SACW | March 24-25, 2007 | India: Elites vs the poor; The left needs to rethink; Gujarat Relief, Babri Demolition / Bangladesh - Sheikh Mujib Re-Visited

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | March 24-25, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2382 - Year 9

[1]  India: West had colonies to plunder, We've 
begun to eat our own limbs (Arundhati Roy 
interviewed)
[2]  India: "not to let the wounds of Nandigram 
become festering sores" Statement by Prabhat 
Patnaik et al
[3]  India: Learning Nandigram lessons (Praful Bidwai)
[4]  India: SEZ'S and Land Acquisition (Citizens Research Collective)
[5]  India: Response to the Gujarat Relief 
Package by Central Government (AVHRS Press 
release)
[6]  India: Revisiting Babri Mosque Demolition (Ram Puniyani)
[7]  Bangladesh: Book Review:  The Life and 
Triumph of A Colossus: Sheikh Mujib Re-Visited

____


[1]

Tehelka
Mar 31 , 2007

Exclusive Interview

'IT'S OUTRIGHT WAR AND BOTH SIDES ARE CHOOSING THEIR WEAPONS'

Chhattisgarh. Jharkhand. Bihar. Andhra Pradesh. 
Signposts of fractures gone too far with too 
little remedy. Arundhati Roy in conversation with 
Shoma Chaudhury on the violence rending our 
heartland


Singur and Nandigram make you wonder - is the 
last stop of every revolution advanced capitalism?
There is an atmosphere of growing violence across 
the country. How do you read the signs? In what 
context should it be read?

You don't have to be a genius to read the signs. 
We have a growing middle class, reared on a diet 
of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. 
Unlike industrialising Western countries, which 
had colonies from which to plunder resources and 
generate slave labour to feed this process, we 
have to colonise ourselves, our own nether parts. 
We've begun to eat our own limbs. The greed that 
is being generated (and marketed as a value 
interchangeable with nationalism) can only be 
sated by grabbing land, water and resources from 
the vulnerable. What we're witnessing is the most 
successful secessionist struggle ever waged in 
independent India - the secession of the middle 
and upper classes from the rest of the country. 
It's a vertical secession, not a lateral one. 
They're fighting for the right to merge with the 
world's elite somewhere up there in the 
stratosphere. They've managed to commandeer the 
resources, the coal, the minerals, the bauxite, 
the water and electricity. Now they want the land 
to make more cars, more bombs, more mines - 
supertoys for the new supercitizens of the new 
superpower. So it's outright war, and people on 
both sides are choosing their weapons. The 
government and the corporations reach for 
structural adjustment, the World Bank, the ADB, 
FDI, friendly court orders, friendly policy 
makers, help from the 'friendly' corporate media 
and a police force that will ram all this down 
people's throats. Those who want to resist this 
process have, until now, reached for dharnas, 
hunger strikes, satyagraha, the courts and what 
they thought was friendly media. But now more and 
more are reaching for guns. Will the violence 
grow? If the 'growth rate' and the Sensex are 
going to be the only barometers the government 
uses to measure progress and the well-being of 
people, then of course it will. How do I read the 
signs? It isn't hard to read sky-writing. What it 
says up there, in big letters, is this: the shit 
has hit the fan, folks.

You once remarked that though you may not resort 
to violence yourself, you think it has become 
immoral to condemn it, given the circumstances in 
the country. Can you elaborate on this view?

I'd be a liability as a guerrilla! I doubt I used 
the word 'immoral' - morality is an elusive 
business, as changeable as the weather. What I 
feel is this: non-violent movements have knocked 
at the door of every democratic institution in 
this country for decades, and have been spurned 
and humiliated. Look at the Bhopal gas victims, 
the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The nba had a lot 
going for it - high-profile leadership, media 
coverage, more resources than any other mass 
movement. What went wrong? People are bound to 
want to rethink strategy. When Sonia Gandhi 
begins to promote satyagraha at the World 
Economic Forum in Davos, it's time for us to sit 
up and think. For example, is mass civil 
disobedience possible within the structure of a 
democratic nation state? Is it possible in the 
age of disinformation and corporate-controlled 
mass media? Are hunger strikes umbilically linked 
to celebrity politics? Would anybody care if the 
people of Nangla Machhi or Bhatti mines went on a 
hunger strike? Irom Sharmila has been on a hunger 
strike for six years. That should be a lesson to 
many of us. I've always felt that it's ironic 
that hunger strikes are used as a political 
weapon in a land where most people go hungry 
anyway. We are in a different time and place now. 
Up against a different, more complex adversary. 
We've entered the era of NGOs - or should I say 
the era of paltu shers - in which mass action can 
be a treacherous business. We have demonstrations 
which are funded, we have sponsored dharnas and 
social forums which make militant postures but 
never follow up on what they preach. We have all 
kinds of 'virtual' resistance. Meetings against 
SEZs sponsored by the biggest promoters of SEZs. 
Awards and grants for environmental activism and 
community action given by corporations 
responsible for devastating whole ecosystems. 
Vedanta, a company mining bauxite in the forests 
of Orissa, wants to start a university. The Tatas 
have two charitable trusts that directly and 
indirectly fund activists and mass movements 
across the country. Could that be why Singur has 
drawn so much less flak than Nandigram? Of course 
the Tatas and Birlas funded Gandhi too - maybe he 
was our first NGO. But now we have NGOs who make 
a lot of noise, write a lot of reports, but whom 
the sarkar is more than comfortable with. How do 
we make sense of all this? The place is crawling 
with professional diffusers of real political 
action. 'Virtual' resistance has become something 
of a liability.

We are in the era of sponsored dharnas and NGOs 
the sarkar is comfortable with. The place is 
crawling with professional diffusers of real 
political action
There was a time when mass movements looked to 
the courts for justice. The courts have rained 
down a series of judgements that are so unjust, 
so insulting to the poor in the language they 
use, they take your breath away. A recent Supreme 
Court judgement, allowing the Vasant Kunj Mall to 
resume construction though it didn't have the 
requisite clearances, said in so many words that 
the questions of corporations indulging in 
malpractice does not arise! In the ERA of 
corporate globalisation, corporate land-grab, in 
the ERA of Enron and Monsanto, Halliburton and 
Bechtel, that's a loaded thing to say. It exposes 
the ideological heart of the most powerful 
institution in this country. The judiciary, along 
with the corporate press, is now seen as the 
lynchpin of the neo-liberal project.

In a climate like this, when people feel that 
they are being worn down, exhausted by these 
interminable 'democratic' processes, only to be 
eventually humiliated, what are they supposed to 
do? Of course it isn't as though the only options 
are binary - violence versus non-violence. There 
are political parties that believe in armed 
struggle but only as one part of their overall 
political strategy. Political workers in these 
struggles have been dealt with brutally, killed, 
beaten, imprisoned under false charges. People 
are fully aware that to take to arms is to call 
down upon yourself the myriad forms of the 
violence of the Indian State. The minute armed 
struggle becomes a strategy, your whole world 
shrinks and the colours fade to black and white. 
But when people decide to take that step because 
every other option has ended in despair, should 
we condemn them? Does anyone believe that if the 
people of Nandigram had held a dharna and sung 
songs, the West Bengal government would have 
backed down? We are living in times when to be 
ineffective is to support the status quo (which 
no doubt suits some of us). And being effective 
comes at a terrible price. I find it hard to 
condemn people who are prepared to pay that price.

You have been travelling a lot on the ground - 
can you give us a sense of the trouble spots you 
have been to? Can you outline a few of the combat 
lines in these places?

Huge question - what can I say? The military 
occupation of Kashmir, neo-fascism in Gujarat, 
civil war in Chhattisgarh, mncs raping Orissa, 
the submergence of hundreds of villages in the 
Narmada Valley, people living on the edge of 
absolute starvation, the devastation of forest 
land, the Bhopal victims living to see the West 
Bengal government re-wooing Union Carbide - now 
calling itself Dow Chemicals - in Nandigram. I 
haven't been recently to Andhra Pradesh, 
Karnataka, Maharashtra, but we know about the 
almost hundred thousand farmers who have killed 
themselves. We know about the fake encounters and 
the terrible repression in Andhra Pradesh. Each 
of these places has its own particular history, 
economy, ecology. None is amenable to easy 
analysis. And yet there is connecting tissue, 
there are huge international cultural and 
economic pressures being brought to bear on them. 
How can I not mention the Hindutva project, 
spreading its poison sub-cutaneously, waiting to 
erupt once again? I'd say the biggest indictment 
of all is that we are still a country, a culture, 
a society which continues to nurture and practice 
the notion of untouchability. While our 
economists number-crunch and boast about the 
growth rate, a million people - human scavengers 
- earn their living carrying several kilos of 
other people's shit on their heads every day. And 
if they didn't carry shit on their heads they 
would starve to death. Some f***ing superpower 
this.

