to the new
Karzai government, there were only two; one, the minister for women's
affairs, was warned not to do "too much."

The Bonn agreement expressed "appreciation to the Afghan mujahidin
who...have defended the independence, territorial integrity and
national unity of the country and have played a major role in the
struggle against terrorism and oppression, and whose sacrifice has
now made them both heroes of jihad and champions of peace, stability
and reconstruction of their beloved homeland, Afghanistan." On the
other hand, their American- and Saudi-sponsored "sacrifice" had also
made many of them war criminals in the eyes of their countrymen. Most
Afghans surveyed between 2002 and 2004 by the Afghan Independent
Human Rights Commission thought the leaders of the mujahedeen were
war criminals who should be brought to justice (75 percent) and
removed from public office (90 percent). The mujahedeen, after all,
were Islamist extremists just like the Taliban, though less
disciplined than the Taliban, who had risen up to curb the violent
excesses of the mujahedeen and then imposed excesses of their own.
That's the part American officials seem unwilling to admit: that the
mujahedeen warlords of the Karzai government and the oppressive
Taliban are brothers under the skin. From the point of view of women
today, America's friends and America's enemies in Afghanistan are the
same kind of guys.
[. . .]
http://tt.ly/3o


_____


[2] Sri Lanka:

SRI LANKA OUTCRY OVER POLICE BRUTALITY
by Charles Haviland
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8314118.stm

GROWING STRAINS
by B. Muralidhar Reddy
If Rajapaksa calls an early presidential poll, it may not be
surprising for him to find Gen. Sarath Fonseka or Justice Sarath N.
Silva as his rivals.
http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20091120262305500.htm

_____


[3] Pakistan:

INTERVIEW WITH CHAKAR KHAN

Revisiting the Che Guevara-like days of Baloch resistance movement
with Asad Rehman

by Malik Siraj Akbar

Guerilla movements in Balochistan have always been romanticized by
young men who aspire to overthrow the domineering elite and bring
revolutions. Taking to the hills for the rights of the Baloch
fatherland is what has placed many statesmen, kings, governors and
princes from Balochistan at irremovable positions in the annals of
the Baloch history.

A similar exceptionally striking chapter of the Baloch movement was
written in the early 1970s when a group of five scions of Pakistani
non-Baloch elite joined Balochistan’s guerilla war against the
Pakistan army’s occupation of the Baloch land. Popularly known as
the London Group, the members of this study circle left the comforts
of wealthy life, education in London and joined the Balochs in their
battle against the Pakistan army in the Marri hills. In their early
twenties, these comrades adopted Balochi names, learned the language,
explored the terrain, faced hunger and fought on the frontline in
their commitment for the Balochs.

A spirited Asad Rehman, the youngest but the fittest in the popular
London Group, remembers how he, at the age of 21, used to ambush the
Pakistani military convoys and take away ammunition from them to
sustain the movement. An eyewitness to what he bills as the
‘genocide” of the Balochs in the 70s, Rehman alias Chakar Khan,
still an ardent supporter of an independent Balochistan, reveals how
Baloch women were used as ‘comfort women’ in the military custody
and male fighters were captured and thrown from the helicopters.

In an exclusive but a candid and revealing interview with this
writer, Rheman recalls his Che Guevara -like days of Baloch
resistance movement of 1970s and compares it with today’s Baloch
movement. Excerpts:

MALIK SIRAJ AKBAR: Tell us something about your family background.

ASAD RAHMAN: I am the son of late Justice S.A. Rahman, who retired as
Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court in 1968. We were three
brothers and one sister. My eldest brother, Shahid Rahman, a Supreme
Court lawyer, has passed away. My sister is the Dean of Liberal Arts
at Beacon House National University, Lahore. My middle brother,
Rashid Rahman, is a well-known journalist and political analyst.

I owe my sense of justice and serving poor humanity to my parents
because they helped all sorts of people. Until my mother died in
2002, she was running a Convalescent Home with (late) Begum Justice
Shahabuddin where they treat women and children free of cost and this
was established in 1948.

My father was also the member of the Boundary Commission and,
therefore, worked very closely with Quaid-e-Azam and Lord Radcliff.
He was in the East Pakistan Boundary Commission. He served as a High
Court judge in 1947, became the Chief Justice of the High Court in
1955 and was elevated to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1960. We
did not know how he help poor people until his death in 1979 when
lots of people came from his hometown of Wazirabad and told us that
he had actually educated hundreds of boys and girls of the area. Even
my mother did not know about this aspect of his humility and
humanity. He was a totally self made man.

I was born in Murree, district of Rawalpindi on 11 August 1950. We
lived all our lives in Lahore and I was educated in Lahore. In 1969,
after completing my intermediate, I left for London to study
architecture. In 68-69 when the anti-Ayub movement was going on, I
was very much a part of it as a student-agitator of Government
College Lahore.

I did not finish my studies in London because in 1971, I came back to
Pakistan (straight to Balochistan). Why I came to Balochistan is a
very interesting story. My father was also the chairman of the
tribunal which was trying Sheik Mujeeb-ur-Rehman in 1968-69 in
Agartala Conspiracy Case and the Chief Election Commissioner in the
1970 elections, reputed to be the fairest and cleanest elections in
Pakistan’s history. There were two Bengali judges and my father was
the chairman of the tribunal.. When Sheik Mujeeb was finally released
by Bhutto, the first person he visited was my father. He said he had
come to thank him because, according to Mujeeb, “if you had not been
the chairman, they would have hung us.”

When I went to London, there were around 25 Pakistani, boys and
girls, from different cities who had formed a study group. There were
some Indian students as well in the study group. We used to study all
kinds of literature, Marxist, Maoist, Leninist, Stalin etc. In
Pakistan in those days, we could not get this kind of literature. In
London, we got the opportunity to read Marxist literature. I do not
call myself a Communist, Marxist or Socialist simply because I do not
think we are true Marxists. When you have an ideology and you do not
practice it or are unable to practice it, it does not give you a
reason to claim to be a Marxist.

The study of these literatures gave us an understanding of humanity,
human rights and understanding of exploitation by the ruling elite of
the poor.. That is what drove me to Balochistan.

MSA: Who were the prominent members of the London Group?

AR: There was Najam Sethi, Ahmed Rashid, my brother, Rashid Rehman,
Dilip Dass. These are the people who originally came to support the
Balochistan movement. These are the names I am willing to disclose
because they are well-known as having played a part in the
Balochistan movement. I would not be discussing the names of the
other members of the London Group for two reasons: One, they did not
participate in Balochistan movement. Two, I will be compromising on
their security if I disclose their names.

In 1970, when the East Pakistan civil war started, we felt that
whatever was happening in East Pakistan was wrong. We decided to
bring out a monthly magazine, called Pakistan Zindabad (Long Live
Pakistan). In that magazine, we used to write about nationality
rights, minority rights, fundamental human rights, articles on how
the army had taken on Pakistan’s polity, how it was dictating to
civil government that was in place. We started to write about the
East Pakistan issues and the economic exploitation. We used to
distribute that magazine in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

I suppose some friends felt they needed to bring this magazine to
Pakistan. They smuggled some copies of it to Pakistan. Some Leftist
groups here reproduced the magazine and distributed it among the
local Left circles. I can take the name of Ali Baksh Talpur, who has
now passed away, who was the one to bring this magazine to the
attention of Sher Mohammad Marri (whom we called as “Babu” while
the others remember him as General Sheroff) and Nawab Khair Baksh Marri.
[. . .]
http://www.sacw.net/article1200.html

o o o

(ii)

From: http://www.beenasarwar.wordpress.com. Also see IPS Q&A - http://
tinyurl.com/yhuu2d7 - Also see footnote below (refers to a skit by
Shoaib Hashmi)

"WE REFUSE TO BE HELD TO RANSOM BY TERRORISM"
Beena Sarwar interviews Veena Masud, Pakistan Women's Swimming
Association

KARACHI, Oct 29 (IPS) - Karachi-based, Trinidad-born and educated
Veena Masud is a school principal who wants to see Pakistani women
shine in the international sports arena.

Honorary Secretary of the Pakistan Women's Swimming Association,
president of the Sindh Women's Swimming Association, and executive
committee member of the Pakistan Olympic Association, she has cheered
Pakistani swimmers as they returned to the Olympics after 40 years.

In 2004, Rubab Raza was just 13 when she won a wild card entry to
Athens along with a male swimmer (Mumtaz Ahmed). She was the first
female swimmer to represent Pakistan at the Olympics. Four years
later at the Beijing Olympics, Kiran Khan - another wild card
entrant, from Lahore - swam for her country.

Pakistani female swimmers are making a splash despite the hurdles,
which include "little government support" and social conservatism,
Masud tells IPS. Excerpts from an interview.

IPS: Last weekend, after schools countrywide were closed following
the suicide bombing at the Islamic University in Islamabad (Oct. 20)
there was a major swimming competition in Karachi. How does the
ongoing violence affect sport?

