SACW | Oct. 7-9, 2007

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | October 7-9, 2007 | 
Dispatch No. 2458 - Year 10 running

[1] Pakistan:
     (i) The people again done in? (I.A. Rehman)
     (ii) Saving the past from obliteration (Murtaza Razvi)
    (iii) Pak political drama: So far so good - for US (M B Naqvi)
[2] Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Commissioner's 
visit is an opportunity not a threat (Jehan 
Perera)
[3] India - US: Derailing a deal (Noam Chomsky)
[4] India: The Muslim question in Gujarat (Vidya Subrahmaniam)
[5] India: M.F. Husain In Exile Celebrated  (Sohail Hashmi)
[6] Burmese rebels accuse India of betrayal (Randeep Ramesh)
[7] Film Review: India - Kashmir: Azadi - Theirs And Ours (Ananya Vajpeyi)
[8] Book Review: [Hindutva] Not just an urban phenomenon (Prema A. Kurien)

______


[1]  Pakistan:

(i)

Dawn
October 06, 2007

THE PEOPLE AGAIN DONE IN?

by I.A. Rehman

During its brief history Pakistan has been used 
as a stage for many a charade, sometimes in the 
name of religion, sometimes in the name of 
democracy but always in national interest and for 
the people! The latest farce is a deal between 
Gen Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. As usual 
on such occasions the people do not know whether 
to laugh or curse their stars.

Quite a few people believe that on the fourth of 
October, in the year 2007, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's 
party was stabbed in the back by none other than 
his daughter and that the injury may prove fatal. 
Did the 40-year-old party that had begun by 
holding up the promise of people's empowerment 
deserve to spend its adult years as the bonded 
maid of a praetorian consul?

While the country was going through a convulsion 
on whose outcome depended the future of its young 
ones, the PPP had three concerns on the top of 
its agenda: the people's right to democracy, the 
party's prospects in the coming general election, 
and the possibility of its chairperson's 
rehabilitation in active politics - in that order.

The chairperson seems to have chosen to read the 
priorities upside down. As she bargained for 
reprieve for herself, she rendered the party more 
vulnerable than before and the prospect for 
democratic revival bleaker.

Many in the party had hoped that the chairperson 
would give the organisation a new lease of life 
and democracy a chance by stepping out of the 
power race and letting the Young Turks lead what 
is left of the great party. Frustrated, they do 
not know how to defend an indefensible deal.

There were also many, inside the party and 
outside, who had, at the very first reports of 
the deal, warned of a kiss of death. During the 
weeks that the deal took to materialise this 
warning was justified many times over.

Those who have persuaded themselves to believe 
that the deal will benefit Pakistan or the PPP 
may be in for early shocks. The ordinance that is 
being hailed for reconciliation between Gen 
Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto is most likely to 
further alienate the people from both. Besides, 
the General's team will ensure that his promises 
to BB - removal of bar to a third bid for 
premiership, etc. - are put on hold till after 
the electoral contest, which the PPP will enter 
with a thin force of bedraggled soldiers. If it 
does not do well enough at the polls, the General 
is likely to renege on his pledges to BB as 
comfortably as he had abandoned MMA after the 
pact leading to the 17th amendment. The party 
faithful will then be left to ponder what Ghalib 
had said over a century ago:

Kia woh Namrud ki khudai thi/Bandagi mein mera bhala na huwa.

Benazir Bhutto was right when she identified 
quasi-religious militancy as the most serious 
threat to Pakistan and argued that the country 
could be saved only by the people, backed by 
civilian democratic government. But the regime 
with which she has pawned her soul is capable 
neither of preventing Pakistan's Talibanisation 
nor of establishing a popular democracy. The 
threat to the state has increased.

The other party to the deal is unlikely to fare 
any better than the PPP. The General's victory is 
as pyrrhic as pyrrhic can be. He will not be as 
strong and as free a ruler as he has so far been. 
Attempts to run the country as before will make 
the going much tougher.

At the same time the events of the past few weeks 
will give rise to new political forces and the 
next round between democrats and autocrats may 
take place sooner than expected and may not end 
the way the last one has.

However, the fate of the deal-makers will matter 
to the people less than their own ordeal. The 
people's disappointments over the past few weeks 
will severely affect their activism that the 
lawyers' agitation had engendered. Between March 
9 and September 29

Pakistan politics went through a cycle that has 
certain basic lessons for the hardy democrats.

The lawyers' courage out in the open helped them 
win people's support and by July 20 the regime 
seemed to have been routed. But then the streets 
were emptied of the democrats and the gendarmes 
moved in. They had a dry run on September 10 when 
Nawaz Sharif was cheated out of his birthright, 
contrary to everything contained in the 
Constitution, laws and rules of decency, and the 
people watched passively while their half-baked 
leaders sulked under detention.

Assured that the people were not returning to the 
streets, the regime showed its hideous face on 
September 29, one of the blackest days in the 
history of Pakistani people. The opposition fell 
back on the rhetoric of its leaders and a 
strategy of blocking General Musharraf's election 
by resigning from legislatures. This manoeuvre 
was a non-starter to begin with and the delay in 
carrying it out made its defeat certain.

In the process the experts found the Constitution 
silent on the effect on the presidential election 
if a provincial assembly stood dissolved. The 
Indians had been alive to this eventuality and 
therefore they made it clear in the constitution 
that the dissolution of a state (provincial) 
assembly would not affect the election of the 
president. But this provision offers little help 
to Sher Afgan.

A state in India represents only 1/17th of the 
provincial part of the electoral college whereas 
a province in Pakistan represents 1/4th of the 
provincial component of the electoral college.

All this constitutional and legal quibble apart, 
the essential fact is that the battle for the 
people's right to self-rule will be won neither 
in courts nor in assemblies of doubtful origins; 
this battle will be won by people's mobilisation 
alone.

The democrats are on the verge of another defeat 
because they have been looking for short-cuts to 
democracy where none are available.

It's time to return to the basics of mass 
mobilisation through serious political work.


o o o

(ii)

Dawn
October 05, 2007

SAVING THE PAST FROM OBLITERATION

by Murtaza Razvi

NOTHING is safe any longer from the malevolence 
of those who continue to bring death and 
destruction in the name of God in this 
increasingly Islamic republic; not even a 
harmless rock-carved image of the Buddha dating 
back to the second century BC and which no one 
worshipped.

The giant Buddha at Jahanabad near Mingora in 
Swat finally lost its face, parts of the 
shoulders and the feet in a second assault last 
Friday by Islamist militants. The historical 
relic had survived two earlier attacks. But this 
time round, in spite of the law enforcement 
agencies having been warned of the danger the 
militants posed to the rock carving, the latter 
planned and carried out the blast unchecked.

The roadside massive rock on which the Buddha is 
carved is by no means in a remote area hidden 
from the public eye. It is the most conspicuous 
rock that greets every visitor to Mingora, the 
commercial hub of the Swat valley. For the 
militants to have planned and carried out the 
assault the way it was done, it is clear the 
government and the local administration couldn't 
care less about the damage inflicted on this 
national archaeological treasure.

The attackers reportedly had the time to drill 
holes into the solid rock, disfiguring the Buddha 
measuring 13 feet by nine feet, while they were 
at it, before filling up those holes with 
explosives and setting them off. Given the 
location and the size of the relic, it cannot be 
said that anyone up to causing such carefully 
planned destruction was not visible to the 
passersby or the vehicular traffic, let alone the 
law enforcement agencies whose job it is to 
protect such sites.

