SACW | Oct. 25-27, 2007 | Gujarat's fascists roam freely 5 yrs after pogrom (Tehelka investigation)
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Fri Oct 26 20:10:21 CDT 2007
South Asia Citizens Wire | October 25-27, 2007 |
Dispatch No. 2464 - Year 10 running
[1] Sri Lanka:
(i) Attack On Anuradhapura Airforce Base Highlights Cost Of War
(ii) The Peace Process In Sri Lanka (Rohini Hensman)
[2] Pakistan: Beheading women, what next? (Anis Haroon)
[3] India: Gujarat Pogrom of 2002: 5 years on the
truth uncovered by an undercover media
investigation
(i) Gujarat : The Truth
Lest We Forget Our Shame (Editorial by Harinder Baweja)
+ A series of investigative reports and spycam videos (Ashish Khetan)
(ii) 'A Black Day For Democracy' Message from
Shabnam Hashmi on blocking of TV broadcasts in
Gujarat
(iii) Hindus Detail Involvement In Deadly '02 Riots in India (Rama Lakshmi)
(iv) Gujarat Pogroms: Take Immediate Action
(statement Communist Party of India (Marxist))
(v) Outraged Indian Americans Demand the
dismissal of Gujarat State Government in India
(Press Release)
[4] India: The marked people (Harsh Mander)
[5] On India's Foreign Policy:
- America's Strategic Opportunity With India: The
New U.S.-India Partnership (R. Nicholas Burns)
- The Future of Indian Foreign Policy (Itty Abraham)
[6] Announcements:
(i) Citizens Meet on Non-Implementation of
Srikrishna Commission Report (Ahmedabad, 29
October, 2007)
(ii) Meeting on citizens documentation of human
rights violations (Colombo, 31 October 2007)
(iii) 1857 Rebellion in India: Exhibit, films,
conference, lectures (Delhi, 26 October -
December 2007)
______
[1] SRI LANKA
(i)
National Peace Council
of Sri Lanka
12/14 Purana Vihara Road
Colombo 6
Tel: 2818344, 2854127, 2819064
Tel/Fax:2819064
E Mail: npc at sltnet.lk,
Internet: www.peace-srilanka.org
27.10.07
Media Release
ATTACK ON ANURADHAPURA AIRFORCE BASE HIGHLIGHTS COST OF WAR
The LTTEís ground and air attack on the
Anuradhapura Air Force base and destruction
caused to at least 8 military aircraft and the
loss of over 31 lives is a harsh reminder of the
terrible costs of war. The manner in which the
LTTE sent in 21 suicide cadre to perform the
ground attack, and the manner in which their
naked bodies were exposed by government
authorities after the attack, are a manifestation
of the disregard for human life and civilized
norms that is accompanying the conflict. Apart
from the human cost, the economic cost of the
attack will mean further and longer
impoverishment of the country and its people. If
this state of affairs continues, the human and
economic costs are likely rise to unbearable
proportions and civilized values will further
collapse.
The attack on the Anuradhapura Air Force base is
also an indication that the theatre of military
action cannot be confined to the contested north
and east of the country. This has been seen in
previous instances as well, such as the LTTE
attack on Katunayake International Airport in
2001 and numerous bomb attacks in Colombo. The
governmentís victories in the east have been
accompanied by the spread of fighting in the
north and outside of it in the south. It is
tragic that history is repeating itself with
catastrophic consequences to the lives of people
and to the economy, but the military and
political leaders of the country fail to learn
from the past.
At the recently held International Conference on
Countering Terrorism in Colombo which was hosted
by the Sri Lankan government, the terrorist
dimension of the ongoing conflict in Sri Lanka
received primary attention to the neglect of the
need for a political solution to the ethnic
conflict. However, many of the international
experts invited by the government who addressed
the conference, including the keynote speaker Dr
Gerard Chaliard who was former head of the
European Centre for the Study of Conflicts, were
of the view that without a convincing and
legitimate political solution, there could be no
end to terrorism.
The National Peace Council regrets the All Party
Conference convened by President Rajapaksa is
engaging in a desultory journey without any
leadership whatsoever being provided by the key
decision makers in the government. We also regret
the recent equivocal stance on a federal solution
by the UNP, which earlier indicated its support
for such a solution, and call on it to rejoin the
All Party Conference in collaboration with the
government. In this time of national shock and
apprehension, we call on the government to learn
from international experience and Sri Lankaís own
past and to provide bold leadership to developing
a political solution to the ethnic conflict in
collaboration with the opposition and ethnic
minority parties as the basic foundation to
ending the war.
Executive Director
On behalf of the Governing Council
o o o
(ii)
THE PEACE PROCESS IN SRI LANKA
by Rohini Hensman
The 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA)
With rumours of quiet diplomacy on the part of
the Norwegian government to begin a new round of
negotiations between the Government of Sri Lanka
(GoSL) and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) in the air, it is important to reiterate
the lessons learned from the breakdown of the
earlier Norwegian-backed peace process. The
intervention of the Norwegian mediators led to
the signing of the 2002 CFA between the GoSL and
LTTE. The agreement led to an immediate
cessation of fighting, and in that sense was
beneficial; but it also contained the seeds of
its own breakdown and that, too, in the most
catastrophic manner.
Its obvious bias towards the LTTE not only
provided justification for Sinhala nationalist
attacks on it, but also had dire consequences for
Tamil dissidents. Those who were laid down their
weapons under the sub-clause specifying that
Tamil paramilitary groups would be disarmed
became easy prey for LTTE death squads.
Similarly, the freedom of movement for 'political
work' allowed to LTTE cadres in territory
controlled by the government allowed them to pick
off unarmed Tamil critics at will and forcibly
conscript Tamil children into their armed forces.
Thus the CFA authorised the decimation of the
Tamil constituency for peace by cold-blooded
murder, even while it delegitimised the Sinhalese
constituency for peace by associating it with an
asymmetric agreement: the government forces were
not given any similar right to conduct 'political
work' in LTTE-controlled areas. Muslims were shut
out altogether, despite their vital interest in
the outcome of the talks and the conditions under
which they were taking place. Admittedly,
Sinhalese liberals, local NGOs and international
NGOs who supported the CFA assisted in the
process of delegitimising themselves by failing
to point out its glaring weaknesses.
In Article 2 of the CFA, ‘Measures to restore
normalcy,' it was mentioned in passing that ‘The
Parties shall in accordance with international
law abstain from hostile acts against the
civilian population, including such acts as
torture, intimidation, abduction, extortion and
harassment.' Yet the mechanism set up for
ensuring this was truly laughable. The Nordic Sri
Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) with a Norwegian
Head, charged with monitoring the CFA, would set
up local monitoring committees consisting of five
members, two appointed by the GoSL, two by the
LTTE, and one international monitor appointed by
the Head of the SLMM. Thus civilians complaining
of hostile acts against them – the abduction of
their children, for example – would find
themselves reporting to the violators, and
subjected thereafter to reprisals which might
include the torture or death of the child they
were trying to rescue. It is not surprising that
many violations – at this stage, mostly by the
LTTE – were not reported, and even those that
were reported were seldom redressed.