VEENA MASUD: Yes, that was the 18th Sindh Women's Swimming
Championship organised by the Karachi Women's Swimming Association.
The club where the event was being held told us categorically to
cancel. But our sponsor said it's up to us. We decided to go ahead.
We are not afraid, we refuse to be held to ransom by this terrorism.

The club management then said if we could arrange our own security,
we could go ahead. We had a massive turnout - 280 swimmers
representing 22 institutions. They bettered 30 provincial records.
See, 90 percent of Pakistanis want to go forward, get on with our
lives. We can't allow this (disruption) to happen.

IPS: You were born and educated in the West Indies. How did you come
to Pakistan?

VM: I came back to my roots - my grandfather (in Trinidad) told me
that one of my forefathers was from Sindh; he went on a ship to the
West Indies as indentured labour.

My husband (a Pakistani) and I were in London when our son was born
in 1979. We moved back to Pakistan because we wanted to bring him up
here. I love it; the culture is so rich, and there is so much to offer.

IPS: You are not a swimmer, how did you get involved?

A. You don't have to be a swimmer to be a coach, or a technical
official. I coached my son (Kamal Salman Masud, now 30) in swimming.
Until then, the army, navy and air force swimmers won all the
competitions. My son set several national records. We'd be at the
pool and his (girl) friends wanted to swim competitively too. That's
how it started.

Four of us (mothers) started the Karachi Women's Swimming Association
in 1991, mindful of the confines of Islamic culture. We had great
difficulty getting sponsors for the First Sindh Women's Swimming
Championship - but 75 girl swimmers competed, representing local
clubs and schools.

In 1994, the then Benazir Bhutto government agreed to host the Second
Islamic Women's Solidarity Games. Iran, the initiators of these
games, insisted that swimming be included. The Pakistan Sports Board
(PSB) and the Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF) asked us to form the
Pakistan Women's Swimming Association.

The games went back to Iran when Pakistan couldn't conform to
standards but we encouraged the formation of women's swimming
associations. Sindh and Punjab (provinces) did that.

Before long women swimmers from the Pakistan Navy, Pakistan Army,
Wapda (Water and Power Development Authority) and NWFP (North West
Frontier Province) began participating. The Balochistan Women's
Swimming Association was recently formed.

Now, we have over 300 swimmers from 30 schools and clubs around the
country.

IPS: How have Pakistan's women swimmers fared internationally?

VM: They're improving all the time. Now a lot of our swimmers are
doing 'American A' timings (coached by my daughter-in-law Melanie
Masud, herself an 'American A' swimmer). They're very tenacious and
they have their parents' support.

Fourteen of our swimmers at the Fourth Islamic Women's Games (Tehran,
September 2005), won 10 of Pakistan's 19 medals. They came second in
the swimming events and seventh among the 45 participating countries.

The introduction of the longer "fast-skin" swimming costumes made it
possible for our girl swimmers to participate in international
competitions. For the first time, Pakistan sent two women swimmers
(Sana Wahid and Kiran Khan) to the Commonwealth Games in Manchester,
July 2001.

When we convinced the Pakistan government to include women's swimming
in the 9th SAF (South Asian Federation) Games in Islamabad 2004, our
girls took 14 medals, competing in the open arena on home ground for
the first time.

Our swimmers returned to the Olympics after 40 years in 2004.

IPS: What about technical officials?

VM: This was initially one of our biggest drawbacks, not having any
female technical officials. We have now trained up to 60 female
technical officials to international standards and they are lauded
everywhere. I'm really proud of our female technical officials.

Pakistan is the only South Asian country to have two female technical
officials on the Asian list, and one on the international list.

All over the world women get the rough end of the stick, but we have
four women out of 10 members in the Pakistan Olympic Association
(POA). I was in fact the first woman inducted into the POA when the
International Olympic Committee in 1992 stipulated that all national
committees must have women.

IPS: What hurdles do Pakistan's women swimmers face?

VM: First of all, there is little government support or funding.
Also, swimming is still an elite sport for women, because you have to
be a member of a private club to participate.

We need to push for the government to build infrastructure for
swimming all over the country and take women's swimming to the
corners of Pakistan, so that Pakistani women have the opportunity to
be at par with women all over the world. Then there's the
conservative mindset - many people don't want their daughters
participating in sports, or in public events.

Still, I believe that being determined and strong and tenacious will
in the end bring you medals. (END/2009)

FOOTNOTE: Against All Odds

Contrary to popular perception women's sports were never banned in
the country – but attempts were certainly made to sweep them out of
sight. The worst days were undoubtedly the `Zia years' – 1977-88,
when the then military dictator Gen. Ziaul Haq tried to push women
out of the public gaze in a bid to strengthen his `Islamic' credentials.

"We used to wear shorts," recalls a former sprinter, "but under Zia
we had to adhere to a more restrictive dress code."

Pakistani sportswomen are up against all kinds of hurdles, but they
refuse to give up.

Popular satirist Shoaib Hashmi highlighted this in a theatre skit
which has him interviewing 'Captain Samina' (Ahmed) of Pakistan's
women's hockey team. "Yes, we've had problems," she tells him. "First
they told us we can't play wearing shorts, so we switched to track
pants."

The dress code changed from track pants to shalwar kurta (long tunic
over baggy trousers), "but they said that was un-Islamic too. So then
we had to wear burqas (top to toe covering). We even agreed to that
but then they said that people will still know that there are women
under the burqas."

"So then what did you do?" asks Hashmi.

"Oh now we are sure to win," says the `captain, "because under each
burqa is (she rattles off the names of the male hockey team)."

"Women in sports have continued to flourish in their own limited
circuit in spite of the constraints, quite poor training facilities
and a lack of substantial financial support," notes prominent sports
journalist Gul Hameed Bhatti.

"When Rubab (Raza) went to Athens in 2004, she revealed that she
hardly got an equivalent of 30 dollars per month from the Pakistan
Swimming Federation. She couldn't engage the services of a foreign
coach to train her for the Olympics but her parents were very
supportive and took on almost the entire financial burden of getting
her ready for the big event."

Women participate in various sports all over the country - cricket,
hockey, track, swimming, football - even participating in
international competitions.

They face a lack of government support and patronage, and constant
threats from religious hardliners who disapprove of women being
visible in any public sphere.

The disapproval takes the form of public protests - as when Pakistani
female swimmers first competed at the international level - to
physical attacks, like the disruption of the mixed-gender mini-
marathon in the small town of Gujrat in Punjab province in 2004.

(ends)


_____


[4] India - Pakistan:

Dawn, 2 Nov, 2009

CAN PETTY MINDS CREATE A SOUTH ASIAN CONFEDERATION?

by Jawed Naqvi

Indian fishermen who are arrested by Pakistani authorities seen in
confinement, Friday, Feb. 6, 2009 in Karachi, Pakistan. —AP /File
Photo

Pandit Nehru tried hard to persuade Josh Malihabadi not to migrate to
Pakistan. We have it from various accounts that Josh sahab – who had
ruled the hearts of millions of Indians, and still does of quite a
few, as the poet of revolution (shaaer-i-inquilab) – was never at
ease about his eventual decision to live in Karachi. There are many
people like Josh who regretted choosing to go to Pakistan, not
necessarily because they didn’t like their new neighbours but
because they missed home. One of my grandmothers who died in Karachi
was among them.

The tragedy of those from Punjab and Bengal, who had no choice but to
leave their houses in a hurry or be killed by insane mobs, is even
more heart wrenching. There is hardly a Punjabi home on either side
of the border that didn’t experience the searing tragedy of the
partition. Dharam Vir was my hostel warden at Jawaharlal Nehru
University in the 1970s. His mother Devika Rani was 45 when the
family migrated from Girot, a once idyllic village in Jhelum in 1947.
She spoke only Punjabi of a certain dialect though she could
understand Urdu and a bit of Hindi. It was not always easy for me to
understand everything she said.

Yet I could never not be totally riveted to Devika Rani’s wizened
old face, often imagining that the creases on her face contained
countless unwritten chapters of history like the grooves of a
gramophone record hold myriad sounds and music. Her words still ring
in my ears to a query on partition: ‘Tenu ki dassan, puttar. Tarikh
vich raj badalde si, raja badalda si. Ae ki raj badlya ke prajaa hi
badal diti?’ (Son, history witnessed countless changes of kingdoms
resulting in the change of kings. What kind of kingdom have we
created, in which the people were changed?)

Do a headcount and you would very easily find a few million Indians,
Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who cannot hold back their tears at
Devika Rani’s Brechtian fulminations on the partition. Now suppose
Devika Rani (though she is no more) wanted to go back to her
childhood home in Jhelum to spend the last few days of her life in
what was once her very own land. There must be many Muslim Devika
Ranis living in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Let’s suppose they too
wanted to go across the borders to spend their remaining life in the
environs from where they were rudely uprooted.

