SACW | Feb 17-19, 2007 | Pakistan: Chutiyas and Bubber shers ; Kashmir: Reconciliation without Justice ?; India: Minorities, Gujarat infamy of 2002, Meerut Massacre of 1987, Godhra exposed

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | February 17-19, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2361 - Year 9

[1]  General Pervez Musharraf: Pakistan's big beast unleashed (Mohsin Hamid)
[2]  India / Kashmir: The courage to say sorry (Firdous Syed)
[3]  India: Mainstreaming Minorities (Asghar Ali Engineer)
[4]  India: Fifteen minutes of infamy (Jyotirmaya Sharma)
[5]  India: hashimpura (meerut) massacre 1987 trial - an appeal (Harsh Mander)
[6]  India: Godhra exposed - Gujarat Carnage 
2002, 5 years on  - A presentation by Mukul Sinha 
(New Delhi, 19 Feb)

____


[1]

The Independent
11 February 2007

GENERAL PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: PAKISTAN'S BIG BEAST UNLEASHED

It's boom time under the rule of General Pervez 
Musharraf. But can you ever really trust a 
dictator? Ahead of this year's elections, the 
novelist Mohsin Hamid takes an ambivalent look at 
the top cat who dragged his country into the 21st 
century

In Lahore, where I grew up, there were three 
distinct types that you found in every school and 
playground. The intellectuals were, by and large, 
known as chutiyas, a term which translates both 
literally and metaphorically into English as 
"pussies". Then there were the bubber shers. 
Though this is the Urdu word for lion, it is used 
mockingly more than admiringly, connoting not so 
much strength as overfed laziness. And then there 
were the true heroes, the studs; we called them 
cheetas and they were named, of course, after the 
cheetah, the deadly, fast-moving, great cat of 
Africa.

I was reminded of these teenage labels when I 
started to read In the Line of Fire, the 
autobiography of Pakistan's President, General 
Pervez Musharraf. I had expected bombastic, 
excessive prose from my supreme leader, but was 
surprised to find myself rather liking the man. I 
remain deeply concerned about the implications of 
his rule for the future of Pakistan, it is true, 
but insofar as he bears any similarity to the 
narrator, he strikes me as quite a pleasant sort 
of fellow to have as one's dictator.

On recent visits to the country, my younger 
relatives tell me that the taxonomy of weak 
chutiyas, fat bubber shers, and exalted cheetas 
is still in common use in Pakistan today. I 
hypothesised that Pervez Musharraf might well be 
a cheeta. To confirm this I first set out to 
compare the elements one would expect to find in 
the life story of a cheeta with those present in 
his book. From my training as a management 
consultant, I realised that such a benchmarking 
is best done within a framework. Accordingly, I 
devised the double-M double-I double-H (or 
MMIIHH) framework, which is composed of 
Mischievousness, Machismo, Impetuousness, 
Intelligence, Heart, and Honour.

Every cheeta I knew growing up took great delight 
in what we called "a bit of mischief". One 
favourite pastime was to throw raw eggs from 
automobiles at passing pedestrians (for the most 
part, impoverished manual labourers with no 
access to a change of clothes) in the dead of 
night, and then speed away, laughing. This was 
known as "egging". A true cheeta, even if he did 
not engage in egging himself, would at the very 
least come along for the ride and recount the 
story with some glee. Musharraf amply satisfies 
this requirement with anecdotes such as the one 
in which he is taught by his uncle how to go up 
to a "baldy" (in this case a "man [who] had oiled 
his bald pate, making matters worse, for it was 
shining like a mirror and inviting trouble"), 
"give him a tight smack right in the middle of 
his shiny head...[which] must have stung like 
hell", and get away without any consequences.

Yet an instinct for mischief alone does not a 
cheeta make. Escaping automobiles can sometimes 
stall and baldies can sometimes retaliate, and in 
such circumstances machismo is called for. The 
cheetas of my youth were perhaps most famous for 
their ability to take a beating while giving as 
good as they got in the face of overwhelming odds 
(having an arm fractured by a hockey-stick, for 
example, and still being able to break the other 
guy's nose). Musharraf is no exception. Whether 
joining "the street gangs" of Nazimabad (which he 
likens to the "South Bronx") as "one of the tough 
boys," or being told by a professional 
bodybuilder that he has "a most muscular 
physique", or leading his commandos through 
training exercises such as running at full speed 
"on a yard-wide beam 300ft high, spanning the 
top... of a metal bridge... with a fast river 
flowing underneath", he proves his machismo time 
and again. This serves him well in the face of 
multiple assassination attempts, which he 
confronts with remarkable equanimity. (omega)

Machismo leads, perhaps inevitably, to 
impetuousness. Impetuousness explains why so many 
of us in Lahore died at the wheel in automobile 
accidents at the ages of 16 and 17, before we 
were legally entitled to drive. It also explains 
why our national cricket team seems to have an 
endless supply of fast bowlers and a desperate 
lack of opening batsmen - a delivery left well 
alone is categorically not the mark of a cheeta. 
Here again Musharraf does not disappoint. 
Repeatedly in his autobiography, when confronted 
or slighted, he informs us he "saw red". After 
September 11, 2001, when made aware of Richard 
Armitage's statement that Pakistan would be 
"bombed back to the Stone Age" if it did not 
support the US, Musharraf has to resist telling 
the American official "to go forth and multiply, 
or words to that effect". And he does not always 
hold back. At a tense meeting of South Asian 
leaders he extends his hand, "on the spur of the 
moment", to Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee in 
apparent violation of diplomatic procedure, with 
the result that "a loud gasp of awe [and I 
daresay admiration] went through the hall, full 
of stuffy officialdom, that the prime minister of 
'the largest democracy in the world' had been 
upstaged."

But impetuous as he is, a cheeta is no fool. He 
may not study, but he is invariably clever. A 
street-smart operator is a cheeta; a buffoon is a 
bubber sher. Perhaps it is this applied 
intelligence that explains why many of my 
schoolmates who were cheetas have done so well in 
the rough-and-ready world of Pakistani business, 
while many of the purely book-smart chutiyas of 
my acquaintance have been paralysed by 
over-analysis and now languish in less lucrative 
careers. Musharraf neatly captures the 
distinction when he points out, referencing 
Napoleon, that "two thirds of decision-making is 
based on study... but the other third is... based 
on one's gut". Moreover, like a true cheeta, he 
confesses of his youth, "if, from all this, you 
have concluded that I was not intensely focused 
on my studies, you would not be far wrong."

