SACW | Jan. 10-12, 2007

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | January 10-12, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2346 - Year 8

[1]  Bangladesh: Betrayal (Mohsin R. Siddique)
[2]  South Asia Has Stakes in Bangladesh Ballot (J. Sri Raman)
[3]  India: The Politics of Industrialisation, Singur, Nandigram and the left:
      (i) A question marked in red (Sumit Sarkar)
      (ii) Peasant Hares and Capitalist Hounds of Singur (Sumanta Banerjee)
[4]  India: Post-mortem of Afzal Guru Case (K. G. Kannabiran)

_____


[1]

Sent: Jan 10, 2007 5:40 AM
To: uttorshuri at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [uttorshuri] Please consider posting the following.

BETRAYAL

[by] Mohsin R. Siddique

I think it was Lenin who had cautioned about the 
propensity of petty bourgeois political parties 
towards opportunism. Not that the progressives 
should avoid working with them, just that they 
should be alert! Awami League's alliance with the 
Khilafat Majlish Party behind the back of its 13 
party allies is not an entirely surprising 
betrayal, especially given the past instances of 
AL 's efforts to get on the good side of the 
proponents of Islamic theocracy. The progressive 
allies should have been cautious and made 
provision for escape hatch - even if only to save 
their faces! Still it is devastating to see AL 
actually enter into alliance with a group that 
demanded, and AL agreed in principal to 
primitive, alien rules and norms, purportedly 
replicating those of 6th/7th century Arabia , in 
a country desperately in need of finding its 
place in the 21st century. The disappointment is 
mostly because despite many of its intrinsic 
regressive tendencies, liberals see AL as the 
last viable broad front vehicle that might steer 
the country out of its suicidal conflict between 
the demands of overdue social and cultural 
progress, and the pressures to become a concocted 
model of an Islamic state dreamed up by 
psychopaths.

The country faces death by decay and 
disintegration if it is overrun by the 
fanatically militant assault of a religious creed 
that is itself hopelessly mired in conflict with 
modernity in its outlooks and ambitions. Those 
ambitions are outdated to such an extent that 
they are demonstratively and dangerously 
destructive, as we have seen in Afghanistan . 
AL's nonchalance regarding the cruel and inhuman 
material and psychological impact of its action 
on segments of the country's population, its 
traditional supporters, i.e., the minorities - 
religious, ethnic and tribal - who have, in this 
promised land of secularism suffered more 
indignation after 1971, have been relegated to 
second class citizen status, are subject to 
forced conversion, intimidation, humiliation, 
physical elimination, etc., is incomprehensible 
even by the standards of the worst Machiavellian 
rationalization. Each of the clauses of the MOU 
that AL has agreed to is brutally primitive, 
oppressive, reactionary, regressive, inhumane & 
fascistic, against freedom, and harbinger of more 
evil. Bluntly put, the so called ulema in remote 
villages will be free to blame little girls when 
they are raped by the thugs, and fatwa will be 
issued to whip them for good measure, because the 
girls would be unable to prove their innocence by 
producing eye-witnesses.

It will be OK to burn the Ahamadyas alive. 
Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and atheists will 
face ultimatum to convert to Islam or face 
retribution. Those who doubt that Islam is the 
religion of peace will be hanged from the nearest 
tree, or get their throats slashed. AL 's action 
as such is reprehensible; in the context of the 
declared aims of the Talebanites, and especially 
the proof of their willingness to commit murder 
and mayhem to impose their beastly practices on 
the citizens of Bangladesh , AL 's capitulation 
is simply repulsive. No decent human being can or 
should stand for it!

The calculation of the intellectual giants of AL 
who came up with this plan is hard to figure out. 
Is it an expression of their insecurity that they 
will not come to power without votes of the 
Islamists, and therefore, to tell the voters that 
AL is not much different from those BNP-Jamat? Is 
it a way to announce the failure of their dubious 
approach to secularism and that the majority of 
the country, in a radical shift from the time 
before 1971, is moving towards accepting Islamic 
theocracy? Or, are they fearful that the jig is 
up: since it has taken them for granted 
repeatedly and took no steps to secure their 
status as full citizens of the country, 
minorities and many sympathizer progressives have 
given up on AL anyway? It should be recognized 
that by agreeing to the terms of Khilafat 
Majlish, even if AL does not gain power and in 
stead BNP-Jamat cabal does, because AL now has 
given them the political cover, they can be 
expected to adopt and impose same or similar 
rules. It seems that the country is screwed 
either way.

This action has now legitimized the ideology of 
Islamic theocracy in the country by three major 
political parties: AL, BNP & Jamat. The damage it 
has caused to the nation by this action is far 
reaching; if they are aware of it, AL 's leaders 
and operatives stand accused of knowingly 
committing crime against the citizens of 
Bangladesh ; if they are not, they have made bare 
their moral and intellectual bankruptcy. No 
amount of desperate efforts at damage control by 
hollow verbal gymnastics by its leaders and 
huckster can obfuscate that.

Which brings one to the matter of more 
opportunism, that of the so-called 
progressive/left among the 13 parties that have 
gotten on the AL gravy train! It is well known 
that the Communist Party of Bangladesh, after 
many years of support and close collaboration, 
has in recent years publicly expressed its 
concern about the sincerity of AL 's commitment 
to a secular democratic progressive program for 
the country. The skepticism follows from many 
years of experience with AL : its evolution since 
1971, policies and practices, activities in and 
out of power, its despotic tendencies, etc. In 
light of the geopolitical changes of the last few 
decades, and because it is beyond their control, 
there remain no differences in the economic 
policies of the two major parties. Representing 
the interests of different segments of the same 
class, AL simply is not in a position to propose 
economic development agenda fundamentally 
different from what BNP/Jamat propagates. In 
addition, given the notoriety of corruption it 
has earned for itself while in power, only way 
for AL to distinguish itself for electoral gain 
is to appeal to its past commitment to 
secularism, ignoring the fact it has been unable 
to hide its inability to avoid the influences of 
Islamists in form or in content of its practices. 
How thin the veneer of its pretense was has just 
been proven, validating CPB's fears. Given all 
that, AL 's attraction to the lefties among the 
coalition is hard to not to be suspicious about. 
According to some one in CPB I had spoken to last 
summer, there was an agreement among the left 
parties to try to create a progressive coalition 
to offer the voters a real alternative in place 
of the current 'lesser of the two evils' option. 
Apparently, there was progress towards forming 
such a coalition, but it fizzled out as a result 
of betrayal by the leftists of the 13 parties who 
decided they had a more immediate chance to 
attain power & privilege with Awami League!