Indeed, the SLMM and Norwegian mediators suffered
from a conflict of interest when it came to
taking action on human rights issues. Their main
mandate was to stop the armed conflict, and they
therefore refrained from putting too much
emphasis on preventing or redressing violations
against unarmed actors in case such action might
derail the so-called peace process. Thus the lack
of a human rights agreement with separate
monitors, independent of the GoSL, LTTE and SLMM,
ensured that civilians in the North and East
would pay a heavy price for the temporary
cessation of hostilities. It also allowed the
LTTE to build up and expand its military hardware
as well as armed forces. The Norwegian government
was directly responsible for assisting this
process by its financial contributions to the
LTTE and its propagation within the international
community of the fascistic notion of the LTTE as
the sole representative of the Tamils of Sri
Lanka.
The CFA started off by saying that its overall
purpose was ‘to find a negotiated solution to the
ongoing ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka', and yet
there was absolutely nothing in the agreement
that could contribute to such an objective. At a
minimum, there should have been some mention of
the necessary participants to such a discussion,
but there was none, making clear the assumption
that NO ONE OTHER THAN THE GOSL AND LTTE WOULD BE
INVOLVED IN NEGOTIATING A POLITICAL SOLUTION TO
THE CONFLICT.
It was assumed, in other words, that no Muslims,
no political parties outside the government, and
no civil society groups would have any say
whatsoever in the shape of a future Sri Lanka!
Such a blatant contradiction of all democratic
norms could only reinforce totalitarian
tendencies among both the Sinhalese and the
Tamils. Moreover, it allowed the LTTE to put
forward its proposals for an Interim Self
Governing Authority (ISGA) that would have
resulted in international recognition of its
dictatorship over the North-East of Sri Lanka.
Given the lack of any conception of an acceptable
end result to the negotiations, opponents of the
ISGA could be characterised as Sinhala
chauvinists – which, indeed, some of them were –
without much critical appraisal of what the
proposals themselves would mean for the people of
the North-East in particular and Sri Lanka in
general. Again, hardline Sinhala nationalists
gained strength from this whole exercise.
Thus the CFA not only guaranteed its own demise,
but also ensured that when it did finally break
down, the consequences would be ghastly. By
strengthening the extremists among both Tamils
and Sinhalese and sidelining the moderates, by
emphasising military might at the expense of
human rights, and above all by throwing democracy
aside as though it had no importance in the
solution to the conflict, the CFA, along with its
Norwegian sponsors as well as local and
international supporters, created the
preconditions for the atrocities that have
accompanied Eelam War IV.
A New Phase
We have moved forward considerably from the
situation when the 2002 CFA was signed. Partly as
a consequence of relentless campaigning by Tamil
human rights activists, the ‘conflict resolution'
paradigm, which favours those who possess
military and political power, has been abandoned
in favour of an international law paradigm, which
defends the human and democratic rights of
civilians against all those who wield arbitrary
power over them. This has resulted in many
international NGOs, governments and the UN
recognising the egregious human rights abuses
perpetrated by the LTTE and penalising it for
them. It has also shifted the emphasis from
simply demanding an end to the fighting to
demanding respect for international humanitarian
and human rights law from all combatants and
their commanders. The recent visit to Sri Lanka
of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise
Arbour, in which she offered greater cooperation
between her office and the government to stem
human rights violations, is an example of this
new approach. In principle, this is the
application to Sri Lanka of laws applicable
worldwide.
While the UN may not have the power to impose
respect for human rights on powerful nations –
indeed, it does not have the power to impose its
solutions even on a small nation like Sri Lanka –
wherever it does succeed, it is to the benefit of
victims of violence, regardless of who they are,
and who is inflicting the violence. In Sri Lanka,
for example, it would target human rights abuses
by government forces, the LTTE and other armed
actors equally.
The other area in which progress has been made is
in the proposals for a permanent political
solution to the conflict worked out in the
All-Party Representative Committee (APRC). The
fact that this has included actors kept out by
the Norwegian-backed peace process (Muslims, for
example) and has taken account of their concerns
is a huge improvement on the earlier situation.
Again, international pressure to accelerate the
process of arriving at proposals acceptable to
the democratic majority of all communities plays
a positive role. Moreover, the public debate and
transparency of the procedures is a breath of
fresh air.
The Way Forward
The Norwegian-backed negotiations made a major
contribution to the mess we are in today by (a)
colluding in the murder of Tamils who favoured
peace in a united Sri Lanka, helping to discredit
pro-peace Sinhalese as LTTE collaborators, and
excluding Muslims who had a vital interest in the
process; (b) helping the LTTE to build up their
land, sea and air forces in preparation for
launching Eelam War IV; (c) and downplaying
concerns with human rights and democracy, thus
ensuring that when the inevitable breakdown of
the CFA took place, the resulting war would be
exceedingly brutal.
Despite appearances to the contrary, we have come
a long way since then, and MUST NOT go back to a
process that will simply waste the lives lost in
the expensive learning process we have been
engaged in, and lead to more loss of life in the
future. It is now very clear that if the
international community genuinely wishes to help
bring about peace in Sri Lanka, it needs to: (1)
put pressure on the GoSL and LTTE to accept and
cooperate with a UN human rights monitoring
mission in the areas under their control, thus
helping to bring to an end the most heinous
violations of international human rights and
humanitarian law by both sides; (2) put pressure
on the government to allow the APRC to come out
with its proposals for a political solution that
were broadly accepted by the democratic majority
of all communities instead of throwing a spanner
in the works at every opportunity; (3) in
accordance with democratic norms, ensure that all
stakeholders in the peace process are represented
in future peace talks, especially the Muslims who
were deliberately excluded by the Norwegians; and
(4) ensure that all talks are public and
transparent. These measures will provide
much-needed support to the genuine peace
constituency in Sri Lanka and among the Sri
Lankan diaspora.
______
[2]
The Dawn
October 26, 2007
BEHEADING WOMEN, WHAT NEXT?
by Anis Haroon
TODAY the NWFP presents a grim picture of
religious militancy. The Islamic vigilantes have
lashed out brutally at the people, especially
women, causing widespread fear. Only last month,
two women were beheaded in Bannu. It shocked us
no end. These women were killed on the pretext of
'having been involved in immoral acts', what-ever
that may mean.
But equally terrible was the absence of public
outrage. Except for protests by a few women's
groups, some NGOs and a couple or so of
editorials in the national newspapers, there was
no reaction whatsoever, although it made front
page news.
Shaken out of our apathy, we at the Aurat
Foundation decided to conduct our own little
inquiry into this gruesome incident. Putting
itself at considerable risk, a team of four from
our regional office in Peshawar, including women
clad in 'shuttlecock' burqas, undertook the
arduous journey to Bannu on Sept 21.
