SACW | Nov. 6-10, 2007 / People Resist Emergency in Pakistan / Sinhala Nationalism / Nepal's Peace Industry / Shameful silence after the Telehlka sting on gujarat

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 6-10, 2007 | 
Dispatch No. 2468 - Year 10 running


[1] Pakistan under the State of Emergency of Nov 2007:
       (i) The Real Musharraf (Asma Jahangir)
       (ii) Rule of Force vs. Rule of Law in Pakistan (Zia Mian and A.H. Nayyar)
      (iii) Pakistan:  Hard on Civil Society, Soft on Extremists (Beena Sarwar)
      (iv) PFUJ observe Black Day
      (v)  [Military Tribunals to try civilians ]. 
. .Doubtful Utility (Editorial, The Post)
[2] Sri Lanka: Sinhala Nationalism and the 
Elusive Southern Consensus (ICG report)
[3] Nepal: Donor amnesia - Peacebuilding is a 
spectator sport in Aidland (Tobias Denskus)
[4] Indian Adminstered Kashmir:
     (i) J&K's worst-kept secret: 60,000 families 
on a security blacklist (Muzamil Jaleel)
    (ii) Sixty Years Of Kashmir's Accession: The 
Less Known Realities (Balraj Puri)
[5] India: Tehelka expose and after; fascism and 'normality' (Sadanand Menon)
   - Does Anything Matter? (Tarun Tejpal)
   - Time To Speak Up (Mahesh Peri)
   - A pogrom does not lessen in brutality if it 
is hidden from the nation (Kuldip Nayar)
   -  Does this society have the nerve to confront 
the beast exposed by the Tehelka expose ? 
(Prashant Bhushan)
   - The Truth of Gujarat Carnage (Ram Puniyani)
   - Courting injustice (Priya Pillai)
   - In India we do wonderful omissions of inquiry (Pamela Philipose)
[6] USA / India: Should we be proud of Bobby Jindal? (Shashi Tharoor)
[7] Announcement:
Upcoming Protest demo against the imposition of 
emergency/martial law in Pakistan (Boston 10 
November 2007)

______



[1]

Citizens Challenge Emergency Rule in Pakistan
A record on dissenting views and public action, 
peoples initiatives from Nov. 3, 2007 on.
http://emergency2007.blogspot.com/

o o o

THE REAL MUSHARRAF

by Asma Jahangir
Washington Post, November 9, 2007; Page A21

LAHORE, Pakistan -- It was close to midnight last 
Saturday when Gen. Pervez Musharraf finally 
appeared on state-run television. That's when 
police vans surrounded my house. I was warned not 
to leave, and hours later I learned I would be 
detained for 90 days.

At least I have the luxury of staying at home, 
though I cannot see anyone. But I can only watch, 
helpless, as this horror unfolds.


Police watch as lawyers demonstrate against 
President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad 
yesterday. (By Wally Santana -- Asssociated Press)


The Musharraf government has declared martial law 
to settle scores with lawyers and judges. 
Hundreds of innocent Pakistanis have been rounded 
up. Human rights activists, including women and 
senior citizens, have been beaten by police. 
Judges have been arrested and lawyers battered in 
their offices and the streets.

These citizens are our true assets: young, 
progressive and full of spirit. Many of them were 
trained to uphold the rule of law. They are being 
brutalized for seeking justice.

Musharraf justified his draconian measures by 
saying he needed to be able to use all his might 
to fight the terrorists infecting our country. 
Yet the day after he declared an emergency, the 
Dawn newspaper reported that scores of terrorists 
were released by the government. While tyranny 
was being unleashed on peaceful citizens, the 
notorious militant Fazalullah (also known as 
Maulana Radio) had seized the beautiful town of 
Madyan, according to the Daily Times, and hoisted 
his "Islamic" flag over buildings while the 
security forces surrendered.

Musharraf has implied that militancy increased in 
Pakistan because of judicial interference in 
governance. But until this past March, the 
judiciary had yielded to all executive demands. 
Five years ago, the general dismissed the 
then-chief justice and his colleagues, charging 
that they were obstructing his process of 
democratization. What is democratic about a 
judiciary that's not independent?

In recent days police have raided the home of the 
president of the Supreme Court Bar Association -- 
his wife has gone into hiding -- and the law 
chambers of two former presidents of the bar. 
Their clerks have been harassed. Military 
intelligence officers are interrogating leading 
attorneys. Meanwhile, unknown lawyers are being 
elevated to the bench.

Since Saturday, police officers have barged into 
my house twice after receiving (false) warnings 
that I had escaped. On seeing me, they sheepishly 
admitted they were misled.
ad_icon

I have tried to make them understand the 
difference between people such as myself and 
terrorists. "If I did run away, how far would I 
go?" I asked them. "In any event, I am not likely 
to blow myself up around the corner." One police 
officer said that he agreed but that his job was 
at greater risk if I got away than if a terrorist 
escaped the law. Terrorists, he pointed out, 
outnumber rights activists in our country.

The officer argued that lawyers and judges hamper 
law enforcement. "How can we bring law and order 
if we cannot torture criminals? We must be given 
a free hand to deal with terrorists, and the 
chief justice has no business to ask us to 
produce them in courts. We are itching to lay our 
hands on all those judges who humiliated us for 
carrying out our duties," he told me. When I 
asked how he knew who the terrorists were, he 
insisted that the intelligence was infallible.

Yet he didn't know I hadn't escaped from my house.

The international community is alarmed at 
Musharraf's actions, but Pakistanis expected 
this. The Bush administration had built up the 
general as moderate and benign, but the true face 
of this regime has been exposed.

A balanced picture of Pakistan had begun to 
emerge in recent weeks. Thousands turned out to 
greet Benazir Bhutto upon her return last month; 
Pakistanis were progressive-minded enough to 
elect a female political leader years ago. 
Hundreds of progressive-minded lawyers have 
rallied for democratic values. I welcome Bhutto's 
call for the Pakistan People's Party to join the 
demonstrations.

But Pakistan is threatened by Islamist militants, 
and our civil society suffers the worst of this 
creeping Talibanization. Woefully, the Musharraf 
regime is neither inclined to reverse this trend 
nor capable of doing so. No one has exact 
solutions, but there is virtual unanimity that 
Pakistan's political leadership must take charge 
and that the military must cooperate with an 
elected civilian government.

Musharraf's promises to hold elections by Feb. 15 
or to resign from the army are a red herring. He 
has pledged before to give up his uniform and 
failed to follow through. Any election held under 
these circumstances will not be free and will 
only put the crisis on hold. Furthermore, 
militarization will kill the spirit of the 
progressive forces while boosting the terrorists' 
morale.

A transition to democracy is crucial, but unless 
freedom of the press and the judiciary's 
independence are restored, any changes will 
remain toothless. It will be difficult to put 
Pakistan on the path to democracy, but we must 
begin now, before it is too late.

Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer under house 
arrest in Lahore, chairs the Human Rights 
Commission of Pakistan. She is a member of the 
international board of the Open Society Institute.

o o o

(i)

RULE OF FORCE VS. RULE OF LAW IN PAKISTAN

by Zia Mian and A.H. Nayyar | November 8, 2007

Foreign Policy In Focus
www.fpif.org


In a desperate bid to stay in power, General 
Pervez Musharraf has staged a coup against the 
rule of law in Pakistan. His declaration of 
martial law, suspension of the constitution and 
basic rights was aimed at overthrowing Pakistan's 
Supreme Court, which was expected to rule next 
week that Musharraf could not continue as both 
president and chief of the army.