If mischievousness, machismo, impetuousness, and 
intelligence were their only attributes, cheetas 
would not be so popular. But there are two more: 
heart and honour. When I was growing up, a cheeta 
could be forgiven for getting into needless 
fights, doing excessive amounts of drugs, 
harassing girls, and generally causing mayhem - 
so long as he had a good heart. By good heart, 
what was meant was that a cheeta was true to 
those he loved: true to his family, his friends, 
his team, his country. This test Musharraf passes 
with flying colours. He has great loyalty to each 
of the units in which he serves, to the army as a 
whole, and to Pakistan - often to the point of 
risking his own life. He also writes of his 
compassion for the Bosnians while on a 
peacekeeping mission: "When the Pakistani Brigade 
Group... finally came, all its personnel fasted 
one day of every week, and distributed the food 
they had saved among the more needy Bosnians."

Similarly, honour is of great importance to the 
cheeta. The cheeta is expected to publicly assert 
that he always keeps his word. But unlike the 
more foolish bubber sher, who actually tries to 
fulfil his promises no matter how disastrous the 
consequences, the cheeta is expected to be more 
discerning. In practice, like a company issuing 
quarterly earnings reports, the cheeta must 
almost always do what he has said he will do but 
also be prepared on rare occasions to depart from 
expectations. This concept can rarely have been 
better expressed than by Musharraf in the 
following passage about a vow he made soon after 
becoming President: "I was quite serious when I 
announced that I would remove my army chief's 
hat... But events that soon began to unfold 
started putting serious doubts in my mind... 
Therefore, much against my habit and character, I 
decided to go against my word."

So the real question is not whether Musharraf is 
a cheeta. That he is, his autobiography makes 
abundantly clear. The real question is, what 
happens when a cheeta takes over one's country?

As it turns out, part of what happens is a great 
deal of good. When I first met the woman I would 
later marry and asked her what she did for a 
living, she told me that, among other things, she 
was an actress on television. We were in London, 
where she was visiting on holiday, and I remember 
being surprised. I had grown up in a Pakistan 
with only one television channel - conservative, 
state-run, and featuring newsreaders with veils 
atop their heads - and I personally knew no 
actresses. My wife-to-be informed me that she 
acted in a show called Jutt and Bond, an Urdu 
sitcom about a Punjabi folk hero and a debonair 
British secret agent, and that she was the love 
interest.

Like many men, I had always wanted to date a Bond 
girl. It took me less than a month to come up 
with a fictitious excuse for travelling to Lahore 
in hot pursuit. There, my wife-to-be exposed me 
to the incredible new world of media that had 
sprung up in Pakistan, a world of music videos, 
fashion programmes, independent news networks, 
cross-dressing talk-show hosts, religious 
debates, stock-market analysis, and dramas and 
comedies like Jutt and Bond. I knew, of course, 
that the government of Musharraf had opened the 
media to private operators. But I had not until 
then realised how profoundly things had changed.

Not just television, but also private radio 
stations and newspapers have flourished in 
Pakistan over the past few years. The result is 
an unprecedented openness. In cities like Lahore, 
Karachi, and Islamabad, young people are speaking 
and dressing differently. Views both critical and 
supportive of the government are voiced with 
breathtaking frankness in an atmosphere 
remarkably lacking in censorship. Public space, 
the common area for culture and expression that 
had been so circumscribed in my childhood, has 
now been vastly expanded. The Vagina Monologues 
was recently performed on stage in Pakistan to 
standing ovations.

Similarly, higher education has benefited from 
being opened to the private sector, as well as 
from a huge increase in state funding. After 
finishing her MA in journalism at Goldsmiths 
three years ago, my sister found herself with 
multiple teaching offers from universities back 
in Lahore. Our father, an economics professor for 
much of his professional life, says he cannot 
remember a time since the heady years of the 
1960s when there was so much excitement in 
academia.

My sister's experience bears this out. Her 
salary, at around £50 a week, might not seem much 
by London standards. But it goes a long way in 
Lahore. A few years ago, top MBA graduates in 
Pakistan would have been lucky to earn that 
amount. And if my sister becomes a full professor 
or a department head, she can expect to earn far 
more. The sudden attractiveness of her profession 
is fuelling a surge of interest in pursuing 
research degrees. In the sciences and engineering 
alone, the government is expecting to graduate 
1,500 doctoral students annually by 2010, a 
hundred-fold increase on the 1990s figure.

Going to speak at the small urban campus at which 
my sister teaches, I was taken aback by the 
subjects on offer. Students were studying to be 
beat reporters, literature professors, sound 
engineers, magazine editors, sculptors, and 
costume designers. They were putting on an 
original rock musical. And enrolment was soaring, 
with ever-increasing demand for places. My sister 
told me some of her students were working nights 
in the city's call centres to pay their tuition.

All of this has taken place against the backdrop 
of a staggering economic boom. Over the past five 
years, Pakistan's economy has been one of the 
fastest growing in the world. Foreign firms are 
investing billions of dollars in sectors such as 
telecoms, where Pakistani mobile-phone users have 
gone from under a million at the start of the 
decade to 30 million today. In London, one often 
reads of people of Pakistani descent travelling 
to Pakistan to attend terrorist training camps. 
Far more common, but virtually unreported, are 
the stories of successful Pakistan-born 
expatriates returning home for better financial 
prospects.

My buddy OH is one of them. An architect, he 
trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and 
joined a small firm in Boston for several years, 
working on projects ranging from baseball 
stadiums in the US to nightclubs in China to 
cliffside residences in Venezuela. But he wanted 
to be his own boss. So a couple of years ago he 
moved back to Lahore and started his own firm. 
Now he is so busy that he has to turn away 
assignments. "Nothing works here, yaar," he tells 
me. "It frustrates the hell out of you. But I 
love it. I wouldn't go anywhere else."

For despite the inefficiency of Pakistan's 
construction practices and the corruption of its 
bureaucracy, the skyline of Lahore is being 
transformed. With the economic boom has come a 
demand for offices, hotels, and housing. Gleaming 
new towers are beginning to rise out of deep pits 
in the fertile, alluvial soil of Lahore's newer 
neighbourhoods, dwarfing the slender minarets of 
the old walled city that feature so prominently 
in postcards and guidebooks.

All this, it seems, is the upside of having a cheeta for your president.

Why is it, then, given the remarkable progress 
made by Pakistan under Musharraf, that so few 
other countries are clamouring to be led by 
cheetas of their own? Perhaps it is because their 
people desire greater say in the running of 
national affairs. I recall my own participation 
in the referendum of 2002. Its purpose (omega) 
was to give Pakistanis a chance to decide whether 
Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, 
should continue to be President. I was in 
Islamabad at the time, so I cast my vote in 
Pakistan's capital.