Archaeology department officials had lodged an 
FIR with the Swat police, warning them of 
attempts by Islamist militants to blow up the 
historical relic after the last assault suffered 
by the carving on Sept 11 only this year. The 
police and the government have no defence against 
their apathy towards the country's pre-Islamic 
historical relics. Indeed, they are guilty by 
their studied inaction of being party to the 
destruction of the unique rock carving, which was 
second only in the region to the spectacular and 
now annihilated Buddhas at Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

The question is: why this tolerance of extremism 
and hate of the other in the most hideous form? 
The answer perhaps lies partly in political 
exigencies of the current regime, combined with 
the glorification of the bigots in our history 
books. Consider that 11-century bandit Mahmud of 
Ghazni, who was credited with bringing down idols 
as he invaded India, raided only those Hindu 
temples which were laden with gold and other 
ornamental wealth. Once his empire took hold in 
the subcontinent, and the rich temples had been 
laid bare of their gold and silver, idol worship 
carried on unhindered.

The puritan, bigoted and born-again Muslim creed 
of the Taliban variety poses a serious threat to 
the evolved notions of tolerance and fine moral 
and social ideals of a humane, civilised society. 
That they breed and sustain themselves in 
isolation from evolved social norms, among rugged 
mountains and under primitive conditions, denying 
themselves and others at their mercy the right to 
practise social norms brings out the primitive 
instincts best known for causing destruction all 
around.

Following the blowing up of the Buddha relic in 
Swat, it is most astounding that not a word of 
condemnation has come from the highest and the 
mightiest in the government who otherwise preach 
enlightened moderation and tolerance. There is 
nothing un-Islamic or anti-religion about 
deploring barbarism, whether it is practised 
against a people or shared human heritage.

What is going on in Swat, a valley known for its 
natural beauty as well as for attracting the 
common pleasure-trip seeker and the history 
enthusiast, threatens both equally: the people 
living there and the national historical 
treasures.

The way the authorities have buckled under 
pressure from Mullah Fazlullah, who is 
broadcasting his bigoted views and issuing 
threats to the people via an illegally operated 
radio station, has emboldened the misguided few 
of his ilk to now cause damage to pre-Islamic 
historical sites and relics. The Butkarra remains 
and the museum in Saidu Sharif, so many other 
such sites in the region and another well-endowed 
museum with ancient Buddhist-era relics at nearby 
Chakdara are crying out for help.

The intolerant, extremist brigade has to be 
stopped, and stopped fast in its tracks. But 
until that happens, rolling a few heads whose job 
it was to protect the ill-fated Jahanabad rock 
carving, will not be a bad start in trying to 
salvage the precious little we have left of our 
national heritage.

o o o

(iii)

Deccan Herald
October 9, 200è

PAK POLITICAL DRAMA: SO FAR SO GOOD - FOR US
Factually the US made efforts to bring about what 
has happened in Pakistan recently and they behave 
as if they own the place, writes M B Naqvi.

Americans have always had success in whatever 
they wanted in and over Pakistan. Despite much 
ruckus created by lawyers and the civil society 
over the election of General Pervez Musharraf for 
another term of Pakistan Presidency, it has gone 
through. It was a cliffhanger even till the noon 
of Oct 5 on whether the elections will be held or 
the Supreme Court will give a stay order.

In the event, just as the apex court had 
tentatively permitted General Pervez Musharraf's 
candidature against serious objections by 
lawyers, it allowed the holding of the polling on 
Oct 6, though it put a limitation on this 
election: Election Commission should not formally 
notify the results until it has finally decided 
the case which it will start hearing from Oct 17.

It refused to stop the holding of the election 
until the substantive issue had been resolved, of 
whether General Musharraf in uniform could 
participate in a presidential election. The 
victory in the polls on Saturday has been 
celebrated by Islamabad as if it was total. Even 
so, this is pretty good going, especially when 
the Americans see that Musharraf did finally bite 
the bullet and has done a deal with Benazir 
Bhutto they had recommended.

Notwithstanding the intellectual ferment in 
Pakistan against the Chief of Army Staff 
interminably occupying the President's office it 
can only be an initial success for Washington. 
The top judges' remarks show that they appreciate 
the sentiments of the civil society and people in 
general on the subject. But their September 28 
decision in which they permitted Gen Musharraf to 
contest the Presidential election in uniform 
showed that what they do is not what they say.

True, the judges have said that they have 
rejected lawyers petitions only on the 
maintainability of the petitions; they have not 
foreclosed the subject, they will discuss it 
later. But later means Musharraf will have donned 
the Presidential crown and will sit on the top 
throne in the interval. He has the support of the 
Army, civil bureaucracy, America and presumably 
also Allah. Would not the Supreme Court, some 
weeks later, simply acquiesce in the reality and 
not derail the whole system?

From day one, Musharraf has got what he wanted. 
In this case he wanted to contest the election as 
Chief of Army Staff for presidency: he has been 
granted his wish. The challenges to the election 
have been rejected at the right time. He had at 
great length and after much persuasion by the 
highest level US officials promised to hang up 
his military fatigues after finally getting 
elected. It will remain only a promise so long as 
the top court does not finally decide. When will 
it finally decide who knows?

It is to be seen how Musharraf manages his second 
wish that was never articulated clearly: holding 
the general election at the end of the year while 
he is still the Army commander. That meant he 
could "manage" the election results as he had 
done in 2002. This was all the rationale for his 
wanting to remain in uniform; he would then be 
able to command the secret agencies of the Army 
and get the results of the elections as he 
desired. This is a wide open question as to 
whether the US and Pakistan's top court can 
actually oppose the idea.

Where do the Americans come in and what moves 
them? The fact of the matter is that the 
Americans are scared stiff about what is likely 
to happen in Pakistan if their Musharraf project 
fails. They see the dark hordes of Islamic 
extremists in the NWFP and Afghanistan joining 
together and converting Pakistan's north west 
into a new Islamic state. The Americans clearly 
suspect that there are political forces in the 
field  that want to establish a Khilafat in the 
area and which would later spread the sway of 
resurgent Islam over many Muslim lands. Some of 
the elements in the Pakistan Army, the Americans 
fear, are part of this threat. These elements are 
suspected of thinking that Pakistan's leadership 
of a new Muslim Empire, with its relative 
development and nuclear weapons would be a 
fitting complement of this dream. However 
fanciful it may seem to people elsewhere, the 
American experts appear to believe it to be a 
credible threat.

Factually the Americans made efforts to bring 
about what has happened: a political deal with 
Benazir Bhutto the Chairperson of Pakistan 
Peoples Party and Musharraf. The Americans 
believe that this new expansion of the support 
base of Musharraf will give them, Musharraf and 
the world a chance of preventing Pakistan going 
the way of Afghanistan and worse. Some may wonder 
how have the Americans acquired such 
proprietarial interests in Pakistan. It must be 
remembered that ever since 1953, the Americans 
have been giving the Pakistan Army military aid 
that has largely helped equip it.

They pretty much behave as if they own the place. 
Whether the Americans will finally succeed in 
rescuing Pakistan from the threat of Islamic 
extremism is a question for which there is no 
clear answer.

______



[2]

Daily Mirror
9 October 2007

UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER'S VISIT IS AN OPPORTUNITY NOT A THREAT

The UN has the mandate to ensure that respect for human rights prevails

by Jehan Perera

The upholding of human rights of citizens is the 
highest calling of democratic governments in the 
present period of civilisation. The visit to Sri 
Lanka of the UN's High Commissioner for Human 
Rights, Louise Arbour provides the best chance 
for the discipline of human rights to be imposed 
on the conflicting parties in Sri Lanka.

The country's deteriorating image abroad has 
potentially catastrophic consequences, not only 
for the well being of the people, but even for 
national security. Several donor countries are 
distancing themselves from Sri Lanka, and even 
contemplating downgrading their diplomatic 
presence in the country.

Although the government claims that the reduction 
in economic aid from these countries is due to 
Sri Lanka becoming a middle income country, it is 
also due to the frustration that they feel in 
seeing their aid going down the drain of 
seemingly unending war.

On the other hand, Foreign Minister Rohitha 
Bogollagama has been forthright in warning that a 
recent Congressional amendment to the US State 
Department's Appropriation Bill for 2008, could 
introduce restrictions on military aid to Sri 
Lanka due to alleged human rights violations.