I would have thought that a scheme unveiled by the government of
India in 2005 to allow people of Indian origin, popularly known as
PIOs, to have dual citizenship should first and foremost apply to
those who lived in the neighbourhood – in Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Nepal and Sri Lanka. But the Indian cabinet in its wisdom decided to
exclude Pakistanis and Bangladeshis from the purview of an otherwise
sound idea. I think someone should ask India’s Supreme Court as to
why the decision to exclude Bangladeshis and Pakistanis should not be
considered communal, if also petty.This is not to say that every
Pakistani or Bangladeshi is waiting with bated breath to be given an
Indian passport. Far from it. On the contrary, a very large number of
Pakistanis would probably frown at the idea of diluting their
national pride by swearing allegiance to the Indian constitution, for
that is what dual citizenship implies – it involves dual or multiple
allegiances as the situation may require. As far as I am aware
Pakistanis have a dual citizenship arrangement only with a handful of
European countries. Indians will probably play on a wider canvass
naturally.

But consider this. In a footnote in Gunnar Myrdal’s Asian Drama,
Jawaharlal Nehru is quoted as saying that though he favoured some
kind of a loose confederation with Pakistan, he felt discouraged to
press it because of fears in Pakistan that India would swallow up its
neighbour. From Ram Manohar Lohia to Lal Kishan Advani Indian
politician of every hue has spoken about a federation or a
confederation with Pakistan, often also with all the South Asian
countries. Many NGOs have allocated budgets to study the negative and
positive consequences of a Saarc federation. Is this the mindset that
will get us there?

So what is the basis for singling out Pakistanis and Bangladeshis as
ineligible for India’s dual membership move? The catchall word
‘security’ comes to mind. Perhaps the Indian cabinet considered
inputs from its intelligence units to come to the conclusion that in
this era of war on terror, euphemism for insidious whisper campaign
against Muslims the world over, it would not be prudent to grant a
passport with unrestricted travel privileges to citizens of those
countries that are regarded as the epicentre of trouble. This is a
patently false premise to draw an unwarranted distinction about those
who are eligible and those that are not.

After all the ultimate decision to grant a passport, as is the case
with visas, rests with an issuing government, and so it is with
India. The Indian government, if it so chooses, can find a hundred
legitimate or spurious reasons not to grant the facility to anyone it
doesn’t like. In fact, it is a familiar phenomenon that many
Indians – Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or Christians – have to bribe lower
division officials to get a passport or a government certificate.
Clearly the government can stall access to passports by this or other
forms of deterrence. Moreover, it could apply greater rigour or vigil
in the case of its two neighbours.

In fact, that’s all the more reason why the principle behind the
current stance seems to be questionable. If the government has its
own filters to allow and disallow citizens or PIOs to get a passport
or a dual citizenship then why the fear of the wrong people –
let’s call them subversive people – being given the status? On the
other hand, by making the overture to all people of Indian origin –
regardless of their religion or the bitter history of partition –
the Indian government would have taken a high moral ground on a core
issue of immense emotive appeal. This is something I suspect the
Quaid-i-Azam may have had in mind when he held out of hopes of
visiting his home in Mumbai after the creation of Pakistan.

The assumption behind my plaint is that it is not an easy quest at
all. To begin with anti-India hardliners in the Pakistani government
would throw such a proposal out of the window. After all dual
citizenship involves the consent of two sides. My guess is that such
hardliners would not be in favour of even a Saarc-based initiative to
confederate. The familiar fear of the big brother together with
regional and geo-political stakes would need to be negotiated for any
baby steps in this direction. Be that as it may, had India not acted
small, it would have won a moral victory. Imagine a gathering lobby
of friends of India in Pakistan pressing their government to agree to
a dual citizenship with its biggest bete noire.

These are not outlandish ideas. Let me cite the precedence of Sajjad
Zaheer, who was jailed by the British and later by Pakistan as a
communist subversive. Why did Nehru allow him to return to India in
1955, a privilege denied today to the less ‘connected’ in
Pakistan? Men and women like Salamat Ali and Fahmida Riaz were given
asylum for years in India when they came here to escape Gen Zia ul
Haq’s bigoted dictatorship. These are good precedences that need to
be further built upon.

There was a very moving Shyam Benegal movie on the subject of
partition – Mammo. It is a nickname given to Mehmooda Begum by her
sisters. She marries a man from Lahore. After partition, she and her
husband automatically become Pakistan citizens. Although childless,
her marriage is a happy one until her husband’s death. Over property
matters, Mammo is thrown out of the house by her relatives. She comes
to India to stay with her only kin, her two sisters. Unable to extend
her visa, she has to go back – political priorities defeat
humanitarian ones. Devika Rani would have embraced Mammo for she had
a big heart – big enough to live with the angst of an absurd reality
that robbed her of her small perch on earth. The Indian government
can learn a lesson or two from her. So should politicians and the
NGOs clamouring for durable peace in South Asia.

_____


[5]  India: Impunity, Lack of Justice & Eroding Human Rights:


Mail Today, November 1, 2009
Editorial

SC HAS FAILED COUNTRY ON BATLA CASE

THE Supreme Court’s rejection of the petition seeking a judicial
inquiry into the Batla House encounter of last year is an abdication
of its responsibility to ensure justice for victims of the Indian
state’s excesses. The remarks attributed to the court on Friday
sound more like a government agency speaking than an independent
institution that is the last refuge of citizens to obtain redress of
their grievances. One of the grounds it has cited to rule out a
judicial inquiry into the encounter is that it would affect the
morale of the law enforcement agencies.

This is nothing short of ridiculous.

That the apex court in our democracy takes upon itself the duty of
keeping up the spirits of armed personnel is surely news to us.

On being told that sections of a community believed that the
encounter was a fake one, the court admonished the petitioner’s
counsel to not identify ‘ criminals’ with sections of people. By
determining that they were ‘ criminals’ even before their trial,
the court seems to have overlooked the fact that whether they were so
was one of the basic questions raised by the petitioners. Also, by
citing the National Human Rights Commission’s clean chit to the
police, the court has made light of the fact that the NHRC did not
even care to visit the site of the encounter and talk to the affected
people before it came up with its verdict. It only relied on the
police’s version of events.

The contradictions in the police theory are too well known to need
iteration. The injuries on the bodies of the slain men were
inconsistent with their story. How two ‘ terrorists’ escaped from
the apartment that was surrounded by cops on all sides was never
explained. The postmortem reports are yet to be made public.

Besides, the petitioners were only seeking a probe, not punishment
for the police. If the police have nothing to hide, then a judicial
probe would have only refurbished their credentials.

By turning down the plea, the court has also not cared for the dictum
that justice must not only be done but appear to be done. In the
Jamia Nagar locality where the encounter took place, most residents
believe that the police carried out an extra- judicial killing, as
they are known to do elsewhere in the country as well.

http://tt.ly/3m

o o o

'GIVE ME ONE WEEK TO BRING PEACE'

Anita Aikara (DNA, Sunday, November 1, 2009)

Mumbai: "The Indian state police are cold blooded murderers," said
Himanshu Kumar, Gandhian and social activist from Dantewada in
Chhattisgarh, "Jis din police ki banduk garib ke haat mein khadi
hogi, naxalities khatam hogi," he added.

Himanshu Kumar and Advocate Sudha Bharadwaj were in Mumbai on
Saturday to discuss the plight of adivasis in Chhattisgarh. Earlier
in May, Kumar's Vanvasi Chetna Ashram was demolished by the
Chhattisgarh government.

Holding his social activism responsible for the demolishment, the
activist took digs at the Home Minister and the local cops, "Not a
single leader has visited us in the last five years. PC Chidambaram
says that he wants peace in these areas. But I don't think it is
peace that the people want. They want justice which isn't being
delivered to them. Where there is injustice there can't be peace. Why
are they sending forces to Bastar? Did the villagers ask for help or
did the naxalites harass people in Delhi? I pity the armed forces
that will be killed fighting for the corporates rather than poor
innocent people."

Kumar has been actively involved in the Dantewada region of
Chhattisgarh, added that he was made a victim of indifference too,
"When I was trying to rehabilitate people who have been displaced by
the government's anti-Naxalite movement, Salwa Judum- my ashram was
demolished". Bharadwaj added, "In Jharkhand corporates are eyeing the
land owned by the poor adivasis. The war is not against naxalites, it
is against the poor adivasis. Bauxite, diamond, uranium, iron ore are
found in Bastar and that is what the corporates want."Speaking of the
indifference shown by the government, Kumar added, "Why doesn't the
PM ask the villagers the reason behind their turning towards violence?"

