SACW | August 16-18, 2007
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Fri Aug 17 22:32:50 CDT 2007
South Asia Citizens Wire | August 16-18, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2436 - Year 9
[1] Sri Lanka's leader takes a step backward on human rights (Charu Lata Hogg)
[2] Partition's other anniversary: Bangladesh
independence, but no freedom for its minorities.
(Tahmima Anam)
[3] India: Freedom Came With A Price (Ashis Nandy)
[4] India - Pakistan: A New Approach to World Peace (Positive News)
[5] India: The Riot's Orphans - Juhapura,
Ahmedabad is a blot on the face of 60-year-old
India. (R.K. Mishra)
[6] Indian State on Trial: Selective Justice is not the Answer (Badri Raina)
[7] India: Confront the awkwardnesses about sex
education - 'Let's Not Do It' (Editorial, The
Telegraph)
[8] India: Hindutva at Work:
(i) Yet another ugly form of right to protest by Shiv Sena
(ii) Dance institute on RSS radar (Natasha Raj)
(iii) Surgeon attacked by RSS in UP
[9] India: Some trite questions (J Sri Raman)
[10] Abolition 2000 urges Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG) to reject the proposed US-India nuclear deal
[11] Roma's Arrest, Land Mafias and the Indian Police State (Aditya Nigam)
[12] Announcements:
(i) An evening of Progressive Music ( Karachi, 18 August, 2007)
(ii) Recent publication: The Labour Movement in Pakistan by Zafar Shaheed
(iii) Convention On "People's Right and the
issue of Democracy in Gujarat" (Ahmedabad, 19
August, 2007)
______
[1]
International Herald Tribune
August 15, 2007
REVERSAL ON RIGHTS
Sri Lanka's leader takes a step backward on human rights
by Charu Lata Hogg
LONDON:
In 1990, Mahinda Rajapaksa was arrested at
Colombo airport trying to smuggle dossiers on the
"disappeared" out of Sri Lanka to the United
Nations in Geneva. Rajapaksa, then an rising
politician from the country's south, worked to
organize the mothers of the "disappeared" during
an insurrection of 1988-90, when more than 16,000
people went missing.
Today, Rajapaksa is Sri Lanka's sixth president,
leading a government accused of egregious human
rights abuses. Since fighting between government
forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
resumed in full vigor in mid-2006, civilians have
become the primary target - not just in direct
clashes but in the insidious "dirty war" fought
by both sides.
Human Rights Watch researchers spent months
investigating allegations of abuses, publishing a
report this month that uses eyewitness accounts
to show how security forces have subjected
civilians to "disappearances," indiscriminate
attacks, forced displacement and restrictions on
humanitarian aid. Critics of the government - as
Rajapaksa was in the 1980s - have been threatened
and demonized as national traitors and terrorist
sympathizers.
The situation has deteriorated dramatically in
the past couple of years. A cease-fire agreement
in February 2002 had put a halt to serious
fighting. While the Tamil Tigers continued to
recruit child soldiers and assassinate moderate
Tamils, the situation was relatively calm for a
country that had been at war since 1983. The
government still committed abuses, but it was
able to claim the moral high ground against an
opponent that pioneered the use of suicide
bombings.
The government has lost that high ground. Since
it resumed serious military operations against
the rebels last year, 315,000 people have had to
flee their homes due to fighting. The government
has forced some to return home in unsafe
conditions against their will. Since January
2006, more than 1,100 "disappearance" cases have
been reported. Almost all of the disappeared are
Tamil men between the ages of 18-50, and in a
majority of cases witnesses allege complicity of
security forces.
The government continues to cooperate with the
Karuna group, a breakaway faction of the Tamil
Tigers headed by the LTTE's former deputy leader.
Like the Tamil Tigers, the Karuna group is
notorious for abducting and forcibly recruiting
boys and young men, sometimes as government
forces stand by and watch.
Despite numerous promises from President
Rajapaksa and others to investigate, the
government has done nothing to shut down Karuna's
child recruitment.
Even aid workers face threats. One year ago,
gunmen killed 17 local workers from the
Paris-based Action Against Hunger. Despite
evidence linking soldiers to the murders, the
government has failed to hold anyone to account.
The same goes for two Red Cross workers murdered
in June.
Since the renewed outbreak of fighting,
humanitarian groups have faced severe
restrictions on access to the embattled northeast
and the government is cutting the number of work
visas it grants to international nongovernmental
organizations.
The government has arrested journalists, Tamils
and Sinhalese, under recently reintroduced
Emergency Regulations, which allow the
authorities to hold a person for up to 12 months
without charge.
Eleven media workers have been killed since
August 2005. The government has arrested no one
for those crimes.
Successive Sri Lankan governments have become
famous for pledging to investigate abuses,
setting up commissions, and then failing to hold
abusers accountable.
In response to this downward spiral, foreign
governments haven't done much. Sri Lanka has
little strategic or economic importance to most
countries. Foreign governments mostly limited
their criticism to "private messages" and minor
aid cuts.
The Sri Lankan Army has warm ties to the U.S.
military. Britain has close historical relations
with its former colony and is a major aid
provider. Sri Lanka receives 40 percent of its
foreign assistance from Japan. India is the big
neighbor with the greatest influence. Indians
have not forgotten their failed military
intervention in 1987 or the Tamil Tigers'
assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Sri
Lanka relies heavily on India for naval
intelligence to counter arms procurement by the
rebels.
While in private these governments have raised
concerns about human rights abuses with President
Rajapaksa, they have not exerted concerted
pressure to make abuses stop.
These allies should work to set up a UN human
rights monitoring mission tasked with protection,
monitoring, capacity-building, and public
reporting of abuses by all sides. Such a mission
would - unlike the government or Tamil Tigers -
be committed to protecting the rights of all Sri
Lankans - Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim - from
extrajudicial killings, abductions, intimidation
and indiscriminate military attacks.
As important, President Rajapaksa should remember
his days as a human rights activist and confront
the rampant abuses taking place on his watch.
Charu Lata Hogg is a South Asia researcher at
Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report
"Return to War: Human Rights Under Siege."
______
[2]
The Guardian
August 15, 2007
Partition's other anniversary
AFTER THE RAJ: BANGLADESH MAY HAVE ITS
INDEPENDENCE, BUT THERE IS STILL NO FREEDOM FOR
ITS MINORITIES.
by Tahmima Anam
In Bangladesh, no one really commemorates August
15, the independence of India and Pakistan. After
all, how many independences can one country take?
First there was the exit of the British -
something to be celebrated, surely, as Bengal was
at the heart of the reform and nationalist
movements throughout the 19th and early 20th
centuries. Then, there was the creation of
Pakistan, which Bengali Muslims voted for and
endorsed. Then, of course, we had our very own
independence - the independence that came about
in 1971, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh.
The question of dates becomes even more
complicated because of the events of August 15
1975. On this day, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the
leader of Bangladesh's independence movement, was
brutally murdered along with 14 members of his
family. A strong lobby in Bangladesh has called
for August 15 to be declared a national day of
mourning. With these complex associations, and
with the layering of history which inevitably
encourages us to replace certain dates with new
ones, Bangladeshis would unequivocally name March
26 1971 as their day of independence. However,
even this date gestures towards an unfulfilled
promise, because freedom was granted to too few,
and with too many conditions.
Throughout the Bangladesh war, Pakistani soldiers
repeatedly asked Bengali freedom fighters if they
were Bengali or Muslim, as though the cultural
identity could not coexist with the religious
identity. The Bengalis of East Pakistan were
Bengali and Muslim; they fought a war of
independence so that they could have a country in
which these two identities could be integrated.