How does one view the recent State and police violence in Bengal?

No different from police and State violence 
anywhere else - including the issue of hypocrisy 
and doublespeak so perfected by all political 
parties including the mainstream Left. Are 
Communist bullets different from capitalist ones? 
Odd things are happening. It snowed in Saudi 
Arabia. Owls are out in broad daylight. The 
Chinese government tabled a bill sanctioning the 
right to private property. I don't know if all of 
this has to do with climate change. The Chinese 
Communists are turning out to be the biggest 
capitalists of the 21st century. Why should we 
expect our own parliamentary Left to be any 
different? Nandigram and Singur are clear 
signals. It makes you wonder - is the last stop 
of every revolution advanced capitalism? Think 
about it - the French Revolution, the Russian 
Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnam 
War, the anti-apartheid struggle, the supposedly 
Gandhian freedom struggle in IndiaŠ what's the 
last station they all pull in at? Is this the end 
of imagination?

These are times when to be ineffective is to 
support the status quo. And being effective comes 
at a terrible price
The Maoist attack in Bijapur - the death of 55 
policemen. Are the rebels only the flip side of 
the State?

How can the rebels be the flip side of the State? 
Would anybody say that those who fought against 
apartheid - however brutal their methods - were 
the flip side of the State? What about those who 
fought the French in Algeria? Or those who fought 
the Nazis? Or those who fought colonial regimes? 
Or those who are fighting the US occupation of 
Iraq? Are they the flip side of the State? This 
facile new report-driven 'human rights' 
discourse, this meaningless condemnation game 
that we are all forced to play, makes politicians 
of us all and leaches the real politics out of 
everything. However pristine we would like to be, 
however hard we polish our halos, the tragedy is 
that we have run out of pristine choices. There 
is a civil war in Chhattisgarh sponsored, created 
by the Chhattisgarh government, which is publicly 
pursing the Bush doctrine: if you're not with us, 
you are with the terrorists. The lynchpin of this 
war, apart from the formal security forces, is 
the Salva Judum - a government-backed militia of 
ordinary people forced to take up arms, forced to 
become spos (special police officers). The Indian 
State has tried this in Kashmir, in Manipur, in 
Nagaland. Tens of thousands have been killed, 
hundreds of thousands tortured, thousands have 
disappeared. Any banana republic would be proud 
of this record. Now the government wants to 
import these failed strategies into the 
heartland. Thousands of adivasis have been 
forcibly moved off their mineral-rich lands into 
police camps. Hundreds of villages have been 
forcibly evacuated. Those lands, rich in 
iron-ore, are being eyed by corporations like the 
Tatas and Essar. mous have been signed, but no 
one knows what they say. Land acquisition has 
begun. This kind of thing happened in countries 
like Colombia - one of the most devastated 
countries in the world. While everybody's eyes 
are fixed on the spiralling violence between 
government-backed militias and guerrilla squads, 
multinational corporations quietly make off with 
the mineral wealth. That's the little piece of 
theatre being scripted for us in Chhattisgarh.

Of course it's horrible that 55 policemen were 
killed. But they're as much the victims of 
government policy as anybody else. For the 
government and the corporations they're just 
cannon fodder - there's plenty more where they 
came from. Crocodile tears will be shed, prim TV 
anchors will hector us for a while and then more 
supplies of fodder will be arranged. For the 
Maoist guerrillas, the police and spos they 
killed were the armed personnel of the Indian 
State, the main, hands-on perpetrators of 
repression, torture, custodial killings, false 
encounters. They're not innocent civilians - if 
such a thing exists - by any stretch of 
imagination.

I have no doubt that the Maoists can be agents of 
terror and coercion too. I have no doubt they 
have committed unspeakable atrocities. I have no 
doubt they cannot lay claim to undisputed support 
from local people - but who can? Still, no 
guerrilla army can survive without local support. 
That's a logistical impossibility. And the 
support for Maoists is growing, not diminshing. 
That says something. People have no choice but to 
align themselves on the side of whoever they 
think is less worse.

But to equate a resistance movement fighting 
against enormous injustice with the government 
which enforces that injustice is absurd. The 
government has slammed the door in the face of 
every attempt at non-violent resistance. When 
people take to arms, there is going to be all 
kinds of violence - revolutionary, lumpen and 
outright criminal. The government is responsible 
for the monstrous situations it creates.

'Naxals', 'Maoists', 'outsiders': these are terms 
being very loosely used these days.

'Outsiders' is a generic accusation used in the 
early stages of repression by governments who 
have begun to believe their own publicity and 
can't imagine that their own people have risen up 
against them. That's the stage the CPM is at now 
in Bengal, though some would say repression in 
Bengal is not new, it has only moved into higher 
gear. In any case, what's an outsider? Who 
decides the borders? Are they village boundaries? 
Tehsil? Block? District? State? Is narrow 
regional and ethnic politics the new Communist 
mantra? About Naxals and Maoists - wellŠ India is 
about to become a police state in which everybody 
who disagrees with what's going on risks being 
called a terrorist. Islamic terrorists have to be 
Islamic - so that's not good enough to cover most 
of us. They need a bigger catchment area. So 
leaving the definition loose, undefined, is 
effective strategy, because the time is not far 
off when we'll all be called Maoists or 
Naxalites, terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, 
and shut down by people who don't really know or 
care who Maoists or Naxalites are. In villages, 
of course, that has begun - thousands of people 
are being held in jails across the country, 
loosely charged with being terrorists trying to 
overthrow the state. Who are the real Naxalites 
and Maoists? I'm not an authority on the subject, 
but here's a very rudimentary potted history.

The government has slammed the door in the face 
of every attempt at non-violent resistance. The 
government is responsible for the situations it 
creates
The Communist Party of India, the CPI, was formed 
in 1925. The CPI (M), or what we now call the CPM 
- the Communist Party Marxist - split from the 
CPI in 1964 and formed a separate party. Both, of 
course, were parliamentary political parties. In 
1967, the CPM, along with a splinter group of the 
Congress, came to power in West Bengal. At the 
time there was massive unrest among the peasantry 
starving in the countryside. Local CPM leaders - 
Kanu Sanyal and Charu Mazumdar - led a peasant 
uprising in the district of Naxalbari which is 
where the term Naxalites comes from. In 1969, the 
government fell and the Congress came back to 
power under Siddhartha Shankar Ray. The Naxalite 
uprising was mercilessly crushed - Mahasweta Devi 
has written powerfully about this time. In 1969, 
the CPI (ML) - Marxist Leninist - split from the 
CPM. A few years later, around 1971, the CPI (ML) 
devolved into several parties: the CPM-ML 
(Liberation), largely centred in Bihar; the 
CPM-ML (New Democracy), functioning for the most 
part out of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar; the CPM-ML 
(Class Struggle) mainly in Bengal. These parties 
have been generically baptised 'Naxalites'. They 
see themselves as Marxist Leninist, not strictly 
speaking Maoist. They believe in elections, mass 
action and - when absolutely pushed to the wall 
or attacked - armed struggle. The MCC - the 
Maoist Communist Centre, at the time mostly 
operating in Bihar - was formed in 1968. The PW, 
People's War, operational for the most part in 
Andhra Pradesh, was formed in 1980. Recently, in 
2004, the MCC and the pw merged to form the CPI 
(Maoist) They believe in outright armed struggle 
and the overthrowing of the State. They don't 
participate in elections. This is the party that 
is fighting the guerrilla war in Bihar, Andhra 
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

The Indian State and media largely view the 
Maoists as an "internal security" threat. Is this 
the way to look at them?

I'm sure the Maoists would be flattered to be viewed in this way.

The Maoists want to bring down the State. Given 
the autocratic ideology they take their 
inspiration from, what alternative would they set 
up? Wouldn't their regime be an exploitative, 
autocratic, violent one as well? Isn't their 
action already exploitative of ordinary people? 
Do they really have the support of ordinary 
people?