When it called on the DIG Bannu, Amir Hamza
Mehsood, our probe team was told that 'three
armed men intercepted an auto-rickshaw near Skri
Gate in the Cantonment area and forcibly abducted
two women Moeena and Maliki, while a third one
Rashida, managed to escape'. The women were in
their mid-40s and were returning from a local
hospital. Their bodies were found dumped in a
canal in Momandkhel on Sept 7. A note from the
local militants left near them read, 'All men and
women running brothels, including the one who
escaped on Thursday, are hereby warned. They
should wind up their ugly business or they will
meet the same fate.'Later, the surviving woman's
house was attacked with grenades and the family
is so intimidated that it refuses to talk to
anyone. The district police officer described
this as the first ever case in the area where
women were beheaded for 'immorality'. But the
question is: who decided that these women were
prostitutes? Even if they were, how could
militants be allowed to take the law into their
own hands?
The DIG perceives the Bannu security situation as
an extension of the Waziristan conflict. The
law-enforcement agencies claim to be at war with
the militants. These elements are obscurantist in
their outlook so women's rights mean nothing to
them, the police chief observed. Recalling what
now look like the halcyon days of 2004 when he
was posted there as DIG, he said he could go out
for morning walks. Now he worries until his
children return home from school.
But what is the police's response to this
incident? They are not seriously investigating
the case which has led people to suspect that
they are involved. A local journalist showed the
AF team three threatening letter-cum-press
releases from unknown 'mujahideen'. Interestingly
they were all posted from Peshawar.
Bannu is no longer safe for women. The director
of the Aurat Foundation, Rakhshanda Naz, says, 'I
have lived in Bannu for several years by myself.
But now the place is scary and desolate. People
you see on the streets look terrified.' One
hardly sees women in public and those who come
out return home by noon because good women are
not supposed to be seen outside their homes.
Identifying two brands of militancy in Bannu, the
DIG says the real Taliban apparently respect
women. But worse are the common criminals who are
acting in the guise of the Taliban. He mentioned
two cases where police encounters with apparently
religious extremists had caused the latter to
surrender and they turned out to be ordinary
criminals. Now people do not feel safe and are
fleeing Bannu.As happens when law and order
breaks down, the unscrupulous and the criminals
exploit the situation. In the beheading case, one
of the women was the second wife of a man whose
son from the first wife had joined the Taliban.
He was suspected of being behind the murders.
Conveniently, she was charged with running a
brothel - a charge that sealed her fate and
ensured that no questions would be asked.
Civil society in Bannu is worried. What next?
Will women walking without a veil or seen talking
to a man become the target for the vigilantes'
beheading spree? Who will check them? According
to Ikramullah, an advocate, 'This incident in the
hometown of the NWFP chief minister is a sad
reflection on the inability of the government to
act against the militants.'
We are faced with a grim situation. Civil society
and politicians are more concerned about the
'morality of victims' rather than the gross
violation of human rights. It is the security
dimension of the incident that has upset people
but no one is ready to agitate against the
incident. Some conceded that they had never heard
about the brothel before the murders.
From music and CD shops, the vigilantes have
expanded the sphere of their activity to women.
Previously, the punishment involved burning and
destroying shops and there was little or no loss
of life. But now women are at risk. The police
are ostensibly upset at the situation, but more
at the attacks on the police than by the death of
the women.
The writer is resident director, Aurat Foundation, Karachi.
______
[3] [Gujarat Pogrom of 2002: Five years on The
Truth Uncovered by an undercover media
investigation.
India's crumbling secular state must take note
and arrest the men from the Hindu far right who
organised the killings. Materials gathered by the
Tehelka investigation should be used as evidence
and the men charged now.]
(i) Tehelka, issue of November 3, 2007
GUJARAT [2002]: THE TRUTH
Tehelka's Ground breaking investigation
108 Pages + Spycam Videos [www.tehelka.com / www.tehelkahindi.com]
Editor's Cut
Lest We Forget Our Shame
HARINDER BAWEJA
http://tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107Editor'sCut.asp
[Below Stories by Ashish Khetan]
CONSPIRATORS & RIOTERS
First-hand accounts from the men who plotted and
executed the genocide in Ahmedabad, Vadodara and
Sabarkantha. Mayhem was meticulously planned and
carried out by VHP-Bajrang Dal cadres across
Muslim localities. READ »
http://tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107Overview_Conspirators.asp
THE BOMB MAKERS
The VHP and the Bajrang Dal manufactured and
distributed lethal weapons across the state,
often with the connivance of the police. READ »
http://tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107The_Bombmakers.asp
ROLE OF THE POLICE
Shocking accounts of how the guardians of the law
colluded with the outlaws to make Gujarat's
horror even worse. READ »
http://tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107RoleOfPolice_Overview.asp
WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT MODI
Key BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal activists speak
openly of how Narendra Modi blessed the
anti-Muslim pogrom . READ »
http://tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107What_They_Said.asp
LEGAL SUBVERSION
How public prosecutors ran with the hare and
hunted with the hound, keeping their sympathies
strictly for the accused. Government Counsel
Arvind Pandya on how he hopes to subvert justice
by manipulating the Nanavati-Shah Commission, set
up to ascertain the truth. READ »
http://tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107Legal_subversion.asp
DANCE OF HATE
The truth behind Naroda Patiya, the grisliest
massacre of 2002. Ahmedabad police's collusion in
the pogrom and its cover-up. Gory details of how
former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was hacked limb by
limb at Gulbarg Society, in the words of those
who did it. READ »
http://tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107Dance_of_hate.asp
GODHRA: THE DIABOLIC LIE
How spontaneous mob fury was shown as a
premeditated conspiracy by the police who
produced fake witnesses by bribing, coercion and
torture. READ »
http://tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107Godhra.asp
----
Tehelka spycam videos
Babu Bajrangi
A local Bajrang Dal leader and one of the main conspirators
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfnTl_Fwvbo
Arvind Pandya
State Counsel appointed by the Narendra Modi
government to defend it before the Nanavati-Shah
Commission
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9KlevWeYrE
Ramesh Dave
VHP's point man who planned attacks on Muslims in Kalupur and Dariyapur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DRS0WyGJVo
----
Reporter's Diary
Voyager Between Two Worlds
Having been undercover on the shadow lines
between sanity and mayhem, ASHISH KHETAN retraces
a quest for truth
I HAD JUST finished breakfast and was settling
down to the newspaper when my cellphone rang in
the next room. Before I could reach it, the
caller had disconnected and left an SMS. Call me,
it read. The sender was Tarun Tejpal, my editor.
I had returned from Gujarat only a couple of days
ago, having completed a sting operation on Chief
Minister Narendra Modi's involvement in a spate
of fake encounter killings. The story had
exposed, fairly conclusively, that the Gujarat
cops - more hitmen than cops - had made quite a
practice of killing Muslims in these
"encounters". I wondered why Tarun wanted to talk
to me so early in the morning (it was almost 11,
but that, for most journalists, is an early
hour). Maybe it was about the story's fallout.
Maybe those exposed had sent a legal notice.