But sadly, the fight that led to the
legitimisation of this identity did not lay the
groundwork for pluralism, nor indeed did it
result in a final resolution of the tension
between cultural and religious identity. People
are still wondering whether they are Bengali or
Muslim, and in the wake of this great anxiety, a
sinister and violent form of identity politics
has taken root that has left many Bangladeshi
citizens behind. For East Pakistan, and East
Bengal before it, was not only made up of
Bengalis and Muslims. It also included Hindus,
Buddhists, Christians, Jains, and the indigenous
peoples - Chakmas, Santals, and Garos. These
people are neither Bengali nor Muslim, and this
debate has not only disenfranchised them from the
major questions of identity that grip modern-day
Bangladesh, but has distracted us from the slow
and steady colonisation of their lands, cultures,
and habitats.
For our minorities, freedom has not arrived at
all, not with three dates on the calendar, not
with three decades of citizenship, and certainly
not with the crude majoritarianism that we call
democracy.
______
[3]
The Times of India
16 Aug 2007
FREEDOM CAME WITH A PRICE
by Ashis Nandy
The violence that erupted when British India was
partitioned killed at least a million. Yet, there
were no criminal enquiries, arrests, court cases
or convictions associated with the carnage,
rapes, mutilations, arson, and pillage. The
origins of the culture of immunity in South Asia,
about which some human rights groups and the
media have become alert now, lie probably here.
Partition took place when human rights movements
were mostly unknown, in a world just getting
accustomed to genocide and ethnic cleansing and
the wanton destructiveness of the two World Wars.
Ideologically driven, handy justifications of
such violence were still floating around in the
global culture of commonsense. The main
ideological movements in the world were all
comfortable with the idea of bloodshed as part of
normal politics.
The civilising mission of colonialism, pursuit of
national interest, revolutionary violence and
people's war, even the concepts of reason and
scientific rationality, influencing public
affairs through social evolutionism, eugenics and
'objective' history - they all enjoyed wide
legitimacy among not merely political actors but
also the intelligentsia. Even those who fought
fascism in the name of democracy contributed
handsomely to the culture of violence.
Concentration camps and the theory of area
bombing were, after all, British discoveries.
Understandably, neither the British Indian
government nor the successor states of India and
Pakistan ever tried to apprehend the killers or
launch criminal investigations into the violence
of partition. In any case, efforts to do so would
have been futile. The police and law enforcement
agencies were hopelessly compromised; their
partisan behaviour and, at places, direct
collusion with the mobs are well documented. And
the violence was decentralised enough for the
state to be chiefly a spectator. The only central
force that functioned during the period was the
personality and moral presence of Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, whom the last British viceroy,
Louis Mountbatten, called a one-man boundary
force. Hence, the appeal of Mahmood Mamdani's
tentative formulation that the violence of
1946-48, like the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, was
a 'popular genocide'.
However, even when genocide becomes thinkable to
ordinary, otherwise law-abiding citizens, the
perpetrators still have to cope with the killer
within them and the inner conflicts surrounding
it. Easy justifications - from revenge to
security of one's own community to killings being
natural in warlike situations - cannot protect
most killers from their own moral selves.
It is now known that the early efforts to
interpret the European genocide in the 1940s as
the work of sadists, criminals and psychopaths
were wrong. Only about 10 per cent of the SS
could be considered abnormal, whereas the work of
annihilation involved a much larger social
segment. How are then normal citizens mobilised
for genocide? Follow-ing psychologist Herbert
Kelman, Zigmunt Bauman suggests three conditions
that weaken inner checks in the perpetrators:
when violence is authorised and official, when
violent behaviour is routinised and demanded as
part of a role, and when victims of violence are
dehumanised through ideological indoctrination.
However, even these manoeuvres fail to buy peace
for the perpetrators and the passively complicit
citizenry. The inner resistance to killing and
torture are a part of our human self. Not
surprisingly, after working on partition violence
for more than a decade, i am yet to meet or hear
of a happy, psychologically healthy killer. Even
those who claim to have no remorse or believe
that they killed on patriotic grounds, even those
whom the interviewers found shameless about their
past, turn out on closer scrutiny to be maimed by
their experience. Some are broken men, others out
of touch with reality; a few broke down after
their 'heroic' narratives.
Indeed, one doubts if all apparent psychopaths
are as free from guilt as psychiatrists and
clinical psychologists believe. G M Gilbert, the
prison psychologist at Nuremberg during the trial
of Nazi war criminals, calls Herman Goering 'a
moral coward' and a psychopath. He goes on to
tell what he said to Goering about the latter's
responses to the Rorschach test: "Do you remember
the card with the red spot? Well, morbid
neurotics often hesitate over that card and then
say there's blood on it. You hesitated, but you
did not call it blood. You tried to flick off
with your finger, as though you thought you could
wipe away the blood with a little gesture".
But Goering did try to flick off the blood and it
did seem to Gilbert that his words had 'struck
home'. If that happens with one of the most
notorious killers of the twentieth century,
perhaps it is safe to presume that a normal
person who participates in mass violence cannot
emerge from the experience with his normality
intact. The story does not end when genocide
becomes thinkable to ordinary, law-abiding
citizens.
Partition has stayed with us, along with the
psychopathological forces it unleashed 60 years
ago. South Asia has paid heavily for not coming
to grips with the violence of partition and its
long-term consequences. Not merely the pervasive
culture of immunity today but the paranoiac and
psychopathic features of the national security
states we have built in the region have their
roots in that cultivated forgetfulness.
The writer is a political psychologist .
______
[4] [Thanks to Beena Sarwar for sending this on]
Positive News Issue 52
June 12, 2007
A NEW APPROACH TO WORLD PEACE
All across India, thousands of children have been
writing heartfelt letters to the students of
Pakistan, and thousands of children from Pakistan
have been replying. Friends Without Borders are
now inviting every school in both countries to
take part and join this historic heart-to-heart
experiment.
The idea is simple: writing a letter will leave
deep and lasting impressions that will help to
humanize the other and be the seeds that promise
to mature into a safer and friendlier world.
From this original idea, sprang the World's
Largest Love Letter. Written by the children of
India to the children of Pakistan, this now
famous collection of kind words is massive!
Bigger than a football field, it measures 240 by
360 feet. It is so big that it would not even fit
into its intended resting place the huge
Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium so they had to leave
the border pieces off.
Written in Urdu, English and Hindi, it reads:
Dear Children of Pakistan, Let's join hearts in
friendship. Together we can make a better world -
The Children of India. Thousands were bused in to
view the gargantuan letter and asked to write
along a yellow strip. On the return home, the
yellow strip, which was 1,008 feet in length, was
laid out on the ground. Named The Golden Bridge
of Friendship and covered with thousands of
messages, it stretched from inside Pakistan, all
the way through the Wagah Border, which is known
as No Man's Land, and right across into India
itself.
Friends Without Borders are also organising a
major historic Independence Day Concert in
August. Musicians and celebrities will come
together across the India-Pakistan border to help
lead the children of both countries into a new
era of friendship and cultural interaction.
Dil se Dil, the Independence Day Friendship
Celebration, is a celebration of our past, say
the organisers. It also acknowledges our shared
history while recognising that these two great
countries are pursuing separate national
destinies. Dil se Dil is a celebration of our
present, displaying our common humanity. It is a
celebration of our future, demonstrating that
mutual dreams of much more peaceful, open,
collaborative relations are indeed close at hand.