Faced with choice of being president and being 
bound by the constitution or chief of the army 
and ruling by diktat, Musharraf chose khaki and 
force. His coup announcement is titled 
"Proclamation of Emergency declared by Chief of 
the Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf" and ends 
"I hereby order and proclaim that the 
Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 
shall remain in abeyance."

Musharraf's proclamation is a litany of 
complaints about the courts. The Supreme Court 
was the only branch of government Musharraf and 
the army did not control. In the eight years 
since his October 1999 seizure of power, 
Musharraf has rigged parliamentary elections to 
give himself a majority, hand-picked his prime 
minister, and replaced many senior generals. His 
control, and through him that of the army 
leadership, over government and the state was 
nearly complete. But none of this was enough to 
give him either the unchecked power or the 
legitimacy that he wanted.
Supreme Court

Musharraf complained in particular that 
Pakistan's courts, and especially the Supreme 
Court, were subverting the administration. His 
proclamation claims that the Court's "constant 
interference in executive functions, including 
but not limited to the control of terrorist 
activity, economic policy, price controls, 
downsizing of corporations and urban planning, 
has weakened the writ of the government." It 
laments "the humiliating treatment meted to 
government officials by some members of the 
judiciary on a routine basis during court 
proceedings."

A particular concern was the Supreme Court taking 
up the cases of the hundreds of people picked up 
in recent years by law enforcement agencies 
without warrants and held in custody, without 
charge or trial. The demands for due process and 
habeas corpus proved fruitless as officials 
simply lied to the courts about the people they 
were holding.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan was 
finally able to convince the Supreme Court to 
act. The Court began to summon senior officials 
and demanded the government produce the detained 
people in court. It threatened senior law 
enforcement officials with contempt of court and 
jail if they did not comply and was considering 
calling the chiefs of the armed forces to answer 
to the court. The system cracked and the 
disappeared started appearing.

Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice of 
Pakistan's Supreme Court, emerged as a key figure 
in confronting the arbitrary exercise of power by 
the government. General Musharraf responded 
earlier this year by firing him, triggering a 
national movement led by lawyers for the 
justice's restoration. It attracted a lot of 
public support, reflecting the widespread 
disenchantment with the eight years of 
Musharraf's rule. Across the country, large 
crowds lined the roads and assembled to see and 
hear the chief justice. The other judges of the 
Supreme Court declared that the chief justice 
must be reinstated and Musharraf had to back down.

The Court has returned to the cases of illegal 
detention. It also sentenced seven senior 
officials to suspended jail terms for manhandling 
the chief justice during the campaign for his 
reinstatement.
Islamic Militancy

General Musharraf has also claimed that the 
courts are hampering his efforts to stem the 
Islamic militancy in the tribal areas, the 
creeping talibanization of Pakistan's 
northwestern province, and the suicide bombing 
that have erupted across major cities over the 
past few years. But the Courts have only insisted 
on the rule of law. Musharraf's failure to 
effectively counter the militancy springs from 
more other causes.

The most important problem has been the military 
regime itself and its policies towards the 
Islamic political parties and militants. In need 
of some kind of political cover after seizing 
power in 1999, Musharraf and his generals cobbled 
together an alliance of opportunistic 
politicians, defectors from other parties and the 
Islamist political parties. This included the 
most radical and violent militant groups, which 
the army, led by Musharraf, had organized and 
used in the war against India in the Kargil 
region of Kashmir in the spring of 1999. This 
military-mullah alliance in Pakistan stretches 
back over 30 years, and was central in the 
U.S.-backed jihad against the Soviet Union in 
Afghanistan of the 1980s and the Kashmir 
insurgency of the 1990s.

When not offering direct support, the Musharraf 
regime has preferred neglect and appeasement of 
Islamist political parties and militants. Islamic 
laws are allowed to stay on the books. Militant 
groups are grudgingly banned in public and 
privately allowed to operate. Whether is in the 
tribal areas of Waziristan or the militant 
take-over of the Red Mosque in the heart of 
Islamabad, Musharraf and his generals preferred 
to ignore it, and then make concessions to the 
militants in the vain hope that the problem would 
go away.
Second Coup

The government has responded to the militancy 
only when domestic and international demands do 
something became overwhelming. But instead of a 
legal, politically measured, and thought-out 
response that is part of a long-term policy to 
counter the militancy, Musharraf and his generals 
have responded time and again with a spasm. They 
unleash a dramatic show of force including 
artillery, helicopter gun ships and air strikes, 
which inevitably result in large numbers of 
civilian deaths and injuries, inflame public 
opinion, and stoke the militancy.

At the heart of Musharraf's second coup, and what 
has determined its timing and character, is not 
an activist court, illegal detentions or the 
militancy. The Court had begun to hear challenges 
to Musharraf's role as both chief of army Staff 
and president of the republic. Pakistan's 
constitution explicitly forbids holding both 
positions. A showdown was imminent. It has been 
claimed that a Supreme Court judge told the 
government that the court was set to rule against 
Musharraf. Musharraf ended this threat by 
removing the chief justice and most of the rest 
of the Supreme Court. Before they were bundled 
out of the Supreme Court building, seven of the 
justices, including the chief justice, issued an 
order declaring Musharraf's proclamation of 
emergency to be unconstitutional and called on 
government officials and the armed forces to 
refuse to obey it. In a message to the country's 
lawyers, the chief justice called for opposition.

The target of the coup is also obvious from the 
list of those who have been the first to be 
detained in the police raids: leaders of the 
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, prominent 
lawyers, and pro-democracy activists. The goal is 
clearly to prevent a movement for democracy and 
rule of law that could confront General Musharraf 
and the larger structure of army rule in Pakistan.
Sharif and Bhutto

Protests have started across the country, led by 
lawyers and civil society groups. They have been 
met with tear gas and brute force. Thousands are 
reported to have been arrested. It is likely to 
be a determined campaign, building on the 
experience of the mobilization earlier this year. 
But Pakistan's civil society, while heroic, is 
fragile. It is poorly equipped for a long and 
difficult struggle against a military regime. 
Central to any prospect of success will be 
Pakistan's major political parties, Benazir 
Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and Nawaz 
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League.

But both the Peoples Party and the Muslim League 
are led from the top-down. They are populist 
vehicles for their leaders, both of whom are 
former prime ministers, rather than well-rooted 
democratic political parties with resilient local 
structures. Further, the leaders of both parties 
are deeply compromised. With U.S. and British 
support, Bhutto recently made a deal with General 
Musharraf to drop all corruption charges against 
her and enable her return from exile to join a 
Musharraf-led government. She has summoned her 
party activists to the barricades, but she may be 
willing to negotiate terms with the General on 
power sharing.

Sharif was overthrown by Musharraf in his 1999 
coup and agreed to go into exile in Saudi Arabia. 
His party will willingly join the fray but many 
in his party abandoned ship to join the rag-tag 
group of politicians assembled by General 
Musharraf as a fig leaf for his rule. Sharif also 
tried to return from exile but was bundled into a 
plane and sent back, despite a clear Supreme 
Court ruling that Sharif had the right to return 
to Pakistan. There were no major protests.