I think it's important for us to acknowledge that 
both Mao and Stalin are dubious heroes with 
murderous pasts. Tens of millions of people were 
killed under their regimes. Apart from what 
happened in China and the Soviet Union, Pol Pot, 
with the support of the Chinese Communist Party 
(while the West looked discreetly away), wiped 
out two million people in Cambodia and brought 
millions of people to the brink of extinction 
from disease and starvation. Can we pretend that 
China's cultural revolution didn't happen? Or 
that millions of people in the Soviet Union and 
Eastern Europe were not victims of labour camps, 
torture chambers, the network of spies and 
informers, the secret police. The history of 
these regimes is just as dark as the history of 
Western imperialism, except for the fact that 
they had a shorter life-span. We cannot condemn 
the occupation of Iraq, Palestine and Kashmir 
while we remain silent about Tibet and Chechnya. 
I would imagine that for the Maoists, the 
Naxalites, as well as the mainstream Left, being 
honest about the past is important to strengthen 
people's faith in the future. One hopes the past 
will not be repeated, but denying that it ever 
happened doesn't help inspire confidenceŠ 
Nevertheless, the Maoists in Nepal have waged a 
brave and successful struggle against the 
monarchy. Right now, in India, the Maoists and 
the various Marxist-Leninist groups are leading 
the fight against immense injustice here. They 
are fighting not just the State, but feudal 
landlords and their armed militias. They are the 
only people who are making a dent. And I admire 
that. It may well be that when they come to 
power, they will, as you say, be brutal, unjust 
and autocratic, or even worse than the present 
government. Maybe, but I'm not prepared to assume 
that in advance. If they are, we'll have to fight 
them too. And most likely someone like myself 
will be the first person they'll string up from 
the nearest tree - but right now, it is important 
to acknowledge that they are bearing the brunt of 
being at the forefront of resistance. Many of us 
are in a position where we are beginning to align 
ourselves on the side of those who we know have 
no place for us in their religious or ideological 
imagination. It's true that everybody changes 
radically when they come to power - look at 
Mandela's anc. Corrupt, capitalist, bowing to the 
imf, driving the poor out of their homes - 
honouring Suharto, the killer of hundreds of 
thousands of Indonesian Communists, with South 
Africa's highest civilian award. Who would have 
thought it could happen? But does this mean South 
Africans should have backed away from the 
struggle against apartheid? Or that they should 
regret it now? Does it mean Algeria should have 
remained a French colony, that Kashmiris, Iraqis 
and Palestinians should accept military 
occupation? That people whose dignity is being 
assaulted should give up the fight because they 
can't find saints to lead them into battle?

Is there a communication breakdown in our society?

Yes.


_____


[2]

24 Mar 2007 03:46:20 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Statement released by Prabhat Patnaik

				A STATEMENT

We the undersigned, who have long been associated 
with the Left movement in the country, feel 
deeply pained and anguished by the loss of lives 
and injuries suffered during the police action in 
Nandigram on March 14. Nobody belonging to the 
Left would ever justify repressive action against 
peasants or workers who are the basic classes of 
the Left. The tragedy at Nandigram on March 14 
was an entirely unanticipated, unjustified and 
unfortunate turn of events, whose exact origin 
and course should be established through a proper 
inquiry. The Left Front government meanwhile has 
announced the removal of the police force from 
Nandigram, has reiterated its policy that no land 
will be acquired for industrial purposes without 
the consent of the peasants and other people 
concerned, has put on hold all land acquisition, 
and has put a halt to the construction of SEZs 
until the Central legislation on SEZs itself, to 
which the Left has always been opposed, is 
suitably amended. And the CPI(M), the leading 
partner of the Left Front, has asked for a 
judicial inquiry into the tragedy. Under these 
circumstances, and in view of the fact that the 
state government has committed itself to 
recompensing the families of the victims, all 
efforts must be made so that tension subsides and 
normalcy returns to the area, allowing the 
numerous refugees, who have been driven out from 
there and living in makeshift camps, to return 
home. We appeal to all concerned not to let the 
wounds of Nandigram become festering sores.

Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Professor, Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata.
M.K.Raina, Thetare Activist, Delhi.
Ram Rahman, Freelance Photographer, Delhi.
Malini Bhattacharya, Formerly Professor, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
Utsa Patnaik, Professor, Center for Development 
Studies and Planning, JNU, Delhi.
Javeed Alam, Formerly Professor, CIEFL, Hyderabad.
Mihir Bhattacharya, Formerly Professor, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
Jayati Ghosh, Professor, Centre for Economic 
Studies and Planning, JNU, New Delhi.
Mohan Rao, Professor, Centre for Social Medicine 
and Community Health, JNU, Delhi.
Nasir Tyabji, Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru 
Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
Meena Rajyadhyaksha, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi.
Praveen Jha, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, Delhi.
Prabhat Patnaik, Professor, Centre for 
Development Studies and Planning, JNU,  Delhi.
Teesta Seetalvad, Co-editor Communalism Combat, Mumbai
D.N.Jha, Former Professor, Department of History, Delhi University, Delhi.
Ruchira Gupta, Consultant UNICEF

Released by Prabhat Patnaik
Tel-26163541

_____



[3]


Khaleej Times
24 March 2007

LEARNING NANDIGRAM LESSONS
by Praful Bidwai

WEST Bengal's Left Front, led by the Communist 
Party of India-Marxist (CPM), has barely pulled 
back from a potentially self-destructive disaster 
following the Nandigram carnage by adopting an 
8-point agreement.

This acknowledges that the March 14 Nandigram 
incident, in which 14 people were gunned down, 
"was tragic" and won't be repeated; the 
government "will not acquire any land in 
Nandigram for any industry" and the police "will 
be withdrawn in phases".

The agreement says the Front's partners will 
"meet more frequently" to take "all important 
political decisions... after discussion."

The agreement became possible primarily because 
of the public outrage Nandigram caused and the 
tough stand taken by the CPM's main 
partners-Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc, 
and Revolutionary Socialist Party. They condemned 
the police firing as undemocratic and "brutal and 
barbaric", and threatened to withdraw from the 
government.

Critical here was the role of the Grand Old Man 
of Bengal politics, former Chief Minister Jyoti 
Basu. He said the CPM is running "one-party rule 
in this state. It doesn't look like a coalition 
government at all..." He reprimanded Chief 
Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and told the 
Front's non-CPM leaders to quit if the CPM 
doesn't change course.

The agreement represents a victory for the people 
- and forces of sanity. The victory was costly. 
And yet, it doesn't settle all issues: Will the 
Front completely abandon its Special Economic 
Zones (SEZs) policy? Will it refuse any truck 
with Indonesia's Salim group - a front for the 
super-corrupt Suharto family-for whom 10,000 
acres was to be acquired in Nandigram?

Will it revise Bhattacharjee's 
"industrialisation-at-any-cost" orientation, with 
total disregard for social and environmental 
consequences? And will the CPM consult its allies 
on policy issues in advance, rather than throw 
the weight of its 176 seats in the 294-member 
Assembly, against their 51 seats?

It's necessary to place Nandigram in context. The 
immediate cause of the violence there wasn't land 
acquisition, put on hold after popular protests 
in January. It was the CPM's attempt to regain 
control of the area for its "cadres". The 
"cadres" brook no challenge to their power. But 
on January 7, they faced the people's anger. Many 
were driven out. They were itching to come back.

Nandigram wasn't solely a fight between the CPM 
and assorted Opposition groups, including the 
Right-wing, thuggish Trinamool Congress, backed 
by the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind and other factions, 
which had collected arms and blockaded the area. 
Like the TMC, the CPM too employed strong-arm 
methods, revealed by the arrest of 10 of its 
cadres. The blockade was a spontaneous people's 
initiative. As CPM general secretary Prakash 
Karat admitted, the local "people turned against 
us."

The plain truth is, CPM apparatchiks instigated 
Black Wednesday's operation to settle scores in 
the "cadres'" favour by using the state's might. 
They imposed collective punishment, an obnoxious 
method, on the residents.

The 4,000-strong police didn't use non-lethal 
anti-riot water cannons, rubber bullets and smoke 
grenades until their utility was exhausted-as 
mandated by police manuals.

The police shot to kill. Most bullet injuries 
were above the waist level. Many people were shot 
in the back. At Bhangabera Bridge, the police 
pumped 500 bullets into 2,000 people.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has gathered 
evidence that CPM "cadres" also fired into the 
crowd, many disguised in police uniform. It 
recovered 500 bullets from them. It also found a 
657 metre-long "blood trail", which suggests "a 
gunny-bag holding a body was being dragged".