Contact: Friends Without Borders,
c/o Routes 2 Roots, 16 Apsara Housing Society, 2nd Floor, NDSE Part I,
New Delhi 110 049, India
Tel: +91 98942 77315
Website: www.friendswithoutborders.org
Email: kid2kid at gmail.com
______
[5]
Outlook
August 20, 2007
Special Issue: India At 60
GUJARAT: Juhapura settlement outside Ahmedabad
THE RIOT'S ORPHANS - JUHAPURA, AHMEDABAD
by R.K. Mishra
"Our menfolk were lucky. They died. We die bit by
bit everyday in the struggle to live, but we
cannot afford the luxury of death. There are
children to bring up." Soberly, Sahaliya Khatun
sums up her life, and her sister-in-law Firoza
Banu's. Five years ago, police killed their
husbands, and they joined the ranks of over
20,000 victims of the 2002 communal riots, left
to fend for themselves in Narendra Modi's
"vibrant Gujarat".
In 2002, life had just begun to smile for these
two young women of Bengali descent, married to
two brothers, Fateh-ur-Rehman and Mohammed
Siddiqui, both teachers. The men were shot in
cold blood, eyewitnesses later told the women. A
local charity provided Sahaliya with the one-room
house where she now stays, in the Muslim enclave
of Juhapura on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. She
now works as a domestic help to support her two
school-going children. "I belonged to a
middle-class family. Cleaning homes and utensils
did not come easy to me. But we have to survive,"
says Sahaliya. She trudges almost five kilometres
to work in two homes for Rs 800 a month.
"Everyday I pray that there are leftovers in
these homes that I can bring home for my
children," she says.
Firoza Banu's plight is no better. Nor is
Yasmin's, who had just delivered her fourth child
when police allegedly took her husband, Mehboob,
a foreman at an automobile workshop, to the
terrace of their home and shot him. "Life became
a terrible struggle after that, somehow I have
clung to my sanity and managed to survive," she
says. Another survivor of the riots, getting on
by sheer will-power, is 35-year-old Khalid. An
electrician, he was shot through the spine by the
police in the infamous Naroda Patiya
neighbourhood. Botched up medical treatment left
him paralysed, waist down. From sole bread-earner
for the family, he became a virtual vegetable.
Painfully, he has picked up the threads, and
trained himself to move around. "We have no hope
from the Modi government, but the central
government should do something for us. We need
employment, not alms," he says. That Hindus fight
shy of employing Muslims is an unstated reality
of life in Gujarat.
The Modi government's callousness towards the
riot-affected has spawned so many such
heart-rending stories that there can never be
enough space to narrate them all. "They shut down
relief camps, throwing people on the streets when
they had no place to go," says Zakia Jowhar,
president of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan. It
was community charity organisations like the
Islamic Relief Committee that stepped forward to
provide a semblance of shelter to the riot-hit.
Juhapura enclave is now their sanctuary. From
retired judges and bureaucrats to the lowly
handcart-wallah, Muslims find security here-but
not much else. Five lakh people live here, twice
the population of Gandhinagar, but squeezed into
an area less than one-fourth the size of the
state capital. Civic amenities are virtually
non-existent, and even nationalised banks fight
shy of giving loans here. Water comes largely
through borewells, there is no drainage, and
internal roads are virtually non-existent.
Juhapura is a blot on the face of 60-year-old
India.
_______
[6]
Zmag.org
August 07, 2007
INDIAN STATE ON TRIAL: SELECTIVE JUSTICE IS NOT THE ANSWER
by Badri Raina
This story has been told before, but can never be told enough.
On the 6th of December, 1992, a majority
right-wing Hindutva putsch overcame the majesty
of the Indian State.
With the full and open collaboration of the then
BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, and the measly
connivance of the Congress government at the
centre, the fascists succeeded in overwhelming
and demolishing out of existence a five-hundred
year old mosque in Ayodhya.
That putsch was effected despite written
commitment on affidavit made by Kalyan Singh, the
U.P. chief minister, to the Supreme Court of
India that the State would not allow any damage
to the mosque.
As the mosque was reduced to rubble, the most
front-ranking leaders of the BJP were caught in
full view of cameras-of the BBC
especially-hugging one another in ugly glee.
There was no end to the sweets that were
distributed to mark the "victory" both over
Indian muslims and over the State.
II
In the city of Mumbai, the "victors" celebrated
the humiliation of the muslims by taking out
cycle rallies.
In the inter-community rioting that this led to,
900 citizens lost their lives, 575 of them
Muslims.
A Commission of Enquiry was set up under the
then junior judge, Justice Srikrishna (since few
others offered their services). It was thought a
point in his favour that he was after all a
"devout and practicing Hindu." Sadly for the
killers and their instigators, Justice Krishna
turned out to be outstandingly courageous and
objective in his findings.
As word leaked about the determination of the
Commission to be fair and above board, the
Commission was disbanded. It must be said to
the credit of the then Prime Minister, Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, that the Commission was
reactivated in May, 1996. Caveat: the terms of
reference of the Commission were now expanded to
include enquiry into the serial blasts that
followed the communal killings!
III
Justice Srikrishna, however, was able to make
all-important sequential connections between the
demolition of the Babri mosque, the subsequent
communal rioting, and the serial blasts that
followed:
"The serial bomb blasts were a reaction to the totality of events
at Ayodhya and Bombay in December,1992 and January, 1993. . . .
The common link between the riots and the blasts was that of
cause and effect."
Further, the riots during Advani's "rath yatra"
(that had culminated in the demolition of the
mosque "were the distant thunderclaps portending
the storm to come."
Some other crucial pronouncements of the Commission are as follows:
--speeches made at the Ram Paduka Pujans
(worship of Lord Ram's feet/sandals), Chowk
Sabhas (street square conclaves) were "downright
communal," "warning muslims" that dissent on the
Ram Temple issue would be considered "treachery"
for which "muslims would be banished from the
country"; (it is to be recalled that the issue
remains subjudice till date).
--"Hindutvavadis politicized the issue pending in the court of law";
--"celebrating and gloating over the demolition
was like twisting a knife in the wound";
--"police mishandled the situation. . . by their aggressive behaviour";
--"police firing resulted in the death of a large
number of muslims as compared to Hindus";
--that on 1 Jan.,1993 the party organ of the Shiv
Sena, Saamna, printed an article "openly inciting
Hindus to violence";
--that on 3 Jan., Shiv Sainiks surveyed muslim
houses in Pratiksha Nagar and Antop Hill;
(Gajanan Kiritkar and Ramesh More are named here);
--that on 9 Jan., "the Shiv Sainiks mobilized
themselves for retaliating against the Muslims.
The Shakhas (congregational units). . . turned
into centres of local command.
The attacks on the Muslims were mounted with
military precision, with the list of
establishments and voters' lists in hand";
Under "Immediate Causes." Justice Srikrishna
lists "demolition", "aggravation of Muslim
sentiments by celebration rallies",
"insensitive, harsh approach of the police";
And then:
"From 8 January, 1993, at least, there is no
doubt that the Shiv Sena and Shiv Sainiks took
the lead in organizing attacks on Muslims and
their properties under the guidance of several
leaders of the Shiv Sena from the level of Shakha
Pramukh to the Shiv Sena Pramukh, Bal Thackeray,
who like a veteran General commanded his loyal
Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organizing attacks
against Muslims."
The Commission names other top leaders of the
Shiv Sena, including Madhukar Sarpotdkar, in
whose house the army found unlicensed guns
(something rather similar to what was found in
Sanjay Dutt's house in the serial blasts case).
IV
Quite the other day, court proceedings with
respects to all those adjudged guilty in the
serial blasts case have concluded; some ten
unfortunate people have received the death
penalty, and about double that life imprisonment.