I dialled Tarun with questions crowding my mind.
"Ashish, have you heard about the vandalism in
Baroda", asked Tarun. Of course I'd heard. For
years, Gujarat had been in the news for all the
wrong reasons - this was one more instance of a
few lunatics, doped out on "Hindutava", going on
a rampage. This time their target was the Fine
Arts Faculty of Vadodara's Maharaja Sayajirao
University (MSU). "It's appalling," said Tarun.
The hooligans had already been on more than one
TV channel, articulating their twisted ideology,
announcing loudly to the world how the "obscene"
portrayal of Hindu deities had hurt their
religious sentiments. But there seemed a larger
motive behind the targeting of a few Fine Arts
students and professors, Tarun argued. Find out
who these people are, what they do and above all
what their views in private are as opposed to
their public postures.
As I put the phone down, I felt a sense of
melancholy enveloping me. Three back-toback
investigative reports (we had also exposed Sanjay
Dutt for his involvement in the 1993 serial
bombing and Maharashtra DGP PS Pasricha for his
illegally-gotten wealth) had made me a bit
battle-weary. I had repeatedly failed to honour
my promise to take Chris, my wife, on vacation.
It had been a while since I'd spent time with my
nine-month-old daughter. But there I was, within
a few hours of that call, packing my bags to
leave for Gujarat, a place that evoked foreboding
every time I went there.
Illustration: Sudeep Chaudhury
My first visit to Vadodara had been in the winter
of 2004, after Zaheera Sheikh - the prime witness
in the Best Bakery massacre - had made yet
another retraction in court, playing yet again
into the hands of her tormentors. As the
autorickshaw took me from Vadodara airport to
Alkapuri, the city centre where all the hotels
are, I passed places I'd visited then - the
station, the roundabouts, the restaurants. I
remembered how incredible that visit was. But the
familiarity of the place, half-blackened by
shadow, half illuminated by streetlights, only
made me the more sombre. Now, as in 2004, I had
set out for a story, armed with nothing more than
a couple of spycams and some daredevilry.
Now, as then, the biggest question was where to
start? And, now as then, I knew nobody, not a
soul in this alien land. A magic, perhaps divine
intervention had seen me through my 2004 visit -
within a fortnight of my arrival, I'd been
sitting right before Zaheera's chief tormentor,
BJP MLA Madhu Srivastava, the local ganglord, in
his own front garden, he on a swing, I on a
shabby plastic chair, with a spycam on my lap.
Then, as now, my brief was simple. Nothing was
adding up in the Zaheera episode, Tarun had said.
I was to join together the scattered pieces and
complete the picture. And when completed, it
added up to a nice round figure: Rs 18 lakh. The
sum Srivastava had paid Zaheera to buy her
silence. But that was then. Miracles don't happen
everyday, I told myself. Still I had to give it a
shot.
After a frantic search for a reasonably priced
hotel room, I checked into Hotel Aditi
International, Room No 506. Except for its name,
there was nothing grand about the hotel. The
peeling paint and the murky light of the bare
room, did little to cheer me up. Maybe a few
cigarettes would bring some clarity. Then, an
idea floated up, above the plume of self-doubt
and nicotine. Since I didn't know where to go,
why not take a few small steps on every lane that
opened up? And then see which road would lead to
my goal?
I hastily made a few calls to rights activists
protesting the events at MSU; I also got in touch
with a contact in Mumbai who had friends in
Gujarat. I told him to put me in touch with
people in the BJP's Vadodara unit without telling
them I was a journalist. "Tell them I'm Piyush
Aggarwal, a research scholar from Delhi
University, writing a thesis on Hindutva in
Gujarat." He said he'd give me a few references
in the morning. The next day, I called him at
10am. He did not respond. I called several times,
to no avail.
I then decided to line up meetings with a few
activists. Later in the day, one of them put me
in touch with Prof Iftikhar, who was among the
few at MSU to come out openly against the saffron
hooligans. Iftikhar spoke of how the BJP had
crowded the MSU senate and syndicate - its two
governing bodies - with men affiliated to either
the RSS or the VHP. One's appointment, promotion,
even authority in the university all hinged on
which side of the ideological divide - Right
against Centrist and Left - one was.
My Mumbai contact finally answered my call. He
gave an excuse for not having been available
earlier. I was more interested in getting the
names and numbers of local BJP men. He obliged
with a few. "I hope you've told them I'm a
research scholar, not a journalist," I said. My
contact assured me this was exactly what he'd
done. I called up Mr A. He was a bit probing,
asking questions about the nature and purpose of
my research. He didn't sound like I'd convinced
him, but he put me in touch with Mr B., who in
turn put me in touch with one Dhimant Bhatt who,
I was told, was personal assistant to the
Vadodara BJP MP and would introduce me to the
right people.
From the news, I already had the name of Neeraj
Jain, the BJP office bearer who led the ruckus at
MSU. I called up Bhatt and told him I wanted to
meet Neerajbhai Jain (bhai is an essential suffix
to most names in Gujarat). At the appointed time,
I walked into the high-ceilinged reception room
of the Vadodara BJP party office. Half an hour
later, Jain walked in, a short man in his late
30s with a newly-acquired paunch. He was fixated
with Muslims, whom he evidently considered the
root of all evil. But his hatred for Muslims did
not seem to flow naturally - it seemed more a
matter of political expediency, of routine. From
ordinary Bajrang Dal worker to Vadodara BJP
general secretary, Jain had travelled a long
enough path to know that Hate Muslims was his
ticket to political success. Vandalising
paintings in the name of Hinduism had only
enhanced his reputation.
JAIN'S MUSLIM phobia did not make a story for me.
A day passed before I decided to meet Dhimant
Bhatt who, besides being a BJP man, was the MSU
chief accountant. At 11:30am on May 19, I walked
into Bhatt's second floor office in an
administrative block on the MSU campus.
Struggling between perusing files and answering a
near-incessant string of phone calls, he was most
hospitable, offering me water, then tea, then
showing me the way to the toilet (where I
switched on the two spy cams I was wearing).
Fifteen minutes into the conversation, after
Bhatt was convinced I was as staunch a Hindu as
he was (love for Hinduism being displayed on both
sides by heaping abuse on Muslims), he uttered a
few lines which would not only redefine my story
but also, I believe, the way the nation sees the
Gujarat riots. "I was involved in burning down
the houses of Professor Bandukwala and the
bureaucrat, PeerzadaŠ Disguised as a peacekeeper,
I supplied weapons during the riotsŠ We should
put the Sangh's lathis aside and take up AK-56s
instead."
My head began to reel. Bhatt might be an
accountant by day, but his true vocation lay in
tormenting religious minorities. Destroying
paintings was, for him, a small skirmish. The
real battle had been fought and won five years
ago, in 2002. And five years ago was where the
real story lay, I told Harinder Baweja, known
also as Shammy, my immediate boss. Both Tarun and
Shammy agreed, and told me to go after the story.