It will take long to heal the wounds of 
Nandigram. It's worst outrage to have occurred 
under Left Front rule in West Bengal. Even Karat 
concedes that the firing was "disapproved by the 
people of West Bengal... [who] have a high 
democratic consciousness."

The pivotal question is whether the CPM will 
learn the right lessons from Nandigram. Or else, 
it'll forfeit its greatest gains, which have 
ensured its victory in election after consecutive 
election for three decades - a record unmatched 
in any democracy.

Sadly, Bhattacharjee hasn't lost any of his zeal 
for "industrialisation-at-any-cost". 
Bhattacharjee has a crude, dogmatic view of 
history, which sees industrialisation of any kind 
as progress. He fails to understand that 
corporate-led neoliberal industrialisation 
doesn't produce the collective Blue-collar worker 
(Marx's proletarian) and that it lacks the 
employment and social potential of classical 
capitalism. Rather, it bases itself upon 
Whiter-collar workers, is extremely 
capital-intensive, and creates enclave-based 
growth.

Neoliberal industrialisation involves capital 
accumulation through expropriation of 
livelihoods. A progressive state must not condone 
it; rather, it should discipline and regulate 
capitalism in the interests of society.

But for Bhattacharjee, the Tata car plant at 
Singur, being built on a neoliberal pattern, is 
the model. In reality, it's a stark case of crony 
capitalism, with subsidies equalling a fourth of 
its capital costs! It's also an instance of 
elitist, socially inappropriate, high-pollution 
industrialisation.

Bhattacharjee is also an unreconstructed believer 
in "stages" of historical development. For him, 
semi-feudal India must first achieve capitalism 
and then attempt socialist reform. He says he's 
working strictly within "a capitalist framework".

This view severely underestimates the 
possibilities for social transformation available 
within India's backward capitalism and for 
progress towards a more just society free of 
social bondage and economic serfdom.

For Bhattacharjee, the ideal model to follow is 
China, with its giant SEZs like Shenzen, 
unfettered freedom for multinational capital, and 
legalisation of private property. He should know 
better.

Shenzen is a workers' nightmare, where no labour 
rights exist. The mere loss of an identity card 
can reduce workers to destitution. Chinese 
vice-minister Chen Changzhi has just revealed 
that 80 per cent of the 1.84 million hectares of 
farmland earmarked for industrial development was 
illegally acquired.

The Left, especially the CPM, must decide whether 
it wants to fight for socialism, or merely manage 
capitalism Chinese-style, however honestly. If it 
chooses the second option, it will go into 
historic decline. It must also make a decisive 
break with the undemocratic organisational 
culture it has inherited, which punishes 
dissidence and encourages a 
"my-party-right-or-wrong" attitude.

Unless the Left undertakes ruthless 
self-criticism, it can't effect course correction.


______


[4] 


[ An Information booklet (in English and Hindi) 
on SEZs prepared for the National Kisan Rally on
March 23, 2007 in New Delhi ]

SEZ'S AND LAND ACQUISITION:
Factsheet for an unconstitutional economic policy 

by Citizens Research Collective
http://www.sacw.net/Nation/sezland_eng.pdf

SEZ AUR BHOOMI ADHIGRAHAN (HINDI VERSION)

by Citizens Research Collective
http://www.sacw.net/Nation/sezland_hindi.pdf


______


[5] 

http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/avhrsMarch07.html

Antarik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti
Press Note
March 23, 2007

RESPONSE TO THE GUJARAT RELIEF PACKAGE ANNOUNCED BY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

As recognition of the continued suffering of the 
survivors of the Gujarat carnage in 2002, and as 
a statement of reparation, the Central 
Government's announcement of a relief and 
rehabilitation package of 106.57 crores, though 
modest, is long overdue and welcome. Regrettably 
the package focuses on ex-gratia payments for 
those who died, on injury compensation, and to a 
lesser extent on compensation for damage to 
residential and some commercial properties. We 
urge the Central Government to expand the scope 
of the package to bring into its framework the 
rights to relief, rehabilitation, and reparation 
for the thousands who still remain internally 
displaced due to the violence in 2002, and who 
have really been in the forefront of this latest 
chapter in the struggle for recognition.
In recent months, the survivors of the Gujarat 
carnage have been bringing to public attention 
the continued internal displacement of over 
25,000 Gujarati Muslims, who still live scattered 
across 7 districts in Gujarat in approximately 69 
shabby colonies entirely constructed by NGOs. 
They live without any amenities or livelihood 
opportunities because they cannot return to their 
homes. Yet, their existence continues to be 
denied by the State Government.
A complaint seeking relief and reparations for 
these 5,000 families was filed with the National 
Commission for Minorities (NCM) in August 2006. 
In October 2006 the NCM visited 17 of these 
colonies. The NCM's report finding the State 
Government guilty of blatant neglect was a 
welcome sign that at least at the Centre there 
was some recognition of the rights of this 
internally displaced population. The NCM report 
had made the following key recommendations:
The NCM would like to make three sets of 
recommendations to the State Government and 
Central Government to improve the lot of the 
residents of the make-shift camps. These include 
(1) Basic amenities and livelihood issues (2) 
Central Government Economic Package (3) National 
Policy on Rehabilitation and Internally Displaced 
due to violence.

1 Basic Amenities and Livelihood in Rehabilitation Colonies

Basic amenities must be provided in the camps of 
displaced victims. These would cover provisions 
of safe drinking water, street lights, approach 
roads etc. This should be done by the State 
Government.

Government of India should agree for a period of 
five years until they continue to live in the 
camps, whichever is earlier, all the inhabitants 
of such camps should be given BPL ration cards 
without going through the formalities laid down 
by the Government for the issue of such cards. 
Similarly, widows should be allowed to claim 
their pension even if they have not applied 
within two years or even if they have sons above 
the age of 18 years.

The State Government should prepare a special 
economic package for those displaced by the 
violence with special focus on livelihood issues. 
For the self employed special efforts should be 
made to provide inputs like easy credits, raw 
material and marketing assistance. We strongly 
believe that this is a vital element in the 
rehabilitation scenario and that for it to be 
successfully implemented, NGOs should be involved 
in it.

Wherever possible the State should take advantage 
of the National Rural Employment Guarantee 
Programme to cover able bodied people in these 
camps and give them employment.

Government of India should return the amount of 
Rs. 19.10 crores given back by the Government of 
Gujarat. The State Government should be asked to 
cover more beneficiaries under the schemes in an 
attempt to utilise the entire sum.

There should be a monitoring committee consisting 
of representatives of State Government and Civil 
Society, which will be charged with the 
responsibility of ensuring that the schemes 
described above are properly implemented.

2 A Special Economic Package for Rehabilitation 
of Internally Displaced Muslim families in Gujarat

There is an urgent need for the Central 
Government to design and implement an immediate 
special economic package for rehabilitation of 
internally displaced Muslim families in Gujarat. 
The package must include a set of inputs that 
would address the totality of livelihood 
concerns. In particular attention must be paid to 
availability of credit, raw material and 
marketing support, where necessary, with the help 
of NGOs.

3 National Policy on Internal Displaced due to Violence

There is a need to design a national policy on 
internal displacement due to the violence. 
Populations displaced due to sectarian, ethnic or 
communal violence should not be left to suffer 
for years together due to the lack of a policy 
and absence of justiciable frame-work of 
entitlements.

The preamble of the new Draft National 
Rehabilitation Policy 2006, (NRP 2006) which 
incorporates recommendations made by the National 
Advisory Council, provides a precedent and 
sensitive understanding of how displacement due 
to any reason affects people. It describes 
displacement in the following terms, "Š 
displacement of people, depriving them of their 
land, livelihood and shelter, restricting their 
access to traditional resource basis and 
uprooting them from their socio-cultural 
environment. These have traumatic psychological 
and socio-cultural consequences on the displaced 
populationŠ" However, NRP 2006 pertains only to 
land displacement due to development imperatives. 
When displacement takes place due to mass 
violence, entailing loss of life, property, 
family and loved ones and the total destruction 
of the fabric of a socio-economic and cultural 
community, then the rehabilitation of the 
internally displaced populations calls for a new 
framework of understanding.