The pursuit of the serial blasts case has
evidenced exemplary political, investigative and
judicial will.
Which invites the question as to why to this day
the report of the Srikrishna Commission remains
not just unimplemented but unadopted. And
regardless of which political formations have
been in the seat of power, centrally, or locally
in Maharashtra.
It is to be said that some English Dailies are
beginning to ask this discomfiting question,
although noted columnists still seem to fight shy
of mentioning the Pramukh of the Shiv Sena, Bal
Thackeray even when the Srikrishna Commission
does so explicitly as a "veteran General who
commanded his loyal troops" during the Bombay
riots (see "Shhh. . .Muslim!" lead article by
Sagarika Ghose in the Hindustan Times,
Aug.,3,2007, for instance.)
For the Congress especially matters must be seen
to be complicated by the Shiv Sena's support to
Pratibha Patil in the just concluded Presidential
elections. It must seem forgivable to argue that
Bal Thackeray's support to the UPA Presidential
candidate may have had less, after all, to do
with Maharashran pride, more with the Srikrishna
Commission findings. Some weight is leant to
this view when one remembers that such Shiv Sena
support had not been forthcoming to Sushil Kumar
Shinde, another Maharashtrian and a Dalit to
boot, who was the Congress candidate for
Vice-President at the last elections. Was it not
an important consideration that at that time not
the Congress-led UPA but the BJP-led NDA was
ruling at the centre?
V
The Congress, we feel, must ask the following questions of itself:
1. Would its continued appeasement of the Shiv
Sena be consistent with its oft-repeated claim
that as the genuine party of governance it alone
may be trusted to uphold the Constitution and the
rule of law?
2. Would such appeasement sit well with the
various attempts it seeks to make to remedy and
improve the lot of the minorities, Muslims
particularly, pursuant to the findings and
recommendations of the Sachar Committee?
Nor should it be forgotten that the Bombay riots
into which the Srikrishna Commission enquired
are not the only instance where the victims have
received short shrift. The abortive fate of the Srikrishna Commission has
been preceded by similarly aborted Commission findings in, to name a
few, five other noted instances. These are:
a) the Justice Jaganmohan Reddy Commission (Ahmedabad riots, 1969);
b) the D.P.Madan Commission (Bhiwandi riots, 1970);
c) Vithayathil Commission (Tellicherry riots, 1971);
d) Justice Jjitendra Narain Commission (Jamshedpur riots, 1979);
e) Justice P. Venugopal Commission (Kanyakumari riots, 1982);
In all these cases, the Commissions indicted the
RSS; and in all these cases justice continues to
elude the victims.
3. Would the Congress-led UPA be able to escape
the accusation that, having received Shiv Sena
support for Pratibha Patil's candidature, it has
no stomach to proceed with the Srikrishna
findings?
4. Would the UPA's touted determination to bring
legislation to eradicate communal strife and
killing have the least credibility if it
continues to fail to show the sort of political
will with respect to the Bombay riots as has
been in evidence in the matter of the subsequent
serial blast cases?
VI
The UPA government needs to realize that
selective justice may bring relief to a section
of the population, but, if such justice is denied
to other sections, such a course can only the
more justly and forcefully dub it communal than
any overt act of commission.
It is now generally recognized that Indian
Muslims are poised on a threshold moment; with
each day their willingness to participate in
constructive measures to accord them due rights
and opportunities as equal citizens becomes more
evident. At such a moment in the history of
India's composite polity, any tainted evasion of
justice due to the victims of the Bombay
riots-some of whom will indeed be Hindu as
well-when such justice has been all-too loudly
ensured to the victims of the serial blasts is
fraught with potential disaster for the entire
polity and for the locus standi of the State.
______
[7]
The Telegraph
August 18, 2007
Editorial
LET'S NOT DO IT
Can coyness be taught in the classroom? The
Centre thinks it ought to be, as part of
Adolescent Education. The ministry of human
resource development will be clearing a manual
that would be used to teach students, from their
mid to late teens, how to say no to a variety of
risky proposals without actually saying no. The
proposals have been thought up as vaguely sexual
ones (let's watch porn/go to a night show/ spend
some time alone), or else they are invitations to
smoke or drink. The manuals offer templates for
classroom discussion in government schools,
although the teachers who use them are advised to
adapt the situations to specific social and
cultural contexts. It is significant that almost
all these propositions are imagined as being made
by boys to girls. All of them assume that the
boys are up to no good when they make these
suggestions, and good girls - who naturally feel
like initiating none of these forms of behaviour
- ought to be taught how to resist these
temptations without sounding unnaturally dour.
The aim is prohibition, but achieved through
lessons in evasion and indirection. The
fundamental principle is one of denial.
This manual proves that, in India, before
children are taught about sex, it is the adults -
teachers, textbook-writers, policy-makers,
ministers - who must be educated. These adults
have to be taught several things. First, they
must be made to confront and overcome their
embarrassments and awkwardnesses about sex,
things they have been taught never to put clearly
into words, and hence, never to think through
properly. Second, they have to be taught to
remember their own adolescence so as to
understand how sexuality is experienced by
'children' from puberty until legal adulthood.
Third, they have to be persuaded about the urgent
need for sex education - given the frightening
reality of HIV/AIDS and of the sexual abuse of
children in India. Finally, in spite of the
immediate context of danger, disease and death,
the educators must also accept that sex is
something most people enjoy, and it is an
experience often associated with pleasure, with
love, with spontaneity and even a kind of
innocence. The spirit of sex is therefore
inimical to Thou-shalt-not grimness, although sex
taps into almost every area of moral and ethical
behaviour. Also, openness and candour does not
mean divesting sex of its natural need for
privacy and reticence.
Although sex education is, at a crucial level,
about information, imparting it properly is bound
to take both teacher and student well beyond mere
technicalities of health and hygiene. Almost
every aspect of human life - private and public,
physical and metaphysical, pleasurable and
painful, serious and frivolous - is implicated in
thinking through sexual attitudes and behaviour.
The art of saying no is perhaps the wrong way to
approach something that most people enjoy
imagining saying yes to.
______
[8] Hindutva at Work:
(i)
newstrackindia
August 18, 2007
YET ANOTHER UGLY FORM OF RIGHT TO PROTEST BY SHIV SENA
By NI Wire, New Delhi
Aug 15: On the eve of 61 st Independence Day of
India activists of the right wing Hindu party
Shiv Sena ransacked one of the offices of weekly
magazine Outlook to protest one article featuring
party leader Bal Thackeray as a villain.
As per the reports, on Tuesday around 10 people
entered the office of the magazine located in
Nariman Point and damaged glass windows,
computers, fax machines and also threaten to come
back if the magazine continue publish such things
against their party leader. They were shouting
Shiv Sena Jindabad that identifies them as Shiv
Sena workers.
The magazine in its special Independence Day
edition has included Thackeray as a villain along
with the killer of Mahatma Gandhi - Nathuram
Godse, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi,
Sanjay Gandhi and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
A caricature has also shown Thackeray dressed as
Adolf Hitler.
Till now the police have not arrested a single
person involved in this incident though the
magazine has demanded police action against those
persons. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena has refused to
identify them as Sainik's workers.
It is really makes a mockery of our constitution
that guarantee us freedom of speech and
expression, at least freedom of press. Obviously
if one doesn't like something then he has every
right to protest but in a civilized manner.