This is a particular manifestation of the tragedy 
of the left in Bangladesh today, as it has 
succumbed to the seduction allure of political 
power through the back door, and delusions about 
what they imagine they can achieve. The left in 
general is in a sad situation, no doubt, and the 
epithet applies not only to the left in the 13 
parties that became pawns in the hands of AL 
leaders, but to CPB as well. Late Mohammad Farhad 
long ago described the tragedy thus: in the 
absence of a sizable working class, and deprived 
of the experienced leaders of mass movements, who 
either migrated or became marginally operational 
due to extreme repression by the Islamist of that 
time, the leadership of the left in East Bengal 
have always fallen on the shoulders of former 
student leaders from among the petty bourgeoisie, 
whose instinct for personal gain seem to 
overwhelm all their good intentions, leading to 
opportunism.

Over the years, many with progressive credentials 
have also drifted into AL frustrated by the 
inability to create a left-led mass movement. One 
cannot but note, given the timing of AL 's 
misdeed, how the elimination of the intellectual 
and political leaders of the country by the 
Islamists in 1971 has added to the deprivations 
of today. The left leaders today have been 
unsuccessful in making inroads into the labor and 
peasant movements in any effective manner and 
bring those whose objective interests is in 
fundamental change into the rank and file and the 
leadership. The CPB person I spoke to bitterly 
complained about their own inability to recruit 
the younger generation into progressive politics. 
Witness the recent movements of the garment 
workers in Bangladesh ! These and other mass 
movements have taken place as far away from the 
left parties as imaginable. The idea of the left 
coalition, I was given to understand, was to 
create a political base through long term 
investment in grass root organization, political 
education, support of the labor, peasants', 
minorities', women's struggles, etc., by 
mobilizing the meager resources of the multitude 
of left organizations. It was both a tacit 
recognition of the left's lack of any substantive 
foundation in the country, and of the need to 
create one. It was also hoped that by remaining 
independent of AL , while supporting and pushing 
for progressive agenda, the left would succeed in 
creating pressure and incentive for AL not to 
fall victim to its tendency towards opportunism. 
The left parties ignored the lessons of history 
that only guarantee of keeping the social 
democratic forces committed to a relatively 
progressive agenda is the existence of a 
well-grounded independent left force. Now the 13 
parties are caught with their pants down, out 
maneuvered by AL , and its action timed to ensure 
that the so-called partners are incapable of 
taking any effective steps against it.

Bangladesh is at a cross road, not at the one it 
had aimed for in 1971, but at one far behind. It 
is a victim of history, and crucial mistakes 
committed by its intellectual and political 
leaders in the past, which also emanated from 
narrow interests of the nascent Muslim petty 
bourgeoisie. Now, being a Muslim majority 
country, because of its vulnerability due to its 
economic dependence, social and cultural 
backwardness, in part all results of the past 
mistakes, it has become the battle ground for 
resolving the irreconcilable differences between 
a world under the ideological an economic sway of 
the latest phase of capitalism's global 
ascendance, and the insane cave-mentality of a 
group adamant in its intent to drag the country 
and its people as far back as possible, close to 
the times of a mythical Arabia.

In a comment on Selig Harrison's opinion column 
in the Washington Post (on 8/2/06) published in 
(the internet edition of) The Daily Star on 
August 9, 2006, I suggested that Mr. Harrison in 
his observations had ignored to point out the 
deep-rooted social change towards fundamentalism 
that is taking place in Bangladesh. As depressing 
as the recent AL action is, and it obviously is 
connected to the trend, far reaching changes 
towards theocracy taking place in the fabric of 
the society is a matter of much greater concerns. 
These changes are simultaneously indicative of 
the decline of the ideological and cultural 
influence of the progressive forces and the 
absence of an aggressive, fighting left. As much 
as I miss it myself, listening to Rabindra 
Sangeet under Bot Tola is not enough 'political 
work' to stem the rising influence of 
anti-secular trends, while the Taleban is waging 
a low grade but clearly discernible well 
orchestrated civil war in the country in all 
fronts: ideological, social, cultural, 
educational, economic, political and military.

The bloody conflict between the needs of living 
in a modern world and opposition to that world by 
the religion-mongers will not be resolved without 
confronting a basic truth: no matter what the 
prophets (and other sages) of the past may have 
said, change is essential. Old rules and norms 
must be abandoned and new ones adopted to live in 
changing times. Muslims of Turkey are Turkish 
Muslims; of Egypt , Egyptian; of Arabia , 
Arabian, etc.

These people are not divorced from their native 
cultures or their history, neither have they 
remained stuck in outmoded forms of statecraft, 
not to the extent the Talebanites would like, 
anyway. Problem with the Bangladeshi Muslims is 
that their religious leaders have not reconciled 
with the fact that they are Bengali Muslims, that 
their history - both biological and the 
civilizational, is rooted here, and no disguise, 
western or Arab, can cover that up! Yet, they do 
everything possible to avoid any indication that 
their ancestors were Hindus, Buddhists, tribals, 
etc. In their mission to Arabize the culture as a 
part of their march to state power and impose 
Islamic rule of the most virulent kind, they are 
determined to wipe out any trace of link to our 
past. Their particular mission to wipe out the 
Hindu population is to be seen in this context. 
The pressure to alienate from its roots that 
Muslims as a community have suffered for a very 
long time from their politico-religious leaders 
is what has hurled them into this distorted and 
tragic trajectory - from the deception that was 
Pakistan to the cage of Islamic theocracy that is 
under construction. It is in this conflict with 
our identity originates our confusion about how 
to adopt to a rapidly changing modern world, 
while the regressive forces ideologically 
anchored in centuries past try to pull us back. 
Deprivation from the experience of living for 
sustained period under a stable democracy, and 
our refusal to learn, e.g., from neighboring 
India about it's fundamental advantages, have 
contributed to the present quagmire.

The electoral crisis of 2006-2007 is yet another 
example of how miserably democracy has failed to 
take root, how the major political parties have 
undermined it by transmitting their own cynicism 
on to the voters by abusing power, replacing 
governance with corruption, emphasizing personal 
ambitions over public good, and making politics 
in Bangladesh devoid of any decency.