When asked what he thought of Kobad Gandhy's arrest, Kumar quickly
responded, "I don't know the person, so I can't comment about him."
As for the weapons carried by naxalites, Kumar alleged that most of
the weapons were stolen from the local police, "Though at times the
naxals also purchase weapons from the police. It is said that during
encounters the cops hide the bullets and later sell them to the
naxalites."

o o o

A CITZENS FACT FINDING REPORT ON THE DEMOLITION OF VANVASI CHETNA
ASHRAM, DANTEWADA, CHHATTISGARH
http://www.sacw.net/article1205.html

o o o

WHAT MADE MAHATO A POLITICAL FUGITIVE
by Monobina Gupta (The Times of India, 1 November 2009)
http://tt.ly/3l

o o o

NDTV PANEL DISCUSSION ON MAOISM
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/new/NDTV-Show-Special.aspx?ID=429

o o o

Outlook Magazine
9 November 2009

Mr Chidambaram’s War
A MATH QUESTION: HOW MANY SOLDIERS WILL IT TAKE TO CONTAIN THE
MOUNTING RAGE OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE?

by Arundhati Roy

The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the
Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state
called Orissa. The hills watched over the Kondh. The Kondh watched
over the hills and worshipped them as living deities. Now these hills
have been sold for the bauxite they contain. For the Kondh it’s as
though god has been sold. They ask how much god would go for if the
god were Ram or Allah or Jesus Christ?

Perhaps the Kondh are supposed to be grateful that their Niyamgiri
hill, home to their Niyam Raja, God of Universal Law, has been sold
to a company with a name like Vedanta (the branch of Hindu philosophy
that teaches the Ultimate Nature of Knowledge). It’s one of the
biggest mining corporations in the world and is owned by Anil
Aggarwal, the Indian billionaire who lives in London in a mansion
that once belonged to the Shah of Iran. Vedanta is only one of the
many multinational corporations closing in on Orissa.

If the flat-topped hills are destroyed, the forests that clothe them
will be destroyed too. So will the rivers and streams that flow out
of them and irrigate the plains below. So will the Dongria Kondh. So
will the hundreds of thousands of tribal people who live in the
forested heart of India, and whose homeland is similarly under attack.

In our smoky, crowded cities, some people say, “So what? Someone has
to pay the price of progress.” Some even say, “Let’s face it,
these are people whose time has come. Look at any developed country,
Europe, the US, Australia—they all have a ‘past’.” Indeed they
do. So why shouldn’t “we”?
   [. . .]
FULL TEXT AT: http://www.sacw.net/article1198.html

o o o

27 October, 2009

Press Statement
CONCERNED CITIZENS STATEMENT ON THE “MAOIST” VIOLENCE

There has been a spate of growing murder and violence in certain
areas of Andhra, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal
by armed persons acting on behalf of “CPI (Maoist)”. We strongly
feel that their use of the name of Mao Zedong, a widely respected
figure, while carrying out the acts of carnage and killing, is
reprehensible. Such acts can also in no way be justified in the name
of a war against the state. While every conscious citizen opposes
acts of oppressions committed by members of the exploiting classes or
individuals in the state apparatus, the so-called “Maoists” by
their violent acts of vendetta, torture and gruesome killings are
gravely damaging the cause of the popular democratic movement. The
“Maoists” are thus in fact working against the interests of the
workers and peasants.
In order to isolate the “maoists” politically, it is however
important that the Indian state do all that is necessary to restore
its presence and credibility in tribal areas whose interests it has
largely been ignoring. The Central government should review its neo-
liberal policies that have pauperised the tribal people and help the
state governments to meet their developmental challenges in these
areas. Counter insurgency vigilante groups (such as Salwa Judum) have
proved to be counter productive. Harassment and killing of innocent
local people should be avoided while tackling the violence. and those
responsible for such acts in the name of the fighting the "maoists"
should be punished. A genuine dialogue should be started with those
"maoists" who are ready to give up the path of armed struggle.

Endorsed By:
Irfan Habib,Teesta Setalvad,Vijay Prashad, Utsa Patnaik, Amiya Kumar
Bagchi, M.K. Raina, Najaf Hyder, Badri Raina, Shireen Moosvi, Jayati
Ghosh, Iqtadar Alam Khan, Sohail Hashmi, Archana Prasad, Amar
Farooqui, Ayesha Kidwai, Simi Malhotra, Nadim Rizavi, Sonya Surabhi
Gupta, Lata Singh, Atlury Murali, Biswamoy Pati, Madhu Prasad, D. N.
Jha, P. K. Shukla, Arjun Dev, Suvira Jaiswal, H. C. Satyarthi,
Kesavan Veluthath, V. Ramakrishna, N. R.Rana, N. K. Sharma, Prabhat
Patnaik, Arun Bandopadhaya, Rajendra Prasad ( contact-26691162)

o o o

INDIA MUST CHANGE THE DISCOURSE FROM VIOLENCE TO DEMOCRACY
by Manoranjan Mohanty
http://www.sacw.net/article1193.html

o o o

India - Madhya Pradesh: A Social Movement for people's Rights under
attack

(i) Narmada Bachao Andolan Press Note / 3rd November 2009

CONTEMPT of COURT and VIOLATION of DEMOCRACY by ADMINISTRATION
ANDOLAN DRAWS SUPPORT FROM FAR AND WIDE

The administration continues to harass the peasants and adivasis of
Narmada valley struggling for their just rights and implementation of
court orders and the rule of law in the state. The police is
discovering and adding newer cases everyday to intimidate the
displaced people and undermine their demand of implementation of the
orders of the Hon’ble High Court. On the other hand, there has been
widespread condemnation of the highhanded and unlawful attitude of
the state government.

Today, suddenly, the police has filed a new case under Section 333
IPC. This discovering of charges and adding them piece-meal is
hampering the rule of law in the state. It is also violating the
constitutional and democratic right of the people and in consequence
diminishes people’s faith in democratic processes. The andolan is
determined to fight against this attitude of the government.

Repressing the andolan is a violation of the court

A delegation of about 50 local intelligentsia and supporters of
Narmada Bachao Andolan collected in Indore today and met the
Commissioner to condemn the atrocities of the Khandwa district
administration on the andolan activists. They reminded the
Commissioner that the acts of the district administration was
unlawful and was depriving the displaced people of their rights that
have been upheld by the court. The delegation comprised of senior
educationist Prof. R.D. Prasad, literary scholar Shri Saroj Kumar,
cultural activist Shri Chinmay Mishra, Shri Amulya Nidhi of Sanskriti
Kendra, Shri Rakesh Chandore of Jhuggi Basti Sangharsh Morcha and
others.

In Badwani, activists and villagers associated with the Jagrit Dalit
Adivasi Sangathan met the Badwani Collector today, to send a protest
letter to the Chief Minister and extend support to the Narmada Bachao
Andolan.

In Harda, the Samajwadi Jan Parishad and Kranti Hammal Union
organized a dharna at Narayan Talkies Square and submitted a
memorandum for the Chief Minister to the district Collector that
condemned the acts of the Khandwa district administration. Shri Sunil
of Samajwadi Jan Parishad said that arresting and jailing the
activists who were trying to ensure implementation of court orders is
a case of contempt of the court.

In Bhopal, members of Janpahal group Ms Sarika Sinha, Ms Sushma and
Shri Deepak Bhatt met with the State Human Rights Commission and
presented fresh evidence of human rights violation and repression by
the state to the commission. The SHRC took cognizance of the gravity
of the state’s acts and ensured prompt action after they receive the
report called from the district administration on Wednesday.

In Durg, Chhattisgarh a torch rally is being organized today by
Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha in support of the andolan and in protest of
the unlawful detention of NBA activists and continued harassment of
the displaced people.

Yesterday, on Nov 2nd, a road meeting and candle light vigil was
organized in Bhopal by Yuva Samvad and MP Mahila Manch in solidarity
with Irom Sharmila for her struggle against the draconian Armed
Forces Special Powers Act and the Narmada Bachao Andolan for their
non-violent struggle for the rights of the displaced. Members of the
two groups condemned the repression and violence that the state is
unleashing on all democratic peoples movements. They raised slogans
against the recent lathi charge on the ten thousands protesters of
the Narmada valley and the jailing of its activists and termed it a
matter of grave concern and shame that the government that is
supposed to work for the rights of the people is crushing their
peaceful protests while they fight for their rights. They said that
while Sharmila has become a symbol of protest against states excess,
the people of the Narmada valley have by their prolonged non-violent
struggle against biased model of development, brought the issue of
displacement to the forefront. It is very disturbing that the state
of madhya pradesh has been using brutal force and false cases to
crush such movements. They demanded that the government take
accountability for this crime and release the imprisoned activists
and also comply with the courts order and give people their rights.

(Kailash Chauhan)                           (Ashish
Mandloi)                    (Gajraj Singh)


(ii)  Narmada Bachao Andolan  Action Alert:

Press Release
30th October 2009

PEACEFULLY PROTESTING NBA ACTIVISTS ARRESTED IN KHANDWA IN AN
OUTRAGEOUS AND EXCESSIVE POLICE ACTION BY MADHYA PRADESH POLICE.