When displacement takes place under conditions of 
fear and under constant direct threat of 
violation of Article 21 of the Constitution, the 
trauma and conditions under which survivors face 
the future is considerably worsened. Further, 
when the threat of violence is perceived to be 
continuing (as it currently is in the State of 
Gujarat), in the absence of justice and in a 
situation of discrimination and exclusion, the 
protection of people's constitutional rights can 
only be sought through a national policy which 
clearly lays out a non-negotiable framework of 
entitlements. Any national policy on internal 
displacement due to violence must be designed to 
include provisions for immediate compensation and 
rehabilitation. A national policy on internal 
displacement due to violence must further take 
into account the displaced population's 
aspirations of 'return to their home' and make 
provisions to facilitate the return, if it is 
possible under conditions of safety and security, 
and to restore the displaced families to their 
original conditions of living.

A national policy on internal displacement due to 
violence must also lay down specified time frames 
for implementation of a rehabilitation plan, as 
well as include an effective grievance redresal 
and monitoring mechanism.

In addition, activists also made representations 
to the Prime Minister seeking a package of 
rehabilitation for the internally displaced. 
Further, in the last six months internally 
displaced people from the 69 colonies have 
organised themselves into the Antarik Visthapit 
Hak Rakshak Samiti (Committee of the Internally 
Displaced) to press for their demands. The 
Central's Government's package comes in response 
to all these efforts. As such we urge the 
Government to fully implement the recommendations 
of the NCM's report.

Yusuf Shaikh - 09898990823
(Convenor, Antarik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti, Gujarat)
Gagan Sethi, Janvikas, Ahmedabad- 09824023209
Shabnam Hashmi, Anhad, Delhi- 9811807558
Farah Naqvi, Writer & Activist, Delhi- 9811105521

o o o

http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/03/revisiting-babri.html

(Issues in Secular Politics
March 2007 II)

REVISITING BABRI

by Ram Puniyani

This 6th Dec., it will be 15 years when Babri 
Mosque was demolished by the RSS combine in a 
well coordinated operation. When Babri was being 
demolished, it was not just demolition of a 
mosque and hurting the sentiments of largest 
minority in the country, it was also a blow to 
the democratic Indian ethos. It was a complex 
process and multiple factors were involved. Who 
is to be blamed for the whole episode needs to be 
understood in the perspective of the political 
factors unleashed by sectarian politics. Rahul 
Gandhi recently (March 2007) stated that had 
Gandhi family person been around, meaning 
especially Rajiv Gandhi; the Masjid could not 
have been demolished. It is one of the big ifs of 
history.

That the then Prime Minister Narsimha Rao aided 
the demolition is beyond any shadow of doubt. 
Some have gone to the extent of saying that RSS 
and Rao were in collusion, some have gone to the 
extent of saying that Rao was wearing Khaki 
shorts underneath his dhoti, like many other 
Congressmen, who are ideologically compromised 
and are in Congress mainly to enjoy the fruits of 
power. They have nothing whatsoever to do with 
the values which were the dominant part of 
Congress, the values which had lions share in 
leading the struggle for India's independence. 
While the political phenomena have their own 
logic, the values held by the leaders matter a 
lot. And it is here that Rao was aiding the RSS 
project of deepening the politics of hate in 
India.

Let us recapitulate the events as they unfolded 
in the decade of eighties in order to understand 
the process of demolition. It was mainly a 
reflection of the rising clout of RSS. Beginning 
with 1980s one witnessed the discomfort in the 
sections of middle class Hindus, who saw the 
'disturbing' change in the form of dalits coming 
to the fore, the women coming out from the four 
walls of the house and making their presence felt 
in the social sphere. Both these sections of 
society, living as subordinate and subjugated 
groups for centuries saw the possibility of 
striving for equality, as enshrined in Indian 
constitution. This subtle but sure phenomenon of 
Indian society was unacceptable to the entrenched 
affluent middle classes. Their discomfort with 
this change came up in the form of opposition to 
reservations for dalits, Gujarat anti Dalit riots 
1981 and Gujarat Anti OBC/ dalit riots of 1986, 
being just a manifestation of the same.

It is during this period that communal 
polarization started coming up and the case of 
Shah Bano acted as a trigger for consolidation of 
the RSS supporters. This time Rajiv Gandhi's lack 
of grooming in the deeper understanding in 
politics, led him to bypass the court judgment. 
This in turn was used as a pretext for polarizing 
of Hindu upper middle classes under the 
leadership of Sangh combine. This act of Rajiv 
Gandhi was ‘successfully' propagated as 
appeasement of minorities and pseudo secularism. 
These formulations were lapped up by the dominant 
middle classes, who started responding more and 
more to Yatras and other VHP initiated campaigns. 
After playing this ‘Muslim card' the immature 
Congress leadership decided to play the Hindu 
card by yielding to the pressure of BJP/VHP and 
company for getting the locks of Babri opened and 
later permitting Shilaynyas for Ram temple. This 
pressure of Hindu rightwing was also discernible 
when Rajiv launched the campaign for 1989 
elections on the plank of Ram Rajya. These came 
in handy to Hindu consolidation, which later got 
further boost when V.P. Singh, for his own 
compulsions, decided to implement Mandal. To 
bypass Mandal BJP resorted to intensify Yatras, 
identity based politics. Keeping electoral 
compulsions in mind, BJP's politics revolved 
around Ram Temple as its central agenda. 
Incidentally Ram temple was no where on the 
agenda of BJP, which was harping on Gandhian 
socialism, till then. Its discovery that Lord Ram 
can be of great help in garnering votes led it to 
put most of its eggs in the basket of the 
campaign and conspiracy to destroy the Babri 
Mosque.

Ram temple issue became the symbol of assertion 
of affluent Hindutva politics in opposition to 
the democratic values. Identity, especially 
religious one, came up in a big way and waylaid 
the real issues of the poor and struggling 
majority of Hindus as well as other sections of 
society. As Congress, after Nehru's death, had 
already been open to heavy compromises on the 
issue of secularism, a fertile ground was already 
there starting from Indira Gandhi to undermine 
the secular values and to merely pay lip service 
to secularism, to use Muslims only as vote banks. 
It is under these circumstances that Narsimha Rao 
could enjoy his siesta when the shovels and 
trishuls of RSS combine were piercing Indian 
constitution, when Bari was being mauled by the 
saffron foot soldiers. These foot soldiers were 
indoctrinated by the ideology of Hate Muslim, 
Babar as the invader, the Muslims as destroyers 
of temples and killers of our mother cow. It was 
the most clever and wily move by Brahminical 
politics to use the down trodden to hoist the 
saffron flag atop Babri and to herald the 
political assertion of Manusmriti's values in the 
garb of Hindu glory. While the leadership wanting 
to impose Hindu Rashtra, ignited and incited, the 
sections of poor community acted as the foot 
soldiers behaving as if under trance, under the 
spell of opium of religious identity.

Coming to the events, National Integration 
Council concerned with the events took the 
promise from UP chief minister Kalyan Sing of BJP 
that he is under constitutional obligation to 
protect the mosque. The same Kalyan Singh later 
called it as a matter of honor for him to have 
supervised the demolition. It is another matter 
that as a weather cock he kept changing his 
versions from glory to shame, depending on the 
political contingencies. He was strategically 
located as UP chief minister. State Government 
was responsible for supervising law and order. 
The RSS combine mobilized crowds, which also 
included some of those elements that were 
specially trained for the task of demolition. It 
is unlikely that the intelligence agencies would 
have missed it. Rao played the ideal foil to 
these designs and not only during demolition but 
also prior to that when the heat was building up, 
cleverly slept over the build up for demolition. 
He had the ‘ideal' home minister in the form of 
Shakar Rao Chavan, who had no mean role in aiding 
the process of demolition.

While one does concede that probably Rao was the 
worst person to be in the seat of power, one also 
notes that with the rot in which Congress had 
been falling at ideological level, how much any 
body else could have been able to protect the 
mosque is not clear. Rajiv himself had blundered 
on various secular issues all through. Anti Sikh 
pogrom in Delhi, opening the doors of Masjid and 
Ram Shila pujan, all these showed that 
irrespective of his intentions he had no 
ideological tools to protect the Babri. One may 
partly grant Rahul Gandhi's point, but one must 
look at the deeper societal processes and the 
will of the leadership to stand for values even 
at the cost of power. While currently there are 
some encouraging signs from the Congress top 
leadership on the issue of secularism, that's not 
only inadequate, it can not hold the national 
together on the grounds of national community. 
Even Rahul Gandhi's own statement betrays the 
lack of political training amongst the leadership 
of Congress in general and all non BJP parties in 
particular. While BJP has the heavy influx of RSS 
trained volunteers, the one's trained in the 
ideology of Hate other, in the ideology of Hindu 
nation disguised as nationalism.