I arrived at the polling station with the 
intention of voting in support of Musharraf. My 
reasons were threefold. First, it was shortly 
after September 11, and the invasion of 
Afghanistan, and I felt Pakistan needed strong 
leadership if we were to avoid the fate that had 
befallen our neighbour. Second, I approved of 
what appeared to be a genuinely progressive 
approach that the government was taking in a 
number of areas. Third, I thought that returning 
to the rule of either Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz 
Sharif, the democratically elected Prime 
Ministers who had presided over the decline of 
Pakistan's economy and institutions in the 1990s, 
would be an unmitigated disaster.

I immediately noticed at the polling station that 
staff far outnumbered voters. Indeed, my sister 
and I seemed to be the only voters there. I 
showed my identity card, had my finger marked 
with indelible ink, and was given a ballot to 
take with me into a booth. I expected a simple: 
"Pervez Musharraf for President: yes or no?" 
Instead, I encountered the following text: "For 
the survival of the local government system, 
establishment of democracy, continuity of 
reforms, end to sectarianism and extremism, and 
to fulfil the vision of Quaid-e-Azam, would you 
like to elect President General Pervez Musharraf 
as President of Pakistan for five years?"

As I struggled to decipher what precisely it was 
that I was being asked, a man came in and ordered 
me to hurry up. I had seen him lurking about the 
entrance to the polling station, but he was not 
one of the officials. "Who are you?" I asked him. 
"Can't you see I'm voting? Get out of here."

He eyes hardened. "People are waiting," he said

"What people? There's half a dozen booths here and one voter."

"I said," he snarled, "hurry up."

"Who the hell are you? Get out of my face." I 
appealed to the officials. "I'm trying to 
exercise my right as a citizen. I need my 
privacy. Who is this person? Why don't you do 
something about him?"

The officials seemed alarmed by all this but did 
nothing to intervene. The man was clearly a 
soldier or policeman in plainclothes. He evoked 
in me that typically belligerent Pakistani 
reaction to being ordered around for no reason, 
the product no doubt of our history of 
colonialism and dictatorship. So we exchanged 
unpleasantries for a bit. Eventually he stepped 
back, although not as far as I would have liked, 
and I voted, although not as quickly as he would 
have liked, and that was that.

My sister emerged from the women's section and we 
left. In the 10 minutes we had spent at the 
polls, neither of us had seen another voter. Yet 
when the results of the referendum were 
announced, the country was told not only that 97 
per cent of votes had been in support of 
Musharraf, but that the turnout had been 43 
million people, or a massive 56 per cent of the 
electorate. These figures were so obviously 
ridiculous that even someone who had actually 
voted for the man, as I had (having resisted the 
urge to change my mind in protest at the 
low-grade intimidation I experienced), felt 
deeply disheartened by the exercise.

Rigged elections rankle, of course. But surely it 
is churlish to keep insisting on democracy when 
the cities one visits, the metropolises of 
Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad, are witnessing a 
boom unlike any in recent memory? The problem is 
that there is more to Pakistan than its cities. 
And it is in the hinterlands to the west of the 
country, in the provinces bordering Afghanistan, 
that the downside of cheeta-style military rule 
becomes most apparent.

In 2004, I made a reporting trip out to Gwadar in 
Pakistan's Balochistan province. Gwadar is one of 
the government's showcase development projects, a 
deep-water port and model city being constructed 
with Chinese help on the site of a small fishing 
village near the straits of Hormuz, through which 
most of the world's oil flows. The province is 
also home to an insurgency against the perceived 
heavy-handedness of the central government in 
general and the army in particular. I arrived 
shortly after a bomb had killed several of the 
Chinese engineers who were working on the port.

I expected to find strong anti-Pakistani 
sentiment. I found nothing of the sort. Children 
were even playing street cricket in the uniforms 
of the Pakistan national team. But while I was in 
Gwadar I was stopped and questioned menacingly by 
a pair of undercover security operatives. No 
outright threat was made, but the tone of the 
encounter was so unsettling that I later 
complained of it over the telephone in a call 
home I made from a payphone.

Overhearing me, a shopkeeper and his cousin began 
to commiserate. They told me of daily rudeness 
and regular beatings at the hands of the security 
forces. "We think of ourselves as Pakistanis," 
one of them said, "but they treat us like 
terrorists." And then, out of sympathy for what I 
had experienced, they refused to let me pay for 
my lunch.

I left Gwadar deeply concerned about the 
consequences of the confrontational approach 
being taken by the government to the unrest in 
Pakistan's western provinces. Of course, the 
state must act when faced with violence and 
terrorism. But it must also guard against the 
abuse of power by its security forces, and it 
must hold back from victimising entire 
populations in the pursuit of a few criminals.

Unfortunately, cheetas are not known for their restraint.

Since the schoolyard is the cheeta's typical 
stomping-ground, it may be useful to compare the 
rule of Musharraf to the reign of a bully in a 
rough inner-city secondary school. For a time, if 
the bully is a progressive and fair-minded one, 
some benefits may accrue. Other ruffians may 
become less likely to steal the lunch money of 
their classmates. Weak children with glasses may 
feel less frightened as they head off to class in 
the mornings. But resentment against the bully 
will grow, and eventually someone stronger will 
come along - or someone weaker will get his hands 
on a knife - and the bully will be replaced.

Acknowledgment of the bully's short shelf-life is 
implicit in the title Musharraf has chosen for 
his book, In the Line of Fire. What he seems not 
to understand are the implications of this: the 
urgent need, if his policies are to survive him, 
to broaden his support base and to plan for a 
Pakistan without him at its helm. In this he is 
following in the footsteps of the many army 
chiefs who have preceded him as dictators of 
Pakistan, men like Ayub Khan and Zia-ul-Haq, very 
different in their policies but very similar in 
their failure to bequeath lasting national 
institutions or to provide a sustainable platform 
for Pakistan's growth.

"The issue of democracy is a recent, post-Cold 
War obsession of the West," Musharraf writes. "I 
am still struggling to convince the West that 
Pakistan is more democratic today than it ever 
was in the past." Yet the issue of democracy is 
more than merely a recent obsession of the West. 
It was fundamental to the notion of Pakistan as 
envisaged by our nation's founder, Mohammad Ali 
Jinnah, before the Cold War had even begun. And 
it is not just the West that is unconvinced 
Pakistan is democratic today; Pakistanis like 
myself are unconvinced as well.