Bangladesh is never short of intelligent people, 
but there seem to be a lack of rational ones 
among leaders and apparatchiks of political 
organizations. That has to change, and require 
rational, humane and realist leaders. I suggest 
that a critical step to instigate that change is 
to demand the restoration of every secular 
component of the original constitution of 
Bangladesh , and make those even stronger. A 
commitment to do so should be the litmus test of 
any one claiming to be secular and democratic in 
Bangladesh . There is no rational justification 
for, neither is there any justice in imposing any 
parochial religious values in matters of public 
civic life; to do so is to institutionalize 
tyranny of one religion over the others, 
including those who do not subscribe to any. In a 
democracy, an individual has the right to 
subscribe to any personal faith or no faith at 
all, but he or she has no right to require any of 
others.

Hence, there is no democracy but secular 
democracy; every other variation is a fraud. What 
is necessary is for all democratic, progressive 
forces in the country to come together in this 
battle, no less significant than that of 1971, 
with a commitment to eliminate once and for all 
the forces of darkness, obscurantism and bigotry 
- the enemies of freedom, which the Islamists 
openly claim to be. The coalition of progress 
must militantly confront every move of the 
fanatics, exposing their insanity & inhumanity, 
their repressive agenda, and their Mirjafari 
treachery. Divided, the democratic left are many; 
united, they can be mighty. To defeat the 
anti-democratic theocratic forces is a central 
task in Bangladesh today. The need for coming 
together of the progressives, including those 
within AL , to create an independent, alternate 
political entity to fight this battle has never 
been more urgent.

Washington D.C., January 10, 2007.

_____

[2] 

truthout.orrg
10 January 2007

SOUTH ASIA HAS STAKES IN BANGLADESH BALLOT
by J. Sri Raman
   
     January 10, 1972, was the day the founder of 
Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, returned from 
his exile abroad to his country after its 
liberation. January 10, 2007, is the day after a 
three-day "bundh" (blockade) of Dhaka, the 
country's capital, by an opposition led by 
Mujib's daughter, Sheikh Hasina Wajed and her 
Awami League (AL).

     Indians of diverse political persuasions 
celebrated this day 35 years ago as one of 
victory, if for very different reasons. The 
religious-communal right, of course, rejoiced 
over the breakup of Islamic Pakistan and India's 
role in this. The centrists, while reveling in 
India's performance as a regional power, also 
joined the left in seeing the historic event as a 
triumph of secularism over the "two-nation 
theory." The birth of Bangladesh, they said, 
belied the theory that recognized religion as a 
basis for national identity and led to the 
subcontinent's bifurcation into India and 
Pakistan.

     Thoughtful Indians are not celebrating today 
the bloody war in the streets of Bangladesh. The 
peace movement in India, in particular, has 
compelling reasons for serious concern over the 
emerging scenarios across the country's eastern 
border. None of the possible results of the 
Hasina-led campaign, which she has vowed to carry 
forward, would appear an unqualified victory for 
the cause of peace and democracy - and one of 
them can only be described as a nightmarish 
prospect for the people of Bangladesh.

     The bundh was a protest against the official 
plans to conduct the next general election of 
Bangladesh on January 22. The mass of protesters, 
including many women, braved batons and rubber 
bullets to demand cancellation of the election. 
The AL-headed 14-party alliance would boycott any 
election without "electoral reforms" in place - 
and with President Iajuddin Ahmed as the chief 
adviser to the caretaker government.

     Everyone outside the rightwing Bangladesh 
National Party (BNP), which headed the last 
government in Dhaka, and its alliance agrees on 
the need for poll reforms. Few question the 
allegation, for example, that the voters list is 
hopelessly flawed. It is an open secret, too, 
that the president has conducted himself so far 
as a loyal lieutenant of BNP president and 
outgoing prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia. 
Complacency about the consequence of the 
anti-poll campaign, however, would be hard to 
find outside the AL's camp.

     The protests, culminating in a siege of the 
presidential palace and leaving scores critically 
injured, have produced no result so far. Ahmed 
has refused to budge. He claims he has a 
constitutional duty to hold the election within 
90 days of the caretaker regime, or January 25. 
He has pointedly ignored the suggestion of a 
presidential reference of the matter to the 
Supreme Court, which will help him revise the 
voters list and hold a rescheduled election.

     Hasina and her alliance have not relented 
either. They have vowed to intensify their 
agitation. The AL leadership has also warned that 
they won't let the poll boycott lead to a 
"walkover" for the BNP camp. They have threatened 
to resist if they are not rescheduled. This can 
only spell another series of street battles 
across the country - and a prolonged role for the 
army in the run-up to the election. Deployment of 
the army for 20 days before and after an election 
is not the kind of news that would reinforce 
confidence in Bangladesh's democracy.

     The most probable result of all these, as of 
now, is indeed an easy win, if not technically a 
"walk-over," for Begum Zia and her band, 
including the notoriously fundamentalist 
Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). This outlook brings no 
cheer to observers of Begum Zia's term in office 
that has witnessed a phenomenal mushrooming of 
terrorist groups and a frightening series of bomb 
blasts, especially during 2004-2005. Fear of such 
an outcome, according to some Bangladesh 
watchers, can lead to a fresh flight of 
minorities across the border.

     A possible, but not at all probable, result 
would be a political miracle that ensures the 
participation of the AL-led alliance even at this 
late stage, hopefully perhaps under increased 
international pressure. The miracle, however, 
won't quite make for a much more inspiring 
political prospect. The AL will be going into 
polls, in that event, with its own answer to the 
JeI. The party with a Mujib legacy of a secular 
and left-of-center reputation shocked friends and 
foes alike on December 22, 2006, by signing a 
memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the 
fanatical Khilafat Majlish.

     Under the MoU, the AL undertakes, if returned 
to power, to empower the "bona fide" clerics to 
issue fatwas (edicts). The party also agrees to 
pass a law to make any criticism of Islam, 
prophet Mohammed and his associates "punishable 
crimes." Even more dangerous, under the new 
dispensation, anyone not acknowledging Mohammed 
as the last prophet shall be declared a 
"non-Muslim." This is evidently directed against 
minority sects within Islam that have been the 
targets of violent fundamentalists.

     Hasina has also compromised her secular image 
somewhat by wooing and welcoming into her 
alliance former dictator Hossain Mohammad Ershad. 
Way back in 1991, she rode to power on the crest 
of a popular wave against Ershad, who had staked 
a claim to untrammeled power as a saviour of 
Islam.

     The battle of the Begums, as it has been 
described, may not end in a victory for either. 
The most frightening of the possibilities is a 
defeat of democracy itself. The deployment of the 
army against the pre-poll protests can, in that 
case, presage a return of Bangladesh to a past of 
un-cherished memories.