For over a year human rights organizations, both 
international and national, have sought to 
highlight the serious violations of human rights 
and the climate of impunity when it comes to 
identifying and punishing the perpetrators, 
whether they be agents of the government or 
militants.

They have called for international involvement in 
the protection and monitoring of the situation as 
it pertains to human rights. In turn the 
government has mobilized itself to deny such 
abuses and to make offers of national remedies.

Tragically, however, for the people of Sri Lanka 
the ground realities are quite the opposite of 
what the government tries to make out in 
international forums, as more and more citizens 
disappear or fall victim to the death squads.

The government considers the present drop in the 
numbers of new persons being abducted or 
assassinated as a sign that there is no human 
rights crisis in the country. But the fact that 
these evil deeds continue at all, and that the 
perpetrators continue to be at large, are an 
indictment on the government.

Dr Rajan Hoole of the highly respected University 
Teachers for Human Rights who recently received 
the Martin Ennals Human Rights Award, spoke in 
his acceptance speech of the terrible conditions 
that prevail in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

He pointed to "the right for people in parts of 
the North-East under government control to return 
to their homes and live without fear of being 
picked out by state affiliated killer squads. 
These squads are part of government policy. Law 
enforcement is completely disingenuous. Police 
investigation is directed more towards the 
disappearance or intimidation of witnesses rather 
than the prosecution of killers."

Ineffective remedies

The national remedies that the government has 
offered are only in name and cannot be considered 
to be effective.

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into 
Serious Human Rights Violations, of which much 
was expected, has so far not even completed 
investigating even one of the 16 cases it was 
mandated to investigate, although it is nearing 
the end of its term. The Independent 
International Eminent Group of Persons who were 
attached to that Commission to play the role of 
observers has repeatedly protested against the 
weaknesses inherent in the functioning of the 
Commission but to no avail.

The failure of the International Eminent Group of 
observers to make a positive impact on the human 
rights situation in the country has strengthened 
the case for an international field presence of 
human rights monitors with an expanded mandate.

If Ms Arbour's visit to Sri Lanka convinces her 
that the ground situation is indeed as bad as 
human rights organizations have been saying, the 
impetus for the implementation of an 
international human rights protection mechanism 
with a field presence in Sri Lanka will be 
further strengthened.

The visit to Sri Lanka of Ms Arbour is also 
important from the viewpoint of the UN, whose 
purpose is to expand its mission throughout the 
world.

The UN was established in the immediate aftermath 
of the Second World War, in which the human 
rights horrors were of unprecedented proportions 
and more people died of war than at any other 
period of known human history.

There was recognition that the violation of the 
rights of people was a certain recipe for 
violence to perpetuate and feed itself.

Accordingly one of the first acts of the UN was 
to convene the leaders of the world, both 
political and moral, and unanimously pass the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which 
remains the most powerful beacon of human 
aspiration to be consensually accepted by all 
peoples in the world.

More than any other global institution, the UN 
has the mandate to ensure that respect for human 
rights prevails throughout the world.

As a country that has been torn apart by violent 
internal conflict for over three decades, Sri 
Lanka will inevitably be a country of concern to 
the UN.

Unfortunately, the present Sri Lankan 
government's willingness to incorporate human 
rights principles in its governance appears to be 
limited.

This clearly comes out in the government's 
proposed law to give effect to the International 
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is 
the basic international legal instrument that is 
based on the Universal Declaration of Human 
Rights.

One of the country's respected policy think 
tanks, the Centre for Policy Alternatives has 
pointed out that the draft law is extremely 
limited.

It does not include basic rights provided in the 
International Covenant, including the right to 
life, freedom from negative discrimination, 
rights of minorities and the right to privacy, 
among many others.The Office of the High 
Commissioner for Human Rights is one of the UN's 
innovations in the pursuit of its mandate to 
protect human rights worldwide.

It may need to seriously consider expanding its 
mandate into Sri Lanka in view of the cavalier 
attitude towards human rights that presently 
prevails. A recent intervention in the defense of 
human rights that the UN has engaged in is in 
Nepal, which is a fraternal South Asian country, 
with close cultural and religious links to Sri 
Lanka.

Every year thousands of Sri Lankans make the 
pilgrimage to Nepal where the ancient cities of 
Lumbini and Kapilavastu that the Buddha trod 
exist.

But soon it may be the case that Sri Lankans will 
also make the journey to Nepal to learn about 
setting up a monitoring system to ensure that the 
human rights of its citizens are protected in a 
time of violent conflict.

A group of ten senior Sri Lankan media personnel 
who are presently visiting Nepal under the 
auspices of the National Peace Council of Sri 
Lanka to study the peace process in that country, 
and identify applicable lessons and best 
practices, were repeatedly informed that the 
strong UN presence in Nepal was one of the key 
pillars of its peace process.




______


[3]

South Asians Against Nukes
October 8, 2007
URL: groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/message/1077

o o o o

Khaleej Times
October 8, 2007

DERAILING A DEAL
by Noam Chomsky

7 October 2007

NUCLEAR-armed states are criminal states. They 
have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World 
Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear 
Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to 
carry out good-faith negotiations to eliminate 
nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear 
states has lived up to it.

The United States is a leading violator, 
especially the Bush administration, which even 
has stated that it isn't subject to Article 6.

On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement 
with India that guts the central part of the NPT, 
though there remains substantial opposition in 
both countries. India, like Israel and Pakistan 
(but unlike Iran), is not an NPT signatory, and 
has developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. 
With this new agreement, the Bush administration 
effectively endorses and facilitates this outlaw 
behaviour. The agreement violates US law, and 
bypasses the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 
nations that have established strict rules to 
lessen the danger of proliferation of nuclear 
weapons.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms 
Control Association, observes that the agreement 
doesn't bar further Indian nuclear testing and, 
"incredibly, ... commits Washington to help New 
Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries 
even if India resumes testing." It also permits 
India to "free up its limited domestic supplies 
for bomb production." All these steps are in 
direct violation of international 
nonproliferation agreements.

The Indo-US agreement is likely to prompt others 
to break the rules as well. Pakistan is reported 
to be building a plutonium production reactor for 
nuclear weapons, apparently beginning a more 
advanced phase of weapons design. Israel, the 
regional nuclear superpower, has been lobbying 
Congress for privileges similar to India's, and 
has approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group with 
requests for exemption from its rules. Now 
France, Russia and Australia have moved to pursue 
nuclear deals with India, as China has with 
Pakistan - hardly a surprise, once the global 
superpower has opened the door.

The Indo-US deal mixes military and commercial 
motives. Nuclear weapons specialist Gary 
Milhollin noted Secretary of State Condoleezza 
Rice's testimony to Congress that the agreement 
was "crafted with the private sector firmly in 
mind," particularly aircraft and reactors and, 
Milhollin stresses, military aircraft. By 
undermining the barriers against nuclear war, he 
adds, the agreement not only increases regional 
tensions but also "may hasten the day when a 
nuclear explosion destroys an American city." 
Washington's message is that "export controls are 
less important to the United States than money" - 
that is, profits for US corporations - whatever 
the potential threat. Kimball points out that the 
United States is granting India "terms of nuclear 
trade more favourable than those for states that 
have assumed all the obligations and 
responsibilities" of the NPT. In most of the 
world, few can fail to see the cynicism. 
Washington rewards allies and clients that ignore 
the NPT rules entirely, while threatening war 
against Iran, which is not known to have violated 
the NPT, despite extreme provocation: The United 
States has occupied two of Iran's neighbours and 
openly sought to overthrow the Iranian regime 
since it broke free of US control in 1979.