Democracy matters because without it the entire 
nation is in the line of fire, one bullet away 
from unpredictable change. And it matters because 
even progressive policies feel illegitimate to 
broad swathes of the nation's population when 
they are dictated by a president with a general's 
stars on his shoulders. There are trade-offs to 
be made when one allows scantily dressed models 
to walk the catwalks of Lahore but empowers the 
security forces to seize people on the streets of 
Balochistan merely for looking suspicious. And 
these trade-offs must be decided upon by the 
nation as a whole.

It is the cheeta's natural inclinations away from 
inclusiveness and consensus that perhaps best 
explain why so few cheetas have proven popular 
with democratic electorates. But these values are 
of paramount importance in a country as vast and 
diverse as Pakistan, the world's sixth largest by 
population. We are increasingly divided between 
our more prosperous and progressive cities to the 
east and our more restive and conservative tribal 
areas to the west. Bridging our divisions has 
become essential.

Pakistanis are scheduled to go to the polls again 
in 2007, our 60th year of independence. I for one 
would like to see models continuing to walk the 
catwalks. But I would also like to see whether 
the rest of the country agrees. If he wants to 
leave a lasting legacy, Pervez Musharraf would do 
well to put in place the preconditions for truly 
free and fair elections and to build alliances 
with politicians based on a shared vision of the 
future rather than on a willingness to support a 
President in uniform.

Cheetas are celebrated for their speed, not for 
their endurance. Paradoxically, it is only by 
laying the foundations for his democratic 
departure that Musharraf is likely to be an 
exception.

Mohsin Hamid's novel, 'The Reluctant 
Fundamentalist', is published by Hamish Hamilton 
in March


______


[2]


Hindustan Times.com
February 17, 2007

THE COURAGE TO SAY SORRY

by Firdous Syed

"Jo chup rahegi zubani khanjar, lahoo pukarega 
aasteen kaŠ (If the dagger doesn't reveal itself, 
blood of the innocent will speak)" - Urdu couplet.


The innocent bloodletting that has been going on 
for years in Jammu and Kashmir had to attract 
attention at some point. The current focus on 
human rights violations in the state was bound to 
come about. The J&K government has, rightly, 
although belatedly, ordered an inquiry into the 
plight of missing civilians since 1990. This is 
not only a daunting task in itself but will also 
be a real test of the government's commitment 
towards Kashmiris' human rights. Let time decide 
whether the government is simply trying to 
'white-wash' the truth or is really serious about 
restoring its credibility by punishing the 
culprits.

As ever, once again the human rights violations 
in J&K have agitated the public mind. But the 
unfortunate aspect of the human rights scenario 
is that militants, security forces and even 
politicians are all equally responsible for 
committing wrongs on innocent people.

While some are directly responsible for the 
crimes committed against innocent human beings, 
others are guilty of collaborating; some others 
are culpable for remaining silent in the face of 
grave violations for the sake of so-called 
ideology or national interest.

Obviously then, it should not be difficult to 
comprehend that talking about human rights is 
nowadays a selective business, depending which 
side of the divide one belongs to.

The ongoing violence in Kashmir has not only 
destroyed the social fabric there but dehumanised 
society too. Under such conditions, it is not too 
difficult to imagine how a 'victim' today becomes 
an 'oppressor' tomorrow.

In an atmosphere where hate and reaction are 
driving passions, the demand for a Truth and 
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) makes some sense 
(refer Omar Abdullah's Guest Column, Truth and 
Reconciliation, on February 11). But one will 
have to bear in mind that though TRC is a 
post-conflict mechanism, it is not a bureaucratic 
exercise to account for the number of deaths and 
their causes. It might include these functions as 
well, but it is primarily a social function based 
on forgiveness and reconciliation.

In his book No Future Without Forgiveness, head 
of TRC in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu 
argues, "True reconciliation cannot be achieved 
by denying the pastŠ; nor is it easy to reconcile 
when you live daily with a reminder of what has 
caused the alienation. We speak of reconciliation 
then as not simply the restoration of broken 
relations, but as the restoration of humanity, 
often the first step in the journey toward 
personal and social healing. Implicit in this 
first step is a kind of existential rebalancing 
of the self."

Reconciliation is not selective forgetting 
either; rather it is to confront the bitter 
truth. In the case of South Africa, "the decision 
to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission 
came out of the need to know in order to be 
reconciled. As one witness before the Commission 
put it, 'I want to forgive, but I need to know 
whom, and for what I forgive'."

It is, therefore, a state of mind where a wronged 
wants to know the truth to relieve himself from 
pain, anguish and hate. The wrongdoer wants to 
unburden himself, by offering apologies and 
seeking forgiveness from the wronged. Ultimately 
this leads to moral empowerment by seeking 
forgiveness and accepting apologies. The process 
helps to restore the humanity of both the 
oppressed and the oppressor.

For the collective catharsis to happen in 
Kashmir, violence has to come to an end, social 
peace has to be ushered in, and moral restitution 
has to take place.

All the actors, sundry or important, who have in 
some way, wittingly or unwittingly, contributed 
in the making of the human tragedy in Kashmir 
have to come forward and face the reality of the 
bitter truth.

The Prime Minister of India will have to 
acknowledge on behalf of the state, and the 
leadership of the country, that right from 1947, 
tremendous wrongs have been inflicted upon the 
people of Jammu and Kashmir; that, there has been 
"an element of deception in our dealings with the 
people". President Musharraf will have to take 
the moral responsibility on behalf of his 
leadership and the state of Pakistan for 
exporting the element of violence into Kashmir's 
political milieu that has played havoc with the 
lives of the people. Farooq Abdullah will have to 
seek forgiveness for rigged elections and 
shrinking of the political space because of which 
Kashmiri boys were pushed to the brink and 
ultimately towards violent ways; Mufti Sayeed for 
his tenure as the Union Home Minister, the period 
when Kashmir experienced the worst kind of human 
indignities and physical sufferings.

The protagonists of violent campaigns then - 
people like Shabir Shah, Yaseen Malik and others 
- will have to accept responsibility for 
introducing violent means of agitation which 
lacked the clarity of thought and a well-defined 
course of action. Governors who were at the helm 
during President's Rule will have to accept that 
they unleashed far greater military reprisal than 
the threat posed by the militancy, which crushed 
the sprit of innocent people.

People like me are at fault too, for we took up 
the gun and took our people to an unknown 
territory and then left the course without 
bringing any succour to the hapless masses. And 
helpless anonymous citizens, who were witness to 
grave injustices, and flights of people from 
their homes, too will have to be ready to repent 
for their silence.