It's not for the first time that Shiv Sena
workers or any other radicals protested in their
usual fashion by vandalizing without any fear of
law and order. Few months back a private TV
channel office has also attacked by members of an
organisation named Hindu Rashtra Sena as the
channel offered a platform to a couple who ran
off from Surat. Those people had blamed that the
girl was a minor and was also kidnapped by the
boy. But the couple had requested the news
channel to present their point as they have
received threat to their life.
Well what ever the incident, the manner they
protest especially the attack of freedom of press
is certainly alarming at this point of time when
India as a secular, democratic nation celebrating
its 60 th anniversary of Independence Day.
Since a free press is considered as the fourth
pillar of our democracy the government should
come with stringent action against the culprits.
It's disappointing that state has so far failed
to protect the right of citizen and the freedom
of press as one of our constitutional fundamental
rights.
o o o
(ii)
ndtv.com
August 1, 2007
DANCE INSTITUTE ON RSS RADAR
by Natasha Raj
Wednesday, August 1, 2007 (Chennai)
Barely two months ago, India's premier art
institute in Baroda was attacked by Hindutva
activists. Now it's the turn of Leela Samson, the
director of Kalakshetra, a dance institute in
Chennai.
The renowned dancer has been accused of adopting
an Anti Hindutva stance according to an article
written in the Hindu Voice by P Deivamuthu, a
Mumbai based editor.
Some of the allegations levelled against her
include removal of Vinayaka Idols from the
theatre and hostel, ordering of prayers in the
institution to be stopped and removing all
restrictions imposed on the boys and girls hostel
thereby encouraging them to meet freely in their
hostel rooms.
But Leela and her supporters remain unfazed by such allegations.
''It doesn't upset or touch me. I'm only worried
about my student body and teachers. But I know
they are strong enough and are happy doing what
they are doing. This does not affect us. But what
it does is it sows the seeds of division and God
forbid that should happen,'' said Leela.
The article from the Hindu Voice has enraged the
artist community all over who feel that
Kalakshetra is an institution of art not religion.
Hindutva supporters however justify the writing against Leela Samson.
''Everything is highhandedness. It's not her
private property,'' said G Kumaravel, State Vice
President, BJP.
The write up comes barely two months after the
BJP attack on Baroda's art institute and is a
cruel reminder that these institutes are
gradually becoming soft targets.
(iii)
CHIEF SURGEON OF MISSION HOSPITAL ATTACKED BY RSS IN UP
Dr Raju Abraham, Chief surgeon of Kachhwa mission
hospital and Pastor Joy were brutally beaten up
by the R.S.S (Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh) and
the Bajrang Dal activists. The incident took
place on the 17th August during a programme
organized for Dalit children along with their
parents. There was a gathering of around 400
people when the incident took place.
The programme was going on since 15th August
2007, and RSS had already threatened of dire
consequences if the programme was not halted. RSS
had even filed a police complaint in the local
police station. Enquiry by the police had given a
clean chit to the organizers.
The attackers damaged property and equipments and assaulted several people.
[Source: efionline.org]
______
[9]
Daily Times
August 17, 2007
SOME TRITE QUESTIONS
by J Sri Raman
The Shiv Sena cannot even bear to watch hurt
being caused to the sensibilities of Shivaji
cultists. And here is where minority communalism
proves itself a close and symbiotic ally of its
apparent majority adversary
One could have called it a godsend for India 's
far right, if it had not been an incident of such
unholy ugliness. Consider the context.
The six-year prison sentence for film star Sanjay
Dutt in the Mumbai serial blasts case had, not so
strangely, put the minority-bashers on the
back-foot. The rejoicing over "justice done" in
the case of "Islamic terrorism", as the blasts
were branded, raised queries from several
quarters about the preceding Mumbai riots.
Why had justice not been done still in the cases
of the riots that claimed a toll of lives three
times more than the number of lives lost in the
blasts? Why had the law not yet taken its course
in the case of a Shiv Sena leader charged with
the same offence as Sanjay?
The outcry was large and loud enough to pressure
the Congress-led governments in New Delhi and
Mumbai to promise action on the findings on the
brittle, old pages of an inquiry commission about
the role of political bully Bal Thackeray's Sena
in the riots. Then came the assault on Taslima
Nasrin in Hyderabad.
Public attention shifted with dramatic swiftness
to minority communalism presenting a flattering
mirror image of the far right. The whole nation
watched horrified, as television channels played
and replayed on August 9 the physical humiliation
of the controversial author from Bangladesh along
with verbal insults heaped upon her.
Taslima, visiting the capital of the southern
State of Andhra Pradesh for the release of a
Telugu version of one of her books, was the
target of furious and foul-mouthed legislators of
the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM). What
followed was much worse.
While the legislators were wildly jubilant at
disrupting the function and driving Taslima way,
MIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi (a London-trained
barrister according to reports) said that he put
the fatwa against the writer far above his
allegiance to the constitution. She would be
"beheaded" the next time she set foot in the
city, he added. A more extreme Majlis Bachao
Tehreek actually blamed the MIM for denying it
the opportunity to decapitate her on this
occasion itself.
Apologists of the far right, however, were not
going to pass up this rare opportunity. They
rushed into print and prime time with their
predictably trite questions. Where are the
"seculars" now, they gloated without letting
grammar interfere in the least with their glee.
Must the Hindus alone be blamed for crimes of
communalism, they demanded.
There never was much of a point in such posers
from pleaders for the 'parivar' or the far-right
'family'. But the queries were even more
pointless in the present case. Few other
instances of such violence in the recent period
had elicited such prompt and passionate
condemnation from identified opponents of the far
right. The State Congress, of course, did not
cover itself with glory by treating its political
ally, the MIM, with kid-gloves. The denunciation
of the truly dastardly violence was, otherwise,
all-round, with particularly strong statements
emanating from several well-known leaders and
personalities.
This fact, however, was not going to influence
the far right unduly. Attempts to answer them
have less of a point than the questions
themselves. The most fundamental of the trite
questions (you can call it the most frequently
asked question!), however, must be answered: Are
not the 'progressives' (used as a pejorative)
talking more of majority communalism than its
minority counterpart? Are they not treating the
former as a far greater danger?
As however poor a representative of
'progressives' and 'seculars', I must plead
guilty. But the reason why we fight the majority
communalism more often and more vigorously than
its minority variant is really not far to seek.
Minority communalism, a monstrosity as it is, can
transform itself into separatism or what is
called 'terrorism' for want of a better word to
describe the violence of the weak. It is majority
communalism that can become fascism and carry out
a pogrom as Narendra Modi and his minions did in
Gujarat.
Questions about the role of the Congress too, are
not without relevance. It is the state leadership
of the party that has soft-pedalled the Taslima
assault issue. The national Congress leadership,
however, has done it before, at least in two
notable instances. The far right received a
considerable boost from the follies of past
Congress governments in New Delhi - intervening
on the side of Shariat-quoting social
reactionaries in the Shah Bano case and by
banning Rushdie in the name of law and order.
Freedom of expression is all right, they ask, but
what about the sacred and tender "religious
sensibilities" of different communities? The Shiv
Sena cannot even bear to watch hurt being caused
to the sensibilities of Shivaji cultists. And
here is where minority communalism proves itself
a close and symbiotic ally of its apparent
majority adversary.
The most remarkable of Owaisi's post-assault
ranting was about how tolerant he and his
associates had been towards intolerant 'Hindutva'
campaigns. He recalled how the far right had
hounded prominent painter M F Husain out of India
for the crime of "hurting Hindu sensibilities" -
and how Owaisi and his MIM had proclaimed
solidarity with artist's persecutors.
The less solicitous we are about such "sensibilities", the better.