Over the past few years, India and Pakistan have 
made strides towards easing the tensions between 
the two countries. People-to-people contacts have 
increased and the governments are in discussion 
over the many outstanding issues that divide the 
two states. Those promising developments may well 
be reversed by the Indo-US nuclear deal. One of 
the means to build confidence throughout the 
region was the creation of a natural gas pipeline 
from Iran through Pakistan into India. The "peace 
pipeline" would have tied the region together and 
opened the possibilities for further peaceful 
integration.

The pipeline, and the hope it offers, might 
become a casualty of the Indo-US agreement, which 
Washington sees as a measure to isolate its 
Iranian enemy by offering India nuclear power in 
exchange for Iranian gas - though in fact India 
would gain only a fraction of what Iran could 
provide.

The Indo-US deal continues the pattern of 
Washington's taking every measure to isolate 
Iran. In 2006, the US Congress passed the Hyde 
Act, which specifically demanded that the US 
government "secure India's full and active 
participation in United States efforts to 
dissuade, isolate, and if necessary, sanction and 
contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons 
of mass destruction."

It is noteworthy that the great majority of 
Americans - and Iranians - favour converting the 
entire region to a nuclear-weapons free zone, 
including Iran and Israel. One may also recall 
that UN Security Council Resolution 687 of April 
3, 1991, to which Washington regularly appealed 
when seeking justification for its invasion of 
Iraq, calls for "establishing in the Middle East 
a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and 
all missiles for their delivery."

Clearly, ways to mitigate current crises aren't lacking.

This Indo-US agreement richly deserves to be 
derailed. The threat of nuclear war is extremely 
serious, and growing, and part of the reason is 
that the nuclear states - led by the United 
States - simply refuse to live up to their 
obligations or are significantly violating them, 
this latest effort being another step toward 
disaster.

The US Congress gets a chance to weigh in on this 
deal after the International Atomic Energy Agency 
and the Nuclear Suppliers Group vet it. Perhaps 
Congress, reflecting a citizenry fed up with 
nuclear gamesmanship, can reject the agreement. A 
better way to go forward is to pursue the need 
for global nuclear disarmament, recognising that 
the very survival of the species is at stake.

Noam Chomsky's most recent book is Interventions, 
a collection of his commentary pieces distributed 
by The New York Times Syndicate. Chomsky is 
emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy 
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 
Cambridge, Mass.


______


[4]


The Hindu
Oct 09, 2007

THE MUSLIM QUESTION IN GUJARAT

by Vidya Subrahmaniam

By an unspoken consensus, Muslims have been 
excluded from the election debate in Gujarat.

Five years after Narendra Modi's stupendous 
victory in the Assembly election, Gujarat is set 
to go to the polls again - admittedly in entirely 
different circumstances. Election 2002 was 
surcharged with sectarian emotion. The violence 
inherent in the Godhra aftermath extinguished all 
debate, forcing the Congress, the principal 
opposition party, to conduct a low-key campaign 
that skirted the most obvious election issue: The 
sadism visited on Muslims.

In 2007, Mr. Modi gives the appearance of having 
moved on. Already in campaign mode, he avoids the 
past election's caustic references to Godhra, 
mullahs and Mian Musharraf, focussing instead on 
the "11 per cent growth" Gujarat has achieved 
with him as helmsman. If he brings up the Ramar 
Sethu issue, it is not with the intensity 
expected of him.

The 2007 election in Gujarat is what 
psephologists would call a "normal" election, 
unattended by passion, and without an overarching 
issue. Yet this normal election seems no less 
contemptuous of a community that forms over nine 
per cent of the State's population. In 2002, the 
debate targeted Muslims. In 2007, the debate has 
bypassed Muslims. The community has been kept out 
of the discourse by an unspoken consensus that 
includes Mr. Modi, the Congress and the anti-Modi 
dissidents.

In an interview with The Hindu en route from 
Ahmedabad to Vadodara , Mr. Modi described 
Gujarat ki seva, seva, seva ( service, service 
and service of Gujarat) as his single mission. 
The mission obsessed him, he said, adding proudly 
that under him Gujarat had become the "number one 
State in Asia." Among his achievements in five 
years: an almost four-fold increase in 
agricultural income from Rs.9,000 crore to 
Rs.34,000 crore; rise in cotton production from 
23 lakh bales to 1.23 crore bales and 
uninterrupted electricity supply to rural homes. 
As he spoke, it was apparent that he had 
programmes for every section - women, adivasis, 
farmers and so forth.

Yet the Chief Minister was to turn hostile on the 
question of Muslims. Asked where Muslims figured 
in his vision of Gujarat, he flared up: "I don't 
like this thinking. I work for five-and-a-half 
crore Gujaratis. For me, anyone who lives here is 
a Gujarati, and I will not allow politics to come 
into this."

If only this were true. In Vadodara, Professor 
Ganesh Devy, literary critic, activist and 
director of the Tribal Academy at Tejgadh, took 
me on a tour of Tandalja and Vasna Road, two 
parallel streets only six metres apart. The first 
was a mostly Muslim area, the second housed 
Hindus. The contrast wrenched the heart. Mounds 
of rotting garbage, dark, damp, crowded homes, 
and desolate young men standing in groups made 
the Muslim part instantly recognisable. The 
brightness of Vasna Road equally identified it as 
a Hindu area. The divide is as much physical as 
mental - and as much in Vadodara as in other 
Gujarat cities. It is a symbol of complete, 
absolute Muslim isolation in a State that Mr. 
Modi claims is "number one in Asia."

It is perhaps a consolation that unhygienic and 
wretched as their living conditions are, these 
Muslims at least live in their own homes. There 
are many who don't. In October 2006, the National 
Commission for Minorities reported that over 5000 
displaced Muslim families lived in "sub-human 
conditions" in 46 makeshift colonies spread 
across the riot-affected districts of Gujarat.

The NCM team, which visited 17 camps, accused the 
Gujarat Government of refusing to fulfil "its 
constitutional responsibility." It also 
contradicted the Chief Minister's claim that the 
families had opted to live there: "In view of the 
overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the 
Commission finds this viewpoint untenable and 
evasive of a government's basic responsibility." 
The team's findings brought help to the displaced 
families - but from the Central Government which 
announced a compensation package.

However, to blame Mr. Modi alone for the social 
and political exclusion of Muslims would be to 
turn away from a truth that involves a much wider 
spectrum. Holding centre-stage at the 
dissident-led farmers' rally in Rajkot was 
Gordhan Zadaphia, the Home Minister who stood by 
Mr. Modi during the 2002 pogrom. A compact disc 
showing crucial details of his whereabouts at the 
time of the riots is currently before the 
Nanavati Commission of Enquiry.

Recently, Mr. Zadaphia told The Indian Express 
that while he accepted moral responsibility for 
the 2002 violence, that was not why he turned 
critical of Mr. Modi. "What happened in 2002 was 
different", he said, tracing his revolt to the 
government's indifference to the "issues of poor 
people, farmers and rural folks." No mention of 
Muslims.

Little wonder then that the main complaint aired 
from the Rajkot platform was that Mr. Modi had 
deserted his Hindutva roots. The BJP dissidents 
turned on Mr. Modi for forsaking the agenda that 
brought him to power. They accused him of 
betraying the Hindu community on Ayodhya and 
warned him not to raise the Ramar Sethu issue: 
"Don't you dare talk of Ram Sethu, Modi." After 
the meet, I spoke to some of the rebels. Their 
unanimous verdict: Mr. Modi could no longer lay 
claim to the title 'Hindu Hriday Samrat.'

The Congress has not ridiculed itself to this 
extent. But its leaders seem convinced that to 
talk secularism in Gujarat is to commit suicide. 
Asked why the Congress associated with men like 
Mr. Zadaphia who were identified with the 2002 
violence, Shankarsinh Waghela argued that people 
called him a "BJP man." Further that the Congress 
was a 'samudra' (sea) that absorbed all 
ideologies. Other Congress leaders said they did 
not want to dilute the anti-Modi movement by 
raising the Muslim issue.