We all have to gather the courage to say 'sorry'. 
We are sorry for what happened. Let's now turn 
the leaf of history for the betterment of the 
people of India and Kashmir. And let's seek 
forgiveness.

(The writer is a former militant and now runs an NGO in Srinagar.)

______


[3]


MAINSTREAMING MINORITIES

by Asghar Ali Engineer

(Secular Perspective Feb. 16-28, 2007)

I often confront a question in my workshops and 
lectures as to why Muslims do not want to become 
part of mainstream. In a way it is quite a 
hackneyed question but nevertheless it persists 
in the minds of many people, even among those who 
are quite secular. Before we discuss whether 
minorities, especially Muslims, are part of 
mainstream or not, we should have clear idea of 
what is mainstream.

To understand what is mainstream, important 
question is who defines mainstream? As the saying 
goes culture of the ruling class is the ruling 
culture, mainstream is also what the ruling or 
upper classes to be the mainstream. In democracy 
there should not be any question of ruling class 
but our democracy is hardly participatory, much 
less an ideal democracy. The idea of ruling class 
is very much the ruling idea in our democracy.

Thus what constitutes mainstream is mainly 
defined by the ruling classes, which ultimately 
means the upper caste and upper class people. For 
them mainstream is mainly constituted by those 
who follow classical culture of upper caste 
Hindus, are highly educated and enjoy certain 
reasonable standard of life. To be part of 
mainstream it is very necessary to be part of 
Vedic culture.

By this definition even dalits and tribals are 
hardly part of mainstream. They are also poor, 
uneducated and speak dialect, rather than 
Sanskritised Hindi or any other classical 
language. But only difference is that they are 
natives of India and do not follow a[N]y 'foreign 
religion'. Also, they belong to 'other' castes 
but not to 'other' religion. Moreover, their 
otherisation will result in fragmentation of 
Hindu solidarity and thus their otherisation can 
be politically loosing proposition.

Thus though dalits and tribals are not part of 
national mainstream, silence about them is better 
part of political strategy. But otherisation of 
Muslims has been going on ever since the British 
rulers adopted the strategy of divide and rule 
and the communal forces found it quite useful 
after independence and through their propaganda 
the myth of Muslims, not being part of mainstream 
spread and some secular minded people also became 
victim of it. The myth needs to be examined 
critically.

First thing to note is that entire community 
should not be treated as single homogenised unit. 
Indian Muslim community is highly diverse, as 
diverse as the Hindu community. There is 
regional, cultural, linguistic and religious 
(sectarian) diversity besides economic diversity. 
How can one maintain that entire Muslim community 
is away from Indian mainstream?

Are Muslims of Kerala and Tamil Nadu who are 
firmly rooted in native cultures and speak 
Malayalam and Tamil respectively, not part of 
Indian mainstream? If they are not then even 
Malayalam and Tamil Hindus too, are not part of 
mainstream. Muslims, Christians and Hindus of 
these regions wear similar clothes, eat similar 
food, enjoy same music and follow same regional 
customs and traditions. More or less same applies 
to Andhra and Karnataka Muslims (with the 
exception of Hyderabad and few other towns).

What about Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits? Do they 
not speak same language and follow similar 
traditions? Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits are 
quite integrated. How can one maintain that 
Kashmiri Muslims are not part of mainstream 
whereas Hindus are? It will be quite untenable 
position. Then what about Kargil Muslims and 
Gujjar and Bakarwal tribes of Kashmir Valley? 
These Gujjar and Bakarwal Muslims have their own 
identity separate from Kashmiri Muslims and are 
firmly rooted in their tribal culture.

Then what about Muslims in rural areas of north 
India i.e. in U.P. and Bihar? They speak same 
dialect as rural Hindus, follow same customs and 
traditions and even wear same dress as Hindus of 
the region do. They speak Braj, Bhojpuri, 
Maithili, Rajasthani, Malvi and similar other 
dialects. Many of them go to mosques for prayers 
wearing dhoti and turban which is considered a 
‘Hindu dress’.

Also, what about Bohras, Khojas and Memons? They 
are so well rooted in Gujarat culture and they 
speak Gujarati or Kutcchi wherever they go in the 
world? Their entire culture is rooted in Gujarat 
or different regions of Gujarat. Will they also 
be considered as not being part of mainstream?

Then what about Parsis, Paswans, Weavers, 
Silawats (brick layers), Rangrez (dyers), 
Bangle-makers, Malis (vegetable and fruit sellers 
from Mahrashtra), Raeens (vegetable sellers from 
Bihar) and so on. Are they not Indians and part 
of Indian mainstream or just because they are low 
caste illiterate and uncultured, they cannot be 
part of Indian mainstream? Are then their 
counterpart Hindu low caste dalits and backwards 
not part of Indian mainstream? If they are, how 
can their Hindu counterpart then be part of 
mainstream? No one maintains that dalits are not 
part of Indian mainstream.

Is then main problem their religion? Is Islam 
then part of the problem? Even if it is so these 
low caste dalit and backward caste Muslims hardly 
live 'Islamised' life style. As pointed out above 
they are quite indistinct from their Hindu 
counterparts in every way and many of them, like 
Meo Muslims, follow all 'Hindu' customs and 
traditions. The Tablighi movement was started in 
mid-twentieth century to 'Islamise' the Meos but 
until today Meos could not be 'Islamised' as 
Tablighi movement desired and they still cling to 
their own native customs and traditions.

Then there are Nuts of Rajasthan and also Saperas 
(the snake catchers) in Maharashtra. They are 
hardly aware of their Islamic identity and their 
conversion to Islam has hardly brought any change 
in their culture and way of living. Perhaps 
nothing changed except their names and in many 
cases even names did not change. And let us not 
forget that these Muslims constitute the 
overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims today. 
How these Muslims should then be treated? As 
aliens and away from mainstream? How strange then 
if they are treated as not part of mainstream?

Now let us discuss the case of urban upper caste 
Muslims who insist on their Islamic identity. The 
fact is that even these Muslims should be 
categorised as Indo-Muslims as far as their 
cultural identity is concerned. Also, most of 
these Muslims never attend madrasas. They go to 
English medium schools or to regional language 
schools and in North India lower caste among them 
send their children to Hindi medium schools. Of 
course there are some Muslims who go to Urdu 
medium schools.

Now the Sachar Committee Report has established 
that only 4 per cent Muslim children go to 
madrasas and that means only a tiny percentage of 
Muslims sends their children to madrasas. Sending 
to madrasas is also often mentioned as the reason 
for being aloof from Indian mainstream. Even that 
myth has now been exploded by the data provided 
by Sachar Committee report.