With the government at odds with the people, the 
police being tasked to crush pro-democracy 
activists, and chaos in the streets, the Islamic 
militants may try and take advantage of the 
unrest. They have already spread their influence 
far beyond the tribal and border areas and now 
control three major towns in the Swat valley, a 
few hours drive from Islamabad. Government forces 
simply surrendered and handed over their weapons. 
Pakistani flags have been replaced by jihadi 
banners on public buildings. Across the country, 
there have been attacks on soldiers and police. 
The bombing that killed over 100 people in a 
Karachi rally welcoming Bhutto may be a sign of 
things to come.
Where's Washington?

Washington was alerted to the coup in advance. 
Admiral William Fallon, the head of U.S. forces 
in the Middle East met General Musharraf in 
Islamabad the day before the coup and is reported 
to have warned Musharraf about declaring an 
emergency. According to The New York Times, 
administration officials said "General Musharraf 
had been offering private assurances that any 
emergency declaration would be short-lived."

The Bush administration's response has been 
predictable thus far. General Musharraf's aides 
told the Times that in the crucial first few days 
after the coup there had been no phone calls from 
President George W. Bush or other leading U.S. 
officials demanding an immediate end to the 
martial law. The newspaper quotes Pakistan's 
minister of state for information as saying the 
United States "would rather have a stable 
Pakistan - albeit with some restrictive norms - 
than have more democracy." In short, Islamabad 
expected, rightly it turns out, that Washington 
would wring its hands, offer platitudes about 
restoring democracy, perhaps a token slap on the 
wrist, and keep on supporting General Musharraf. 
When President Bush did call, he told General 
Musharraf that "you ought to have elections soon."

Washington has invested heavily in General 
Musharraf and will not want to write this off. 
Since September 11, 2001, the United States has 
given enormous political and diplomatic support 
and over $10 billion to Pakistan to buy General 
Musharraf's support for its "war on terror." It 
is a doomed policy.

The United States has supported all of Pakistan 
military dictators, politically and with guns and 
money, starting as long ago as 1958. In the 50 
years since then, it has failed to learn that 
supporting Pakistan's generals and the army they 
command does little for Pakistan's people. Under 
American tutelage, the army has grown in size and 
developed a fierce appetite for high-tech 
expensive weapons, which now include nuclear 
weapons and ballistic missiles, and a habit of 
seizing power while people continue to struggle 
with grinding poverty and failing institutions. 
It is no wonder that the United States is deeply 
unpopular in Pakistan. A 2007 poll found that 
only 15% of Pakistanis had a favorable attitude 
towards the United States. This hostility toward 
the United States will only worsen as Pakistanis 
see the United States set aside democracy and the 
rule of law in favor of a general and his army.

To get out of this crisis, the international 
community must demand that General Musharraf 
immediately end his emergency, restore the 
constitution and Supreme Court, and fulfill his 
commitment to step down as chief of army staff. 
Having lost what little trust was vested in him 
by the country, Musharraf should also stand down 
as president. An interim administration could 
hold elections and let Pakistanis choose lawful 
leaders.

No one expects elections and a shift to civilian 
rule to be a panacea. And though Pakistanis have 
had bitter experiences with democracy, they still 
prefer it to the army. Elections can mark the 
start of the long and difficult task of building 
democratic institutions and creating a system of 
accountability and trust between government and 
people, state and society. This can bring 
Pakistanis some hope for the future, and foster 
confidence that democracy and the rule of law can 
deliver the justice that has so long been denied 
to them.

Zia Mian, a Foreign Policy In Focus 
(www.fpif.org) columnist, directs the Project on 
Peace and Security in South Asia at Princeton 
University's Program on Science and Global 
Security. A.H. Nayyar is the Executive Director 
of Developments in Literacy, a non-profit group 
supporting education for the poor in Pakistan.

o o o

IPS, November 5, 2007

PAKISTAN:  HARD ON CIVIL SOCIETY, SOFT ON EXTREMISTS

by Beena Sarwar

Marchers rally in front of the Pakistani High 
Commission in west London to protest the state of 
emergency.

KARACHI, Nov 5 (IPS) - Pakistani President Gen. 
Pervez Musharraf appears to be following a 
strategy of being hard on lawyers and the 
judiciary, and soft on Islamist extremists -- the 
two groups he blamed for imposing emergency rule 
in the country on Saturday.

On Monday, police beat up lawyers and arrested 
scores of them gathered outside the High Court of 
Karachi. Another 200 lawyers were arrested at the 
High Court in the eastern city of Lahore. In both 
cities, police entered the High Court buildings 
to arrest lawyers. The lawyers in Lahore were 
also at the receiving end of a heavy baton charge.

In Islamabad, the chief justice of the Supreme 
Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry, as well as several 
senior judges who were detained on Saturday for 
refusing to sign the Provisional Constitution 
Order (PCO) a step normally taken prior to 
imposing martial law, were being held at their 
homes.

Those arrested include the president of the 
Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Aitzaz 
Ahsan. He and two former SCBA presidents, Munir 
A. Malik and Tariq Mahmood, have been ordered 
imprisoned for one month each under the 
preventive detention laws.

The president of the Lahore High Court bar 
association, Ahsan Bhoon, and former bar leader 
Ali Ahmed Kurd are also under arrest. Other 
presidents of various bar associations and 
activists like the secretary-general of the 
Labour Party Pakistan, Farooq Tariq, are in 
hiding.

Civil rights activists question Musharraf's claim 
that he imposed a state of emergency because of 
the crisis caused by militancy and a hostile 
judiciary. The text of the Provisional 
Constitution Order (PCO) declaring the emergency 
focuses more on "judicial activism" that 
Musharraf said had negatively impacted the 
"morale" of the administration and the law 
enforcement agencies.

In a speech late Saturday night, Musharraf 
announced that the national and provincial 
assemblies would continue to function, and the 
provincial governors and chief ministers would 
continue to hold office. The only change appears 
to be with the judiciary.

"If the Constitution is in abeyance, the 
parliament should also be suspended," former 
Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmad, the 
lawyers' candidate who stood against Musharraf in 
the recent presidential elections, told IPS.

The government is swearing in new judges to fill 
the vacuum left by the dismissed judges. However, 
an unprecedented number of judges of the Supreme 
Court and four High Courts have not taken oath 
under the PCO.

"There will be a crisis," said Ahmad, talking to 
IPS at his Karachi residence on Sunday. "Where 
will they get judges to fill all these positions?"

The former judge, who was among the six judges to 
refuse to take oath under the PCO imposed by 
Musharraf, after he initially took over power in 
1999, predicted that there will be "a lot of 
defiance particularly among the younger lawyers. 
They are unstoppable."

The Musharraf government, however, is doing its 
best to stop them. About 200 lawyers are believed 
to have been arrested in Lahore on Monday, and 
another hundred or so in Karachi.

Leading lawyer, U.N. special rapporteur, and 
chairperson of the independent Human Rights 
Commission of Pakistan Asma Jahangir, under house 
arrest at her Lahore residence since Saturday, 
termed it ironic that the president, who she said 
"has lost his marbles", had to clamp down on the 
press and the judiciary to curb terrorism.

"Those he has arrested are progressive, 
secular-minded people while the terrorists are 
offered negotiations and ceasefires," she added.

The government on Sunday freed 25 militants in 
exchange for the release of 213 army personnel 
held hostage by Taliban in South Waziristan on 
Pakistan's northwest border for more than two 
months.