A veteran of many elections put it this way: In 
Gujarat, there are two currents of opinion. One 
is against Muslims, the other against Mr. Modi. 
If the first were raised, Mr. Modi would revert 
to his post-Godhra violent image which would 
compel Gujaratis to side with him against a "much 
worse" enemy. The most secular among 
Congresspersons buy this theory. Their case: the 
ideological compromises are necessary to win this 
do-or-die election.
The KHAM formula

It is a sad state of affairs in a party that in 
the late 1970s crafted the ingenious KHAM 
(Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) formula. 
KHAM brought the depressed, marginalised classes 
on one platform and delivered stunning results 
for the Gujarat Congress. In 1980, it won 141 out 
of the 182 Assembly seats, and in 1985 it 
bettered the record with 149 seats. The Congress 
achieved its majorities - far larger than what 
Mr. Modi secured in 2002 - by mobilising the 
lowest in the social order. KHAM was more than an 
electoral strategy. It was a daring effort to 
empower the historically subjugated classes.

Tragically, for that very reason, the alliance 
invited the backlash of the forward castes. 
Brahmins, Banias and Patidars, who mobilised 
themselves through the medium of the 1985 
anti-reservation protests, gradually shifted 
towards the BJP, going on to form the party's 
core. Yet the forward castes could never win 
power on their own. And thus began the calculated 
dismantling of KHAM. Using the proxy of Hindu 
unity, the BJP and the sangh parivar targeted the 
KHAM communities, enticing Kolis, Dalits and 
Advasis into joining their majoritarian project.

The Congress helplessly watched as Hindutva 
forces penetrated the Adivasi areas of central 
and east Gujarat. The cultural indoctrination 
focussed on showing up the tribal culture, 
including their forms of worship, as inferior. 
Tribal villagers I met spoke of being visited by 
the various Hindu sects. The Vishwa Hindu 
Parishad distributed Ganesh and Ram idols in the 
villages, because of which today Ram is a 
recognised name among tribals. Yet the political 
influence of Hindutva remained limited in the 
tribal belt.

In 2002, this barrier too was breached with the 
co-option of tribals into the anti-Muslim pogrom. 
This was not voluntary, and as Professor Devy 
pointed out in his essay, "Tribal voice and 
violence" (Seminar, issue 513), the Rathwa 
tribals in Tejgadh and Panval were uninfluenced 
by the communal argument. So the arsonists pushed 
the commercial angle with the focus on Muslim 
moneylenders. Today, there is regret in these 
areas for the 2002 aberration.

Whether the Congress will benefit from this is 
anybody's guess. Because in 2007, the authors of 
KHAM are in league with the destroyers of KHAM. 
What place can Adivasis and Muslims claim in a 
party that is firing at Mr. Modi from the 
shoulder of his more Hindutva opponents?


______


[5]  http://www.mattersofart.com/

M.F. HUSAIN IN EXILE CELEBRATED 


M.F. Husain completed is 92 nd birthday on 
September 17, 2007. On October 2, 2007,
Sahmat celebrated the exiled painter's birthday 
in New Delhi. Sohail Hashmi reportsŠ


Ram Rahman showing the celebrations to Husain through the webcam

Hundreds of people, young and not so young, 
including artists, writers, musicians, dancers, 
film makers and actors were joined by students, 
cultural activists, professors, lawyers, 
journalists and others on the lawns of Vithal 
Bhai Patel House on October 2, 2007. They had 
come together at the call of Safdar Hashmi 
Memorial Trust, to stand as one as a expression 
of solidarity with M.F. Husain, the most well 
known and popular Indian artist, who is compelled 
to live in exile because the law and order 
machinery of the largest democracy in the world 
is not prepared to guarantee his security.

The occasion was the celebration of Husain's 92nd 
birthday. Though Husain reached this landmark on 
September 17, Sahmat had decided to celebrate it 
on Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. The decision to 
hold the celebration on 2nd October was not mere 
tokenism; there is a deep connection between 
those that silenced Gandhi and those of their 
progeny that have forced M.F. Husain into exile 
in his old age.

The celebration included the painting of a huge 
hoarding of Husain's works spanning more than 5 
decades of his creative efforts. The hoarding 
painted by well known sign board painter Abbas 
and his colleagues together with many Indian and 
foreign artists, recalled the days when Husain 
earned his living as a painter of cinema 
hoardings. The celebration included all the 
things that Husain loves - fire works, there was 
a chaat wallah serving dahi bhalla , chaat and 
gol gappas and there was kulfi from the walled 
city. Husain drinks countless cups of dhaba chai 
every day and so there was a tea stall as well. 
Amidst all this there was a brass band lustily 
belting some of Husain's favourite tunes from 
Hindustani films of the 50's and 60's.


Abbas bhai and his assistants painting a hoarding at the venue

The celebrations began at around 5.30 pm and 
slowly picked up as the early autumn evening gave 
way to a pleasant night. The visitors moved 
around an exhibition of several photographs, 
taken more than a decade ago by well known 
designer and photographer Parthiv Shah, with 
Husain working, having tea in Nizam-ud-Din or 
admiring the architecture of Humayun's Tomb. One 
part of the lawn had been turned into an open air 
auditorium with two large video screens, one of 
the screens was used to show excerpts from 
Husain's cinematic works, Gajagamini and Meenaxi 
- his full length films - and his world famous 
short film Through the Eyes of a Painter , while 
the other screen was used to project Husain 
participating in the celebration from far away 
London.

Husain became a part of the celebration through 
the use of a web camera and a broadband internet 
connection. The celebration came alive the moment 
internet connectivity was established through 
Vivan Sundaram's laptop computer. Every one could 
see Husain as he sat in a room thousands of miles 
away, everyone could talk to him and he was able 
to be a part of the celebrations. Every one who 
knew Husain and many of those who knew him 
through his works lined up to wish him a long 
life and to ask him to come back to be in the 
country that he loves so dearly, to be among the 
common people whose lives, rituals, faith and 
practices have been his inspiration through out 
his career - starting from the days when he 
became a part of 'The Progressive Group' to the 
present. Everyone present wanted Husain to return 
and to each one he said I'll be back, I will 
return very soon.


Parthiv Shah's photograph of Husain on display 
Those who had gathered to celebrate Husain at 92 
had also come together to defend freedom of 
expression and the freedom to create freely. They 
had also gathered to protest against the trumped 
up charges levelled against Husain. This 
gathering was also an expression of the anger of 
the creative community against the government and 
the State that goes ahead with the cases but 
refuses to punish those who are asking for 
Husain's hands to be chopped and his eyes to be 
gouged out.

Photographer and designer Ram Rahman conducted 
the proceedings. Among those who joined the 
birthday celebration and solidarity meeting and 
many of whom were able to talk to Husain included 
painters Ram Kumar, Arpana Kaur, film 
personalities Shabana Azmi, writers Vishnu Nagar, 
Ibbar Rabbi, Jansatta daily editor Om Thanvi, 
dancer Aditi Mangaldas and art critics Geeta 
Kapur and Vikram Singh.

A special commemorative cup and T-shirt were also released on the occasion.

______


[6]

The Guardian
October 8, 2007

BURMESE REBELS ACCUSE INDIA OF BETRAYAL

· 34 men in secret trial deny being arms smugglers
· Case highlights growing trade links with Rangoon

by Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi

Thirty-four men who are being tried in secret by 
India, accused of being arms smugglers, are 
Burmese anti-junta rebels who were once backed by 
the Indian army, say human rights activists who 
are demanding their freedom.

The Indian army says the men, who belong to the 
Arakan ethnic minority that is fighting the 
Burmese army, were captured by Indian security 
forces in February 1998, along with a cache of 
arms and weapons, in the Andaman and Nicobar 
islands.