The writer is a journalist based in Chennai,
India. A peace activist, he is also the author of
a sheaf of poems titled 'At Gunpoint'
______
[10]
ABOLITION 2000
PRESS RELEASE 14 AUGUST 2007
ABOLITION 2000, a network of over 2000
organizations in more than 90 countries working
for nuclear disarmament, today urged leaders of
the 45 countries that control international
nuclear trade as members of the Nuclear Suppliers
Group (NSG) to reject the proposed US-India
nuclear deal.
The US-India deal exempts India from US
non-proliferation laws that have banned the sale
of nuclear fuel and technology to India for about
three decades. These laws were created because
India used nuclear technology provided for
peaceful purposes to make nuclear weapons. For
the deal to proceed, the NSG countries must reach
a consensus to grant India a similar special
exemption from their nuclear trade rules.
Philip White, Coordinator of ABOLITION 2000's
US-India Deal Working Group, said, "The agreement
will fuel an arms race in South Asia. The
International Panel on Fissile Materials has
shown how the deal will enable India to increase
many fold its production of fissile material for
nuclear weapons, and Pakistan is already taking
steps to expand its nuclear weapons program."
Mr. White noted that "The deal undermines the
basic bargain of the nuclear non-proliferation
regime - you cannot benefit from nuclear trade if
you make nuclear weapons. Pakistan and Israel,
who are also outside the NPT, have already asked
for exemptions. North Korea may echo join these
demands. Some countries may ask why stay in NPT
if you can get the same benefits by being outside
it."
Mr. White said, "All the NSG countries,
especially those who claim to take
non-proliferation and disarmament seriously, must
ensure that the US-India deal comply fully with
international nuclear disarmament and
non-proliferation agreements, principles, and
norms. Otherwise, it must be rejected."
He added, "The deal marks such a fundamental
shift in the international non-proliferation
regime that any decision to exempt India from the
rules should be submitted for approval by all the
countries of the NPT at their next Review
Conference, in 2010."
The text of the working group's letter, along
with a list of endorsing members and a list of
NSG countries follows.
Contact:
Philip White, Coordinator of ABOLITION 2000's US-India
Deal Working Group
c/- Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, Tokyo,
Japan Tel: 81-3-3357-3800 Fax: 81-3-3357-3801
Email 1: white at cnic.jp Email 2: cnic at nifty.com
Working Group Web Site:
http://cnic. jp/english/ topics/plutonium
/proliferation/ usindia.html
------------ --------- -------
Letter sent to heads of NSG governments on 14
August 2007 (First sentence of paragraph 3
reworded slightly for governments which are not
currently represented on the IAEA Board of
Governors)
Prime Minister ... / President ...
We write to you on behalf of ABOLITION 2000, a
global network of over 2000 organizations in more
than 90 countries working for a global treaty to
eliminate nuclear weapons, to share our concern
about the nuclear agreement that has been
negotiated between the US and India. We hope
that, like us, your government will consider the
deal to be deeply flawed and reject it.
As you know, the United States and India recently
finalized details of a proposed agreement that
will exempt India from long-standing restrictions
on nuclear trade. For this deal to proceed, India
must negotiate a safeguards agreement with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the
45 member-states of the Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG) also must decide to grant India a special
exemption from their rules governing nuclear
trade.
Your government is represented on both the Board
of Governors of the IAEA and on the NSG, so it is
in a position of great responsibility. We urge
you to ensure that there is no rush to judgment
in the negotiation of a safeguards agreement
between India and the IAEA or at the NSG. The
goal of members states in both bodies should be
to ensure that the US-India deal comply fully
with current international nuclear disarmament
and non-proliferation agreements, principles, and
norms.
In the case of the NSG, all 45 member countries
have a power of veto over implementation of the
US-India nuclear agreement. For the reasons
outlined below we urge you to exercise that
power. Furthermore, we believe that the deal is
of such consequence for the international
non-proliferation regime that the final decision
on this matter should be made by the NPT parties
at the next Review Conference, in 2010. The
currently applicable consensus within the NPT
framework is that countries should not receive
nuclear assistance unless they have made
"internationally legally binding commitments not
to acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear
explosive devices". (See paragraph 12 of the
'Principles and objectives for nuclear
nonproliferation and disarmament' Decision 2,
1995 NPT Extension Conference). We urge you to
make it clear that any effort to force a decision
in the NSG prior to a new consensus among the NPT
parties will be opposed by your government.
Background and Analysis
The text of the agreement (referred to as a
"Section 123" agreement after the section in the
US Atomic Energy Act) was released on 3 August
2007. Key features are an unusual arrangement for
a dedicated reprocessing facility and U.S. fuel
supply assurances to India. In both areas the
proposed agreement grants preferential treatment
to a non-NPT party. These attempts to finesse
concerns about compliance with US law (the Atomic
Energy Act and the Hyde Act) must not be allowed
to blind the governments of other countries to
the broader concerns discussed below.
Since its nuclear test in 1974, India has been
subject to sanctions on trade in nuclear
technology. After India and Pakistan conducted
nuclear tests in 1998, the United Nations
Security Council passed a resolution (SC1172)
condemning the tests. The "Section 123" agreement
violates SC1172, which calls on India and
Pakistan "immediately to stop their nuclear
weapon development programs, to refrain from
weaponization or from the deployment of nuclear
weapons, to cease development of ballistic
missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons
and any further production of fissile material
for nuclear weapons. " The Resolution also
"encourages all States to prevent the export of
equipment, materials or technology that could in
any way assist programs in India or Pakistan for
nuclear weapons." In the absence of India halting
the production of fissile material for weapons,
the supply of uranium to India by the
international community for the reactors on its
civilian list would still free up India's limited
supply of indigenous reactor fuel for the sole
purpose of fueling plutonium production reactors,
thus indirectly assisting India's nuclear weapons
program. (2)
The Section 123 agreement would allow for the
transfer of sensitive reprocessing technology
under certain circumstances.
But the supply to India of equipment that may
also be used in reprocessing, uranium enrichment,
and heavy water production facilities risks that
such equipment may be replicated and used in
India's unsafeguarded nuclear weapons program.
Such cooperation, if allowed by the NSG, could
violate the original five Nuclear-Weapons States'
NPT obligations under Article I of the NPT, which
prohibits nuclear-weapon states from assisting
non-nuclear- weapon states in any way to acquire
nuclear weapons.
Despite developing and testing nuclear weapons
outside the framework of the NPT, India is
getting more favorable treatment than any NPT
state with which the United States has a nuclear
cooperation agreement. The Arms Control
Association made the following comment in a
Background Memo (3) issued in response to the
August 3 release of the text of the "Section 123"
agreement:
"The U.S.-India nuclear trade deal would grant
India benefits not available to the non-nuclear
weapon states parties to the nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty without even requiring it
to meet all of the responsibilities expected of
the five original nuclear-weapon states.
"For example, unlike China, France, Russia, the
United Kingdom, and the United States, India has
refused to sign the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty and it has refused unilaterally
to declare a halt to the production of fissile
material for weapons-as France, Russia, the
United Kingdom, and United States have all done."
There is an immediate risk that the US-India
nuclear agreement will fuel a nuclear arms race
between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan's National Command Authority (NCA),
chaired by President Pervez Musharraf, has
declared that "In view of the fact the
[U.S.-India] agreement would enable India to
produce a significant quantity of fissile
material and nuclear weapons from unsafeguarded
nuclear reactors, the NCA expressed firm resolve
that our credible minimum deterrence requirements
will be met." This suggests a South Asian fissile
material race may be imminent.