Have the parties like Congress tried to 
introspect as to what are the ideas which its 
cadre is having? With the current ideological 
frame of its workers it cannot be trusted to 
uphold the torch of values of Gandhi-Nehru i.e. 
freedom movement. As such, Rahul Gandhi's 
statement grasps just a minor part of the 
problem. For the nation, question is not just of 
this or that leader but of the values of Indian 
Constitution. It is not just a matter of Rao 
versus Rajiv, but of democracy versus Hindu 
Rashtra. For the nation the issue is of 
undertaking political steps which should wean us 
away from identity politics to the issues of 
people, the issue between democratic nationalism 
and pseudo i.e. Hindu nationalism. The issue 
relates to address the concerns related to bread 
butter, shelter, employment, health and education 
and bypassing the agenda set by RSS, the agenda 
of temples and similar emotive campaigns.

______


[6]   [On the night of 25th March 1971 the 
operation 'search light' was launched by the 
Pakistan army, as the initial step in the 
genocide of Bengalis, soldiers attacked Dhaka 
University. On the 26th March 1971 Sheikh Mujib 
declared independence . . .]

o o o

SAN-Feature Service
March 23, 2007

BOOK REVIEW:  THE LIFE AND TRIUMPH OF A COLOSSUS: SHEIKH MUJIB RE-VISITED

by Gowher Rizvi

SAN-Feature Service : The liberation of 
Bangladesh was by any standards a triumph in 
human history. It is the story of unarmed 
civilians ? women and men, girls and boys, young 
and old ? who stood up against the most brutal 
and lethally armed Pakistani military and won 
their freedom against all odds. It was for the 
first in the history of the post-colonial world 
that the people of a country had successfully 
waged a liberation war to create an independent 
state of their own.

The creation of Bangladesh was also a triumph of 
the democratic spirit and resolve of the people 
who were prepared to make supreme sacrifices in 
order to create a homeland in which they could 
speak their language, embrace their culture, and 
live in dignity - free from religious bigotry and 
alien exploitation.

And yet that proud history of the people of 
Bangladesh has been lost in the quagmire of 
opportunism and revisionist history where even 
the status and the role of the founder of the 
country have been contested. It is therefore 
hardly surprising that after more than three 
decades of independence there is neither an 
objective study of the history of Bangladesh nor 
a biography of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the 
Bangbandhu, who not only successfully led his 
people to freedom but also instilled in them a 
pride in their Bangali identity, stirred an 
irresistible national consciousness and the 
vision for a socially just, secular and 
democratic society.
Ambassador Sayyid A. Karim's recently published book, Sheikh Mujib:
Triumph and Tragedy, is an important contribution 
towards putting in perspective our history and 
the role of the founding father. The author 
acknowledges that writing an objective biography 
of a man larger than life is not easy, and in a 
society where myths and realities intermingle, 
and where scribes for hire have done much to 
distort facts, the task of disentangling the 
truth from fiction could not have been easy.

Nevertheless despite the author's modesty, this 
is a landmark publication and will long be 
celebrated as a triumph of scholarship, judicious 
and even-handed use of evidence, and a compelling 
narrative that is marked by peaks of human 
endeavors and sacrifices, and equally deep 
troughs of depraved and sacrilegious actions that 
have sullied the blood of the martyrs. The 
central thrust of this study is unambiguous ? 
there would have been no Bangladesh without 
Sheikh Mujib.

Mujib was neither a deep thinker, nor an academic 
theoretician; still less, he was not an 
ideologue. He was an instinctive and an intuitive 
leader, a person who felt deeply and empathized 
with the sufferings of his people, and was most 
single minded in his pursuit of his goal of 
justice for his people. He believed with all his 
being in the wisdom and the genius of the people 
and it was that belief that instilled in him a 
belief and commitment in democracy that remained 
integral to his every action. Growing up rural 
Bengal he had experienced from a very early life 
both the romance and beauty of the countryside 
and also the poverty, deprivation and the 
exploitation of the peasants. His childhood 
experience in Gopalganj had also instilled in him 
a non-sectarian and secular outlook. He could not 
fail to understand that the poor Muslim and Hindu 
peasants suffered equally from the pangs of 
hunger, deprivation and humiliation; and the 
Hindu landlord was no less exploitative of the 
Hindu peasants than he was of the Muslims.

It was therefore not surprising that when Mujib 
joined the Pakistan movement of the Muslim 
League, he was less concerned with the creation 
of a separate homeland for the Muslims but rather 
viewed the movement as a way to break out of the 
stranglehold of exploitative relationship between 
the landlords and the peasants and a way of 
bringing prosperity to the people.
However campaigning for the Muslim League in the 
1946 elections was politically his most formative 
experience. He came in contact with Husseyn 
Shaheed Suhrawardy, who became his life long 
political mentor and instilled in him a finer 
understanding of democratic institutions and 
processes. And no less importantly Mujib also 
discovered during the campaign his own 
instinctive empathy for the people and a belief 
in the wisdom of the so-called 'ordinary people'.

Democracy became an article of faith ? a faith that he kept until his death.
In later life when ever he was asked about his 
strengths and weaknesses, he invariably replied: 
'My strength is my love for the people; and my 
weakness is that I love them too much." These 
words were not empty rhetoric but were his deeply 
held creed, an article of faith that he carried 
to his grave. Even in his last year when he 
received repeated intelligence of plots to 
assassinate him, including an unambiguous warning 
from Mrs. Gandhi, he dismissed the warnings.  "My 
people are my children ? I love them and they 
love me."
Never in his life, not even as the prime minister 
did Mujib seek to protect himself behind a 
security wall and remained the most accessible 
leader ever.

Mujib's disillusionment with Pakistan came 
predictably and swiftly. It became obvious that 
not only had the Bangalis merely transposed one 
set of exploitative rulers with another but also 
under the new dispensation they would be denied 
the right to their language and culture, and 
their right to choose a government through a 
democratic process. And when Mr. Jinnah declared: 
'let me make it very clear to you that the state 
language is going to be Urdu and no other 
language. Anyone who is trying to mislead you is 
really the enemy of Pakistan.' The gauntlet had 
been thrown at the Bangalis and Mujib's struggle 
was defined.  He would not only have to liberate 
the Bangalis from exploitation of the Punjabis 
but also have to restore democratic governance 
and safeguard the autonomy of the provinces so 
that the people could protect their language and 
culture. It was a struggle for democracy, for 
social justice and for a way of life.

The new rulers of Pakistan had plenty of reasons 
to fear democracy and the popular will. In the 
first place the rulers of Pakistan were mostly 
migrants from India who lacked both a 
constituency of their own and a party 
organization in their new country. And second, in 
any democratically elected government the people 
of East Pakistan, who constituted the majority of 
Pakistan's population, would dominate government. 
This ruled out both a popular election and 
democratic governance.
The unrepresentative and unpopular politicians 
combined forces with the Punjabi-dominated 
civil-military bureaucracy to prevent a general 
election. The military intervened in 1958, just 
months before the general election was scheduled. 
It was therefore not a coincidence that Pakistan 
could not frame its constitution for nearly 10 
years and then only to abrogate it within two 
years; it was not circumstances that prevented 
Pakistan from holding its first election for 
almost two decades; nor was it surprising that in 
the first ever general election that the people 
of Bangladesh should assert their popular 
sovereignty.

And that election produced precisely the results 
they had feared most ?  a Bangali majority.
The real tragedy is that in trying to resist the 
will of the people and prevent the inevitable 
triumph of democracy, the Pakistani rulers lost 
half of the country and unleashed savage 
brutalities of the kind until then only 
associated with the holocaust in Europe; and six 
decades after independence they continue to be 
haunted by the ghosts of military dictatorship.

To go back to our story, the military rulers of 
Pakistan were remarkably successful in co-opting 
most of the leaders in West Pakistan and also 
many of the Bangalis. However two leaders ? 
Suhrawardy and Mujib who enjoyed a strong popular 
base? could neither be bought out nor 
intimidated. Suhrawardy had a mass following in 
both wings of Pakistan and was widely respected 
and admired by politicians of all the parties for 
his political acumen, parliamentary skills and a 
capacity for building democratic consensus. At 
first Ayub tried to bar him from politics through 
trumped up charges; and when that failed to 
stick, he locked him up in prison. Suhrawardy's 
premature death (in Beirut in circumstances that 
have not been explained and which points to 
Ayub's involvement) brought intense relief to 
Ayub. He now had only Mujib to reckon with.
Mujib had inherited Suhrawardy's mantle, but 
unlike his mentor, he had come to the conclusion 
that the salvation on the Bangalis lay in 
securing the maximum autonomy for the provinces 
so as to minimize the interference of the Punjabi 
dominated civil-military federal bureaucracy. 
Between 1958 and 1969, Sheikh Mujib spent more 
time inside Pakistani jails on trumped up charges 
than outside.  But whenever he was bailed out by 
the order of the courts, he used the opportunity 
to travel the length and breadth of Bangladesh to 
mobilize the people in support of his demand for 
autonomy. Such was his organizing talent that 
every village in Bangladesh flew the flag of 
Awami League and his emergence as Bangabandhu was 
never in doubt again.