Article continues
New Delhi claimed Operation Leech had smashed a 
group of gunrunners who had been aiding 
anti-Indian separatists. However the men say they 
are Karen National Union (KNU) and National Unity 
Party of Arakan (Nupa) rebels who were fighting 
Burma's junta and who had been provided with arms 
and a sanctuary by India.

The Indian authorities held the men in jail for 
six and a half years before charges were brought. 
Now the trial is taking place in secret - no 
reporters are allowed and the public has been 
banned.

The case has become a cause célèbre among India's 
pro-democracy activists, especially since the 
uprising in Burma earlier this month. "We have to 
ask our government why Burma's freedom fighters 
have been imprisoned in India like this when 
people are taking to the streets in Rangoon for 
freedom," said Nandita Haskar, a civil rights 
lawyer who is campaigning for the men's release.

Their case is supported by a retired Indian 
intelligence officer and the leadership of the 
two anti-junta groups, which are based in 
Thailand but which had close dealings with New 
Delhi until Operation Leech.

The men say they were double-crossed by an Indian 
army colonel named Grewal, who was in the pay of 
the junta. The army says it has never heard of 
the colonel.

"These people are not gun runners, they are our 
men," said Khin Maung of Nupa. "They were 
promised a camp in the Andaman islands by this 
colonel, but he took them there and they were 
[either] captured [or] shot. "

During the 1990s, India began to reverse its 
historic stand against the junta and to jettison 
its pro-democracy links. Since Operation Leech, 
it has emerged as Burma's second largest export 
market, after Thailand. The Indian defence 
establishment now trains and supplies Burma's 
armed forces. India is also in a race with China 
to acquire gas reserves off Burma's coast.

DB Nandi, a former Indian intelligence officer 
who worked in Burma, said he suspected that New 
Delhi had too much at stake to allow the truth to 
be told. "This whole thing was designed to smash 
the revolt of the Arakanese. These people were 
not prejudicial to the security interests of 
India. But they were butchered and imprisoned," 
he said.

______


[7]


Outlookindia.com
October 4, 2007

AZADI: THEIRS AND OURS

by the logic of the Indian state, India is free 
and Kashmir is a part of India, ergo, Kashmir 
too, must be free. But Sanjay Kak's documentary 
provides visual attestation for something 
diametrically opposed to this logic: the reality 
of occupation. ......

by Ananya Vajpeyi

Sanjay Kak's new documentary Jashn-e-Azadi ("How 
we celebrate freedom") is aimed primarily at an 
Indian audience. This two-part film, 138 min 
long, explores what Kak calls the "sentiment", 
namely "azadi" (literally "freedom") driving the 
conflict in the India controlled part of Kashmir 
for the past 18 years. This sentiment is 
inchoate: it does not have a unified movement, a 
symbol, a flag, a map, a slogan, a leader or any 
one party associated with it. Sometimes it means 
full territorial independence, and sometimes it 
means other things. Yet it is real, with a 
reality that neither outright repression nor 
fitful persuasion from India has managed to 
dissipate for almost two decades. Howsoever 
unclear its political shape, Kashmiris know the 
emotional charge of azadi, its ability to keep 
alive in every Kashmiri heart a sense of 
struggle, of dissent, of hope. It is for Indians 
who do not know about this sentiment, or do not 
know how to react to it, that Kak has made his 
difficult, powerful film. And it is with Indian 
audiences that Kak has already had, and is likely 
to continue having, the most heated debate.

Between 1989 and 2007, nearly 100,000 
people--soldiers and civilians, armed militants 
and unarmed citizens, Kashmiris and 
non-Kashmiris--lost their lives to the violence 
in Kashmir. 700,000 Indian military and 
paramilitary troops are stationed there, the 
largest such armed presence in what is supposedly 
peace time, anywhere in the world. Both residents 
of and visitors to Kashmir in recent years 
already know what Kak's film brings home to the 
viewer: how thoroughly militarized the Valley is, 
criss-crossed by barbed wire, littered with 
bunkers and sand-bags, dotted with men in uniform 
carrying guns, its roads bearing an unending 
stream of armoured vehicles up and down a 
landscape that used to be called, echoing the 
words of the Mughal Emperor Jehangir, Paradise on 
earth. Other places so mangled by a security 
apparatus as to make it impossible for life to 
proceed normally immediately come to mind: 
occupied Palestine, occupied Iraq.

Locals, especially young men, must produce 
identification at all the check-posts that 
punctuate the land, or during sudden and frequent 
operations described by the dreaded words 
"crackdown" and "cordon and search". Kak's camera 
shows us that even the most ordinary attempt to 
cross the city of Srinagar, or travel from one 
village to another is fraught with these security 
checks, as though the entire Valley were a 
gigantic airport terminal and every man were a 
threat to every other. As soldiers insultingly 
frisk folks for walking about in their own 
places, the expressions in their eyes--anger, 
fear, resignation, frustration, irritation, or 
just plain embarrassment--say it all. In one 
scene men are lined up, and some of them get 
their clothes pulled and their faces slapped 
while they are being searched. Somewhere beneath 
all these daily humiliations burns the unnamed 
sentiment: azadi.

One reason that there is no Indian tolerance for 
this word in the context of Kashmir is that the 
desire for "freedom" immediately implies that its 
opposite is the case: Kashmir is not free. By the 
logic of the Indian state, India is free and 
Kashmir is a part of India, ergo, Kashmir too, 
must be free. But Kak's images provide visual 
attestation for something diametrically opposed 
to this logic: the reality of occupation. Kashmir 
is occupied by Indian troops, somewhat like 
Palestine is by Israeli troops, and Iraq is by 
American and coalition troops. But wait, objects 
the Indian viewer.

Palestinians are Muslims and Israelis are Jews; 
Iraqis are Iraqis and Americans are 
Americans--how are their dynamics comparable to 
the situation in Kashmir? Indians and Kashmiris 
are all Indian; Muslims and non-Muslims in 
Kashmir (or anywhere in India) are all Indian. 
Neither the criterion of nationality nor the 
criterion of religion is applicable to explain 
what it is that puts Indian troops and Kashmiri 
citizens on either side of a line of hostility. 
How can we speak of an "occupation" when there 
are no enemies, no foreigners and no outsiders in 
the picture at all? And if occupation makes no 
sense, then how can azadi make any sense?

Kak explained to an audience at a recent 
screening of his film in Boston (23/09) that he 
could only begin to approach the subject of his 
film, azadi, after he had made it past three 
barriers to understanding that stand in the way 
of an Indian mind trying to grasp what is going 
on in Kashmir. The first of these is secularism. 
Since India is a secular country, most Indians do 
not even begin to see how unrest in any part of 
the country could be explained using 
religion--that too what is, in the larger 
picture, a minority religion--as a valid ground 
for the political self-definition and 
self-determination of a community. The Valley of 
Kashmir is 95% Muslim. Does this mean that 
Kashmiris get to have their own nation? For most 
Indians, the answer is simply: No. Kashmiri 
Muslims are no more entitled to a separate nation 
than were the Sikhs who supported the idea of 
Khalistan in the 1980s. Such claims replay, for 
Indians, the worst memories of Partition in 1947, 
and bring back the ghost of Jinnah's two-nation 
theory to haunt India's secular polity and to 
threaten it from within.

The second barrier to understanding, related to 
the struggle over secularism, is the flight of 
the Pandits, Kashmir's erstwhile 4% Hindu 
minority community, following violent incidents 
in 1990. 160,000 Pandits fled the Valley in that 
year's exodus, leaving behind homes, lands and 
jobs they have yet to recover. Today the Pandits 
live, if not in Indian and foreign cities, then 
in refugee settlements that have become 
semi-permanent, most notably in Jammu and Delhi. 
For Indians, even if they do little or nothing to 
rehabilitate Pandits into the Indian mainstream, 
the persecution of the Pandits at the hands of 
their fellow-Kashmiris, following the fault-lines 
of religious difference and the minority-majority 
divide, is a deeply alienating feature of 
Kashmir's conflict. Kashmir's Muslim leadership 
has consistently expressed regret for what 
happened to the Pandits in the first phase of the 
struggle for azadi, but it has not, on the other 
hand, made any serious effort to bring back the 
exiled Hindus either. In failing to ensure the 
safety of the Pandits, Kashmir has lost a vital 
connection with the Indian state--and, 
potentially, a source of legitimacy for its claim 
to an exceptional status as a sovereign entity.