It is also said that since Muslims feel strongly 
about certain events taking place in Muslim 
countries like Palestine or Iraq or Mecca and 
hence they are not truly Indian. Now millions of 
Hindu Indians are living in U.K., USA and other 
western countries and have become citizens of 
those countries. Do they feel strongly about 
events in India or not? Do they lobby for India 
in those respective countries on some important 
issues or not? Should they be then accepted as 
part of American or British mainstream or not? 
How would they feel if natives of those countries 
reject them?

Most of the Arab countries are friendly to India 
and India until recently has supported the Arab 
cause (though now since NDA came to power there 
has been clear re-orientation in foreign policy 
and almost same orientation continues during the 
UPA Government which feels itself closer to USA 
position in the Arab world).  Of course there are 
some Muslims who over-react on these events and a 
section of Muslim leadership incites them to do 
so to grind their own political axe. The secular 
Muslim intellectuals should strive to change this 
situation and educate the Muslim masses in this 
respect.

It is also not correct that Muslims are over 
zealous in religious matters. It is the general 
characteristics of Indian society. Any 
anthropologist who has done field studies will 
bear this out. In fact, and this is very 
interesting to note, that one anthropological 
study in West Bengal suggests that all life cycle 
rituals in Bengal among Hindus as well as Muslims 
are similar and life cycle rituals mean rituals 
from birth to death. Things are not very 
different in other parts of India.

Thus it will be seen that it is sheer myth spread 
by communal forces that Muslims are not part of 
mainstream and need to be forced into it. They 
are as much part of mainstream as any India. Now 
as Hindu militancy is intensifying Christians are 
also being seen as separate from mainstream 
though they are harbingers of modern education in 
India and run so many prime educational 
institutions in which even most of the communal 
leaders have been educated.

Muslims are undoubtedly quite backward as very 
well brought out by Sachar Committee report and 
blame does not lie with Muslims for their 
backwardness except in limited sense. It is more 
due to neglect of successive governments and it 
is as much responsibility of Government as that 
of Muslim leaders to pull them out of this 
backwardness.

===============================
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Website: <http://www.csss-isla.com/>www.csss-isla.com

______


[4]

Hindustan Times
February 11, 2007

FIFTEEN MINUTES OF INFAMY

by Jyotirmaya Sharma

Narendra Modi's recent removal from the BJP's 
central parliamentary board and the central 
election committee was greeted by the media and 
political commentators in the same way as one 
would look at a coup or the fall of a tyrant. 
Theories abound as to why the self-styled and 
ambitious Hindu hridaya samrat (Emperor of the 
Hindu heart) had incurred the wrath of Rajnath 
Singh and the leadership of the RSS. While Modi's 
political fortunes within his party were being 
discussed, there was the delicious irony of 
Gujarat film distributors refusing to screen 
Parzania, a film based on the communal 
conflagration of 2002.

There is a disturbing lesson in all this about 
the way the media and the Indian middle-class 
perceive events in the country. In 2004, the 
Supreme Court had called the Gujarat government 
led by Modi a bunch of "modern-day Neros", who 
were guilty of looking elsewhere when "Best 
Bakery and innocent children and helpless women 
were burning". The judgment went a step further 
by commenting that these modern-day Neros were 
"probably deliberating how the perpetrators of 
the crime can be protected".

While little has still been done to bring the 
instigators of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 to 
book, the memory of these terrible riots seem to 
matter these days only to the actual victims and 
a bunch of human rights activists. The mantra of 
the middle-class is that what happened cannot be 
undone and, hence, we must move ahead. Move ahead 
towards what? To the regressive idea that taming, 
disciplining and chastising Modi is the business 
of the BJP and the RSS. This is an idea that even 
the Opposition party in Gujarat, the Congress, 
seems to have accepted.

Having accepted the idea that Modi is not a 
national 'problem', and having localised Modi's 
agenda to Gujarat at one level, and his party at 
another level, it gives the Gujarat Chief 
Minister licence to further his jehadi Hindutva 
mission. Emboldened by this apathy and moral 
bankruptcy, Modi turns every criticism against 
him to his advantage. Every issue, from Narmada 
to the resettlement of riot victims, is branded 
by Modi as an effrontery to the people of 
Gujarat. He also manages to target Muslims by 
assuming the role of an inflamed nationalist, who 
seems to articulate issues such as terrorism, 
Pakistan's role in promoting terror in India, 
Afzal's hanging, the Sachar report, affirmative 
action for Muslims and internal security, without 
actually naming the Muslim community.

At some point after the infamy of 2002 was seen 
to be difficult to wash away, Modi's spin doctors 
sought to project him as the sole champion of 
Right-wing economics. The Vibrant Gujarat summit 
in January this year was a step in this 
direction. It saw an influx of all the top 
corporate leaders flocking to Gujarat and 
extolling the virtues of Modi. One of them called 
Modi a "dynamic visionary", while another 
unlikely admirer of the Gujarat Chief Minister 
went as far as to suggest that "you are a fool if 
you are not in Gujarat. The pragmatism and 
charisma characterised by Modi's leadership has 
touched all of us". The centrepiece of this 
summit was Modi's promotion of SEZs which, in a 
corny turn of phrase, the 'dynamic visionary' 
explained stood for spirituality, 
entrepreneurship and zeal. In other words, 
reactionary Hindutva, technocratic-managerialism 
and hyper nationalism were the key concepts doled 
out at the summit.

It wasn't merely the colour of money that sent 
top corporate bosses rushing to Modi. Their 
attitude partakes of the same middle-class 
affliction that views reality in neat 
compartments. In this way, the mind does not have 
to deal with complex moral issues. Even after the 
2002 carnage in Gujarat, the Indian industry did 
not necessarily cover itself in glory. Jamshed 
Godrej and Rahul Bajaj had made references in a 
CII meeting in 2003 to the post-Godhra carnage in 
Modi's presence. Modi had reacted by saying that 
the CII was doing injustice to Gujarat and 
challenged 'pseudo-secularists' to a debate on 
the situation in Gujarat.

Soon after this meeting, CII President Tarun Das 
met Modi and apologised to him for having "hurt 
his feelings". As if this was not enough, the 
then Ficci bosses, Amit Mitra and A.C. Muthiah, 
went to Gandhinagar a week after Tarun Das's 
visit and met Modi to declare "mutual trust in 
each other". In an evocative phrase, the 
Federation of Gujarat Industries president called 
the post-Godhra carnage as "one such event" that 
had little bearing on the investment climate in 
Gujarat. This was in February 2003. The Vibrant 
Gujarat summit in January 2007 is merely the 
logical culmination of this indifference to 
justice and the rule of law.