     The people of Bangladesh are justly and 
intensely proud of their proven secular and 
democratic instincts. They can certainly boast of 
quite a few writers and artists who have stood up 
against pseudo-religious censors and persecutors. 
They can also, and often do, recall their success 
in sending the army "back to the barracks" in the 
past.

     But, like the rash-like growth of rabid 
fundamentalism, especially in the rural areas 
over the past few years, it is also a fact that 
the liberation of Bangladesh led rapidly to a 
long period of military rule. After Mujib's 
assassination in 1975, the country slid into an 
era of despots (general Ziaul Rahman and Ershad) 
that endured until 1991. The history of 
Bangladesh does not exactly inspire hopes that it 
won't be repeated.

     Husain Haqqani, who served as spokesperson 
for both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, has 
recently called upon Hasina and Khaleda to learn 
from the example of the two former prime 
ministers of Pakistan, who have now entered into 
a political agreement. As Haqqani himself notes, 
however, Benazir and Nawaz have learnt their 
lessons only after creating conditions for a 
return of military rule to Pakistan.

     We really have no reason to expect the two 
former prime ministers of Bangladesh to be any 
wiser before the event. But Nepal, to cite an 
example in the neighborhood, has shown what even 
the people of a poor nation can do, despite the 
deficiencies of their political parties. South 
Asians, aware of their stake in the developments, 
will hope that the preference of Bangladesh's 
people for peace and democracy prevails.

_____


[3]

(i)

Indian Express
January 09, 2007

A QUESTION MARKED IN RED

This is a critique from the Left of the CPM's 
industrialisation policy in Bengal. Is the 
violence, cadre brutality and lack of consent 
that runs through this strategy the only way to 
develop? How do Singur and Nandigram serve the 
people?

by Sumit Sarkar

  As a lifelong Leftist, I am deeply shocked by 
recent events in the countryside of West Bengal. 
On December 31, a group of us went to Singur, 
spent the whole day there, visited 4 out of the 5 
most affected villages which border the land that 
has been taken over. We had conversations with at 
least 50-60 villagers. Almost all rushed to us 
and told us their complaints.

From this brief but not necessarily 
unrepresentative sample, three things became very 
clear, because of which the West Bengal 
government's version cannot be accepted. One, the 
land, far from being infertile or mono-cropped, 
as has been stated repeatedly, is sextremely 
fertile and multi-cropped. We saw potatoes and 
vegetables already growing after the aman rice 
has been harvested, some of them actually planted 
behind the now fenced-in area which the peasants 
had lost. Two, there is no doubt that the vast 
bulk of the villagers we met are opposed to the 
take-over of land and most are refusing 
compensation. It should also be kept in mind that 
at best the consent of the registered landholders 
as well as sharecroppers is being taken. But 
agricultural production also involves 
sharecroppers who are not covered by Operation 
Barga since they have come in later, as well as 
agricultural labour. Under the 
government-announced scheme for compensation, 
such people are not being remembered.

Three, we found much evidence of force being 
employed, particularly on the nights of September 
25 and December 2. We met many people - men and 
also a large number of women - who had been 
beaten up, their injuries still visible, 
including an 80 year old woman.

What the villagers repeatedly alleged was that 
along with the police, and it seems more than the 
police, party activists, whom the villagers call 
'cadres' - which has sadly become a term of abuse 
- did the major part of the beating up. Clearly, 
the whole thing had been done without 
consultation, with very little transparency, and 
in a very undemocratic manner.

As for the official claims of land being 
mono-cropped, the Economic and Political Weekly 
in an editorial of December 23 has pointed out 
that the last land survey of the area was done in 
the 1970s which means that the records with the 
government are backdated. Surely there must be 
much more investigation on the ground and 
consultation with panchayats and other local 
bodies. No one, not even the government, has 
actually claimed that such consultation has taken 
place. It was done entirely from the top.

These mistakes, to put it mildly, are being 
repeated on a much bigger scale in the Nandigram 
region. This has become far more serious because 
a much greater area of land is being taken - with 
the same lack of transparency, absence of consent 
and massive brutality. Once again, one is hearing 
reports of CPM cadres engaged in an offensive 
against peasants. What is happening at Nandigram 
is a near civil war situation.

The West Bengal government seems determined to 
follow a particular path of development involving 
major concessions both to big capitalists like 
the Tatas and multinationals operating in SEZs. 
Yet the strange thing is that these, particularly 
the latter, are things which Left parties and 
groups as well as many others have been 
repeatedly and vehemently opposing. No less a 
person than the CPM General Secretary in the 
course of last week made 2-3 statements attacking 
SEZs. The CPM has been at the forefront of the 
struggles against such developments in other 
parts of the country.

Surely there must be a search, at least, for 
paths of development that could balance necessary 
industrial development with social concerns and 
transparency and democratic values. Is this SEZ 
model that implies massive displacement and 
distress really the only way? If the West Bengal 
government thinks so, then it also has to accept 
that the inevitable consequences are going to be 
a repetition of Nandigram across the state.

This is the price that will be paid by 
government, ordinary people as well as investors 
for this model of development.

The writer is an eminent historian

o o o

(ii)

Economic and Political Weekly
December 30, 2006

PEASANT HARES AND CAPITALIST HOUNDS OF SINGUR

Singur is a test of sorts: For the Left Front 
government that is very ardently pursuing 
industrialisation as the only pathway to progress 
and also for its opponents, who are speaking up 
for the unregistered sharecroppers and landless 
labourers, who stand to gain little from the 
project. The wide nature of opposition also 
offers an opportunity to diverse groups to 
explore an alternative path to development.

by Sumanta Banerjee

A hitherto obscure rural cluster called Singur, 
some 40 kms away from Kolkata in West Bengal, has 
all of a sudden been thrust into the national 
limelight, capturing headlines in the mainstream 
media and disrupting proceed-ings in the Lok 
Sabha. It is symptomatic of both the drastic 
changes that are taking place in rural India 
forced by the pace of neoliberal reforms, as well 
as of the chal-lenges that the Left has to face 
while walking the tight rope of resisting and 
adjusting to them.