Resources and time were no constraint, said
Tarun. "Let your story be the last word on the
Gujarat riots," Shammy said. And thus began a
sixmonth journey. A journey that would take me
back in time, looking to rewrite the history of
the year 2002. A journey in which my only
companions would be fear and hope - hope of
finding the truth and fear of being consumed by
it; hope of hunting down the murderers and fear
of being hunted myself. Hope, which is so rare
for so many in Gujarat. Fear, a permanent shadow,
almost an extension of your being, always lurking
at your shoulder.
I set out to meet as many VHP, BJP and RSS men as
I could. I asked Bhatt for a few introductions to
members of the 'Parivar' - all the Hindu
organisations are known collectively as 'Parivar'
or one single family - in Ahmedabad. He readily
agreed. And the journey continued, In Ahmedabad,
one man would put me in touch with another,
another with a third. A pyramid of contacts rose
and kept rising. A few days later, I asked a BJP
man if he could send me to Godhra - a small town
that had leapt out of obscurity to become one of
the most important words in the Indian political
lexicon, a tragic conundrum yet to be solved.
Next day, I was in Godhra, sitting before Kakul
Pathak, a BJP man and an eyewitness to the
Sabarmati Express fire. He referred me to Haresh
Bhatt, former Bajrang Dal president, now a BJP
MLA from Godhra. Bhatt was an extempore speaker,
a man who preferred being heard to having a
discussion. For a journalist, such men,
particularly if they have things to reveal, are a
blessing. After 45 minutes of tiring discourse on
Hindutva, I edged a question in. "We" (meaning
the Hindus; Bhatt was convinced I was an adherent
of the militant religiosity he had preached all
his life) "never keep arms. How then could we
manage to kill so many Muslims in 2002?" "If I
tell, do you promise it won't be in your book?"
(I had said I was writing a book to propagate the
VHP's brand of Hindutva.) "I made bombs, rocket
launchers, swords, and distributed them across
Gujarat. Firearms and swords were smuggled in
from other states as well. It's the first time
I'm telling anyone this outside the party
circle," he said. For a moment, I was numbed with
fear.
That was June 1, 2007. Over the next few months,
I would meet many who had been charged with
rioting and killing and many who had worked
behind the scenes. Along the way, I negotiated
dead ends, spells of despair, moments of sheer
terror. I was travelling once with Bhatt in his
car from Ahmedabad to Godhra. Mid-way, he
received a phone call. After disconnecting it, he
turned to me and said he had just been informed
that a journalist from Delhi was carrying out a
sting operation on the Sabarmati Express incident
and that he had been told to be careful. Oh,
really, I said, with a straight face.
A FEW MINUTES later, Bhatt's driver steered the
car off the main road and turned into a narrow,
deserted, kutcha road. As the car stopped outside
a desolate, one-storey house, another car pulled
up and two men got out. Bhatt and these men went
into the house and told me to wait. I had two
spy-cams on me and all it needed to blow my cover
was a body frisk. I prepared myself for the
worst. Twenty minutes later, Bhatt returned and
we set out for Godhra again. The two men went off
in a different direction. Bhatt told me he'd had
been doing business with them.
On another occasion, Bharat Bhatt, a Sabarkantha
public prosecutor, became suspicious about my
identity. Having told me how he'd threatened and
bought off Muslim witnesses, Bhatt called me as
soon as I'd taken his leave and said he had
serious doubts I was an RSS man. Within a few
minutes, another VHP man I'd stung a few days
earlier called and asked for my location.
However, I survived these close shaves and kept
sailing. Whenever the tension became too much,
I'd make a quick trip to Mumbai, to my wife and
daughter, my home, my cocoon.
For six months, I remained a voyager between two
worlds - my world, where I was Ashish Khetan, a
journalist with a Catholic wife, a daughter with
a French name and no fixed religion, and a host
of Muslim and Christian friends. And then there
was the other world, where I was Piyush Aggarwal,
a member of the "Parivar", a Hindu zealot, a
religious fanatic, with only murderers and
rapists for friends.
Nov 03, 2007
o o o
(ii)
From: "shabnam hashmi" <shabnamhashmi[AT]gmail.com>
Subject: A BLACK DAY FOR DEMOCRACY: please orward to friends
WE STRONGLY CONDEMN THE UNDEMOCRATIC DECISION BY THE GUJARAT GOVT.
aaj tak, ibn-7/cnn-ibn, ndtv- has been asked to
switch off by government forcibly in Gujarat
yesterday evening from 7:30pm There is a order
issued from District Magistrate and District
Election Officer, Ahmedabad Mr Dhananjay Dwivedi
dated 26.10.07, it states that: From 7:30 onwards
dated 25.10.07, there are programmes like
"Tehelka-Aaj Tak Khulasa", "Operation kalank" and
"Gujarat ka sach" being telecast on Aaj Tak and
IBN7 depicting visuals and statements of people
pertaining to 2002 communal riots. As per clause
5 of the cable tv network regulation, 1995, no
entity can broadcast or rebroadcast any
programme, which is not as per programming code
o o o
(iii)
Washington Post
Hindus Detail Involvement In Deadly '02 Riots in India
ON VIDEO, ASSAILANTS TELL OF STATE COLLUSION
by Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 26, 2007; A13
NEW DELHI, Oct. 25 -- Five years after one of
India's worst episodes of Hindu-Muslim violence,
a series of videotaped confessions released
Thursday showed Hindu activists acknowledging
their roles in the killings and detailing blatant
state collusion.
In the video footage, recorded as part of an
undercover expose by a New Delhi-based weekly
magazine called Tehelka, Hindu activists and
politicians bragged about hacking Muslims to
death and burning their bodies. One assailant
said he slit open a pregnant woman's stomach.
The violence began in February 2002 when a Muslim
mob torched a train in India's western Gujarat
state, killing 58 Hindu passengers. Angry Hindu
groups launched a wave of reprisal killings and
set fire to Muslim homes and shops across the
region. In all, an estimated 1,000 people died.
Human rights groups in India and the United
States have charged that Gujarat's ruling party,
the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party,
tacitly supported the mob violence against
Muslims. Several thousand cases related to the
riots are still pending in Indian courts and
state inquiry committees.
At a packed news conference on Thursday, the
editor of Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal, released the
magazine's forthcoming issue, which contains 106
pages of coverage on the killings. Two national
television channels broadcast images that had
been taken as part of the expose. In some parts
of Gujarat's capital, Ahmedabad, where the issue
of the riots remains sensitive, cable operators
reportedly switched off their service to block
stories on the subject.
"It is a very disturbing story; it is not a story
you can take joy from," Tejpal told reporters.
"There is a complete absence of remorse in these
confessions. The perpetrators of the violence
have themselves confessed to the crime. It is a
story that makes me worry about the kind of India
we are living in."
The video footage, by Ashish Khetan, a reporter
for the magazine, showed Hindu activists
confessing to dousing petrified Muslims in
kerosene and burning them alive. The footage also
showed a Hindu nationalist politician saying that
the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, had
"given us three days time to do whatever we
could. After three days, he asked to stop and
everything came to a halt."