All this confirms a hunch: education, refinement 
and wealth will always remain impervious to 
criminal irrationality. Delivering the Gifford 
Lectures in 1990, the philosopher, George 
Steiner, suggested that "refined intellectuality, 
artistic virtuosity and appreciation, scientific 
eminence will collaborate actively with 
totalitarian demands or, at best, remain 
indifferent to surrounding sadism". He goes 
further to suggest that "resplendent concerts, 
exhibitions in great museums, the publication of 
learned books, the pursuit of academic research, 
both scientific and humanistic, flourish within 
close reach of the death-camps". He could have 
added censorship, burning of books, banning of 
films and hounding of dissenters to the list. 
Modi's Gujarat exemplifies this and more. It is a 
move to a new kind of medievalism, one that 
pursues a reactionary agenda with the help of 
technology and the middle-class fad of efficiency.

There is another reality out there which, of 
course, could upset Modi's calculations. Hence, 
there is little discussion of the reverses 
suffered by BJP-supported candidates in village 
panchayat elections in January this year. And who 
knows, all the 'vibrant Gujarat' hype might meet 
the same fate as the India Shining campaign of 
2004. It might even go the way of N Chandrababu 
Naidu's Golden Andhra Pradesh dream, and dissolve 
into nothingness. Whatever be the fate of 
individuals, the victims of 2002 deserve justice 
so that we can call ourselves civilised.


______


[5] 


Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:15 PM
Subject: HASHIMPURA (MEERUT) MASSACRE 1987 TRIAL- AN APPEAL

Dear friends,

The survivors of the massacre of almost 40 youth 
in the hands of the PAC in 1987 in 
Hashimpura,Meerut has been followed by a very 
brave almost epic battle for justice by its 
survivors. I place below an article I published 
recently about this battle, and a note about the 
latest developments, that place the case in a 
decisive phase.

Aman Biradari appeals for individual small 
donations to create a support fund for the 
survivors' battle for justice. it is important to 
note that for many years, they have fought this 
battle with almost no external financial support, 
and have raised money between themselves even 
though they are mostly working class people, and 
the human rights lawyers have worked pro bono. 
Donations may pl be made to Aman Biradari Trust, 
indicating that this is for the Hashimpura 
survivors, and we will make sure to transfer the 
entire donation to them.

Thanks and warm regards,

Harsh Mander

  ------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear all

  19 men of the Provincial Armed Constabulary 
(PAC), for the killing of over 40 Muslim men 
belonging to Mohalla Hashimpura on 22nd may 1987 
are facing trial for mass murder in Tis Hazari 
Court Delhi. The families of the victims and 
survivors of Hashimpura have for the last 20 
years relentlessly pursued the case and sought 
punishment of the guilty.

  Taking serious note of the delay in this matter 
on the last date of hearing i.e. 5th February, 
the Hon'ble Judge has directed that the case will 
now be heard on a day to day basis, from 8th 
February onwards. Despite the trial being 
transferred to Delhi by the Supreme Court in 
September 2002, till now only 2 prosecution 
witnesses have been examined. On the last date of 
hearing the Court had to adjourn the case due to 
non availability of the defence counsel.

  2 of the survivors, Zulfikar Nasir and Mohd.Naem 
have already deposed before the court, how the 
PAC took them into custody, put them in a truck 
and then shot them dead at Upoper Ganga Canal and 
Hindon canal and threw the bodies into the water.

On 8th February, another eye witness and 
survivor, Mohd Usman will testify before the 
Court. Usman still carries the scars of the PAC 
brutality which has rendered his one leg non 
functional. 

Court of Shri N.PKaushik, ASJ Delhi . Room no. 112, Tis Hazari Court.

8th February 2007. 10:00 a.m.

  Mohd.Yamin
on behalf of
Legal Advisory Committee for Hashimpura

  --------------------------------------------------------


BRUTALISED, BUT NOT BROKEN

Harsh Mander

December 17, 2006

The police bullet pierced through his shoulder, 
stunning him with pain. If it had entered his 
body just a few inches lower, he would have died, 
like the forty other young men that the 
constables had bundled into the truck with him. 
They took him for dead, throwing him into the 
canal. Zulfikar was then 17 years old.

A few hours earlier, constables of the Provincial 
Armed Constabulary (PAC) had surrounded 
Hashimpura, a working class and predominantly 
Muslim colony of factory workers and weavers in 
Meerut. It was the evening of May 22, 1987, and 
the city was still smouldering with the fires of 
more than a month of embittered and brutal 
rioting, that had left many slain by police 
bullets and burning alive, hundreds of homes, 
factories, shops and vehicles gutted, and people 
of both communities convulsed with sullen hate 
and anger.

The PAC forced all the residents of Hashimpura 
out of their homes onto the road, and searched 
their homes, randomly smashing their furniture 
and valuables. It was the sacred month of Ramzan, 
and most were still observing the ritual fasting 
as they tensely cowered for hours outside their 
homes. Almost all the able-bodied men, totalling 
324 according to official records, all Muslim, 
were arrested and crowded into police trucks. 
They were first driven to police lock-ups, where 
they were beaten with police batons. They were 
then shifted to jails, where they were attacked 
by prisoners, leaving five dead.

In Hashimpura, after the strong able-bodied men 
were arrested and driven away, nearly 50 among 
the teenaged and old men who remained behind were 
then rounded up by the PAC constables into a 
yellow truck. Many of their loved ones wailed as 
they were driven away. Yet, none dreamed that 
this would be the last time that they would see 
most of them alive.

Zulfikar and others thought that they too would 
be driven to the police station. They panicked 
when the truck instead began to drive them out of 
the city; they shouted hopelessly but there were 
none to heed their cries in the shrouds of 
curfew. The truck rumbled to a halt more than an 
hour later near the banks of the Upper Ganga 
Canal in Muradnagar, Ghaziabad. By then, the sun 
had set. The terrified men packed in the truck 
still did not know what the men in khaki planned 
for them.

The man nearest the edge was first pulled down, 
and the sound of rifle-fire echoed through the 
uneasy silence; he fell, and his body was dragged 
to the canal and thrown in. A second man was then 
pulled down, and met the same fate. Zulfikar was 
the third. The bullet passed through his 
shoulder; he too collapsed, but was alive. He 
held his breath, and the constables took him for 
dead, and flung him also into the canal. He 
floated briefly, but soon found himself tangled 
in some weeds, which he grabbed and silently 
waited with intense foreboding, blood flowing 
from his bullet wound into the water.