NBA OFFICES IN KHANDWA SEALED AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANT SEARCHED AND
INFORMATION STOLEN

PHONE / FAX / WRITE LETTERS TO CHIEF MINISTER, PRIME MINISTER AND
KHANDWA COLLECTORARE

Following the demonstration by over ten thousand men and women
affected by the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams on the 28th of
October 2009 in Khandwa, Khandwa police in an unprecedented action
has arrested all the key activists of Narmada Bachao Andolan from
their offices and the dharna site, in front of the Khandwa
Collectorate. From 29th October more than a thousand adivasis had
been protesting infront of the Khandwa Collectorate, since the MP
government refused to live up to the Jabalpur High Court order of
giving 5 acres of land to elder son of each of the oustees.

On 29th evening Chttaroopa Palit and 18 other activists were arrested
and today without any provocation police came in large numbers and
locked NBA’s office alleging anti-state activities.  They arrested
five of the activists, including Alok Agarwal, present at the office
around 5:15 pm and then locked the office. After some time five
police people came and without any search warrant and copied files
from the computer and taken some files from the office.

After some protest they have released 4 people but kept Alok Agarwal
in custody though have not explained the charges under which he has
been kept in custody.

It is a clear case of violation of the rights of the activists and
also an attempt at breaking the peaceful protest by police action.
Yesterday they had lathi charged the protesters but even then the
protest had continued, innervating the district administration. This
is a clear cut attempt at breaking the morale of the thousands of
protesting famers, adivasis and workers.

NBA unequivocally condemns this action and also demands that the
activists be released unconditionally and action been taken against
the responsible police officers.

Phone / Fax / email letters of protesting police action on peacefully
protesting people affected from Indira Sagar, Omkareshwar, Maheshwar,
Upper Beda and Maan dams. Also write letters to Chief Minister and
Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh Government asking them to release
activists immediately, unseal NBA office, live up to High Court order
and take action against the police officers responsible for this high
handedness and unlawful action.

Prime Minster :

Shri Manmohan Singh
Room No. 148 B, South Ablock, New Delhi
Office Nos : 91-11-23012312 Fax : 230116857
Residence : 91-11-23011166, 23018939. Fax : 23015603
Email : manmohan@... |

Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh
Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan
Off – Phone : 91-755- 2441581, 2441033, 2441096, Fax: 91-755-2441781
Res – Phone : 91-755-2440241, 2440242 Fax : 91-755-2540501
email : cm@...

MP Government, Chief Secretary
Shri Rakesh Sahni
Off Phone : 91-755-2441848. Fax 2441751
Email : cs@...

Khandwa Collectorate :
91-733-2224153, 2223333
Email : dm@...

Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission of India
Faridkot House, Copernicus Marg, New Delhi 110 001, Tel: +91 11 230
74448, Fax: +91 11 2334 0016, Email: chairnhrc@...


Ramkuwar Rawat, Sangita, Kailash Chouhan, Rahmat, Kalu and others
Narmada  Bachao  Andolan
2, Sai Nagar, Mata Chowk,
Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh.
Telefax : 0733 - 2228418/2270014
E-mail : nbakhandwa@... <mailto:nbakhandwa@...>



_____


[7] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i)

THE MF HUSAIN CONTROVERSY: IDENTITY, INTENT AND THE RISE OF MILITANT
FASCISM

by Beena Sarwar
[I wrote this essay for Nukta Art in September, for its November
issue which has just been published]


The campaign against the iconic Indian artist Maqbool Fida Husain,
perhaps the most prominent living symbol of art under attack, is part
of the political fight for India’s soul – secular democracy versus
a ‘Hindu’ state.

Full text at: http://tt.ly/3n

o o o

(ii)

The Times of India
30 October 2009

PROTECT ME? THEY CAN’T EVEN PROTECT MY ART: M F HUSAIN
Anubha Sawhney Joshi & Himanshi Dhawan

MUMBAI/DELHI: The government might be finally moving to make things
easier for India's renowned painter M F Husain to return to his homeland
M F Husain
after four years of exile, but the 94-year-old artist is hardly
impressed. Nor is he taking seriously the home ministry's efforts to
club three pending cases against him so as to ensure their speedy
disposal.

``What are they talking about?'' asked Husain in a telephonic
conversation with TOI from Dubai. ``The India Art Summit held in
August this year did not feature a single work by me. The reason
given was that they could not afford to take the `risk'. How will
they protect me if they cannot protect my work? How can I trust
them?'' (Read full interview in TOI-Crest this Saturday.)

The artist feels that it's not just a question of legal cases against
him. That did not force him to leave India. What caused his exile
were the threats of physical harm to him by saffron groups. He
wondered what would happen to him if he actually returned. ``They
can, of course, promise me a bullet-proof car and the works. But,
then, did Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi have any less security?''

On its part, the home ministry plans to approach the Supreme Court
and request it club the three cases pending in Delhi, Gujarat and
Maharashtra ^ and move for their early disposal. Said Husain's lawyer
Akhil Sibal: ``Any positive step by the government is welcome. But we
would also like to see a clear message that the government would do
everything within the law to prevent his harassment.''

Husain said his case was not unique: ``From Galileo to Pablo Neruda,
creativity has been exiled many times. I am not the first one.''
Still, the artist said he was deeply hurt by the way ``a few'' have
treated him. ``It's a tremendous hurt. I'm Indian. Why should I beg
these people to call me back to my country?''

o o o

(iii)

AND NOW POLITICS OF CULTURAL VIRGINITY

by Charu Gupta (Mail Today, November 1, 2009)

THE Hindu Right seems to have found a new agenda to arouse passions
through the alleged ‘love jihad’ movement, supposed to have been
launched by Muslim fundamentalists, to convert Hindu and Christian
women through trickery. It is ironical that there is an uncanny
resemblance of the issue and its language with similar ‘abduction’
and conversion campaigns launched by Arya Samaj and other Hindu
revivalist bodies in the 1920s in north India, to draw sharper lines
between Hindus and Muslims. Seen through the prism of a historical
perspective, the dichotomy and falseness of the allegations of the
Hindu Right appear more starkly.

In the 1920s, militant Hindu assertion reached new heights. There
were unprecedented communal clashes in UP. What is significant in the
present context is that in this period the Hindu woman’s body became
a marker to sharpen communal boundaries in ways more aggressive than
before. The period witnessed a flurry of orchestrated propaganda
campaigns and popular inflammatory and demagogic appeals by a section
of Hindu publicists and Arya Samaj against ‘ abductions’ and
conversions of Hindu women by Muslim goondas, ranging from
allegations of rape, abduction and elopement, to luring, conversion,
love, and forced marriages.

Drawing on diverse sources like newspapers, pamphlets, meetings,
handbills, posters, novels, myths, rumours and gossip, the campaign
was able to operate in a public domain, and to monopolise the field
of everyday representation. Tracts with provocative titles appeared.
One was called Hindu Auraton ki Loot , which denounced Muslim
propaganda for proselytising female preys.

Parallel

Yet another was named Hindu Striyon ki Loot ke Karan , which was an
Arya Samajist tract, showing how to save ‘ our’ ladies from
becoming Muslim. The converted woman was a potential site of outrage
of family order and religious sentiment.

In the unfolding of the tales in the 1920s and in 2009, there are
certain common strains. I will highlight just a few. In both
campaigns, one of the arguments given by Hindu groups has been that
the conversions of Hindu women are linked with enhancing Muslim
numbers. A tract, published in 1924 from Kanpur and titled Humara
Bhishan Haas dwelt on the catastrophic decline of Hindus due to
increasing conversions of Hindu women to Islam.

It claimed that a number of Aryan women were entering the homes of
yavanas and mlecchas ( terms used for Muslims in such writings),
reading nikah with them, producing gaubhakshak children, and
increasing Muslim numbers. Pro- Hindu organisations in 2009 too have
claimed that forced conversions of Hindu women in the name of love
are part of an international conspiracy to increase the Muslim
population.

The issues at stake here are not only to construct a picture of
numerical Muslim increase but also to lament the supposed decline in
Hindu numbers and mourn the potential loss of child- bearing Hindu
wombs.

Both the campaigns construct an image of the Muslim male as
aggressive, and broadcast a series of repetitive motifs, creating a
common ‘ enemy’ Other. Whether it is 1920 or 2009, images of
passive victimised Hindu women at the hands of inscrutable Muslims
abound, and any possibility of them exercising their legitimate right
to love and to choice is ignored. In June 1924 in Meerut, handbills
and meetings claimed that various Hindu women were being lured and
their pure body being violated by lustful and sexually charged Muslim
men.

The present campaign too, while focussing its anger on the Muslims,
receives its emotional bonding from the victim. It is impossible for
Hindu groups to conceive that Hindu women can voluntarily elope or
convert.

Thus every romance, love, elopement and marriage between a Hindu
woman and a Muslim man is rewritten by Hindu organisations as
forcible conversion.

It is also assumed that the mere act of marrying and staying with a
Muslim ensures that the woman is leading an unhappy and dreadful life.

Behind it are also anxieties about possible relations between Hindu
women and Muslim men. The fears of elopements and conversions by some
Hindu women show the need felt not so much to protect, but to
discipline them.