Exempting India from international rules
governing trade in nuclear technology threatens
to undermine the nuclear non-proliferation order
and thereby the prospects for global nuclear
disarmament. Regardless of claims that the
exemption will apply only to India, inevitably
other nuclear proliferators will expect the same
treatment. There is a danger that Pakistan,
Israel and North-Korea, and possibly other
countries in future, will see this as an
opportunity for them to lay similar claims.
For this and all the above reasons we urge you to
reject this ill-conceived nuclear agreement.
Philip White, US-India Deal Working Group Coordinator
Steven Staples, Global Secretariat to Abolition 2000
14 August 2007
Notes and References
1. ABOLITION 2000's US-India Deal Working
Group was established at ABOLITION 2000's Annual
General Meeting held during the May 2007 NPT
PrepCom in Vienna. ABOLITION 2000 lobbied
governments at the NPT PrepCom.
2. Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman and M. V.
Ramana, Fissile Materials in South Asia:The
Implications of the US-India Nuclear Deal,
International Panel on Fissile Materials,
Research Report #1, 11 July 2006
http://www.fissilem aterials. org/ipfm/ site_down/
ipfmresearchrepo rt01.pdf
3. Arms Control Association Background Memo,
"U.S.-Indian Nuclear Agreement: A Bad Deal Gets
Worse", August 3, 2007 http://www.armscont
rol.org/pressroo m/2007/20070803_
IndiaUS.asp
Endorsed by Members of Abolition 2000 US-India Deal
Working Group
Lisa Clark (Italy), Beati i costruttori di pace
(Blessed Are the Peacemakers) and Italian Disarmament Network
Beatrice Fihn (Sweden), Womens' International League for Peace and Freedom
Hamsa Genedy (Egypt), International Section,
Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization
Jim Green (Australia), Friends of the Earth Australia
Regina Hagen (Germany), International Network of
Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation
Xanthe Hall (Germany), International Physicians
for the Prevention of Nuclear War
John Hallam (Australia), People for Nuclear Disarmament NSW
David Heller (Belgium), Friends of the Earth Flanders & Brussels
Hidemichi Kano (Japan), Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs
Akira Kawasaki (Japan), Peace Boat
Daryl Kimball (USA), Arms Control Association
Ak Malten (The Netherlands) , Global Anti-Nuclear Alliance
Nouri Abdul Razzak Hussain (Egypt), Secretary-General,
Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization
Sukla Sen (India), National Coordination Committee
Member, Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace
Hari P. Sharma (Canada), Professor Emeritus of
Sociology, Simon Fraser University and President,
SANSAD (South Asian Network for Secularism and
Democracy)
Steven Staples (Canada), Director, Rideau Institute on
International Affairs, Global Secretariat to Abolition 2000
Heinz Stockinger (Austria), PLAGE - Independent
Platform Against Nuclear Dangers
Aaron Tovish (USA), International Manager, Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision
Campaign International Secretariat
Philip White (Japan), Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
Working Group Contact Address:
c/- Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, Akebonobashi
Co-op 2F-B, 8-5
Sumiyoshi-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0065, Japan
Tel: 03-3357-3800 Fax: 03-3357-3801
http://cnic. jp/english/ topics/plutonium
/proliferation/ usindia.html
------------ --------- ---------
List of countries which are represented on the
NSG and the IAEA Board of Governors:
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Brazil,
Canada, China, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Japan, Norway, Russian Federation,
Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden,
United Kingdom, United States of America.
List of countries which are represented on the
NSG, but not on the IAEA Board of Governors:
Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy,
Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal,
Romania,
Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine
______
[11]
kafila.org
August 17, 2007
ROMA'S ARREST, LAND MAFIAS AND THE INDIAN POLICE STATE
by Aditya Nigam
Even as semi-literate journalists and supposed
pundits in the Capital celebrated the 60 years of
the "world's largest democracy"(incidentally the
greatest and most grotesque cliché of our times),
away from the "watchful eyes" of the media, other
less savoury stories have been playing themselves
out. Brave and self-effacing women activists like
Roma, have been arrested under the National
Security Act and have now been labeled as
'Maoist', according to a report in the Jansatta
(Ambarish Kumar, 17 August, "Manavidhikar
Karyakarta to Ab Naxali Banane ki Muhim"). This
is no small and isolated happening. It is, in a
microcosm, the story of what this 'largest
democracy' is all about. The ultimate weapon of a
desperate police force (widely used all across
the length and breath of the country) of
'labeling a dog mad before killing it' is being
brought into play to deal with peaceful struggles
of ordinary people.
For those who have any idea of the activities of
activists like Roma, this is a lie of the most
blatant sort. Roma has been long active in
organizing the tribals and landless Dalits, and
especially, of late, landless women to fight for
their property rights. Roma's struggle has been
fought under the banner of Dr Ambedkar, Jyotiba
Phule, Savitri Bai Phule, Birsa Munda and Rani
Lakshmibai and has never resorted to any kind of
violent means. Nonetheless, her arrest, along
with Shanta Bhattacharya and Malati, in Sonbhadra
district of UP, shows that even such non-violent
and constitutional struggle is becoming
impossible in large parts of the country today.
It is the state and the police that are producing
Maoists by the hour. It is not without reason
that former Prime Minister VP Singh had to
proclaim in utter exasperation that he too wants
to become a Maoist. It is the utter cynical
contempt with which the state, the judiciary and
the media have treated a long and peaceful
struggle against land acquisition - the Narmada
Bachao Andolan - that sends out the signal, loud
and clear that the only language that the state
and the cohorts of corporate capital understand
is that of the gun.
If there is any doubt about the impunity with
which the police operates when dealing with even
the most legitimate dissent and opposition, then
witness this statement made before the media by a
police official of Sonbhadra district, in the
context of Roma's arrest. This official, Ajay
Shankar by name, tells the press: "Us aurat ko to
jail mein hi theek kar diya jaayega. Vaheen phaad
diyaa jaayega" [That woman will be set right in
jail. We shall tear her apart, right there]. The
reporter goes on to say that these were the most
'civilized' of the statements made by them; the
rest are unprintable.
Anybody who has the slightest idea of how the
police works even in big cities like Delhi, with
complete impunity, framing people for any 'crime'
- especially where they are themselves involved
and thus need protect the real offenders and yet,
to show that they have 'caught' the offenders -
will know that ninety percent of the crime
flourishes because of the police. It is they who
produce criminals. The story of the rural areas
of Uttar Pradesh, where this drama is being
enacted, is really no different. The struggle for
rights over land, water and forest (jal, jangal
aur zameen) is of course what is creating the
real problem here. Organizations like Kaimur
Khsetra Mahila Kisan Sangharsha Samiti
(Sonbhadra), Bhu Adhikar Manch (Jaunpur), Patha
Dalit Adivasi Adhikar Manch (Manikpur) have been
involved in the struggle for land rights in these
areas. In districts like Sonbhadra, Mirzapur and
Chandoli, the land mafia has control over large
tracts forest land, according to the organizers
of the struggle. In their view, this mafia has a
section of the local police at its service - for
reasons that are not difficult to seek.
This is not an isolated case. The story of the
state-sponsored counter-insurgency operation
Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, as it now plays
itself out, turns out to be more and more deeply
implicated in the dangerous and violent game of
corporate land acquisition and dispossession of
the tribals. Salwa Judum and counter-insurgency
in Chhattisgarh is the smokescreen behind which
the farce of local, gram sabha consent for land
acquisition is being enacted.