The dispute, as it is well known by now, revolves 
around the decision of the Left Front government 
to acquire some 997 acres of agricultural land at 
Singur for the setting up of a plant by Tata 
Motors to manufacture cheap (priced at Rs one 
lakh) motor cars. It has led to a triangular 
contest of sorts. The state government and its 
leading partner, the CPI(M), claim that the 
majority of those who own the land have submitted 
letters giving consent to the sale of their plots 
and, along with their registered sharecroppers 
have already collected compensation. The 
unregistered sharecroppers and agricultural 
labourers, for their part, are being offered 
oppor-tunities of training to enable them for 
employment in the upcoming Tata Motors factory, 
and other ancillary indus-tries that will follow 
almost as a matter of course. These claims are 
being con-tested from two different angles. It is 
essential todistinguish between the two, and 
necessary for the Left Front govern-ment to 
fine-tune its approach to the critiquethat it is 
facing from the flank of its own support base.
One angle is dominated by the scheming 
rabble-rouser Mamata Banerjee, whose party 
Trinamool Congress was literally wiped out from 
West Bengal by the last electoral verdict. 
Looking for a chance to bounce back in state 
politics, she swooped down on the cause of the 
"oustees" of Singur. In a bid for national 
support, she invited Rajnath Singh, the leader of 
the BJP  her ally in NDA, which with its hitherto 
marginal presence in West Bengal, has jumped onto 
the bandwagon so as to carve out a new space for 
itself. The Trinamool-BJP combine, true to its 
nature, indulged in histrionics such as 
vandalising the West Bengal legislative assembly 
and a hunger-strike performance (sustained till 
the time of writing) by Mamata Banerjee. Repeated 
requests by the state's chief minister, Buddhadev 
Bhattacharya, for a dialogue were stonewalled by 
Mamata who seems determined to make a nuisance of 
herself simply to redraw attention to her party 
and re-establish its populist image among the 
Bengali electorate.

Nature of Opposition

The other oppositional angle is shared in common 
by a variety of individuals and organisations - 
ranging from social activ-ists and human rights 
groups to some radical Left outfits like the 
CPI(M-L) and Maoists.  They set up a panel 
consisting among others of the reputed writer 
Mahashweta Devi, and the well known activist 
Medha Patkar, which held a public hearing at 
Gopalnagar, one of the affected villages in 
Singur, on October 27, 2006, wherethey recorded 
evidence from a large number of villagers who 
alleged that they had been pressured to part with 
fertile, irrigatedagri-cultural land and to 
accept the inadequate compensation offered. They 
also com-plained of police repression that had 
been unleashed following their protests. The 
panel invited the West Bengal chief min-ister and 
the ministers for industry, agricul-ture and land 
reforms, as well asthe senior officials of their 
respective departments.  The chairs reserved for 
them, however, remained vacant throughout the 
hearing.  Their absence indicated the Left Front 
government's reluctance to face dis-gruntled 
sections belonging to its own constituency and to 
listen to civil society groups. But it also 
portended a vicious offensive against them marked 
by police assaults on protesting villagers and 
the arrest of Medha Patkar and others who tried 
to mobilise them. This ham-handed reaction 
betrayed a desperate need on the part of the 
CPI(M) to tackle a deeper crisis generated by 
chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's new 
industrial policy that was summed up in the last 
assembly elections by his slogan -  "Agriculture 
is our base, industry our future".  Watching the 
developments following from this policy (the 
Singur motor car factory is only one in a long 
chain of controversial industrial and commercial 
enclaves that have been sanctioned by him), 
cynical old-timers in his party feel that the 
agricultural base is being relegated for the sake 
of an uncertain and dubious industrial future. 
Other critics are accus-ing the party of having 
come to power riding piggyback on the rural poor, 
but are now expropriating them to build 
industrial enclaves.

Bhattacharya however seems to favour the Fordist 
model, stressing the importance of domestic 
consumerist demand as the foundation for the 
development of industry. In the case of Singur, 
he expects that there will be a demand (for a 
cheap motor car) from large sections of the 
Bengali middle class (both urban professionals 
and rural privileged sections) whose economic 
status has improved in the last three decades of 
Left rule. It is to cater to their consumerist 
needs again that he signed a contract with an 
Indonesian industrialhouse to set up a huge 
commer-cial and entertainment complex on 
Kolkata's outskirts. The political rhetoric that 
lies behind the promise of rehabilita-tion and 
jobs for those ousted from their lands conceals 
the old rationale of capital accumulationby 
expropriating land that was earlier cultivated 
for a particular type of economic development.

Industry versus Agriculture

The West Bengal CPI(M)  is caught in a cleft 
stick - however much Buddhadeb Bhattacharya might 
try to put up a brave face and live up to his 
image of a poster boy who satisfies both his 
party's rural constituency and the industrial 
magnates whom he wants to woo for investments in 
his state. The dispute over Singur actually harks 
back to the more fundamental problem of 
reconciling peasant interests with the demands of 
industrial growth.  Prioritisation of the latter 
shaped the policies of both the capitalist states 
in 19th century Europe and their socialist 
successors in the USSR and China, and the 
uncomfortable relationship between agriculture 
and industry continues to pose a challenge to 
Left-ruled states in Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil 
and other parts of South America.

The Singur dispute also needs to be located in 
the particular context of the history of land 
reforms under the Left regime in West Bengal, 
their limited and interim benefits,  the growing 
erosion in their utilitarian worth, and the 
consequential desperate need of the Left Front 
government to seek alternative avenues of growth 
and employment through industries in the private 
sector. Operation Barga the major land reform 
legislation of the Left Front government - did 
indeed allow sharecroppers to register themselves 
and claim their share of harvest. But in some 
villages, individual sharecroppers decided not to 
register and preferred instead an unwritten 
arrangement (termed as "mu-tual" in local 
parlance) with landowners that allowed them 
extra-privileges like loans at times of need, 
etc, in lieu of their giving up the demand for 
their share of the harvest. In Singur, quite a 
number of the affected oustees belong to this 
category of sharecroppers who refused to register 
themselves and preferred a "mutual" deal with 
their employers. These non-registered 
sharecroppers along with the landless labourers 
(mainly migrants from neighbouring districts who 
used to work on the recently acquired plots as 
farm-hands) are the worst sufferers since they 
are not legally entitled to any compensa-tion 
under the Singur land deal.