Some 70 activists, arrested in a police raid on 
HRCP's Lahore office on Sunday where a meeting 
was being held to discuss the emergency, were 
held in a police lockup as their families, who 
were not allowed to meet them, held vigil outside.

The arrests were made under the MPO 1960 
(maintenance of public order act) although the 
meeting was being held indoors at a private venue 
and posed no threat to public order. Police had 
no written orders and claimed the right to detain 
those arrested for 30 days without charge and 
without bail.

At 3.30 am, they were sent to nearby houses that 
had been declared as sub-jails before being 
transported to the Kot Lakhpat jail on Monday 
morning. Prominent journalist and director of the 
HRCP, I.A. Rehman, and the body's secretary 
general, Iqbal Haider, were also transported to 
the prison. Later on Monday, some of those 
arrested were again transferred to the sub-jails.

In a statement released from her residence on 
Sunday, Jahangir asked friends of Pakistan "to 
urge the U.S. administration to stop all support 
for the instable dictator, as his lust for power 
is bringing the country close to a worse form of 
civil strife. It is now time for the 
international community to insist on preventive 
measures, otherwise cleaning up the mess may take 
decades. There are already several hundred 
disappeared persons and the space for civil 
society has hopelessly shrunk."

''Musharraf,'' Jahangir said, "must be taken out 
of the equation and a government of national 
reconciliation put in place, backed by the 
military. Short of this there are no realistic 
solutions, although there are no guarantees that 
this may work." The international community, 
including the United States, has condemned the 
state of emergency. Washington has said it will 
review financial aid to Pakistan and asked 
Pakistan to release all those detained after the 
promulgation of emergency.

The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists on 
Monday issued a strongly worded statement against 
what it called the "worst kind of repression 
against media since 1978". According to the 
journalist union, some 16 journalists have been 
detained and police have also raided printing 
presses and bureau offices. In addition, police 
threatened scores of journalists and cameramen 
during coverage.

The electronic media news blackout within the 
country has continued for the third day, although 
newspapers are publishing normally. Cable 
operators were allowed to broadcast only music, 
movies, sports, and cartoon programmes -- 
"Anything other than news," said PFUJ secretary 
general Mazhar Abbas.

Messages of solidarity for the democratic 
struggle and against the emergency are pouring in 
to various rights organisations from around the 
world. Media organisations received calls from 
cities all around Pakistan, including Karachi, 
where the stock market has fallen 4.7 percent due 
to the prevailing political uncertainty.

The uncertainty has been fuelled by strong 
rumours about a "counter-coup". President 
Musharraf termed the rumours "a joke of the 
highest order".

Although Musharraf had indicated that the present 
assemblies will be extended, his political 
partners like the attorney general, Malik Qayyum, 
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Punjab Chief 
Minister Pervaiz Elahi have said in various 
statements that the assemblies will be dissolved 
on Nov. 15 as scheduled and that elections will 
be held on time.

(END/2007)


o o o

PFUJ OBSERVE BLACK DAY

Press Release

ISLAMABAD, Nov 9: "Black Day," was observed by 
the journalists on the call of Pakistan Federal 
Union of Journalists (PFUJ), against the curbs on 
the media and the two anti-media laws, says in a 
Press Release of PFUJ
     Protest camps were set up and meetings were 
held by the journalists, during which they wear 
black arms band and boycotted official functions. 
Black flags were also hoisted on tv channels, and 
on newspaper offices.
      Information collected by the PFUJ revealed 
that Black Day, was observed in Islamabad, 
Lahore, Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Peshawar, 
Quetta, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, Bhawalput, Multan, 
Gujranwal and in all the major cities and even in 
the smaller centres.
       A delegation of International Federation of 
Journalists (IFJ), will visit Pakistan on 
November 19, on the invitation of PFUJ to review 
the media situation in Pakistan.
       President of the PFUJ, Syed Huma Ali while 
addressing a protest camp n Islamabad, announced 
that the protest will continued throughout 
Pakistan till the acceptance of their demands 
which includes the withdrawal of PEMRA and PPO 
Ordinances, 2007, restoration of transmission of 
all tv channels and FM radio, withdrawan of 
notices and cases against newspapers and 
journalists.
        Secretary General, PFUJ Mazhar Abbas said 
that the struggle launched by the working 
journalists will continue till the acceptance of 
their demands and urged the broadcasters not to 
sign PEMRA "Code of Ethics," aimed to suppress 
the suppress the freedom of the Press and Freedom 
of expression in  the country.
       
Mazhar Abbas,
Secretary General, PFUJ

9.11.07
      
o o o

The Post, November 10, 2007

EDITORIAL - DOUBTFUL UTILITY

Unconfirmed reports in a section of the print and 
electronic media have hinted at the possibility 
of a change in the Military Act. The proposed 
amendment would allow the government to set up 
military courts to hear the cases of civilians 
accused of attacking army personnel or military 
installations. Further, the persons suspected of 
committing acts of terrorism could also be tried 
in these military courts. Even as the formal 
promulgation of the ordinance in this respect is 
still awaited, the reports gain credence in view 
of the fact that the Attorney General, Malik 
Abdul Qayyum, is on record as having aired views 
along the same lines a few days before the 
proclamation of emergency. The government 
position and the underlying line of reasoning are 
not difficult to surmise. The constitution does 
not allow civilians to be tried by military 
courts. However, the constitution is in abeyance 
and the country is being governed by the 
Provisional Constitutional Order. Thus, the 
government has the authority to act in spheres 
where the constitution would have been an 
impediment. The justification for the imposition 
of an emergency stemmed from the government's 
stated grievance that the superior judiciary was 
letting off hardened terrorists, notably in cases 
of missing persons and the Lal Masjid imbroglio. 
Thus the inefficiency of the normal judicial 
process was hampering the effort against 
terrorism. The contention forwarded by some 
former members of the superior judiciary that the 
government failed to bring forth enough evidence 
against the alleged terrorists, however, does not 
obviate the factual position that the government 
had apprehensions regarding the effectiveness of 
the civil courts against the elusive menace of 
terrorism. All this furnishes the perspective 
behind the proposed amendment in the Army Act. 
However, many people would have apprehensions 
vis-à-vis the efficacy of the proposed strategy 
to shake off judicial inertia in the light of 
their historical experience. The memories of 
stern military justice in 1919 (during the 
British raj) are too deeply etched in our 
collective memory to be erased. Our 
post-independence history too has not been 
altogether barren in examples of strict, summary 
and severe justice in military courts. The very 
exigencies that spur the institution of military 
courts and the suspension of normal laws 
necessitate military tribunals being inherently 
structured to ignore due process. As we have seen 
recently in the glaring case of the Guantanamo 
Bay detention facility, proceedings in courts 
where due process is ignored, more often than 
not, fail to fulfil the goals forwarded as the 
justification for drastic procedures. Our law 
enforcement personnel are neither known for 
impeccable professional skills nor reputed for 
high standards of integrity. The fear is that the 
impunity granted by the rather amorphous legal 
lattice of military courts may tempt some law 
enforcement personnel to haul in innocent 
citizens along with the guilty. Ignoring the 
unjust destruction of the lives of such innocent 
accused, there is another and weightier reason to 
retain the presumption of 'innocent till proven 
guilty'. Once the emergency is lifted and the 
constitution restored, normal judicial procedures 
will once again be underway. The verdicts handed 
down by the military tribunals will be challenged 
by the innocent and the guilty alike. The loose 
legal procedures adopted by the military courts 
may see a reversal of their judgements, en masse. 
Thus, the exercise will end up failing to provide 
either justice or promptness.