The rise of Mujib invariably perturbed Ayub and 
every means was deployed to put an end to Mujib ? 
both politically and physically. It was this 
determination that drove the military to 
implicate Mujib in the most bizarre Agartala 
conspiracy case. Mr. Karim has provided some 
unique insights as to what happened. A mid-level 
Bangali officer in the Pakistan Navy, Lt. 
Commander Muazzam Hussain, discontented with 
discriminatory treatment of the Bengalis in the 
armed forces had planned an armed uprising; and 
sought to establish contact with Mujib on a 
number of occasions between 1964 and 1966. Mujib, 
who was a democrat to the core and deeply 
distrusted the involvement of the military ? 
Bangali or Pakistani ? in politics; and he 
roundly snubbed the conspirators. The 
conspirators then tried to secure the help of Mr. 
Ghaffar Chowdhury, an eminent journalist, a 
stalwart of the language movement and a close 
friend of Sheikh Mujib, to act as an intermediary 
between them and Mujib. Mujib's response, 
according to Ghaffar, was unequivocal and one of 
outrage:
'I know him [Muazzam]. I also know all about his 
proposal. He has recently been hobnobbing with 
Manik Chowdhury. I have told Manik not to have 
anything to do with this madness. I would advise 
you not to get involved in it. Our struggle is 
for the establishment of democracy and the 
realization of autonomy for the people of 
Bangladesh. I have always fought against the 
Pakistani military junta. It is not the purpose 
of my movement to replace it with a Bengali 
military junta.' (Pp141 -42)

Indeed Mujib had long cherished an autonomous or 
independent Bangladesh but his route was through 
electoral politics and the mobilization of the 
people. He had no time for the military, even if 
they were Bangali, interfering in politics. But 
ironically the paranoid military rulers had been 
thinking of what Mujib had refused to 
contemplate. In 1966 the Muazzam's conspiracy was 
discovered and all those involved were arrested 
and put on trial. Even though there was not an 
iota of evidence to suggest Mujib's involvement 
in the conspiracy, the military rulers 
nevertheless saw in it a heaven sent opportunity 
to implicate Mujib. By depicting Mujib as an 
Indian agent, the military had hoped to discredit 
Mujib and then execute him for treason. Mujib was 
named as the primary accused.
The farcical trial that followed demonstrated the 
hollowness of the case and thereby provoked a 
huge outburst of public support, so much so that 
there was a real possibility that demonstrators 
would storm the cantonment (where Mujib was being 
held) and free him. The trial was abandoned and 
Mujib came out as the triumphant hero of his 
people.
However, as Karim points out, there was a sting in the tail.

Although Mujib had no role in the conspiracy for 
which he was implicated ?he had in fact tried to 
dampen the efforts of the rebellious naval 
officers - but Mujib had in fact undertaken a 
daring journey to India. In a journey reminiscent 
of another great Bangali, Netaji Subhas Chandra 
Bose ? who had escaped from house arrest and made 
a daring journey that took him first to 
Afghanistan and thence to Germany and Japan to 
mobilize support for India's struggle against 
British rule ?
Mujib had also made a clandestine visit to India. 
The escapade was fraught with danger and 
considerable hardships. The purpose of Mujib's 
visit to India was to enlist the Indian 
governments help to set up a radio transmitter to 
counter the propaganda of the Pakistan radio. 
Nothing appears to have come out of that visit. 
The Pakistan intelligence had no inkling of 
Mujib's visit to India when they conveniently 
implicated him in the Agartala conspiracy case!

The events that followed the collapse of the 
Agartala conspiracy case was like a Greek 
tragedy. The end could be foreseen but faced with 
obstinate determination of the Pakistani 
civil-military bureaucracy, and the ruthless 
manipulation of the ambitious Bhutto, the tragedy 
could not be prevented. Faced with a popular 
uprising that could not be contained by force, 
Ayub abdicated. But he left the way he came ?  by 
breaching the constitution. Instead of handing 
over the power to the Speaker of the National 
Assembly, he handed it to the military.  His 
successor, Yahya Khan, was not only a drunk and a 
bluff but also hopelessly incompetent. He allowed 
elections but without any desire to transfer the 
power to the representatives of the people. He 
unleashed the most savage genocide in which more 
than a million innocent civilians were killed but 
failed to prevent the inevitable. The rest is 
history and is well known.

Karim's book, however, sheds unflattering light 
on the role of Ziaur Rahman. Zia was a major in 
the Pakistan army in 1971 and posted in 
Chittagong. According to the author he not only 
remained loyal to the Pakistan regime to the end; 
but appears to have been indifferent to the 
Bangali cause. When Captain Rafiqul Islam of East 
Pakistan Rifles, who under instructions from the 
local Awami League leader, had started rounding 
up the Pakistani soldiers, apparently Zia tried 
to dissuade him by ordering Rafiq to 'stop [his]r 
men from taking action'.

Zia's tale of ignominy continued:
'While Rafique was boldly confronting Pakistani 
troops, Zia was on his way to the port to unload 
arms and ammunition from M.V. Swat and bring them 
to the cantonment. 'While Zia was loyally doing 
his duty, Pakistan troops suddenly attacked the 
Bengali soldiers of the East Bengal Regimental 
Center' ? taken by surprise most of them were 
massacred in their bed around midnight including 
the Commanding Officer M.R.  Chowdhury'. Even 
when Pakistan army had unleashed its attack on 
the Bangali soldiers, Zia was apparently at work 
in the jetty supervising the unloading of the 
weapons. It was only after he was warned by Capt 
Khalikuzzaman, that Zia's own life was in danger 
that he was stirred into action. But here too he 
dithered. Rather than taking a stand in 
Chittagong port and fighting out the Pakistan 
forces, as suggested by Rafique, Zia decided to 
move out of the barracks with his troops and fled 
to Kalurghat across the river. Not only he flee 
himself but he also ordered the EPR troops to 
follow him and thus left Rafique to fight the 
Pakistani's alone. 'An opportunity to inflict a 
crushing defeat on Pakistani troops clinging on 
their strong points in Chittagong was thus lost.' 
(202)
Sadly Zia's story of does not get any better even 
after fleeing from Chittagong. On March 26, after 
the Pakistan army launched its attack on Dhaka , 
Moinul Alam communicated a message purportedly 
from Sheikh Mujib to the Awami League leaders in 
Chittagong:
'Message to the people of the Bangladesh and to 
the people of the world. Rajarbagh police camp 
and Pelham EPR suddenly attacked by Pak arm at 
2400 hours. Thousands of people killed. Fierce 
fighting going on. Appeal to the world for help 
in freedom struggle. Resist by all means. May 
Allah with you. Joi Bangla.'

The message was broadcast over Radio Pakistan in 
Kalurghat and read by M.A. Hannan, the local 
leader of the Awami League and became the call 
for the war of liberation. However, on March 27, 
Zia arrived with his troops in Kalurghat, he went 
on the air as the self-styled 'President of 
Bangladesh' and called 'on the people to fight 
the Pakistan'.  However, he was dissuaded from 
styling himself as the president by the local 
Awami League leaders as that would give the 
appearance of a 'military coup'; and in a second 
speech Zia corrected himself and spoke 'on behalf 
of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman'. This 
episode, innocuous on its own, nevertheless 
showed that Zia was seething with ambitions and 
his radio speech in Kalurghat was an ominous 
indication of things to come. It is not 
surprising that fours year later in 1975 the 
would-be-assassins of Sheikh Mujib should seek 
him out as their leader. Zia gave his blessings 
to the conspirators but to preserve his 
deniability he forbade them from contacting him 
again. As in 1971, so also in 1975, Zia would run 
with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

Karim has offered some insightful explanations as 
to Mujib's motives in launching single party 
BAKSAL (Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League) 
to replace the multiparty democracy in 
Bangladesh. No authoritative account of what 
motivated Mujib to turn his back on multi-party 
parliamentary democracy in favor of a single 
party presidential government is available as 
yet. Dr. Kamal Hossain, who as the minister for 
parliamentary affairs, had drafted Bangldesh's 
first constitution was abroad on sabbatical and 
was out of the loop; Mr. Tajuddin Ahmed had left 
the cabinet and leading a private life; nor does 
it seem that Mujib had taken any of his cabinet 
colleagues or close associates into confidence; 
and it seems even Begum Mujib was taken unaware 
by her husband's move. Karim has tried to piece 
the story from numerous sources and provides by 
far the most convincing explanation of Sheikh 
Mujib's strategy.
According to the author, Mujib had watched for 
some time how the various political parties and 
groups representing narrow interests were tearing 
apart the fabric of the society. It was also 
during this time that Mujib had come into contact 
with the Tanzanian President Nyerere at the 
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGM) 
and developed a deep friendship and admiration 
for Nyerere.