Incomplete land reforms and imperfect 
infrastructural facilities have led to a 
situ-ation of economic and social stagnation in 
the West Bengal rural sector. The growth both in 
terms of agricultural production and 
socio-economic justice for the poor -that was 
witnessed in the 1980-90 period, has reached a 
plateau by the early years of the present century 
without holding out much prospects for further 
progress. In the stark terms of rural existence, 
income from agriculture alone for many farmers 
(bene-ficiaries of land reforms) in certain parts 
of West Bengal is no longer commensurate with the 
amount that they invest in high-yielding 
varieties and irrigation facilities, in the 
absence of adequate state subsidy.  Further, a 
new generation has grown up in the last three 
decades - beneficiaries of Left rule (like 
sharecroppers, small and middle farmers, even 
sections of  agricul-tural labour whose wages 
have gone up), who have become exposed to the 
alluring prospects of urbanisation, and are eager 
to further improve their economic status. To come 
back to Singur, from available re-ports it 
appears that its location (road connectivity with 
nearby railway stations and Kolkata) has allowed 
some among this new generation of sharecroppers 
and small farmers to supplement their meagre 
earn-ings from the increasingly unremunerative 
agricultural holdings, by  working on 
neighbouring construction sites, or setting up 
small shops, or plying cycle-rickshaws to 
transport urban entrepreneurs who are 
establishing small industrial manufactur-ing 
units around Singur - thanks to the Durgapur 
Expressway that runs near it.  Singur, it seems, 
had already been moving towards 
mini-industrialisation and semi-urbanisation even 
before Tata Motors arrived on the scene.

The opponents of the Tata Motors scheme

 well-meaning as they are - should also delve 
into this other side of the story. How many among 
the landholders of Singur sold their plots under 
CPI(M) pressure, and how many out of their 
perceived need to escape from the stagnant pool 
of sagging agricultural production? The West 
Bengal state assembly speaker Hasim Abdul Halim, 
who was designated as the government emissary to 
negotiate with Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee 
was reported to have proposed that those farmers 
refusing to part with their land in Singur could 
be given cultivable plots in agricultural tracts 
in adjoining areas. There has not been any taker 
till now from among the dispossessed farmers. 
Have they lost interest in farming (given its 
limited potentialities)? Are they looking for 
greener pastures in urban and industrial 
ventures, each seeking personal benefits, thus 
moving beyond the tradi-tional collective peasant 
solidarity that bound them in the past?

This individualism has been reinforced by the 
ethics of neoliberalism that has invaded - among 
other sectors - the depths of India's agrarian 
economy. Neoliberal economics stresses the right 
of individual owners of property - whether 
agricultural land or industrial means of 
production -to deal with their property in 
whatever way that would suit their self-interest 
for their private profit. The individual 
accumula-tion of wealth that this encourages, and 
the production of selected goods of consump-tion 
that it leads to, are confined to a narrow 
privileged section of society. But these become 
the yardstick for measuring economic growth, as 
well as the model for the rest of that society. 
This false concept of growth ignores the economic 
stakes in land of the larger rural community 
(con-sisting of less unscrupulous, or the 
con-cerns of less privileged individuals who 
cannot join the rat race), as well as their 
social priorities (eg, housing, medical 
facilities, education), which should be taken 
care of by the state. Instead these 
respon-sibilities are being increasingly conceded 
to profit-seeking private enterprises. The logic 
of unfettered neoliberalism dictates that land 
should be put to whatever use that can generate 
the maximum profit, encour-aging farmers to sell 
their lands to deve-lopers and invest the amount 
received in compensation in other business 
ventures.  TINA or Other Alternatives?

In the absence of a functional alternative 
egalitarian model of development (that was 
represented in a large part of the world -however 
flawed - by the socialist experi-ments in the 
period preceding the collapse of the USSR), the 
neoliberal economic order today claims to be the 
sole hegemonic model, giving rise to the term 
TINA - "there is no alternative". Quite 
predictably, in developing countries it re-enacts 
the 19th century paradigm of industrialisation by 
expropriation of agricultural land. 
(In-cidentally, to acquire the land in  Singur, 
the Left Front government has invoked an old 
colonial law of that period - Land  Acquisition 
Act of 1894.) The victims of this paradigm are 
the peasants who are increasingly sucked in by 
the expanding urban areas. As in the past, when 
spurts of industrialisation and urbanisation 
produced sheltered islands of the privileged (the 
White Town) amid a sea of public squalor and 
poverty (the Black Town) in a colonial India, the 
same pattern is being reproduced in a 
post-colonial India. The present Indian state, in 
its efforts to pursue the neoliberal model of 
industrialisation, is ending up with the same 
result of building small enclaves of private 
wealth (atrociously displayed in ostentatious 
consumption in five-star hotels and shopping 
malls) within a much bigger economy that remains 
back-ward and stagnant, where farmers commit 
suicide, where dalit and tribal peasants are 
forced to migrate to cities to earn a living and 
be exploited by the urban commercial predators.

Operating within the parameters of this given 
system, the West Bengal Left Front government is 
willy-nilly acquiescing in the implementation of 
the neoliberal model. The alternative being 
proposed by its opponents - fallow land in other 
parts of the state for the automobile factory -is 
not acceptable to the Tatas, as the surroundings 
around Singur provide them with the required 
infrastructure that assures them connectivity 
with Kolkata. Since the conditions have been set 
by the Tatas in the framework of the model of 
industrialisation that has been accepted by the 
Left Front government, Buddhadev Bhattacharya has 
no option but to concede to the demands of the 
Tatas, as otherwise he will face the flight of 
capital by potential investors. It is an economic 
blackmail of sorts which the CPI(M)-led 
government needs to resist.  Amartya Sen observed 
recently, while referring to the West Bengal 
government's industrial policies, it was 
necessary to "play the market economy, not kick 
it, yet not rely on it" (Indian Express, December 
21, 2006). Is the CPI(M) chief minister paying 
heed to the last words?