______


[2]

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP -

Asia Report No 141

SRI LANKA: SINHALA NATIONALISM AND THE ELUSIVE SOUTHERN CONSENSUS

Colombo/Brussels, 7 November 2007: Lasting peace 
will not be found in Sri Lanka until Sinhala 
nationalism and the grievances that give it power 
are understood and addressed.

<http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5144&l=1>Sri 
Lanka: Sinhala Nationalism and the Elusive 
Southern Consensus,* the latest report from the 
International Crisis Group, examines the 
nationalism of the country's largest ethnic 
community and its relationship to the almost 
25-year conflict. Recent history shows the 
Sinhalese are not unalterably opposed to a fair 
deal for the minority Tamils but competition 
between their major parties, the United National 
Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party 
(SLFP), together with the violence and 
intransigence of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil 
Eelam (LTTE), have led President Rajapaksa to 
adopt a hardline nationalist approach. Until the 
sources of Sinhalese nationalism are taken more 
seriously, it will continue to challenge attempts 
to produce a political settlement.

Although President Rajapaksa states his 
commitment to a political solution, his decision 
to rely on hardline Sinhala nationalist parties 
committed to a strictly unitary state structure 
instead of considering substantial devolution of 
powers to the regions has left him with little 
option other than to try to defeat the LTTE 
militarily. The All-Party Representative 
Committee (APRC) set up in 2006 is developing 
constitutional proposals intended to be endorsed 
by all parties but the limited progress it has 
made may unravel due to Rajapaksa's insistence on 
the unitary state and the UNP decision to abandon 
the process.

"Moving away from the unitary state is the only 
viable basis for resolving the conflict 
politically. Nothing less has the chance of 
strengthening the non-LTTE Tamil parties and 
opening up a new, broader political agenda for 
constitutional reform endorsed by Muslim, Tamil 
and Sinhala parties", says Alan Keenan, Crisis 
Group's Senior Analyst in Colombo.

A new approach is needed that addresses 
legitimate Sinhalese fears, so as to tackle 
supremacist nationalism and allow for the 
necessary southern consensus on devolution. Sri 
Lanka's international backers will need to 
persuade the president to compromise by dropping 
reference to the unitary state. Without strong 
international efforts to convince both the 
government and the UNP to find common ground, 
there is little chance the APRC can produce a 
political package attractive to both Tamil 
moderates and Sinhalese.

"To be sustainable, the next attempt at peace 
needs to be part of a larger project of state 
reform and good governance from which all 
communities benefit, not merely a deal in which 
Sinhalese trade territory for an end of war and 
terror", says Asia Program Director Robert 
Templer. "Domestic and international actors 
should begin to fashion long-term strategies that 
take into account the power of Sinhala 
nationalist ideology, while aiming to minimise 
the sources of its appeal and its ability to set 
the political agenda".

*Read the full Crisis Group report at: 
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/getfile.cfm?id=3173&tid=5144&type=pdf&l=1


______



[3]

Nepali Times
  Issue #373 (09 November 07 - 15 November 07)

DONOR AMNESIA: PEACEBUILDING IS A SPECTATOR SPORT IN AIDLAND

by Tobias Denskus

One recent report on a conference in Brussels 
organized by a northern NGO and interestingly 
entitled 'Nepal: Looking beyond 
Kathmandu-Challenges and Opportunities for 
peacebuilding from below', had a cover page with 
pictures from Nepal (rural women with 
children-unrelated to the conflict and the 
conference) and a second page with pictures from 
the conference venue of a nondescript 
board-room-style meeting room, handsome European 
women and men and artefacts such as a data 
projector and video-conferencing equipment.

The French philosopher Marc Augé coined the 
expression of 'non-places' for such spaces 
without history or individual meaning that only 
exist to enable commercial interactions. In the 
globalized aid world such places exist in 
Brussels - or in the well-known hotels and 
resorts in and around Kathmandu where workshops 
are usually conducted. As long as such exchanges 
shape the debate about post-conflict societies, 
real social change for the majority of Nepalis 
seems further away than any election dates, a new 
constitution or accountable services in rural 
areas.

After five decades of 'development' and ten years 
of violent conflict, Kathmandu has remained in a 
'bubble of innocence', as one donor 
representative described the state of mind in a 
city that seems remarkably far away from 
'underdevelopment', 'poverty' or 'war'. When the 
people formed a democracy movement last year and 
demonstrated on the streets, few conflict 
advisers and inhabitants of the bubble were able 
to predict the political changes that were about 
to happen. But they quickly shared their relief 
that the promising signs of the Maoist party 
joining 'mainstream politics', a forthcoming 
constituent assembly, and parliamentary elections 
would put Nepal back on the 'road to development'.

Some donors were relieved that they could now 
continue with work they had planned before the 
violent conflict, and that the small Nepali elite 
in Kathmandu seemed to be willing to address the 
'root causes' that have kept Nepal in 'poverty' 
for the past 55 years. A bright 'post-conflict' 
mirage was visible and donor amnesia quickly 
replaced reflective practice. Aid specialists 
from other post-war 'non-places' quickly arrived 
in Kathmandu to share their approaches, always 
stressing that they needed to be tailored to 
Nepal, of course.

'Arms management', 'security sector reforms', 
'transitional justice' - the Fall 2007 collection 
arrived in Kathmandu straight from the 
peacebuilding catwalks in Europe without looking 
outside the 'bubble', or searching for stories in 
the remote villages of Nepal, asking local people 
about the future direction of their country. A 
former 'conflict adviser' of a European donor 
observes:

'When I first attended the meetings of the 
conflict advisors' group I was surprised to find 
them talking over simple and conservative 
conflict analyses and I immediately started to 
wonder whether these guys [all but one were men 
at that time] should know these things by now and 
before coming to Kathmandu'.

If I look at the amount of reports, briefings and 
notes that arrive in my email inbox, I find that 
a lot of the insights are not rooted in local 
realties or have emerged from interactions other 
than bringing a few people together for a 
workshop with flipcharts and red plastic chairs. 
Harmonising discourses and approaches may be in 
vogue in today's 'Aidland', but, as this donor 
went on to comment, donor co-ordination in the 
peacebuilding community of Kathmandu seemed 
somewhat over-enthusiastic: 'We had 400 meetings 
after the February 1 coup of the King in 2005. I 
knew more about what the Japanese and Americans 
were doing than about our projects in the field.'

The professional life-world in Kathmandu was also 
matched by the sheltered private lifestyle of 
most international inhabitants of 'Aidland', 
because the Maoist violence never reached the 
Kathmandu Valley.

'Peacebuilding' is almost always linked to issues 
of 'governmentality' - making 'chaotic' and 
'unsafe' places fit for (neo)liberal democracy. 
Nepal is doomed to be a success-story of how a 
violent conflict can be transformed through 
peaceful, democratic means and adoption of the 
latest fashion in 'peace-building' and the 
international spectators in form of UNMIN staff 
or EU election observers have eagerly arrived in 
the 'stadium' in Kathmandu. Neither critical 
voices nor lessons learned from the failed 
development of Nepal, nor indeed the history of 
failed 'peacebuilding' interventions elsewhere, 
will enter the narrative of 'success'.