By then, the men in the truck comprehended the 
terrible truth of what was happening, and they 
raised a great uproar. The constables panicked, 
and changed track. They mounted the truck and 
opened fire blindly, killing at least half the 
men there. They dragged out the bodies and threw 
them into the canal. The remaining men fell 
silent in cold terror, recalling their God and 
those they loved, certain now that they would not 
escape alive.

Zulfikar listened as the truck finally drove 
away. He came to know later that they then drove 
to the Hindon Canal, and completed the massacre 
of the remaining men. Of the nearly 50 men who 
the PAC picked up, only six survived. A policeman 
later testified to seeing the blood-stained PAC 
truck enter the premises of the camp of the PAC.

Zulkifar finally pulled himself out of the canal 
an hour later, and hid in a urinal. He had to 
continue his fast amid the stench of urine and 
his throbbing shoulder the next 24 hours, until 
he felt it was safe to slink to the home of a 
relative the next night. Days later, he took a 
bus to the home of Syed Shahabuddin, MP, in 
Delhi, and together they broke the story of the 
massacre in a press conference to a (briefly) 
outraged world.

Meanwhile, many bodies were found floating in the 
canal. The Superintendent of Police, Ghaziabad , 
VN Rai, insisted on filing police complaints, 
even though the top political and police 
leadership reportedly wanted to suppress the 
story for fear of a rebellion in the forces. In 
1988, the state government directed the Crime 
Branch Central Investigation Department (CBCID) 
to investigate, but its report, submitted six 
years later in 1994, was never made public, and 
no charges were initially framed.

However, the survivors and members of the 
families of those killed moved the Supreme Court 
in 1995 to make the report public and to 
prosecute those indicted in it. The court refused 
to intervene, and instead asked the petitioners 
to approach the High Court. The case remains 
unresolved in the High Court, but the state 
government finally bowed to pressure in 1996 by 
filing criminal chargesheets against 19 PAC 
personnel. Not a single senior official is 
included in the chargesheet. Even the 19 of the 
accused from the lower ranks of the PAC were not 
arrested, despite 23 non-bailable arrest 
warrants. They were in active service, but the 
government pleaded that they were 'absconding' 
throughout!

Ultimately, rights activist Iqbal Ansari and 
relatives of those slaughtered applied to the 
Supreme Court to transfer the case, in the 
interests of justice, from Uttar Pradesh to 
Delhi, which it ordered in September 2002. More 
years were allowed to pass over the wrangle of 
which government should appoint the special 
public prosecutor. The case continued to be 
adjourned on technical grounds, enabled by a 
reluctant public prosecutor appointed by the 
Uttar Pradesh government. Human rights lawyers 
Vrinda Grover and Rebecca John took up the reins 
as their advocates.

It was finally in May 2006, 19 years almost to 
the day after the massacre, that charges were 
finally framed against the accused. Three of the 
accused have died, the remaining 16 appear in 
every hearing in the cramped untidy Tis Hazari 
courtroom and listen tensely to the statements of 
the survivors — but continue in active service. A 
large number of residents of Hashimpura crowd the 
courtroom. All working class people, many widowed 
and aged, unsupported by any organisation, gather 
money from their own savings for travel for every 
court hearing, only to give wordless strength to 
each other as they speak out their harrowing 
truths in court.

Zulfikar, now 36, knows that the battle in the 
courts will be arduous. Yet, he still longs above 
all for justice. "Those who did this zulm must be 
punished. We do not want our children to see such 
a day again. It is for this that we fight." Some 
fear that they may still lose the case, but their 
lawyer Vrinda Grover counters, "The survivors and 
their families have already won. By their brave 
resolute epic fight. By bringing 16 PAC men to 
court every hearing. If the case is dismissed, it 
is the country that will lose. But not them. They 
have already won."

Harsh Mander is the convenor of Aman Biradari, a 
people's campaign for secularism, peace and 
justice.

------------------------------
Aman Biradari
R-38/A, Second Floor, South Extension Part II
New Delhi 110 049
Telefax: +91-11-41642147
Phone: +91-11-41645661
www.amanbiradari.org (under construction)

______


[6]

GODHRA EXPOSED -
AN AUDIO VISUAL PRESENTATION BY MUKUL SINHA

Venue: Constantia Hall, YWCA, Ashoka Road, New Delhi-110001

(directions: From Gol Dakhana on Ashoka Road, 
towards Parliament Street, YWCA is on the left 
hand side after the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara)


Time: 4pm

Date: February 19, 2007


Today, nearly five years to the carnage in 
Gujarat in 2002, the wounds refuse to heal. It 
bears repeating that this was a massacre 
unprecedented in independent India. For it was a 
massacre openly led by the State against its own 
citizens, which left over 2000 dead and lakhs 
displaced, terrorized, and scarred. At a 
conservative estimate, well over 300 women were 
sexually brutalized in horrific ways, raped and 
killed in full public view. This was an attempt 
to annihilate Hindutva's 'constructed enemy', the 
Muslim, physically and symbolically, as person, 
citizen and community. The constitutional promise 
of India lay in tatters.

The Sangh Parivar used the unfortunate burning of 
coach S6 of the Sabarmati express at Godhra to 
justify the pogrom. There were very few voices 
five years ago, who debunked their theory of 
conspiracy and refused to believe the hate 
propaganda so cleverly spread across India and 
abroad.  

Consistent efforts by various activists and 
organisations, especially and mainly by Mukul 
Sinha and Jan Sangharsh Manch have totally 
exposed the vicious propaganda of the Sangh.

BJP used Godhra to win elections in 2002. The 
role of the Gujarat administration in 2002 pogrom 
and its continuous active connivance with the 
ideology of hate during these past five years is 
well established. Sangh plans to use Godhra again 
in 2007 elections. The way and how they can us it 
is very clear.

It is important that even if the Godhra exposure 
is overlooked by the official bodies, the reality 
reaches the people.

We appeal to you to attend this programme and to disseminate the findings.

Note: Mukul Sinha is a senior advocate, activist 
from Gujarat. He has placed the Independent 
Investigation Report in front of the Nanawati 
Commission, totally exposing the false propaganda 
of the Sangh Parivar about the burning of S6 of 
the Sabarmati Express in Godhra on February 27, 
2002.


ANHAD 
AMAN TRUST                              INSTITUTE 
FOR SECULAR DEMOCRACY
Tel-23070740/ 23070722


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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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