Modi has previously said the Hindu violence was a
spontaneous reaction to the attack on the trains.
A Hindu religious activist who has been accused
of slitting open a pregnant woman's stomach said
he showed Muslims "what kind of revenge we can
take if our people are killed."
The disclosures come in the run-up to a December
state election in Gujarat, where the Bharatiya
Janata Party is still in power. The party's
spokesman in New Delhi, Prakash Javdekar,
dismissed the Tehelka story as a political
conspiracy by the opposition Congress party.
For many Muslim leaders, the video footage
released Thursday did not come as a surprise.
"None of these confessions are new to us. We have
experienced all this firsthand," said Shakeel
Ahmed, a legal activist in Gujarat and a member
of the Association for the Protection of Civil
Rights. An application for a new investigation
into the violence has been pending in the Supreme
Court for the past two years.
"But this will mount enormous moral pressure on
the state government, because the perpetrators
themselves are admitting to the heinous crimes,"
Ahmed said. "Whether it will bring justice
depends on political will. Many of the accused
are our rulers today. Who will investigate them?"
o o o
(iv)
October 26, 2007
Press Statement
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) has issued the following statement:
GUJARAT POGROMS: TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION
The shocking and graphic details of the massacre
of the minority community in Gujarat in 2002 have
been brought out by the perpetrators themselves
in the Tehelka footage shown on television. It
has confirmed what is well known that the 2002
violence in Gujarat was a State-sponsored one.
The Chief Minister Modi and his government were
fully responsible for this gross violation of
human rights and subversion of the Constitution.
A number of cases pertaining to the Gujarat
killings are before the Supreme Court. There has
been a great delay in disposing of these cases
and bringing the culprits to book. The Tehelka
tapes should be taken as prime facie evidence and
the Supreme Court and the Central Government
should move expeditiously to see that all those
guilty are brought to justice. The Central
Government and the law enforcement agencies have
a special responsibility in this regard.
o o o
(v)
OUTRAGED INDIAN AMERICANS DEMAND THE DISMISSAL OF
GUJARAT STATE GOVERNMENT IN INDIA
For Immediate Release:
Friday, October 26, 2007: Several prominent
Indian organizations and individuals based in US
& Canada are calling for the immediate dismissal
of the state government in Gujarat, India
following an exposé by the Tehelka news magazine
in which many top Hindu nationalist figures
linked to the administration admitted to their
active role in orchestrating and perpetrating the
massacre and ethnic cleansing of Muslims in 2002
in Gujarat. The exposé reveals active
participation of key state institutions including
police forces and judiciary in the anti-minority
pogroms.
Several national and international human rights
organizations including Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch have maintained since 2002
that the Gujarat government led by the BJP Chief
Minister Narendra Modi orchestrated these
pogroms. Following widespread protests by many
Indian American organizations, Modi was denied
visa by the United States administration in 2005
on account of his human rights record.
The Tehelka tapes present incontestable evidence
of the involvement of state machinery in the
massacre. It captures several confessions
including that of
- The state prosecutor Arvind Pandya who
stated that the "mass killings of Muslims in
Gujarat should be celebrated every year as a
victory day" and that "Every judge was calling me
in his chamber and showing full sympathy for me -
giving full cooperation to me, but keeping some
distance- the judges were also guiding me as and
when required - how to put up a case and on which
date- because basically they are Hindus"
- Another confession came from Babu Bajrangi
who stated that "to get me out of jail, [Chief
Minister] Narendra Modi changed judges thrice".
- Yet another MLA acknowledged that Modi gave
him "three days to do whatever violence they
wanted".
In a further disturbing incident that reflects
upon the dictatorial nature of the presiding
administration in Gujarat, reports are pouring in
from the ground that state government is forcing
the TV operators to block/censor the telecast of
the exposé.
The following organizations and individuals
endorsing the above statement are calling upon
the government of India for:
1. The immediate dismissal of the Narendra
Modi administration and imposition of President's
rule in Gujarat.
2. The immediate arrest of the all criminals
who have confessed their crimes in the Tehelka
tapes.
3. The transfer of all legal cases pertaining
to the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 to a court outside
of Gujarat.
Endorsing Organizations:
1. AFMI: American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin
2. AIM: Association of Indian Muslims
3. Dharma Megha
4. FIACONA: Federation of Indian American
Christian Organizations of North America
5. FOSA: Friends of South Asia
6. GMAA: Gujarati Muslim Association of America
7. India Foundation
8. IACP: Indian American Coalition for Pluralism
9. IMC-USA: Indian Muslim Council – USA.
10. IMRC: Indian Muslim Relief & Charities
11. International Service Society
12. NRI-SAHI: Non Resident Indians for a Secular and Harmonious India.
13. SANSAD: South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy
14. Seva International
15. SHRI: Supporters of Human Rights in India
16. Vedanta Society of East Lansing
17. Washington Watch
Endorsing Individuals:
1. Abraham Mammen (President, FIACONA)
2. Dr. Angana Chatterji (California Institute of Integral Studies)
3. Biju Matthew (Associate Professor, Rider University)
4. Firoz Vohra (President GMAA)
5. George Abraham (National Coordinator, NRI-SAHI)
6. Ghazi Akailvi (Chairman, SHRI)
7. Prof. Hari Sharma (SANSAD)
8. K S Sripada Raju (Director, Washington Watch)
9. Kaleem Kawaja (AIM)
10. Khalid Azam (IMC-USA)
11. Manzoor Ghaori (IMRC)
12. Ms. Mayuri Poddar (Director, Vaishnava Center)
13. Najma Sultana (NRI-SAHI)
14. Nasir Chhipa (Washington DC)
15. Nilesh Modhwadia (New Jersey)
16. Raju Rajagopal
17. Rasheed Ahmed (President, IMC-USA)
18. Saeed Patel (IACP)
19. Dr. Shaik Ubaid (Founder President ImanNet)
20. Dr. Shakir Mukhi (AFMI)
21. Shrikumar Poddar (Director, International Service Society)
CONTACT:
1. Dr. Hyder Khan, Supporters of Human Rights in India: Tel: 612-889-7334
2. George Abraham, NRI-SAHI, Tel: 917-544-4137
3. Rasheed Ahmed, Indian Muslim Council-USA: Tel: 630-670-8875
4. Dr. Shaik Ubaid, Indian American Coalition
for Pluralism: Tel: 516-567-0783
RELATED NEWS:
Washington Post: Hindus Detail Involvement in Deadly ’02 Riots in India
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102501829.html
Sify: News Channels Blacked Out After Tehelka exposé
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14550638
Gujarat 2002 - The Truth: In the words of men who did it
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107gujrat_sec.asp
'To Get Me Out On Bail, Narendrabhai Changed Judges Thrice'
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107To_Get.asp
'All The Cops Helped, Even Gave Us Cartridges'
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107All_The_Cops.asp
'It Should Be Something History Has Never Seen'
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107It_should_be_something.asp
'They Hacked Him Bit By Bit, Then Burnt Him Alive'
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107They_hacked.asp
'Explosives Experts Helped Make The Bombs'
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107ExplosivesExperts.asp
'KG Shah Is Our Man. Nanavati Is Only After Money'
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107KG.asp
'Muslims, They Don't Deserve To Live'
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107NarodaPatyaMassacre.asp
Open Case: Gaping Loopholes; Shut Case: Proof Of Subversion
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107Godhra.asp
_____
[4]
Hindustan Times
25 October 2007
THE MARKED PEOPLE
In the name of fighting terror, the Hyderabad
Police have targeted the Muslim community
by Harsh Mander
In TODAY'S world, many things have been
globalised. One of these is prejudice. In the
name of the global war on terrorism, an entire
community has been labelled and demonised. Terror
attacks, whether in Washington, London or Madrid,
are followed by paranoid surveillance, strip
searches and prolonged detentions of large
numbers of Muslim youth, often without even
tenuous evidence or respect for their elementary
human rights.