The third major obstruction to India taking a 
sympathetic view of Kashmir is the problem of 
trans-national jihad. Throughout the 1990s, 
Kashmir's indigenous movements for azadi have 
received varying degrees of support, in the form 
of funds, arms, fighting men, and ideological 
solidarity, not only from the government of 
Pakistan, but also from Islamist forces all 
across Central Asia and the Middle East. The 
reality of Pakistani support, and the presence of 
foreign fighters, from an Indian perspective, 
damages the claim for azadi beyond repair.

Kashmiri exceptionalism in fact has an old history.


Yet even if we do not want to go as far back as 
pre-modern and colonial times, then at the very 
least right from 1947, Kashmir has never really 
broken away completely like the parts of British 
India that became Pakistan, nor has it 
assimilated properly, like the other elements 
that formed the Indian republic. The status of 
Kashmir has always been uncertain, in free India. 
But with the involvement of pan-Asian or global 
Islamist players, starting with Pakistan but by 
no means limited to it, the past gives way to the 
present.

India no longer deals with Kashmir as though it 
were still the place that was ruled by a Hindu 
king until 1947 and never fully came on board the 
Indian nation in the subsequent 50 years. It now 
looks upon Kashmir as the Indian end of the 
burning swath of Islamist insurgency that engulfs 
most of the region. In quelling azadi the Indian 
state sees itself as engaged in putting out the 
much larger fires of jihad that have breached the 
walls of the nation and entered into its most 
inflammable--because Muslim-majority--section.

Secularism, the Pandits and jihad are all very 
real impediments to India actually being able to 
see what is equally real, namely, the Kashmiri 
longing for azadi. Kak explained to his viewers 
that to be able to portray azadi from the inside, 
he had to get through and past these barriers, to 
the place where Kashmiris inhabit their peculiar 
and tragic combination of resistance and 
vulnerability, their dream of a separate identity 
and their confrontation with an overwhelmingly 
powerful adversary. Their misery is palpable but 
they have yet to find a politics adequate to 
transform dissatisfaction into independence. 
Kashmiris do not agree on a singular meaning of 
the word "azadi". Meanwhile, in the face of brute 
oppression, they do not fully fight back, but 
they do not submit either.

Kak subtly captures their strangeness as a 
people: they recount how they lost sons and 
husbands to a random, ubiquitous and unforgiving 
violence, and, in the midst of gruesome 
narrations, offer the questioner tea. They walk 
among the dead, through lots covered with marked 
and unmarked graves, speaking of the departed in 
a weird idiom that mixes the language of 
martyrdom with the everydayness of life that must 
continue. Their poets, whether Muslim or Pandit, 
compose verses that in Kashmiri, Urdu or English 
carry the same unmistakable note of pain, even as 
they mirror a landscape of mountain lakes, 
blooming flowers and delicately-hued skies. (A 
few years ago Amar Kanwar's documentary Night of 
Prophecy also brought to Indian audiences the 
same poignancy of poetry written by Kashmiris 
that confronts torture, disappearance and death 
in a place of unearthly natural beauty). Their 
traditional entertainers, village bards and 
clowns, called "Pather Bhand", remember their 
patron, the medieval pir (Sufi saint) Zain ul 
Abidin, or Zain Shah, and tell tales of war and 
destitution with a mischievous light-heartedness 
that makes you cry instead of making you laugh. 
Women cover their heads but look at the camera 
with unnerving directness, insouciant, 
beleaguered but never submissive. These are a wry 
people, part defeated, part unconquerable.

Their breathtakingly beautiful land stands at the 
crossroads of East Asian, Central Asian and South 
Asian cultures. For centuries, different races, 
religions and ethnicities have trampled through 
Kashmir, subduing its people on their way. But 
the Kashmiri language bears little relationship 
to any other languages of Persia, India, 
Afghanistan, Tibet or China, its nearest 
neighbours.

Kashmir has always kept its head down as the 
winds of history have blown over and across the 
mountains, turned inward in an isolation that 
feeds the desire for azadi but does not provide 
the political wherewithal, the canniness, to 
carve out a separate nation in a world where 
might makes right.

Here the Indian Army arrives, one Indian soldier 
to every 10 Kashmiris. Here the Indian tourists 
arrive, as Kak shows us, sledding in snowy 
Gulmarg, dressing up in "native" costume to have 
photographs taken in the Mughal Gardens of 
Srinagar, calling blood-spattered Kashmir a 
veritable Paradise. Here the sadhus in saffron 
robes arrive, on their way to the holy shrine at 
Amarnath, on their annual pilgrimage, invoking, 
in the same breath, the Hindu god Shiva and the 
Indian flag, the "tiranga" ("tri-colour"). You 
cannot take away what is ours, say these people. 
Ah, but you cannot keep what was never yours, 
either. India for Indians; Kashmir for Kashmiris: 
this is the fugitive logic that the filmmaker is 
seeking to make explicit.

Kak has set himself a nearly impossible task. He 
must take Indians with him, on his difficult 
journey, past their prejudices, past their 
suspicions, past their very real fears, into the 
nightmarish world of Kashmiri citizens, torn 
apart between the militants and the military, 
stuck with the after-effects of bombings, 
mine-blasts, crackdowns, arrests, encounter 
killings and disappearances that have gone on for 
nearly two decades without pause.

I became interested in Kashmir at the same time, 
for the same reason, that Kak began his 
investigations: the trial of S.A.R. Geelani, 
accused and later acquitted in the December 13, 
2001 Parliament Attack case. In 2005 I wrote a 
couple of articles about Geelani, a Kashmiri 
professor of Arabic and Persian Literature at 
Delhi University, for this and other Indian 
publications. These earned me denouncements as 
anti-national, self-hating, anti-Hindu, pro- 
Pakistani, crypto-Muslim, etc. One letter to the 
editor even called me a terrorist! Kak has 
already had a taste of this reaction since the 
release of Jashn-e-Azadi in March, and must 
expect more of it to be coming his way in the 
next few months, as his film is shown widely in 
India and abroad. In fact, he is sure to get more 
flak that I ever got, given he is a Kashmiri 
Pandit.

Aggressively Hindu nationalist, right-wing Pandit 
groups find Kak's empathy for Kashmiri Muslim 
positions infuriating, a "betrayal" that enrages 
them much more than that of a merely (apparently) 
Hindu--non-Pandit--sympathizer like myself. But 
like Israeli refuseniks, there is reason to 
believe that now India too has its own 
nay-sayers, who cannot condone the presence of 
the Indian armed forces in Kashmir or the 
continued refusal of the Indian state to engage 
with Kashmiris on the question of azadi. Kak 
himself makes the comparison to Palestine by 
calling the azadi movement of the early 90s 
"Kashmir's Intifada".

What allows someone like me--born, raised and 
educated in India, secular, committed to the 
longevity and flourishing of the Indian nation in 
every sense--to get, as it were, the meaning, the 
reality, and the validity, of Kashmir's agonized 
search for azadi? Why do I not want my army to 
take or keep Kashmir by force, or my 
fellow-citizens to enjoy their annual vacations 
as unthinking, insensitive tourists, winter or 
summer? Why do abandoned Pandit homesteads affect 
me as much as charred Muslim houses, and why do I 
think that neither will be rebuilt and 
re-inhabited, nor will they be full of life as 
they once were, unless first and foremost, the 
military bunkers are taken down?

The answer comes from my own history, the history of India.