Tobias Denskus is a doctoral researcher at the 
Institute of Development Studies at the 
University of Sussex, UK. A longer version of 
this article appeared in Development In Practice 
special issue on Buzzwords and Fuzzwords: 
Deconstructing Development Discourses Vol 17, No4

______


[4] INDIAN ADMINISTRATED KASHMIR:

(i)

Indian Express
November 08, 2007
PAGE 1 ANCHOR

J&K'S WORST-KEPT SECRET: 60,000 FAMILIES ON A SECURITY BLACKLIST

by Muzamil Jaleel

Passports denied, salaries on hold, clearances 
for jobs stuck because names 'linked to 
militants; list hasn't been updated to factor in 
those dead and long gone


SRINAGAR, NOVEMBER 7: Abdul Rasheed Malla is the 
President of the Municipal Council, Baramulla, 
heading the biggest elected civic body in north 
Kashmir. He wanted to travel to Mecca for the Haj 
but has been denied travel documents because the 
police did not clear him. Malla is surprised 
because he had been to Haj in 2002 and no one has 
told him why he can't this time.

He isn't the only one. Consider Raheela Qazi. Two 
years after her father crossed over to Pakistan 
illegally, Qazi's mother and her two sisters 
moved to Pakistan from Baramulla in 1992 with 
valid passports. Raheela, then 13, stayed back 
with her grandfather. Raheela's name was endorsed 
on her mother's passport. Now she has been denied 
security clearance because of her father's past.

Then there is Zahoor Ahmad Beigh. Five years ago, 
he got a job as a Class IV employee in a 
government school in Srinagar His monthly salary 
has been stopped because the police denied him 
"security clearance." Reason: his brother, police 
say, was a JKLF activist who was killed in 1993.

He may have been dead 14 years but Beigh's 
brother, like Raheela's father, all figure on 
what officials in the security establishment call 
a "security index", a veritable blacklist 
prepared by the J&K Police's intelligence wing, 
that has swelled to cover as many as 60,000 
families across the Valley.

Examples like the ones mentioned above show that 
this list hasn't even been updated to delete 
names of those who have died, come overground or 
even joined the Government. Now the J-K Police 
has denied clearance to 400 aspiring Haj pilgrims 
as well - they either figure in the "index" or 
have relatives who do or, in some cases, have 
names "similar" to the ones mentioned in the list.

Such a list, police officers say, is of crucial 
importance given the security situation in the 
state but it needs a review to ensure that 
innocent residents are not denied their rights. 
For, if a person figures on this index, all his 
relatives are on the watchlist and can be denied 
security clearance, a pre-requisite for securing 
a passport, jobs in the government or in major 
private sector companies.

The Indian Express contacted several senior J-K 
Police officers but no one is willing to come on 
the record on this. "Security clearance in the 
Valley is an extremely sensitive issue and we are 
very strict with it," said a senior officer on 
the condition of anonymity. "And then, it is a 
subjective discretion with the state to issue 
passportto a citizen".

Some other examples of names on the "security index":

* 25-year-old Mohammad Rafiq Bhat has been denied 
a passport to travel to the Gulf for work. 
Reason: his father has a son from an earlier 
marriage, Shoukat Ahmad, who was arrested in 1993 
for alleged involvement in militancy. Ahmad was 
released and now runs a shawl business in 
Kolkata. But that makes no difference to Bhat's 
case.

* Zahid Fayaz Zargar, 30, runs a handicraft 
business in Srinagar. He has been denied a 
passport for failing to get security clearance. 
Official records show that the police have 
nothing against him except that Zargar's uncle 
Rayees Ahmad, was once working with a 
government-backed counter-insurgent group. There 
is no case against Rayees Ahmad.

* Asiya (name changed on request), Solina, 
Srinagar: An outstanding skier, Asiya applied for 
a passport after she received an invitation to 
participate in an international ski competition 
in 2004. The passport was denied after an adverse 
report. When Asiya approached the CID department, 
she was told her husband had been arrested 
several years ago on the suspicion of being a 
militant. This had happened years before their 
marriage and her husband's family had not 
revealed this information to her or to her family 
at the time of their wedding.

Asiya wrote to the police saying that she has 
nothing to do with what her husband was accused 
of years before their wedding and thus her 
"career should not be jeopardised". But the 
passport was denied.

Although the majority of the separatist top 
brass, including several former top militant 
commanders, get special waivers to travel 
overseas and are provided with requisite security 
clearances, this "index" comes back to haunt 
several citizens with no record of involvement 
with violence or militancy.

Several police officers admit that they have 
raised the issue at several official security 
meetings and underlined the need for a 
"comprehensive" update. "It doesn't make any 
sense especially at a time when the situation on 
the ground has changed and when we are looking at 
more people top people contacts via the bus and 
other. We need to review these cases," a senior 
officer said.

o o o

(ii)

Deccan Herald
7 November 2007

SIXTY YEARS OF KASHMIR'S ACCESSION: THE LESS KNOWN REALITIES
by Balraj Puri

Jammu and Kashmir is not a problem of 
Hindu-Muslim relations as many people believe.

October 27 was the day when Jammu and Kashmir 
acceded to the Indian Union in 1947. The sixtieth 
anniversary of the day was observed, in Jammu as 
a day of celebration and in Kashmir as a complete 
hartal underlying again the extent of differences 
between the popular moods in the two principal 
regions the state. These differences provide a 
vital clue to the developments and complications 
in the state since pre-independence days.

The initiative for converting the state Muslim 
conference into the National Conference was taken 
by two leaders of Jammu, Mahatma Budh Singh and 
Chaudhary Ghulam Ahmad Abbas. They were together 
in Reasi jail where they developed a close 
friendship.

Both went to Srinagar to persuade Shiekh Abdullah 
to make a secular all state political party. 
While the Sheikh accepted the advice, it was 
subject to a gentleman agreement that the 
leadership of the National Conference would 
rotate between the two regions every year.

Somehow, Sheikh Abdullah did not honour the 
agreement and the leaders of the two regions 
parted company. As the national leadership of the 
Congress was not willing to accommodate any rival 
to the Sheikh, the leaders of the Jammu region 
sought the patronage of the Muslim League and the 
Hindu Maha Sabha, and formed local branches of 
the Muslim Conference and Jammu and Kashmir Rajya 
Hindu Sabha.

When the National Conference launched the Quit 
Kashmir movement in 1946 demanding termination of 
the monarchy with the slogan of "Dogra Raj 
Murdabad," it had a negative reaction in the 
Jammu region where Dogras were the predominant 
community.

Opposing the Quit Kashmir movement, Choudhary 
Hameedullah, acting president of the Jammu Muslim 
Conference said, "We have never lacked in showing 
loyalty and respect for the Maharaja and it is 
because of this attachment that we did not 
support the Quit Kashmir Movement."

Both the Hindu Sabha and the Muslim Conference 
supported the Maharaja's desire for independence 
when the Partition plan was announced. 
Hameedullah argued, "Accession to Pakistan will 
disturb Hindus and accession to India will 
disturb Muslims.

Therefore, we have decided not to enter into any 
controversy either with India or Pakistan. The 
second thing we have decided is that we should 
try to acquire independence for the state. The 
third question before us is what would be the 
position of the Maharaja, which could only be 
secure in an independent state".