Mujib was impressed by the Tanzanian model of a 
single party system and immensely admired Julius 
Nyerere ? his simplicity, devotion to his people, 
and breadth of vision. Nyerere had replaced the 
colonial system of administration with a system 
which he felt would be more in consonance with 
African tradition. He had introduced a 
single-party system but as a committed democrat, 
Nyerere wanted to work his single party 
government within a democratic framework. Within 
the one party system he tried to introduce a 
unique form of election - rival candidates from 
the same party would be allowed to contest in 
each constituency. This would facilitate national 
reconstruction without the divisions inherent in 
a multi-party system.

Behind Mujib's decision to create a single party 
democracy, it may be surmised, was a perceptive 
analysis of the country's political situation. 
Mujib was too shrewd a politician not to realize 
that the Awami League was fast losing its 
credibility. His hard won image and charisma 
might have suffered a bit but on the whole it was 
still strong and he was the undisputed father of 
the nation. The introduction of the presidential 
system with full executive authority in his hands 
had a dual purpose. First, he would no longer be 
dependent on the parliamentary members of his 
party (many of whom had allowed personal 
interests to cloud their public duty) to push 
through legislations, particularly the much 
needed land redistribution program.

Second, the direct election of the president 
meant that he could de-link himself from the 
liabilities of the party. His popularity would 
ensure his won election but e would no longer 
have to carry the other members of his party on 
his shoulder and then be dragged behind because 
of their opposition to his reforms. To many in 
his party this was a betrayal; to Mujib this was 
the only means to instill responsibility and a 
sense of public duty among the politicians.

In creating a one party system, Mujib's motives 
were complex and have not been fully understood. 
Mujib was not seeking more power. The general 
election in 1973 had routed the opposition 
parties and the opposition had failed to forge a 
united front against him. The Awami League had 
already been the de facto single party in the 
country and by banning the political parties 
Mujib was not trying to wipe out other parties. 
In fact far from it. With the creation of BAKSAL, 
Mujib was offering an olive branch which would 
have enabled the opposition parties to find a 
place in the parliament without loss of face. 
The purpose was to create a genuine national 
unity government under the umbrella of one party.

Mujib described the changes as the 'second 
revolution'. His ultimate objective was the 
transformation of the society itself ? a second 
revolution and unlike the first (a national 
revolution), it would be a social revolution and 
it would be a revolution from above. The 
administration would be decentralized and the 
judicial system simplified cooperatives to 
improve the lot of the villagers, presidential 
form would replace the parliamentary ? signify a 
break from the past. The country must become 
self-reliant. "A man who lives by begging has no 
honor", Mujib declared in Parliament just before 
the amendment was voted. "I don't want to be the 
leader of a beggar nation.

That is why want my country to be 
self-sufficient." [ p.348] On Jan 25 1975 Fourth 
Amendment was adopted by Parliament; and on Feb 
24 the formation of BAKSAL was announced in which 
NAP & Communist Party joined; and Bhashani backed 
it without joining. And on March 26 he announced 
sweeping reforms: 61 districts with politically 
appointed governors aided by an Administrative 
Council comprised of peoples representatives.

The Army, Bangladesh Rifles, Rakhi Bahini and the 
Police in the districts were placed under the 
control of the governor; courts set up in the 
thanas, compulsory cooperative societies would be 
formed in every village but would not disturb the 
ownership of the land but the produce would be 
shared. The famine of 1974 had shaken Mujib badly 
and had spurred him into drastic action. But in 
acting to protect the poor and the disadvantaged, 
Mujib had alienated too many interest groups. On 
August 15, a fortnight before the new scheme 
would come into effect, the assassins struck 
brutally massacring the Father of the Nation, the 
Bangabandhu and almost his entire extended 
family. It was ironic that Mujib was killed not 
during the period when bureaucratic mismanagement 
had caused popular hardship, but precisely when 
he was attempting to introduce reforms that would 
shift the political power to the rural areas. Nor 
was Mujib killed by an uprising of the starved 
and the disadvantaged but by those who were the 
beneficiaries of the regime but were now 
alienated. To the millions of his people, Mujib 
remained the Bangabandhu and the father of the 
nation.

A quarter of century has passed since Bangabandhu 
death. Yet strangely enough, no one has written a 
scholarly or comprehensive biography of Mujib. 
Ambassador Karim makes a serious attempt to 
provide a balanced and judicious study of the 
founder and father of Bangladesh. But it is by no 
means a definitive book or a comprehensive 
biography of Sheikh Mujib. It is probably the 
best single volume study of the emergence of 
Bangladesh and the first three years of the 
independence. Karim writes with simplicity and 
elegance that is rare and makes the book an 
irresistible reading.

While the author's admiration for Bangabandhu is 
manifest, the book is not an uncritical study and 
certainly not a hagiography. It is both a 
scholarly, well researched and judiciously 
balanced study; and it is also a story that is 
well told. But Karim is not a professional 
historian and he did not always subject some of 
his sources to independent and external scrutiny. 
For example he all too easily accepted Anthony 
Masceranhas' claim that Sheikh Mujib had confided 
to him about preserving 'some link with 
Pakistan'; or that he changed his mind after a 
telephone conversation with Mrs. Gandhi. 
(pp.260-61). There is no external evidence to 
corroborate Masceranhas's claims; and it is now 
well known that his book The Legacy of Blood was 
funded by the military rulers. Similarly the 
author cites Altaf Gauhar for many of his 
information. Gauhar it must be remembered was the 
brain behind Ayub's dictatorial regime; and when 
Gauhar wrote the book, he was less concerned 
about historical accuracy and more about 
preserving his own legacy. Nevertheless this book 
is a fascinating analysis of the creation of 
Bangladesh and the role of Bangabandhu in the 
making of the country.

Ambassador Karim provides a vivid account of the 
rise of the Bangali consciousness, a history of 
unfulfilled dreams of the people who had voted to 
join Pakistan in order to escape from 
exploitation and indignity, a saga of their 
subjugation and humiliation in the hands of their 
fellow Muslims and military rulers in Pakistan, 
and a story of missed opportunities, of promises 
not kept, betrayal of trust, denial of culture 
and language, and the destruction of democratic 
rights. But it is also the story of a visionary 
who inspired his people to rise to great heights, 
a leader whose love for his people never wavered, 
a man of magnanimity who gave up everything in 
the cause of his people, and one who remained 
defiant in the face of numerous threats of death 
in captivity; and even when the assassins sprayed 
him with bullets he literally did not turn his 
back nor did he forsake the intense love of his 
people.

Ambassador Karim has pieced the history together 
the history of Bangladesh with painstaking 
accuracy and narrated a story that is a must read 
for any one interested in the history of the 
creation of Bangladesh . Above all Karim has 
successfully disentangled history from 
propaganda, facts from fiction and put on record 
the triumph and tragedy of the maker of 
Bangladesh .
Albert Einstein had once said of Gandhi: 'Future 
generations will scarce believe that such a one 
as this, in flesh and blood, walked upon this 
earth.' Thirty years after the assassination of 
Bangabandhu many of us look back and ask the same 
question: did that colossus ever walk the soils 
of Bangladesh?---SAN-Feature Service


-  SHEIKH MUJIB.TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY
    by S.A. Karim
    The University Press Ltd, Dhaka

Gowher Rizvi, Lecturer in Public Policy, is 
director of Harvard's Ash Institute for 
Democratic Governance and Innovation. He was 
previously a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford , 
and a professor of Politics at the University of 
Oxford. He has authored and edited several books 
including South Asia in a Changing International 
Order.


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