If ever there was a people who ought to know what 
azadi is, and to value it, it is Indians. 60 
years ago India attained its own azadi, long 
sought, hard fought, and bought at the price of a 
terrible, irreparable Partition. My parents were 
born in pre-Independence India, and to them and 
those of their generation, it is possible to 
recall a time before azadi.

Kak's film incorporates video footage from the 
early 1990s, taken from sources he either cannot 
or will not reveal. In those images of Kashmiris 
protesting en masse on the streets of Srinagar, 
funeral processions of popular leaders, women 
lamenting the dead as martyrs in the path of 
azadi, terrorist training camps, the statements 
of torture victims about to breathe their last 
and BSF operations ending in the surrender of 
militants, the seething passions of nationalism 
come right at you from the screen, leaping from 
their context in Kashmir and connecting back to 
the mass movements of India's long struggle 
against British colonialism, from 1857 to 1947. 
No Indian viewer, in those moments of collective 
and euphoric protest against oppression, could 
fail to be moved, or to be reminded of how it was 
that we came to have something close to every 
Indian heart: our political freedom, our status 
as an independent nation, in charge of our own 
destiny.

The irony is that azadi is not something we do 
not and cannot ever understand, but that it is 
something we know all about, intimately, from our 
own history. What frightens us is not the alien 
nature of the sentiment in every Kashmiri breast: 
what frightens is its familiarity, its echo of 
our own desire for nationhood that found its 
voice, albeit after great bloodshed, six decades 
ago.

The British and French invented modern democracy 
at home, but colonized the rest of the world. The 
Jews suffered the Holocaust, but Israel 
brutalizes Palestine. India blazed the way for 
the decolonization of dozens of Asian and African 
countries, and established itself as the world's 
largest democracy, yet it turns away from Kashmir 
and its quest for freedom, and worse, goes all 
out to crush the will of the Kashmiri people. 
Indians with a conscience--and perhaps Kak's film 
will help sensitize and educate many more, 
especially the young--ought not stand for this 
desecration of the very ground upon which our 
nationality rests. After all, we learnt two words 
together--"azadi" and "swaraj", freedom and 
self-rule--and on these foundations was our 
nation built.

We are a people who barely two generations ago 
not only fought for our own freedom--our leaders, 
Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, and so many others, 
taught the whole of the colonized world how to 
speak the language of self-respect and 
sovereignty. We of all people should strive for a 
time when it will become possible for a Kashmiri 
to offer a visitor a cup of tea without rancour 
or irony, as a simple uncomplicated expression of 
the hospitality that comes naturally to those who 
belong to this culture. We should join the 
Kashmiris in their search for a city animated by 
commerce and conversation, not haunted by the 
ghosts of the dead and the fled. We should 
support them, whether they be Muslims or Hindus, 
in turning their grief, so visible in Kak's 
courageous work of witnessing, into a genuine 
"jashn", a celebration, of a freedom that has 
been too long in the coming.

Anything less would make us lesser Indians.

Ananya Vajpeyi is a Fellow at the Nehru Memorial 
Museum and Library, New Delhi (2005-2008)

______


[8]

Book Review / The Hindu
Oct 02, 2007 

NOT JUST AN URBAN PHENOMENON

by Prema A. Kurien

Ethnographic account of the emergence of Hindu 
nationalism in a tribal community in Chhattisgarh


RELIGIOUS DIVISION AND SOCIAL CONFLICT-The 
Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in Rural India: 
Peggy Froerer, Social Science Press, New Delhi, 
Distributed by Orient Longman Pvt. Ltd., 1/24, 
Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 650.

Most of the literature on the spread of Hindu 
nationalism in India to date has focussed on 
urban areas, the middle classes, and the use of 
mass media and public festivals to disseminate 
the message. Peggy Froerer's book in contrast, 
examines the transmission of Hindu nationalist 
ideas by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak 
Sangh (RSS) to rural "adivasis" and the impact it 
came to have on inter-group relations, in 
particular the relations between Christia ns and 
Hindus. She argues that it is particularly 
important to understand how the Hindutva ideology 
has penetrated into the everyday lives of 
"adivasi groups" because despite the setbacks 
that the movement has received at the national 
level, it seems to be gaining in strength in 
states with large "adivasi" populations.

Ethnographic study

The book is based on a two year (1997-99) 
ethnographic study of Mohanpur, a village in a 
remote and densely forested area of Chhattisgarh, 
central India. Mohanpur comprised 164 households 
with Hindu "adivasi" families forming the 
majority. However, there were also 43 households 
belonging to Catholic "Oraon adivasi" settlers 
who had migrated to the area from the 
neighbouring district. The "Oraons" were ranked 
the lowest on the local caste hierarchy and were 
considered to be untouchable by the Hindu 
community. The majority of the Hindu households 
were agriculturalists but most "Oraons" worked as 
labourers in the industrial town, 40 km away. 
"Oraons" also made some additional money by 
producing liquor and selling it to the Hindu 
community. These two sources of income, together 
with the fact that the Catholic church 
discouraged their members from engaging in many 
of the expensive rituals practised by the local 
Hindu groups meant that the "Oraons", in the 
course of their one generation settlement in the 
area, were able to gain in material prosperity 
and even outstrip the economic position of the 
landowning dominant caste in the village. They 
were consequently able to take over (on 
usufructuary arrangements) land mortgaged by 
Hindus in times of economic need. This reversal 
of community fortunes of the dominant "Ratiya 
Kanwar" caste and the "Oraons" led to the 
development of local tensions. The book narrates 
the manner in which the RSS workers were able to 
harness and frame these tensions in larger 
communal terms.
Mission

The local RSS leader, Raj, was a member of 
Mohanpur from a "Ratiya Kanwar" family who had 
completed his schooling at a Catholic school and 
had gone to the city in search of a university 
education and a good job. Failing at these 
attempts, he turned to the RSS, embraced the 
Hindutva ideology, and became a "pracharak". 
Subsequently, he and some of his RSS friends had 
taken on the task of disseminating the Hindutva 
message to "adivasis" in the area and had started 
visiting the village regularly from the city. 
Using his position as a member of a prominent 
local family, Raj was able to recruit some other 
young men from the village to help him in his 
mission. Since their main opponent in the area 
was the Catholic church, Raj and his friends 
developed a strategy of attacking but also 
emulating the practices of their rival.
Strategies

Froerer argues that the local RSS pracharaks 
mimicked the strategies used by the church, 
primarily its 'civilising mission.' Thus, like 
the church, the civilising strategy of the RSS 
involved trying to purge the "adivasis" of their 
'jangli' or backward religious practices and 
getting them to adopt the deities, rituals, and 
festivals of 'proper' or city Hinduism. The RSS 
workers also gained local support by getting 
involved in the kind of civic activism that 
Christian missionaries had undertaken for 
generations, such as setting up schools, 
hospitals, and focussing on the economic and 
political rights of their constituents. Raj set 
up a local nursery school, established a local 
health worker to take care of the routine medical 
needs of the area, and also got a corrupt village 
official dismissed from his position. Through 
these strategies, the RSS leaders were able, over 
time, to cultivate a Hindu identity among the 
"adivasis" and link them to the larger Hindu 
nation. They also reinforced the 'sons of the 
soil' politics of entitlement of the local Hindus 
and created a wedge between them and the "Oraons" 
by defining the latter as Christian outsiders who 
were part of a national conspiracy to impoverish 
and decimate the Hindu community. Eventually, the 
RSS "pracharaks" were able to obtain legitimacy 
to use aggressive tactics to implement their 
agenda.

This is a carefully analysed and well-written 
ethnography which provides an excellent lens into 
grassroots processes by which Hindu nationalism 
becomes entrenched in rural areas. It deserves a 
wide audience since it cautions against the 
facile assumption that the Hindutva movement is 
merely an urban phenomenon and that it will soon 
disappear due to its electoral defeat.


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