The latest to join this global assault on
democratic rights - in the wake of the three bomb
blasts that hit Hyderabad this year - is the
Congress government in Andhra Pradesh. The state
Minorities Commission has reported the abduction
and illegal detention and torture by the police
of a large number of Muslim youth within days of
the blasts on August 25, 2007. I have heard from
several terrified families of many youth who
"disappeared" for several days without legal
trace, chilling testimonies similar to those made
by youth incarcerated in Cheraiapally Jail before
the fact-finding committee established by the
Commission. The committee comprised advocate Ravi
Chandran, Professor of forensic sciences Mahender
Reddy and activists , Nirmala Gopalakrishnan, K.
Anuradha and Afsar.
What emerges is that tens of - it is feared
hundreds - Muslim youth have been forcibly picked
up from their homes, and more often while they
are on way to work or the market or to worship,
without legal arrest. These detentions have been
forced by men in civilian clothes presumed to be
policemen. Among those illegally arrested is an
autorickshaw driver, an embroiderer, a medical
student and a software engineer. Almost none have
criminal records.
As they struggle against their abductors, they
are bundled into vehicles without number plates,
their eyes covered with blindfolds that they are
not allowed to remove throughout their detention,
their hands bound and their mouths gagged. They
are then driven to unknown destinations, possibly
farm houses in the periphery of the city In .
these locations they and other youth, , are
subjected to various forms of torture, including
denial of food for long periods, electric shocks
and beatings on the soles of their feet. Their
eyes continuously masked, they lose track of
night and day They are driven . every few days to
new torture chambers, grilled about their role in
the bomb blasts and coerced to agree about their
alleged role in the blasts and their sympathies
with international jehad. They are continuously
battered with communally-charged taunts by the
interrogating policemen. Some succumb by signing
blank confession papers; others stoutly resist.
Their hapless families are, of course, not
informed by the police about the detention. They
are sometimes informed by witnesses of the police
abduction. Many are poorly educated and
impoverished, desperate, but unable to comprehend
how to set about finding their loved ones. They
contact the police, who deny any knowledge of the
missing men. Others frantically contact lawyers
and human rights organisations to file habeas
corpus petitions in the high court. These are
heard without urgency by the judges, and the
police routinely deny in court, that the ,
missing men are in their custody . However, in a
few days, they are indeed produced by the same
police before magistrates, claiming that they
were arrested just a day earlier. It is not
possible that the habeas corpus petitions by the
families of the youth could have been filed
before their arrest by the police, in
anticipation of their future arrest by the police.
The fact-finding committee found "tell-tale signs
of bodily abuse obviously not self inflicted" in
the incarcerated youth, including "noticeable
small scars of 1 cm diameter noted on external
ears" and "1 mm to 2 mm scars noted around
nipples indicative of electricity or needle
entry". Even jail records in three cases
acknowledge injuries. They were visibly
traumatised, some vomited blood, and others were
severely dehydrated with swollen limbs and barely
able to walk. The Commission observed that since
these injuries "are not self inflicted, these
obviously arose during police custody [therefore]
custodial ... atrocities on young detainees, all
minority persons, stand proved".
What is even more worrying is that the
magistrates abdicated their duties by wantonly
ignoring the visible signs of torture (some even
noted later in jail records), when the detained
youth were presented before them. Even the high
court judges ignored Supreme Court guidelines by
listing habeas corpus matters for hearing only
once a week, unmindful of the imminent threats to
the survival of the youth.
It is remarkable that even after legal
production, following prolonged interrogation
under torture, the police could still not charge
most youth with involvement in the bomb blasts.
Instead, the police alleged the youths' support
for international jehad been 'proved' by
possession and propagation of 'inflammatory' CDs
and pamphlets. The remand case diaries that I
have in my possession describe these CDs as
containing "Gujarat communal incidents like
showing burnt bodies, damaged houses, the
statements of victims as well as their relatives"
and the other "clippings like shooting and
beheading ofŠ western forces by jehadis". I
possess and exhibit at least the former. Is that
evidence to detain me for waging war against the
State, in the way that these unfortunate youth
have been charged?
The dazed families of the detained men live with
their loss in intense social isolation. They are
not just stigmatised by people of the 'other'
community even their neighbours, , friends and
relatives avoid contact with them, for fear that
they too will be suspected by the authorities to
harbour sympathies with terrorism. The larger
community especially , poorer Muslims in the city
subsist , with the daily cold dread that their
own loved one may be the next target of the
police.
An agonised young woman related to one of the
detained youth cried out in a solidarity rally
"We are also In , dians; we love India. Why are
we seen as ISI agents and traitors?" Speaking
from the heart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
warned recently against the dangers of precisely
such 'labelling' of communities as unpatriotic or
violent. It is a warning that governments led by
his own party in , Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra
and Assam, do not seem to heed. He recalled that
his own community of Sikhs was similarly labelled
in the 1980s. What he did not mention was that
thousands of youth were similarly abducted by the
police in Punjab in those times, exterminated and
cremated in mass graves. The story is hardly
different for thousands of young people alleged
to be Naxalites in Andhra, who are similarly
abducted and eliminated.
After terror incidents, a hamstrung police are
under unbearable pressure to perform. But
crippled by ramshackle intelligence, poor
investigative skills, demoralised and untrained
forces and the crumbling fibre of police
leadership, it resorts to shortcuts like the
illegal abductions and torture that Hyderabad has
witnessed. As the advocate appointed by the
Commission, Ravi Chandran, concludes, "What is at
stake is not just the lives of 20 odd young boys
living in resigned solitariness in a cell tucked
away somewhere on the periphery of the modern
city What is at . stake is the functioning of a
healthy democracy If you have tears, prepare . to
shed them now."
______
[5]
Foreign Affairs,
November/December 2007
AMERICA'S STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY WITH INDIA: THE NEW U.S.-INDIA PARTNERSHIP
by R. Nicholas Burns
Summary: The rise of a democratic and
increasingly powerful India is a positive
development for U.S. interests. Rarely has the
United States shared so many interests and values
with a growing power as we do today with India.