The same Hindu leadership that had supported 
independence of the state opposed its autonomy 
under Article 370 of the Indian constitution 
which guaranteed it. It was now organised under 
the banner of Praja Parishad, which became an 
affiliate of the Bhartiya Jana Sangh. The motive 
both times was the same distrust of the leaders 
of the Kashmir region.

After transfer of power from the Jammu based 
Maharaja to the Kashmir based leaders, they 
opposed what they called "Kashmiri Raj" 
domination as before 1947, Kashmiris opposed what 
they called "Dogra Raj". And the best way to get 
rid of "Kashmiri Raj", they thought, was to erode 
autonomy of the state.

The polarisation in the two regions around 
slogans of full accession and limited accession 
made the very issue of accession in dispute. The 
chain of events were one of the major factors 
responsible for dismissal from power of Sheikh 
Abdullah and his long detention.

Even after the rise of secessionist forces in 
Kashmir, differences between Kashmir leaders and 
the leaders of the Pak administered state 
re-emerged. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, 
which initiated the militant movement, was soon 
split into two groups led by Kashmiri speaking 
Yasin Malik and PoK leader Amanullah.

When Hurriyat leaders visited PoK, across the LoC 
on the invitation of the Pakistan government in 
2005, Sikandar Hayat Khan, the then Prime 
Minister of PoK challenged their claim to 
represent the Indian side of the state as not a 
single person form Jammu region was with them.

When the Poonch-Rawalakote bus route was opened 
last year, his son Farooq Hayat came upto the LoC 
and openly said in the presence of the media that 
there was no use opening the 
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road as there were not many 
Kashmiris in this part of the state. He demanded 
opening of more roads on LoC in Jammu region as 
most of the divided families lived there.

An eloquent lesson from the facts stated above is 
that Jammu and Kashmir is not a problem of 
Hindu-Muslim relations as many people believe and 
religion is not the only basis of identity. Bonds 
of language, culture, region and ethnicity in 
certain circumstances, proved stronger than those 
of religion.

Thus Kashmiri Muslims are as much Muslims as 
Kashmiris and Muslims of Jammu mostly belong to 
Pahrai, Gujar and Dogra communities who belong to 
the same family of languages.

How regional factors matter was evident when the 
Congress swept the polls in 2002 assembly 
election when it projected its Muslim leader 
Ghulam Nabi Azad as the future Chief Minister, 
conceding only one seat to the BJP out of 37 
constituencies.

The above mentioned developments have taken place 
despite official policies which still consider 
Kashmir as a Muslim region, Jammu as a Hindu and 
Ladakh as a Buddhist region and have so far 
ignored not only substational minorities (35 per 
cent Muslims in Jammu and 48 per cent Muslims in 
Ladakh) but also regional and cultural identities 
which have shown their vitality and  potentiality 
for laying foundations of a secular state of 
Jammu and Kashmir.

(The writer is Director, Institute of Jammu and Kashmir affairs,
Jammu.)



______


[5]  TEHELKA EXPOSE AND AFTER; FASCISM AND 'NORMALITY'



Business Standard

Tehelka and after

CRITICALLY INCLINED
Sadanand Menon / New Delhi November 02, 2007

Every bully is also a braggart. It was a matter 
of time before architects of the 2002 Gujarat 
pogroms would sing like parrots and boast of 
their brutalities. That a Tehelka kind of exposé 
would happen was inevitable. Enough criminal acts 
had been perpetrated by enough number of people 
for it to continue to remain under the wraps for 
any extended length of time.

The Tehelka team did manage a convincing 
orchestration of their material and its 
dissemination. Their special issue, last week, is 
a compelling document of infamy, packing in the 
on-camera testimonies of some 20 lead players in 
the Gujarat riots as well as an inspired 
editorial by Tarun Tejpal. Obviously, he and his 
colleagues are shaken by the evidentiary material 
on tape. The editorial warning, "Read. And be 
afraid," rings true. It is the voice of someone 
who has seen the 'face of fascism' and got 
politicised.

A few questions follow. One is, what made such a 
large number of Narendra Modi acolytes come 
clean, even if on spy-cam? What made them 
describe so graphically the unspeakable acts they 
committed? You don't find rapists or murderers 
easily confessing their crimes. So, why did this 
set of mob leaders feel compelled to talk?

The other question is, despite a 48-hour media 
buzz, why has the exposé been unable to provoke 
any mass reaction either in Gujarat or in the 
rest of the country? Will anyone be punished?

Some explanations can be attempted. One is based 
on Jean-Paul Sartre's celebrated cautionary, in 
his introduction to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched 
of the Earth. Confronting his countrymen with the 
excesses of French soldiers in Algeria, Sartre 
writes, "It is not right (for a soldier) to be 
obliged to torture for ten hours a day; at that 
rate, his nerves will fall to bits, unless the 
torturers are forbidden in their own interest to 
work overtime." The Hindutva 'laboratory' in 
Gujarat allowed their cadre to carry out 
unrepentant rampage on minorities for too long. 
What we are witnessing on the Tehelka tapes now 
is a process of the fraying of nerves. It's the 
guts spilling out. The only way the arsonist can 
handle his conscience is by exaggerating it as an 
achievement. It is an exhibition of unbridled 
libido. You have to flaunt it. Babu Bajrangi, 
Haresh Bhatt, Arvind Pandya, everyone has been 
bursting to announce it. All they needed was the 
promise of a secure listener. That was what the 
undercover Tehelka reporter represented.

Of course, it is not as if anyone was trying to 
hide this planned savagery. I have travelled to 
Gujarat many times since March 2002. Each time I 
have been told how recordings of rape and 
killings are now part of video lending libraries 
in the state, regularly taken on loan to be 
'enjoyed' in the comfort of average middle class 
homes. The story circulates of how private video 
studios in towns and villages (usually making a 
living out of recording local marriages) were 
willingly or otherwise drafted and how several 
acts of violence were done 'for camera'.

So, the Gujarat events are not about the 
barbarity of one political figurehead or his 
trusted cronies. While they were certainly 
instrumental, as the tapes show, one cannot 
anymore disregard the role of the 'masses'. 
"Fascism," German psychologist Wilhelm Reich had 
explained, "differs from other reactionary 
parties, inasmuch as it is borne and championed 
by masses of people." In Gujarat, it is clear 
that, as Shubh Mathur's brilliant The Everyday 
Life of Hindu Nationalism (Three Essays 
Collective, forthcoming) has it, "the cultural 
logic and institutional power of Hindutva have 
become deeply entrenched in everyday life itself."

She quotes Columbia University anthropologist, 
Michael Taussig: "Torture and institutionalised 
terror is like a ritual art form; far from being 
spontaneous and an abandonment of what are often 
called 'the values of civilization', such rites 
have a deep history deriving power and meaning 
from those values."

I have often argued that, in the daily sphere, 
this is made possible by the galloping growth of 
popular mysticism. In Gujarat, it manifests in 
the horizontal spread of the satsang. Subsequent 
to the demagogic successes of sadhvis like 
Rithambara and Uma Bharati, an epidemic of 
satsangis has captured Gujarat. Morari Bapu, 
Asaramji Bapu, Rameshbhai Oza, Atmagyani Niruma, 
Pramukh Swami - a long list of interpreters of 
Hindu tenets who pepper their discourses with 
provocative contemporary political issues. Seldom 
do they have audiences of less than a hundred 
thousand. They are conduits through which 
borderline Hindutva circulates.