Unlike the period spanning the post-second world 
war decades till the collapse of the USSR, there 
is no countervailing global socialist system 
today to challenge the monopoly of the neoliberal 
order and provide protection to today's few 
leftist regimes from the economic offensive 
launched by the hegemonist order - like trade 
sanctions, capital strikes, and even military 
invasion. In such a situation, the leftists in 
power - whether in a few states in Latin America 
or in three provinces in India - have to device 
their own respective strategies and tactics to 
protect their workers and peasants from the 
global offensive.  Encircled by a hostile 
economic and military order, leftist regimes in 
Latin America are engaged in different types of 
experiments in socialist reconstruction that may 
have lessons for the Left Front state governments 
in India as well as their op-ponents from the 
radical fringe of the Left.  Both those leftists 
who are in power, and those who have opted out 
from power sharing and are engaged instead in 
armed revolutionary resistance, also need to have 
a fresh look at the pattern of a future socialist 
society that they want to build.  The traditional 
model of development marked by accumulation of 
capital by indiscriminate expropriation of 
natural resources (e g, agricultural land, 
forestry, water resources) - which was shared by 
both capitalist societies and the USSR and China, 
at the cost of the marginalised sections like 
poor peasants, tribals and forest-dwellers - 
cannot be replicated in any 21st century 
programme of socialist transformation. The Left 
in India has to listen to the newly emerging 
voices of the tribal communities, the demands of 
those still living in the darkly hidden forests, 
the environmentalist groups which are resist-ing 
depredations by industrial houses, the human 
rights organisations protesting the state 
repression in Singur. Party discipline should not 
prevent conscientious members of the CPI(M) from 
coming out openly with their misgivings and 
joining the debate over the future model of 
development.  Similarly, the Maoist 
revolutionaries in West Bengal or elsewhere also 
need to participate in the debate. With due 
respect to their ideological honesty and ardent 
commitment to a future communist soci-ety, let us 
admit, they cannot offer any immediate 
revolutionary utopia to the poor farmers in 
Singur, who are working out their own devices to 
negotiate with the crisis that they are facing. 
Mao debunked Stalin's Economic Problems of 
Socialism in the USSR  by saying: "...it 
considers things, not people...". His followers 
in Indiashould realise that while "things" (their 
political concepts) have remained frozen, the 
people are changing.


_____


[4]

pucl.org
14 November 2006

POST-MORTEM OF AFZAL GURU CASE

by K. G. Kannabiran, President PUCL


[For more information on the Afzal Guru case click on the link below:
http://www.justiceforafzalguru.org ]

Open Letter
If the proceedings of the Trial of Afzal and 
three others before the Designated Judge under 
POTA were to be video-graphed one would have 
understood the trivialization of Rule of law in 
this country.

The case itself was a highly publicized affair, 
the Investigation parading the accused before the 
print and electronic media in what can be 
described as a trial before committal stage; the 
screaming headlines and the news reporting in 
both the media prevents any disinterested 
endeavour to understand the case and assess the 
evidence for and against the accused. The media 
attention the case received foreclosed any 
possibility of a just conduct of the case, and in 
such a case conformity to procedure is the only 
visible guarantee of justice.

The attack on the parliament generated such 
hostility all around that nobody was willing to 
appear for the accused in the first instance 
Advocate Alam was appointed as Amicus, who is a 
practitioner in the courts in Patiala House and 
the proceedings date 10/1/01 show that the said 
counsel was to be informed. Obviously he did not 
respond. Ms Seema Gulati, a regular experienced 
lawyer appearing in criminal courts was appointed 
as Amicus. Afzal requested for the discharge of 
Seema Gulati as Amicus. On a written application 
she states that she has neither taken her 
instruction nor had discussed the case with the 
accused Afzal. She also applied for discharging 
her from the Amicus brief as the other accused 
Geelani in the same case engaged her. In her 
place a raw junior Mr Niraj Bansal was appointed 
as Amicus by order on 1/7/02. The trial commenced 
on the 8th July.

On that day Afzal petitions the Court as follows

     Hon'ble Sir,

     Respectfully I am not satisfied with state 
council (Counsel) appointed by the court. That I 
need a Competent Senior Advocate as Amicus Curiae 
to meet the ends of justice from this court. The 
way the Court is treating me I could not get 
justice. It is there fore requested to appoint 
one of the following lawyers: 1. Ashok Agarwal; 
2. Pandit R K Naseem; 3. R K Dham; 4. Mr Taufil.

On 12/7/02 the court passed the following order: 
After recording 20 prosecution witnesses and 
after protest again by Afzal the learned judge 
passed the following order: "Afzal states that he 
does not want the amicus curiae Niraj Bansal to 
represent him. He had earlier given the list of 
four advocates namely, R M Tuffail, Dham, Ashok 
Agarwal, R K Naseem. This Court had enquired from 
R M Tuffail and Pt R K Naseem who appeared in was 
of the view his case was entirely different from 
the case of the rest of the accused. Hence, his 
insistence with reference to R M Tufail and 
Pandit R K Naseem the court records that the 
judge ascertained their willingness to appear as 
amicus for Afzal when they happened to appear 
before him in another case, but both of them 
expressed their inability to become amicus curiae 
in this case.

Ashok Agarwal had earlier appeared in this case 
on behalf of one of the accused and argued the 
bail application. Thereafter he did not appear" 
The court further observed that "I consider that 
if accused wants a lawyer of his choice, he is 
free to engage himself the lawyer of his choice, 
but if he has not engaged a lawyer of his choice 
and has asked the court to appoint amicus curiae, 
the court can appoint amicus curiae out of panel 
available with it or out of the willing 
advocates. Afzal has been given the liberty to 
cross-examine the witnesses. Neeraj Bansal has 
requested for withdrawal from this case, but he 
is requested to assist the court during trial" Mr 
Bansal cannot act, as court Amicus, even purport 
to act for Afzal.

After performing this ritualistic exercise 
according to his understanding of Rule of law, 
the judge, very much like the Procurator of 
Judea, washed his hands off the case! The result 
was Afzal was undefended through out and that 
does vitiate the conviction and sentence. He 
understood the seriousness of the charge he is 
facing and so wanted the services of an 
experienced lawyer. Two lawyers refused to appear 
and he did not ask the other two. After young Mr 
Bansal was discharged of his right to represent 
Afzal there has bee no other advocate defending 
him. No doubt there were advocates engaged to 
defend the other three accused. But they had no 
brief to defend Afzal for he did not consent to 
such a course as is evident from the 
representations made to the court. In these 
circumstances it is impossible either to presume 
or infer that cross-examination was common. The 
designated judge sentenced to death the three 
accused did not order the forfeiture of life of 
the wife of Shoukat. Her newborn child was with 
her in prison.

These death sentences have to be confirmed by 
Bench of two judges under the provisions of the 
Code of Criminal Procedure. It is again a 
detailed re- trial on the basis of recorded 
evidence with wide powers for courts to do 
justice. Every aspect of the case has to be and 
can be brought under scrutiny. In the Final 
submissions filed on behalf of Afzal this aspect 
of the case is brought to sharp focus. Articles 
14, 21, 22, and 39A ensure that the accused will 
be tried according to procedure established by 
law, where procedure means not any procedure but 
a fair and just procedure including access to 
justice. The court giving Afzal the liberty to 
cross-examine is a vacuous liberty where such 
liberty implies a comprehensive understanding of 
the Evidence Act and the Criminal Procedure. This 
freedom given by the court without discharging 
its Constitutional obligation is itself a total 
denial of his Constitutional Right to defend 
himself effectively.