By reaching out to India, we have made the bet
that the future lies in pluralism, democracy, and
market economics.
R. NICHOLAS BURNS is U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20071101faessay86609/r-nicholas-burns/america-s-strategic-opportunity-with-india.html
o o o
Economic and Political Weekly
October 20, 2007
THE FUTURE OF INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY
by Itty Abraham
India has failed in its endeavours to gain global
influence by mimicking the "Great Powers" and
trying to develop its hard power capacities
http://www.epw.org.in/uploads/articles/11153.pdf
______
[6] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i)
CONCERNED CITIZENS OF GUJARAT
MEETING WITH REGARD TO NON-IMPLEMENTATION OF "
THE SRIKRISHNA COMMISSION REPORT"
On October 29th, 2007
On 16th February 1998, Justice B. N. Srikrishna
submitted his report on the Mumbai riots of
December 1992 - January 1993.
The three main sections of this Report recommend :
1. Action against 31 policemen ( these are named in the report)
2. Reinvestigation of the closed cases - 60
% of all the riot cases are closed, a total of
1358 cases.
3. Compensation for the families of those missing since the riots.
Several Governments have come and gone in
Maharashtra but not one of them has made a
single attempt to implement any of the
recommendations given by this Report. As a
consequence, the people who suffered in these
riots have got no justice at all even after
fifteen years of the barbaric assault on their
lives, families, livelihoods and belongings.
Petitions challenging the immediate
implementation of the findings of the Srikrishna
Commission Report are scheduled to come up for
hearing in the Supreme Court on October 30th,
2007.
Some delegations have been meeting with the
National Human Rights Commission, the National
Minorities Commission, the Planning Commission,
the Vice President of India and others so that
added focus could be given on the
non-implementation of the Report.
As Concerned Citizens of Gujarat, we also intend
adding our voices / efforts, to those who have
been struggling for justice. We hope that you /
your organization will also join in this
collaborative effort.
We will be having a short meeting to draw the
attention of wider society to this Report :
On Monday, October 29th, 2007
At 1630 hrs.
At PRASHANT
Hillnagar, Near Kamdhenu Hall
Drive-in Road, Ahmedabad 380 052
We expect some legal experts and human rights
activists, besides the media, to be present for
this meeting.
We hope you will be present for this meeting.
Kindly confirm your participation.
In solidarity,
for and on behalf of Concerned Citizens of Gujarat
Hiren Gandhi Fr. Cedric Prakash
INSAF
PRASHANT
Cell: 9426181334
Cell: 9824034536
email:
<mailto:hiren_darshan at yahoo.com>hiren_darshan[AT]yahoo.com
email: sjprashant[AT]gmail.com
---
(ii)
The Human Rights in Conflict Programme of the Law
& Society Trust (LST) is pleased to invite you to
a briefing on the update of an ongoing joint
project in documentation of human rights
violations. This document has now been updated
through 31st August 2007. With project partners,
LST has compiled and analysed information
regarding persons disappeared and killed
throughout the island. A public version of this
document will be available to those who attend
the briefing.
The full updated confidential document, listing
all names and available information on individual
cases, will be submitted as before to the
Presidential Commission of Inquiry and relevant
members of Government prior to this briefing.
Date: Wednesday 31st October 2007
Time: 5pm
Location: 3 Kynsey Terrace, Colombo 8.
---
(iii)
'Ghadar on the DU Campus'
Inauguration
Oct 26, 2007, 4.30 pm
Venue: University Convention Hall, Vice-Chancellor's Office
*--------*
Traces of the Uprising, 1857
Exhibition of photographs: a University of Delhi and Alkazi Foundation for
the Arts collaboration
Oct 26 - Nov 20, 2007 (10 am - 5 pm, Monday to Saturday)
Venue: University Conference Centre* *(opposite the Botany Dept.)
* *
*The exhibition will showcase a selection of 19th
Century photographs from the Alkazi Collection
relating to three sectors of the Uprising: Delhi,
Kanpur and Lucknow, with a special focus on
Delhi.*
*--------*
Film Screenings
*Shatranj ke Khilari*, Oct 29, 2007, 4 pm
*Junoon*, Nov 12, 2007, 4 pm
*Jhansi ki Rani*, Dec 3, 2007, 4 pm
*Mirza Ghalib*, Dec 17, 2007, 4 pm
Venue: Auditorium, School of Environmental Studies
*--------*
European Responses to the 1857 Rebellion in India
Conference organized by the Department of Germanic and Romance Studies
Oct 30 - 31, 2007, 10 am - 5 pm
Venue: University Conference Centre
* *
*The conference will focus on continental
European responses to the 1857 events - literary
texts, press reports, and other documents that
appeared in languages other than English. *
*--------*
The Revolt of 1857: Re-thinking colonial resistance
Conference / Nov 26 - 28, 2007
Venue: University Conference Centre
*The conference will bring together scholars to
share their work on various issues related to the
Revolt - its historiography, the events in Delhi,
the military aspect, the intellectual impact and
representations in popular and
folk literature *
*--------*
Mirza Ghalib's letters read by Anis Azmi
Nov 27, 2007, 2 pm
Venue: University Conference Centre
*--------*
Qawwali: Miraj Ahmad Nizami and party
Nov 28, 2007, 6.30 pm
Venue: University Conference Centre
*--------*
Dastan Goi: Traditional Hindustani Oral Narrative by Mahmood Farooqui and
Danish Hussain
Dec 18, 2007, 4 pm
Venue: University Conference Centre
*--------*
Special Lectures Dec 7, 2007, 4 pm
Gautam Chakravarty
Mutiny or War? Revisiting an old debate
Jan 25, 2008, 4 pm
Rudrangshu Mukherjee
Nationalism and History Writing:
S.N.Sen and S.B.Chaudhuri as historians of 1857
Feb 20, 2008, 4 pm
Margrit Pernau
Contested memories and memoirs.
Remembering 1857 in Delhi
Mar 4, 2008, 4 pm
C.M. Naim
The Three Delhis of Syed Ahmad Khan
*--------*
A Walk through Time
Heritage walks: Northern Ridge, its monuments and 1857
* *
*In 1857, as the rebels captured Shahjahanabad,
the British retreated to the ridge and planned
the recapture of the city. The northern ridge
also has structures that represent periods and
events that date back to earlier times. The
heritage walks will cover the Vice-Chancellor's
Office, the Flagstaff Tower, Chauburja, Pir
Ghaib, Bara Hindu Rao, Ashoka Pillar and Mutiny
Memorial.*
Dates: November: 6, 7, 12, 17,19, 21, 24, 26, 28; December: 7, 8, 10, 15,
17, 22.
Time: 10 am-1 pm
Starting point for the walks: University Conference Centre
For details regarding the walks, please contact: Srimanjari
(srimanjari[AT]gmail.com) / Sanjay Sharma (sanjaykusharma[AT]yahoo.co.in)
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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