It is an error to read fascism as an abnormality; 
one should, in fact, seek the links between 
fascism and 'normality'. Shubh Mathur's insight 
is important, "A 'culture of terror' is the 
cultural logic of Hindutva, and is central to its 
imagining, enactment, and retelling." It is 
crucial that individuals, collectives and 
institutions act to dismantle that logic. 
Otherwise, a sullen backlash is certain.

o o o

  On the Shameless Silence of the Congress Party after the Tehelka Expose

Does Anything Matter?
by Tarun Tejpal
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-shameless-silence-of-congress-party.html

Time To Speak Up
by Mahesh Peri
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/time-of-speak-up-after-tehelka-sting.html

A pogrom does not lessen in brutality if it is hidden from the nation
by Kuldip Nayar
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/pogrom-does-not-lessen-in-brutality-if.html

  Does this society have the nerve nerve to 
confront the beast exposed by the Tehelka expose ?
by Prashant Bhushan
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/does-this-society-have-nerve-nerve-to.html

The Truth of Gujarat Carnage
by Ram Puniyani
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/truth-of-gujarat-carnage.html

Courting injustice
by Priya Pillai
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/end-impunity-of-perpetrators-and.html

In India we do wonderful omissions of inquiry
by Pamela Philipose
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/in-india-we-do-wonderful-omissions-of.html

______



[6]


The Times of India
28 Oct 2007

SHOULD WE BE PROUD OF BOBBY JINDAL?

by Shashi Tharoor

The election of Bobby Jindal as governor of the 
US state of Louisiana has been greeted exultantly 
by Indians and Indian-Americans around the world. 
There's no question that this is an extraordinary 
accomplishment: a young Indian-American, just 36 
years old, not merely winning an election but 
doing so on the first ballot by receiving more 
votes than his 11 rivals combined, and that too 
in a state not noticeably friendly to minorities. 
Bobby Jindal will now be the first 
Indian-American governor in US history, and the 
youngest currently serving chief executive of an 
American state. These are distinctions of which 
he can legitimately be proud, and it is not 
surprising that Indians too feel a vicarious 
sense of shared pride in his remarkable ascent.

But is our pride misplaced? Who is Bobby Jindal 
and what does he really stand for?

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of Indian 
migrants in America: though no sociologist, i'll 
call them the atavists and the assimilationists. 
The atavists hold on to their original identities 
as much as possible, especially outside the 
workplace; in speech, dress, food habits, 
cultural preferences, they are still much more 
Indian than American. The assimilationists, on 
the other hand, seek assiduously to merge into 
the American mainstream; they acquire a new 
accent along with their visa, and adopt the ways, 
clothes, diet and recreational preferences of the 
Americans they see around them. (Of course, there 
are the in-betweens, but we'll leave them aside 
for now.) Class has something to do with which of 
the two major categories an Indian immigrant 
falls into; so does age, since the newer 
generation of Indians, especially those born in 
America, inevitably tend to gravitate to the 
latter category.

Bobby Jindal is an assimilationist's dream. Born 
to relatively affluent professionals in 
Louisiana, he rejected his Indian name (Piyush) 
as a very young child, insisting that he be 
called Bobby, after a (white) character on the 
popular TV show 'The Brady Bunch'. His desire to 
fit in to the majority-white society he saw 
around him soon manifested itself in another act 
of rejection: Bobby spurned the Hindusim into 
which he was born and, as a teenager, converted 
to Roman Catholicism, the faith of most white 
Louisianans. There is, of course, nothing wrong 
with any of this, and it is a measure of his 
precocity that his parents did not balk at his 
wishes despite his extreme youth. The boy was 
clearly gifted, and he soon had a Rhodes 
scholarship to prove it. But he was also 
ambivalent about his identity: he wanted to be 
seen as a Louisianan, but his mirror told him he 
was also an Indian. The two of us won something 
called an 'Excelsior Award' once from the

Network of Indian Professionals in the US, and 
his acceptance speech on the occasion was 
striking - obligatory references to the Indian 
values of his parents, but a speech so American 
in tone and intonation that he mangled the Indian 
name of his own brother. There was no doubt which 
half of the hyphen this Indian-American leaned 
towards.

But there are many ways to be American, and it's 
interesting which one Bobby chose. Many Indians 
born in America have tended to sympathise with 
other people of colour, identifying their lot 
with other immigrants, the poor, the underclass. 
Vinita Gupta, in Oklahoma, another largely white 
state, won her reputation as a crusading lawyer 
by taking up the case of illegal immigrants 
exploited by a factory owner (her story will 
shortly be depicted by Hollywood, with Halle 
Berry playing the Indian heroine). Bhairavi Desai 
leads a taxi drivers' union; Preeta Bansal, who 
grew up as the only non-white child in her school 
in Nebraska, became New York's Solicitor General 
and now serves on the Commission for Religious 
Freedom. None of this for Bobby. Louisiana's most 
famous city, New Orleans, was a majority black 
town, at least until Hurricane Katrina destroyed 
so many black lives and homes, but there is no 
record of Bobby identifying himself with the 
needs or issues of his state's black people. 
Instead, he sought, in a state with fewer than 
10,000 Indians, not to draw attention to his race 
by supporting racial causes. Indeed, he went well 
beyond trying to be non-racial (in a state that 
harboured notorious racists like the Ku Klux 
Klansman David Duke); he cultivated the most 
conservative elements of white Louisiana society. 
With his widely-advertised piety (he asked his 
Indian wife, Supriya, to convert as well, and the 
two are regular churchgoers), Bobby Jindal 
adopted positions on hot-button issues that place 
him on the most conservative fringe of the 
Republican Party. Most Indian-Americans are in 
favour of gun control, support a woman's right to 
choose abortion, advocate immigrants' rights, and 
oppose school prayer (for fear that it would 
marginalise non-Christians). On every one of 
these issues, Bobby Jindal is on the opposite 
side. He's not just conservative; on these 
questions, he is well to the right of his own 
party.

That hasn't stopped him, however, from seeking 
the support of Indian-Americans. Bobby Jindal has 
raised a small fortune from them, and when he 
last ran (unsuccessfully) for governor in 2004, 
an army of Indian-American volunteers from 
outside the state turned up to campaign for him. 
Many seemed unaware of his political views; it 
was enough for them that he was Indian. At his 
Indian-American fundraising events, Bobby is 
careful to downplay his extreme positions and 
play up his heritage, a heritage that plays 
little part in his appeal to the Louisiana 
electorate. Indian-Americans, by and large, 
accept this as the price of political success in 
white America: it's just good to have "someone 
like us" in such high office, whatever views he 
professes to get himself there.

So Indians beam proudly at another 
Indian-American success story to go along with 
Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams, Hargobind 
Khorana and Subramaniam Chandrasekhar, Kal Penn 
and Jhumpa Lahiri. But none of these Indian 
Americans expressed attitudes and beliefs so much 
at variance with the prevailing values of their 
community. Let us be proud that a brown-skinned 
man with an Indian name has achieved what Bobby 
Jindal has. But let us not make the mistake of 
thinking that we should be proud of what he 
stands for.


______



[7] ANNOUNCEMENTS:

(i)

There would be a                          against 
the imposition of emergency/martial law in 
Pakistan.
Please inform as many people as you can so that 
we have an impressive gathering and a
loud voice.

Venue Boston common.. (park street t- stop)
Date: sat Nov 10th 2007
Time: 10 am

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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: http://insaf.net/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
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