Often there are not just particular cases; there is a ready move from
the particular to the general. Reckless generalisations are made,
with rumours adding spice. A pamphlet released by the Akhil Bhartiya
Vidyarthi Parishad during the present campaign, and distributed in
Jawaharlal Nehru University, claims that 4000 girls have been
converted till now. Another pamphlet distributed by the Hindu
Janjagruthi Samiti, Karnataka states the number to be 30,000 within a
year! The concrete examples given in both cases have often been
imagined, and there is sometimes evidence to prove the depth of
fallacy involved.

For example, in April 1927, Hindus spread a rumour in Muzaffarnagar
that a Hindu girl had been forcibly converted to Islam and was being
married to a Muhammadan.

Repetition

They proceeded in crowds to inspect the alleged pervert and found
that the girl had always been a Muslim.

At Kanpur in 1939, a Hindu youth accused Muslim volunteers of
kidnapping Hindu women. This led to a search of the Muslim League
office, which yielded no trace of them. And in June 2009, when Anitha
of Bantwal taluk in Karnataka went missing, several Sangh Parivar
organisations claimed that she was forcibly converted to Islam by a
Pakistan- backed, professional ‘ jihadist lover’ and a protest
meeting was held on 4 October.

However, on 21 October 2009, a serial killer, Mohan Kumar, was
arrested, who confessed that he had poisoned Anitha to death.

It appears that communication, more than direct experience, has
created such ideologies of abductions and conversions.
Representation, performance and events have fed into each other. Hate
speech is repeatable speech, drawing its strength from stereotypes.

Here too, conversions of Hindu women are represented as a general
phenomenon. Different events are made to appear to follow a similar
pattern — a narrative of luring by Muslim male in the name of love,
and Hindu female victim- hood. In repetition appears its strength,
and a primary source of communal power: its ability to renew itself
through reiteration, and its authority as supposed truth.

Choice

Though there are continuities between the two campaigns, there are
also new dimensions to the lovejihad issue. In the wake of the
terrorist threat, Muslim fundamentalism and increasing images of a
virulent Muslim, additional anxieties have been created of a foreign
hand in the conversions, and the Muslim youth receiving funds from
abroad to lure Hindu women.

It appears that when confronted with the phenomenon of conversion
from Hinduism to Islam, especially by Hindu women, certain kind of
Hindus lose their logical faculties. The politics of cultural
virginity is inevitably shadowed by a myth of innocence, combined
with a ranting of violation, invasion, seduction and rape.

In spite of this hate campaign, the actual few incidents of inter-
religious marriages weave a narrative thread, which illuminates
certain ruptures in the Hindu logic. These cases belie the ideal of
the Hindu family and draw attention to the woman’s needs and
desires. The women here are perhaps ‘ using’ the instruments of
conversion and elopement as a mode of coping with, and within limits,
transgressing an oppressive social order.

Such alliances suggest that sometimes identities are recast to
disrupt the logic of communal boundaries.

The actions of these women provide moments of vulnerability in the
dominant discourse and upset the relentless communal polarisation.

Elopements and conversions hint at love and romance. They posit a
different world and messy complexities of reality and inchoate ways
of life.

Women, who are often perceived as victims by the Hindu communalists,
may actually be actors and subjects in their own right by choosing
elopements and conversions.

The writer is an Associate Professor of History at the University of
Delhi

o o o

(iv)

ISHQ VISHQ PYAAR VYAAR -- OR HOLY WAR?

Herald, 30 October 2009

When it comes to love and sex, communal politics acquires a
particularly vicious and misogynistic edge, says Vidyadhar Gadgil

Love conquers all – or so Bollywood would have us believe. Bollywood
is adept at resolving complex social issues through simplistic
solutions, deploying the alleged power of love to break social
barriers. Class contradictions are resolved in one stroke in film
after film when the poor boy marries the rich girl, or vice-versa.
Not satisfied with solving the problem of class conflict through
these means, Bollywood scriptwriters have been busy tackling issues
like regionalism and, occasionally, caste, with the tried and trusted
deus ex machina of love. The romantic couple may not always live
happily ever after, but love itself does triumph, with its chastened
opponents realising the folly of their ways as they sombrely
contemplate the corpses of the lovers in the closing scene.
But even Bollywood is chary of storming certain bastions with the
battering ram of love, and there are hardly any films which portray
cross-religion love. Probably the only mainstream film of recent
times which did this was Mani Ratnam’s ‘Bombay’, though even
here one wonders whether the film-maker would have dared to do a
gender switch, with a Muslim hero and a Hindu heroine. Of course,
Bollywood does recognise that there is a problem here, but the means
to bridge the religious divide are scenes with Amar, Akbar and
Anthony lying side by side donating blood, with images of a temple,
mosque and church floating in the background. Rather tamely, if
wisely, Amar, Akbar and Anthony all romance and marry heroines from
their own religions, leaving this final Laxman Rekha intact.
By recognising this boundary for love, Bollywood is only reflecting
the prejudices of the society that consumes its products. A cursory
glance at the newspapers will show case after case where there is
strong opposition, often escalating into violence, to marriage across
religious barriers. Honour killings of women who have violated this
norm are reported all too frequently. During the Gujarat communal
violence of 2002, cross-community couples were especial targets.
Recently, from Kashmir there were reports about protests over cross-
community marriages. With all Kashmir’s problems between its
religious communities, Sikh community leader Jagmohan Singh Raina
zeroes in on this issue as the one that has “adversely affected the
long-cherished brotherhood between the Valley’s communities,” a
sentiment echoed by his counterparts on the other side of the
religious divide.
What are the factors behind this kind of antediluvian prejudice? One
common explanation is the feudal nature of Indian society, which puts
notions of family and community purity above all else, and punishes
transgressors viciously. But this is at best a partial explanation.
What about Rizwanur Rehman and Priyanka Todi, a couple that lived in
the midst of a capitalist society in Kolkata, in a state run by a
party that flaunts its secular credentials? If Rizwanur Rehman had
been a poor Hindu computer engineer, his super-rich prospective
father-in-law may not have been particularly thrilled, but it is
unlikely that Rizwanur would have ended up dead.
The prejudice on this issue is essentially rooted in the fact that
women are treated in Indian society as chattels – of their parents
and families first, then of their husbands, and ultimately of the
community. When a woman marries outside her religious community, she
is viewed as property that has been expropriated by a competing
group, and the inevitable backlash follows. When a man marries
outside his community, this may not meet with approval, but there is
tacit support because he is at one level seen as a conquering hero,
who has dared to grab property belonging to rivals. It is the woman
who is killed by members of her own community; the man may have to
face the wrath of the woman’s community, but his own will protect him.
Communal battles have long been fought over the bodies of women, as
we see in episode after episode of communal violence. The communal
violence of Partition, when thousands of women on both sides of the
border were abducted and subjected to sexual violence, was a stark
reminder of the status of women as property, chillingly documented in
the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto.
The latest case of this kind of thinking is probably the most
ludicrous, but also particularly worrisome, because it combines deep-
rooted intolerance with politically organised communalism, resulting
in a potent mix in which even the weirdest claims acquire a reality
of their own. In February 2009, a Malayalam daily, Kerala Kaumudi,
carried a report claiming the existence of a jihadi organisation
which uses young Muslim men to get Hindu girls to fall in love with
them and convince them to convert to Islam. The report did not excite
much interest, except among fundamentalist organisations like the VHP
and Bajrang Dal, which launched a shrill campaign against the ‘love
jihad’ (alternatively described as ‘Romeo Jihad’). The campaign
was particularly vociferous in Kerala and Karnataka.
One could be forgiven for dismissing the whole brouhaha as an
interesting example of the sociopathology of the sexual insecurities
of Indian males, and its linkages with the sexual politics of
religious fundamentalism – a theme that has been explored in Anand
Patwardhan’s film ‘In the Name of God’. But in September 2009,
the situation acquired a surreal aspect, when the Indian judicial
system got involved. On 30 November, the Kerala High Court directed
the Kerala Police and Union Home Ministry to probe the alleged ‘love
jihad’. This was in response to the claims by the families of a
Hindu and a Christian woman, who married their Muslim classmates in a
Pathanamthitta college and converted to Islam. On 22 October the
Kerala DGP submitted a report to the court which stated that there
was no evidence for any organisation called ‘love jihad’
functioning in Kerala so far. But the High Court termed the report
as “contradictory” and has now asked for submissions from each of
the state’s 14 district police superintendents on the matter!
In this theatre of the absurd, the latest players are the judges of
the Karnataka High Court. On 21 October, during hearing of a habeas
corpus petition by C Selvaraj – who claimed that his daughter
Siljaraj had eloped with a Muslim youth to Kerala – the judges
ordered that the CID conduct a probe into ‘love jihad’. Siljaraj,
who was produced before the court by police, told the judges that she
had married Aksar of Kannur in Kerala of her own free will, and was
undergoing religious training after getting converted to Islam.
But the free will of an adult woman appears to be of less importance,
the Constitution of India notwithstanding, than bogeys about holy
wars being waged using the weapon of love. The judges directed her to
stay with her parents till the police complete the investigations.
Magnanimously, the court also said that since she was an adult, if it
was found to be a ‘bonafide’ love marriage, she could go back to
Aksar. One wonders if the police will now be devising and conducting
tests for the genuineness of love.
The whole ‘love jihad’ episode shows once again how the first
victims of communalism are women. It also demonstrates the extent to
which communal mindsets have infiltrated the system, with alleged
fundamentalist conspiracies, however bizarre, being given more value
than the Constitutional rights of an adult woman. This is clearly a
divide which even an accomplished matchmaker like Bollywood is going
to find tough to bridge.