In this situation, an 'isolated' Roma or a
Binayak Sen is hardly what interests the
corporate media. In the cacophony produced by its
self-righteous media figures, its comic heroes
and heroines, people like Roma or Binayak Sen,
who have chosen the difficult and unglamorous
work of organizing the poorest of the rural
people for their rights (or treating them as
doctor), appear, if at all, under derogatory
labels such as 'jholawalas'. And yet, let it be
stated that the world does not end with the
mediaŠa single Roma is worth much more than the
Barkha Dutts, Shekhar Guptas, Sardesais, Tavleen
Singhs - all put together.
______
[12] Announcements:
(i)
T2F Presents "The Experience" on Saturday, 18th August 2007
This weekend, rock on with "The Experience", featuring:
Faisal Gill on Lead Guitar
Usman Vahidy on Bass
Abdul Aziz Kazi on Drums
The band plays progressive music encompassing
40's blues, 60's funk, 70's psychedelic, jazz and
classical. They claim that no genre can define
their sound and it's all improvised! A mystery
guest will also make a brief appearance.
Date: Saturday, 18th August 2007
Time: 9:00 pm
Entry Fee: Rs. 100
Venue: The Second Floor
6-C, Prime Point Building, Phase 7, Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA, Karachi
Phone: 538-9273 | 0300-823-0276 | info at t2f.biz
Map: http://www.t2f.biz/location
Seats are limited and will be available on a
'first come, first served' basis. We do not do
reservations unless stated.
o o o
(ii)
THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN PAKISTAN:
ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP IN KARACHI IN THE 1970's
by Zafar Shaheed
(Oxford University Press, Karachi 2007)
pp350
ISBN 978-0-19-547345-2
www.oup.com/pk
This book documents a period of labour history of
Pakistan , starting in the mid-1960s and
concentrating on the 1970s, when key elements and
structures of the labour movement were formed -
and some experimenting with democracy occurred.
Concentrating on the textile industry in Karachi,
this is an in-depth analysis of workers, their
organization, their leaders and how they interact
with management and the State. The analysis is
extended from the workplace to the workers'
community, shedding new light on labour relations
and social policy as well as urban development
issues.
The study departs from the mainstream of labour
studies on South Asia, that tend to be based
largely on historical records, survey material
and desk work. It is based on intensive fieldwork
in the workplaces and communities of the Pathan
and Swati workers from the northern areas who
were the semi-skilled factory operators in the
textile industry at the time. As such, it also
addresses ethnic issues between these northerners
and the muhajirs (Urdu-speaking immigrants from
India) who occupied the more skilled professions
in industry.
In documenting periods of labour militancy, and
the conditions in which this arose and subsided,
this book uncovers milestones in the development
of not only the labour movement but also seeds of
democratic and decentralization processes and
structures.
Shorter description
This book recalls the conditions in which the
labour movement was created in Pakistan, by
documenting workers' organization and action
during the 1960s and 1970s. It studies workers,
their organization, their leaders and how they
interact with management and the State.
Considering both the workplace and the workers'
community in Karachi, it sheds new light on
labour relations and social policy, within an
ethnically diverse setting. In documenting
periods of labour militancy at periods when
experiments with democracy were also under way in
the early 1970s, this book uncovers milestones in
the development of not only the labour movement
but also seeds of democratic processes and
structures.
Are there any particular characteristics of your
book which you think might help us in promoting
it? What, for example, led you to write it?
This book is based on a period of intensive
fieldwork that was essentially a journey to
consolidate my national identity, in my early
twenties. It was a great way to get to grips
with Pakistani society that - living in Europe
and the USA - I had lost touch with. It allowed
me to meet government officials at different
levels, employers and managers, and above all,
hundreds of workers and their leaders, at
different levels. Concentrating on the workplace
and the community, the fieldwork provided a
unique opportunity of interacting with and
learning from workers from Hazara, Swat and other
northern areas, as well as Punjabis and
Urdu-speaking muhajirs.
What is special about the study:
- It shows that not all union leaders that are
considered "outsiders" (i.e. not employed in the
workplace or industrial sector that they
represent) are middle-class professionals with
little connection with work and industry. Rather
it shows that the vast majority were once
industrial employees, and usually from employment
for trade union activities. It also illustrates
the relationship between the white-collar trade
union leaders, tending to use labour courts and
the government dispute settlement machinery, and
the shopfloor leaders who are leaders of
industrial action.
- It shows how Ayub Khan's "Basic Democracy"
system of the1960s was implemented in poor urban
communities in Karachi with populations of rural
in-migrants from the North-West Frontier
Province, how this was challenged during periods
of militancy, and how subsequently the structures
of the "basic democracy" system was used by the
People's Party regime of Z.A. Bhutto.
- It shows how power relations governing poor
rural migrants that are established in the
community are transferred and strengthened
through extrapolation to the workplace - and vice
versa.
- It shows circumstances in which workers'
organization can overcome ethnic and other social
divisions.
- It provides in-depth case studies of two factories and a workers' community.
o o o
(iii)
State Level Convention On "People's Right
and the issue of Democracy in Gujarat"
Venue- Gujarat Vidyapeeth
Ashram Road, Ahmedabad
Date- Sunday, 19, August, 2007 at 11am
Speakers--
Com.A.B.Bardhan, Gen. Secretery CPI
MP, Nirmala Desh Panday,Veteran Gandhian
and leaders of several mass organization & TUs
Dear friend,
We are cordially invite you to participate in the
state level convention on "People's right and
democracy in Gujarat" at Gujarat Vidyapeeth on
Sunday, 19 August, 2007.
As all of you are aware about the pathetic
situation of Gujarat regarding democratic rights,
social harmony, people's oriented development and
the compliance of the constitutional obligations
of state. With the help of state, the
fundamentalist forces are continuously
demolishing the peace and secular credentials in
a fascist manner. The dissent opinion and
cultural expression reflecting diversity are
under attack. The tribal and other oppressed
sections are forcibly barred from the rights to
organizing themselves and expressing their views.
The whole developmental discourse is confined to
corporate and privileged classes. The Poor are
paying the prize of ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ by loosing
their land and forest. While millions of
displaced are still awaiting their past
rehabilitation packages from the state, the
Government of Gujarat is planning to displace
another millions of tribal and peasants by the
proposed "SEZ".
As the result of our struggle, the newly enacted
"Forest law, 2006" has created a new enthusiasm
and hope among tribal to get legal validity over
their unrecognized land existing in their
possession till 13, December, 2005. But
unfortunately, the forest officials and local
police are forcibly evicting them from their
possessed land. The organizations opposing this
brutality are targeted by police and the leaders
are indulging in the false cases. You might
remember that the state president of Lok
Sangharsh Morcha Suman Bhai Vasava was arrested
under "PASA" a draconian law like TADA in
sept.2005 for 50 days in detention. 5thousand
people were arrested at Dediapada, while
celebrating the birth anniversary of Shahid
Bhagat Singh. Recently, LSM secretary Bhikhu Bhai
Tadvi was issued a notice by Narmada district
collector for his externment from four districts.
The tribal of Hallgampadi (Sagbara-talluka) were
lathicharged and firing on 7th July, 2007, while
cultivating their own land. Dozen of villagers
including women are severally injured.
Friends, the time has come when the democratic
forces of Gujarat should come forward to unite
and fight against the authoritarian attitude of
state.
Kindly spare some time to ensuring your participation.
With regards,
Ambarish Rai, Pratibha Shinde, Suman Bhai Vasava,
Bhikhu Bhai Tadavi, Yamuna Bai Padvi, Amarnath,
Yashodaben, Pir Singh Vasava
LOK SANGHARSH MORCHA
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: http://insaf.net/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
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