The High Court in the Referred Case, record these 
facts in Para 133 of its judgment, and the court 
goes on to record that Accused Afzal has in fact 
cross examined eighty prosecution witnesses. The 
High Court held, "Mohd Afzal continued the trial 
without any objection or grievance." This 
conclusion is not supported by the proceedings of 
the trial court. Afzal had more than once 
requested for Counsel to be appointed by the 
court. But the court at the trial stage gave 
Afzal a Hobson's choice. Either accept the lawyer 
appointed by the court or cross examine the 
witnesses yourself was what the court had told 
the accused. The gravity of the case is writ 
large and such a case cannot be disposed of in 
the manner it was done both at the Designated 
Judge's level and the High Court.

This issue was not raised before the Supreme 
Court. When one waives the right to counsel it 
should be informed by competence and 
intelligence. The failure to appoint by the 
designated judge was on account of the self 
imposed limitation that he cannot traverse beyond 
the panel of lawyers available to the court. It 
is not that lawyers were not available, but 
lawyers were avoiding handling Afzal's brief. 
Non-availability and declined to appear are two 
different categories. The latter is outright 
denial of equal opportunity before law. This 
would amount to refusal of access to justice.

The position taken by the High Court appears to 
be wholly untenable. The Right to be defended by 
a Lawyer is not only a Fundamental Right but a 
right guaranteed under the International Covenant 
on Civil and Political Rights which have become 
mandatory thanks to their recognition by the 
Protection of Human Rights Act. 1993. Article 8 
gives a person a right to an effective remedy for 
the enforcement of the fundamental rights 
recognized by the Constitution or by law and 
Article 14(c) which guarantees the right to the 
accused to be tried in his presence and to be 
defended by a competent lawyer. The Supreme Court 
has read these clauses in the Covenant along with 
the clauses dealing with equality and equal 
protection of laws (Article 14) Right to be tried 
according to procedure established by law 
(Article21) Right to be assisted by counsel from 
the time of arrest and during the trial (22 (1&2) 
and 39A which deals with equal justice and frees 
legal aid.

According to the Court Article 39A is 
interpretative of Article 21 and pointed out that 
courts cannot be inert in the face of these 
Articles. In one of the decisions cited by the 
Counsel the Supreme Court approvingly quoted the 
opinion of Judge Douglas of the US Supreme Court 
in Raymond vs Hamlin The right to be heard would 
be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not 
comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even 
the intelligent and educated layman has small and 
sometimes no skill in the science of law. If 
charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, 
of determining for himself whether the indictment 
is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with rules of 
evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may 
be put on trial without a proper charge, and 
convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence 
irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible.

He lacks both the skill and the knowledge 
adequately to prepare his defence, even though he 
has a perfect one. He requires a guiding hand of 
counsel at every step in the proceeding against 
him. ŠIf that be true of men of intelligence how 
much more true of is it of the ignoring and 
illiterate or those of feeble intellect." After 
quoting this passage there is no discussion of 
this decision and its applicability to the facts 
of this case. Reference to the passage relied 
upon by the counsel is not considering the ratio 
of the case. Without deciding the denial of the 
right to be assisted and defended by the lawyer 
the Court proceeds to the issue of the 
performance of a counsel and points out the 
difficulties of lawyers in performing this task.

While being mechanical in dealing with the 
fundamental obligation of the Court to provide 
lawyer assistance for defending the accused. the 
Court proceeds on a short dilation into the 
competence of defending counsel who was not there 
and that was the major complaint It would be very 
unfair to conclude that permitting Afzal to cross 
examine the witnesses would be compliance with 
Art 21 22, and 39A of the Constitution and the 
related international covenants.

The great debate that took place in the decades 
of the seventies of the last century one issue, 
which had the consensus of all the contending 
groups and intellectuals, was that Rule of Law 
should inform our understanding the Constitution 
and Governance. Yet within a matter of two 
decades Rule of Law stands discredited as never 
before, not even in the dark days of '75 
Emergency. Political prejudices are parading as 
juridical principles and communal prejudices have 
entered the decision-making processes of the 
justice system sometimes as judicial activism. 
The failure of the criminal justice to the 
victims Sikh massacre in 1984, the indifference 
to the crimes perpetrated by the majority 
community in the Mumbai riots in Mumbai in 1992 
leading to the appointment of Sri Krishna 
Commission and the attention Rule of law to the 
sequel by the violence of minority community in 
the Mumbai blasts, the Riots in Coimbatore where 
crores worth of property was consigned to flames 
and around two scores of Muslims killed went 
unnoticed while the sequential blasts a few days 
thereafter led to arrest and pre trial 
incarceration of around one hundred seventy five 
for around a decade and prosecution, the Gujarat 
riots where the killings led to no 
accountability, the Best Bakery case and the 
reopening of investigations that have been 
closed, by legal proceedings are the index of 
major failures of the criminal justice system by 
partial suspension of Rule of Law. in those cases.

At the same time we have the strident assertion 
of partial justice in the death sentences on 
Kehar Singh and Afzal. These two are instances of 
the operation of Rule of Law in its paranoid 
state. One became a victim of substantive 
injustice and the other the victim of processual 
injustice.

In India law has never been logic, justifying 
Justice Holmes and the replacement to logic he 
offered, namely,: "the felt necessities of the 
time, the prevalent moral and political theories, 
intuitions of public policy, avowed and 
unconscious even prejudices judges share with 
their fellow menŠ The decision will depend upon a 
more subtle than any articulate major premise.' 
in its unexpurgated sense applies to this country 
now. This is a major reason why the human rights 
activists campaign against death penalty In a 
death penalty casein 1994 (Collins vs. Collins) 
justice Black mum's dissent is to the point. "The 
problem is that the inevitability of factual, 
legal and moral error gives us a system that we 
know must wrongly kill some defendants. Blackmum 
acknowledges error to be inevitable and injustice 
unavoidable Šit seems that a decision whether a 
human being should live or die is so inherently 
subjective, rife with all of life's 
understandings, experiences, prejudices and 
passions, that it inevitably defies the 
rationality and consistency required by the 
Constitution".

Wherever and whenever courts overlook the 
importance of political justice, as a head of the 
Sovereign Democratic Republic, Mr President, Sir, 
should intervene to make amends in this regard 
and maintain democracy. Mr President, Sir in this 
case political justice failed and therefore calls 
for your intervention and commute the sentence of 
death into one of life. - K G Kannabiran, 14/11/06


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

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