_____


[7] Announcements:

(i)

This Saturday Nov 7, 4.30pm. Tea at 4pm

SAHMAT and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library present:

SUNIL JANAH'S PHOTOGRAPHIC EPIC: INDIA 1939 - 1971

Photographer Ram Rahman will present a lavishly illustrated lecture
on the legendary photographer Sunil Janah, now 91, and living in
Berkeley, California. This lecture is based on the large
retrospective curated by Rahman in New York in 1998.

While Janah has been a legendary name in Indian photography, very few
people have actually seen his work for many decades. As a Communist
Party member in the 1940's, Janah's work was widely published and
seen by the generation fighting for independence in the last decade
of that struggle. In the 1950's working out of Calcutta, he became
the visual chronicler of the newly free India. Rahman sees the huge
body of work that he produced as the epic of those two decades, a
hidden chronicle of great potency, which has a unique place in world
photography history.

Janah was placed in a unique position: an active political worker, he
documented momentous events through his highly sophisticated eye,
with an aesthetic and craft rare in documentary photography. An
intimate of the great figures in the independence movement, he knew
not just the communist leaders, but the entire spectrum of the
political leadership. Living in the commune in Bombay, he documented
IPTA and the Progressive writers.

Unfortunately, his work has never been published in its entirety. The
New York exhibition in 1998 evoked a tremendous response both
critically and with popular viewership. In this lecture, in which
Rahman will show a very large number of images, many rarely published
in recent decades, he seeks to place Janah and his work in the
context of Indian and world photography history. Documentary
photography and its legacy in India has never been properly
contextualised and has not even been accessible. Rahman situates
Janah in a discourse on art and politics, particularly at that
cultural moment in India's history, when the Left dominated that
discourse.  This will be a long lecture, with scores of images, and
is a rare chance to see many images which are not available in print.
Most of these will not be in print in the near future, and Janah has
given special permission to project these images for this lecture.

Saturday, November 7, 2009. 4.30 - 6.30 pm. Teen Murti Auditorium

Info: Sahmat, 2338 1276, 2307 0787


Some links to Sunil Janah reviews from 1998 and a piece by Ram Rahman
in Seminar, 1995

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?206115
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/21/arts/photography-review-looking-at-
india-s-upheaval-from-the-inside-and-the-side.html?pagewanted=1
http://www.indianexpress.com/oldStory/20232/


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

South Asia Citizens Wire | October 14-18, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2661 -
Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and a
comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1] Pakistan:
   (i) The holes in Pak’s heart (Ayesha Siddiqa)
   (ii) Top Pakistan university to ban kissing (Issam Ahmed)
[2] Bangladesh: Women repression unabated despite stringent law (Alpha Arzu)
[3] South Asia Should Move Forward With a Common Currency - Amritsar
Statement by UNESCO goodwill Ambassador Madanjeet Singh
[4] India: Violence by Hindu Fundamentalists in Goa - Tackle
terrorists with iron hand (Editorial, Herald)
[5] India: What has Driven the Tribals of Central India to Political
Extremism? (B.K. Roy Burman)
[6] India: Guilt by Association (Bobby Kundhu)
[7] India Administered Kashmir: Game interrupted (Muzamil Jaleel)
[8] Announcements:
(i) Appeal to join public meeting (New Delhi, 20 October 2009)
(ii) XVII Safdar Hashmi Memorial Lecture 2009 (New Delhi, 23 October 2009)

____


[1]  Pakistan:

(i)

Deccan Chronicle
October 17th, 2009

THE HOLES IN PAK’S HEART

by Ayesha Siddiqa

The recent attack on General Headquarters (GHQ) and Thursday’s attacks
in Lahore and Kohat and the Pakistan government’s response to these
incidents reminded one of the days after the terrorist attack on
Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel.

There were some in the government who referred to the incident as
Pakistan’s 9/11. While that particular date in American history can be
interpreted in several ways, its greatest significance lies in the
fact that it brought the state and society in the US on the same page
as far as fighting the war against terror was concerned. Did we manage
to achieve this consensus on September 20 last year? Perhaps not.

But this is where the catch lies. The enemy is far more intelligent
than what some of our television commentators would like us to
believe. In the GHQ case, the terrorists not only understood the
strategic value of attacking at the heart of the Pak Army’s power
base, they also appeared to understand the chasm between the state and
society and within the state at several levels. The attackers
understand the civilian-military divide better than a lot of people
who talk about a new era of civilian-military relations in the country
and boast about the two sides being on the same page.

They probably understand that the civilian government might pretend to
be powerful but that it depends on externally borrowed power and that
in the case of friction between the two centres of power, it is the
civilians who would back off. This was most obvious from the fact that
instead of raising some critical questions after the attack on GHQ,
all that the President and Prime Minister could do was congratulate
Gen Ashfaq Kayani on the excellent handling of the crisis.

There is no doubt that the nation is saddened by the death of unarmed
officers and soldiers, and supports any action to punish those who
carried out the attack. But the entire event ought to be discussed
threadbare without any mudslinging. Why was it that 10 men penetrated
a highly guarded area and remained ensconced in GHQ for about 19
hours, especially when the Army’s high command was in the premises?

There are two important issues here. First, the Pakistan Army, which
is trained mainly in conventional warfare and fighting state forces,
is not well trained in counter-insurgency operations. This explains
why despite being armed with G3s and other types of infantry equipment
the force guarding GHQ could not respond properly. Hence, this
capacity must be beefed up at the earliest.

Second, the connection of the key planner Aqeel, alias Dr Usman, with
the Army medical stores is a reminder of the problem that could
perhaps prevail in pockets inside the rest of the military. This
pertains to the religio-political inclinations of individual civil and
military officials and officers that directly or indirectly support
the jihadis.

Aqeel’s is not a unique case. Earlier there was Major Haroon Ashiq
alleged to be involved in the murder of Gen Faisal Alavi. He was
linked with one of the Punjab-based militant outfits. His capture led
the police and agencies to other retired officers who had split from
the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and were waging “jihad” on their own. We must
also not forget the Air Force officials and officers involved in the
first attack on the former President Pervez Musharraf. Reportedly, the
agencies were forced to go deep within the PAF in search of people
connected to different militant outfits or the Tableeghi Jamaat.

At this point, how sure are we that all older links between the
jihadis and individuals in the police or military have been snapped?
Instead of eulogising the Army, Parliament should be carefully looking
at and questioning the old linkages from the perspective of having a
handle on the problem of “jihadism” and what it means for the state.

Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) director general Maj. Gen.
Athar Abbas stated that the attackers had planned to use the hostages
to negotiate the release of about 100 terrorists. Reportedly, there
are about 400 terrorists in different jails. Some of the more
high-profile detainees are believed to include Malik Ishaq, head of
the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) and Qari Saifullah Akhtar, head of the
Hizb-ul-Jihad Islami. The government must now look at its preparedness
and the capacity to protect its high-value detainees.

Although the military and government now seem inclined to consider
other reasons for the attack, such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
trying to avenge Baitullah Mehsud’s death, the rescue of high-value
terrorists seems to be the primary reason, which must not be ignored
at any cost. It must not be forgotten that the attack on the Sri
Lankan team in Lahore was also meant to take hostages who could then
be exchanged for top jihadis. Sources even claim that the LJ’s Malik
Ishaq was involved in the earlier case and had decided to use the
attack to get himself freed after the elected Punjab government failed
to deliver on a mutual agreement between LJ and the PML-N leadership.

What’s equally interesting is the fact that there is an effort by
those in power to ignore or divert attention from areas which are as
infested with extremist militants as Fata and the tribal areas. The
sudden effort to get policemen from most districts of south Punjab to
deny the existence of the jihadi problem in their areas is a reaction
similar to when the government denied the Pakistani connections of the
Mumbai attackers even before investigating the matter. The denial is
strange since most of the attacks in Punjab or the federal capital are
believed to be provoked or carried out by Punjabis or Punjab-based
militant outfits.

Perhaps the fear is that this might divert international attention
towards Punjab or make ordinary Pakistanis think about the reasons why
jihadis have spread terror across Pakistan and not confined themselves
to the tribal areas as the authorities would like us to believe.
Interestingly, even the ISPR’s emphasis is that the attack might have
involved Punjabis but that it was carried out at the behest of the
Pakhtun Taliban.

It is indeed important to fight militants in Waziristan who are
influenced by Al Qaeda, but why does it have to be at the cost of
ignoring the Punjab-based outfits who are proving to be good hosts for
the terrorist network? Sources believe that Al Qaeda has trickled into
areas bordering Punjab. These outfits operate beyond the
Pakhtun-inhabited tribal areas and their threat is evident from the
sectarian killings in Dera Ismail Khan and other places.

There is a possibility that the civilian government might lose the
initiative in an urge to appease the military and the latter might
just lose the initiative to act against those that were part of the
GHQ attack for unexplained strategic reasons. This raises the question
of how much bloodshed would there be before strategic re-evaluation.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.


o o o

(ii)

Christian Science Monitor, October 14, 2009

TOP PAKISTAN UNIVERSITY TO BAN KISSING

by Issam Ahmed | Correspondent

     The Lahore University of Management Sciences promises to prohibit
public displays of affection after a highly publicized peck on the
cheek exposed deep fissures in Pakistani society.

     When an unsuspecting female student at Lahore University of
Management Sciences turned to peck her boyfriend on the cheek during
the Islamic holy month of Ramadan last month, she probably thought her
private moment would remain just that.

     Instead the kiss – which a fellow student witnessed, documented,
and then blasted in an email to the entire university as part of her
"dossier" on campus PDAs (public displays of affection) – has sparked
a passionate, headline-grabbing debate about how conservative
Pakistani society should be.

     The vigilant student, Tajwar Tashfin Awan, sent the mass email in
an effort to generate support from students and the administration,
which has since promised to "see any PDA go the route of the dodo."
Instead, in the past several weeks it has generated hundreds of
replies invoking anger, humor, and famous philosophers on what is
normally a quiet listserv.

     The brouhaha at LUMS, Pakistan 's premier educational institution,
points to the drastically different ideological directions in which
youths across the country are being pulled, says Asif Akthar, the
Lahore-based blogger who first reported the story and is now a
research assistant at the university.

     "I think [the debate over the kiss] signifies a conflict between
different cultural identities and shows there is something unresolved
there," he says.

     LUMS's leafy campus, located in a heavily fortified compound in
the posh Defence neighborhood of Lahore , has stood out in Pakistan as
a place where students of all stripes seem to coexist. Dressed in
everything from burqas and shalwar kameez to tank tops and skinny
jeans, and drawn mostly from the upper-middle class, the student body
goes on to hold top jobs in finance, industry, law, and software
engineering. Many continue their studies in the West.

     "At LUMS, you'll find people of all ideological persuasions
studying and living together easily. There's a deeply secular
community. There are religious ascetics who believe in a more tolerant
form of Islam. There are Deobandis [an ultraconservative branch of
Islam], and there are Marxists," says Ammar Rashid, a recent graduate
and now research assistant in social sciences.

     LUMS has also been more open about men and women studying together
– in contrast with some government-run universities, such as the
University of the Punjab also in Lahore , where "free-mixing" between
the sexes is frowned upon and in some instances violently opposed by
the Islami Jamiat Talaba, an Islamist student group.

     But as the kissing scandal shows, the fissures of a society in
flux run through LUMS as well, says Mr. Akhtar. "In a country where
there's an ongoing debate about the role of religion and the state,
that debate is going to spill over into all aspects of public life and
college campuses."

     In the maelstrom of replies to the e-mail that exposed the kiss
(and threatened to supply photographic evidence of it), one
conservative senior tried to guide freshmen on the correct path. "At
LUMS, you will be bombarded with all sorts of atheistic and secular
philosophies and 'isms'. If you do not have the proper knowledge and
conviction about Islam, you may fall prey to the untiring efforts of
certain faculty members as well as your fellow students to misguide
you," he wrote, before linking to his personal website dedicated to
Islamic practices.

     Others responded with sarcasm: "I have sinned. I do not believe
that there is a God because I can not see, feel, hear or touch
Him/Her… During the holy month, instead of attending Koranic recitals
in the mosque, I was listening to the demonic sounds of Pink Floyd,"
wrote one junior.

     The LUMS Office of Student Affairs has promised to issue a code of
conduct to ban PDAs – a measure some students have lauded, and others
rolled their eyes at.

     That would be a blow to university's prevailing culture of
democracy and tolerance, says Akhtar. "The administration should be
fostering a debate on the issue to try to get a handle on what the
so-called prevailing norms really are, and the ideas should be
thrashed out for debate," he says.



______


[2]  Bangladesh:

The Daily Star
October 17, 2009

WOMEN REPRESSION UNABATED DESPITE STRINGENT LAW
1,479 rape cases recorded in 6 months

by Alpha Arzu

Despite prevailing stringent laws in the country to protect women,
violence in different forms against women still goes on unabated with
offenders cocking a snook at the laws of the state.

Repression on women have increased manifold over the last few months.
The brutality is inflicted on them mainly for dowry, disputes over
wedding and land, said women activists working to promote and ensure
women's rights in the country.

At least 1,479 women had been raped in six months beginning from
January of 2009 while a total of 395 rape incidences, the highest
number recorded, were committed in Dhaka Range followed by 390 in
Rajshah and the lowest two in Railway Range, said Home Minister Sahara
Khatun at a parliament session on October 12.

She also added that at least 3,462 women in 2008 and 3,584 in 2007
were violated.

On September 25, an adolescent was gang-raped following her abduction
by 10 Bangladesh Chhatra League activists while she was returning from
a Puja Mandop in Kolapar upazila in Patuakhali district.

Four police constables raped a woman from ethnic minority community on
28 February 2009 in Khagrachhari while an Indian BSF violated a
Bangladeshi woman and killed her husband in Satkhira in last April.

Advocate Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh National Women
Lawyers Association (BNWLA), told The Daily Star, “There are a number
of laws including Dowry Prohibition Act, Prevention of Women and Child
Repression Act (2000) which provides for effective and efficient way
of dealing with cases of violence against women such as rape, acid
attacks, forced prostitution and trafficking.”

The other acts include Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act 1933, Family
Court Ordinance, Cruelty to Women (Deterrent Punishment) Ordinance and
Trafficking in Women and Children Act 1993.

“Without proper implementation of the laws, it is really tough to stop
violence against women that has become part and parcel of our male
partners' behaviour,” said the advocate who runs shelter home for the
repressed women, children and aged people.

Shamima Akhter (24) with her six-month-old daughter was looking for an
official at the Nari Nirjatan Protirodh Cell of Women and Children
Affairs Department to get legal support for her daughter's paternal
right.

She narrated the sorry tale of her conjugal life. “Within four months
of our marriage, my husband Mozammel Haque alias Khokan started to
torture me. And finally while I was six-month pregnant, he walked out
on me as my poor parents failed to give him the dowry of Tk 30,000.”

Hailed from city's Lalbagh area, Shamima now visits Nari Nirjatan
Protirodh Cell at Eskaton Garden at least four days a week with her
daughter. She said, “I have come here on foot. I started at 7:00am and
have reached here at 11:00am for the hearing.”

Like Shamima, at least 20 others who are victims of violence visit the
Nari Nirjatan Protirodh Cell each day, said sources at the department.
“We also receive some foreign women victims who got married to
Bangladeshi men,” said a record keeper officer of the cell who mainly
files up complaints.

As per case histories most of the victims filed cases against their
husbands, or mother in laws for physical torture for dowry.

Meanwhile, the human rights-based organisation Odhikar reported that
at least 338 women including 158 girls were raped in nine months
beginning from January of 2009. Sixty-eight women and 51 girls were
gang-raped, 50 women and 22 children were killed after rape during
this period.

A total of 247 women were subjected to dowry-related violence. One
hundred seventy-six of them died due to the violence and 64 of them
were tortured in various ways. Seven of these women allegedly
committed suicide, as they couldn't bear the brunt of torture, Odhikar
statistics stated.

At least 27 women fell victim to illegal fatwa while 45 women and 12
girls became the victims of acid throwing, it said.

Women and human rights activist, Ayesha Khanam, who works in the area
for three decades, told The Daily Star yesterday, “We are concerned
about the realities of women who are the worst victim of violence.
Doctor or post-graduate females are also now victims of torture and
killed by their in-laws' families.”

She said the recent victims, a doctor and a student of Dhaka
University, could be the wake-up calls to launch movement against
domestic violence.

“We have submitted letters to home, women and children affairs
ministries and prime minister to take steps in this regard,” she said.

_____


[3] South Asia:

AMRITSAR STATEMENT BY UNESCO GOODWILL AMBASSADOR MADANJEET SINGH,
FOUNDER OF SOUTH ASIA FOUNDATION

South Asia Foundation (SAF) is a secular, non-political and non-profit
organization established for the promotion of regional cooperation
through SAF institutions of excellence and groups scholarships in all
the SAARC countries, based on gender equality. It has been recognized
as an Apex body of the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) and has special relationship with the United
Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The cardinal objective of SAF and its vision is to establish a union
of the eight SAARC countries namely, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan