[sacw] sacw dispatch (30 Oct.99)

[Harsh Kapoor]

#1. The Church & the Indian State
#2. Barricaded Kashmiri Pandits: Letting go the Right to Return?
#3. New Publication '...The RSS--A Story Of Betrayal'
#4. S. Asian arms race goes on
#5. India 's Nuclear Costs
___________________
#1.
The Asian Age
Saturday 30th October 1999 

THE CHURCH AND OUR STATE
By Seema Mustafa

The Vajpayee government cannot but accord a "glittering" reception to Pope
John Paul II. He is a religious head and head of state all rolled into
one. The meeting with President K.R.Narayanan and the reception at
Hyderabad House are all part of the official protocol that marks the visit
of any dignitary, the Pope being no exception. So for foreign minister
Jaswant Singh to stand up and piously assure Parliament that all stops
will be pulled out to ensure the success of this visit is neither here nor
there. In a still democratic India, the government has no alternative but
to do what is being done. The controversy surrounding the Papal visit is
around the extras. The "little and that much more" that can be done to
create a feeling that yes, the Pope is genuinely welcome and the
government is prepared to go beyond the basic brief. Particularly when the
front organisations of the Parivar of which the BJP is an integral part
are determined to vitiate the secular climate by insisting on raising the
hype over conversions, or rather their version of Christianity. Added to
this is the strident demand by activists of the BJP's Parivar that the
Pope should apologise. Giving an added dimension to this is minister
Jaswant Singh's remark in Parliament about repentance being part of the
Christian religion. The attack on Christians in the country has been
converted into an attack on the Pope himself. The Vajpayee government in
its earlier tenure did not take any action against members of the Parivar
who were busy burning churches, raping nuns, attacking priests and
distributing vitriolic pamphlets against the tiny minority community which
is an integral part of India's secular and democratic ethos. The same
statements deploring the action were made by ministers but nothing was
done by way of preventive action. Even Parivar member Dara Singh,
responsible for the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his
two sons, has not been arrested and continues to evade the mighty law and
order machinery of the state. Union home minister L.K.Advani also stood up
in Parliament to assure an agitated Opposition that he was not one with
the Parivar activists. And that he totally deplored the protest
demonstrations being organised by the other organisations of his
fraternity. But at the same time no step was taken to stop the rathyatra
undertaken by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and its ilk from Goa to Delhi with
the participants distributing ugly communal literature along the way. It
was left to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh to arrest the lot
who are now reportedly sitting on dharna somewhere in Rajasthan. But then
Mr Advani was obviously the last person with the moral authority to stop
the yatra: memories of his rath yatra which had ignited a communal fire
still haunt the country. The other extra that would have gone a long way in
easing the tension and insecurity gripping the Christian community would
have been the participation of vice-president Krishan Kant at a function
being organised by the Church for a meeting between all the great
religions. It was envisaged as an assertion of the pluralistic, secular
spirit of India for which the vice-president had been invited as a guest
of honour. The invitation was sent on September 7 but till this Thursday
the organisers had not received a reply. After a report in The Asian Age
the foreign minister again informed Parliament that the news story was
"sensational and misleading" and then went on to confirm that the
government had advised the vice-president not to attend the function. The
irony is that the reason cited for advising the vice-president not to
attend the function is secularism. The ministry of external affairs,
taking the cue from Jaswant Singh in Parliament, issued a release claiming
that in secular India government representatives did not attend religious
functions. And this in a country where there is a long list of Presidents,
vice-presidents, Prime Ministers et al attending religious functions
without an eyebrow being raised from concerned quarters. This, of course,
does not mean that an exception to a good rule should be made this time
around. But the Pope is not a religious head alone and is recognised by
the world as a head of state. The meeting in question is not of a
religious nature in the ritualistic sense and in fact, is in complete
conformity with the Indian Constitution which enshrines abiding respect
for all religions. In fact the Church has not invited government heads for
the purely religious Mass that is being held on the same day at a
different venue. Clearly, secularism is not the guiding spirit of the
Vajpayee government. It cannot be, given the past history of the BJP and
its Parivar of the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, as well as all the little
organisations they keep floating from time to time. The decision not to
allow the vice-president to attend the function is just part of the
overall Christian bashing going on in this country albeit in a more
sophisticated form. After all, the mindset was clearly reflected when the
normally suave Jaswant Singh let the mask drop to justify the VHP demand
for an apology from the Pope by stating that repentance was part of the
Christian religion. Fanaticism breeds off insecurity and tension. And the
BJP and its Parivar are trying to spread their tentacles through society
by creating the bogey of mass scale conversions to Christianity and
conjuring up images far removed from reality. Organised propaganda gives
teeth to distortions, as it did and does in the case of Muslims, with the
fanatics positioning themselves to appear as the only saviours of their
religion which is being linked slowly but firmly to India. The fact that
Christians constitute just over two per cent of India's population, and
have not grown in strength despite the alleged spate of conversions, is
obviously not a factor that the Parivar wants to reckon with. The BJP/RSS
ideology has always been based on lies, distortions, falsehoods. The more
successful leaders have perfected the art of double discourse to create
an image of moderation which basically acts as a cover for outright
fanaticism. These people thrive on creating false stereotypes and then
bashing these in what they always claim is in the interest of the
religion, and lately in the interest of the country. The Parivar is
working presently on several tracks only one of which is this effort to
polarise opinion against the minorities and through this towards the RSS,
BJP and VHP. As sinister are the inroads being made into education with
human resource development and culture being placed under Murli Manohar
Joshi and RSS ideologue Ananth Kumar. Marxism has been de-recognised by
these gentlemen as a school of thought although fascism has been retained
in the CBSC curricula. RSS supporters, even those who have confessed to
killing people during the Partition riots, are being brought in to head
sensitive and prestigious organisations. For the RSS, unlike the Congress
and the United Front, knows the importance of participating in the
generational change and creating a mindset conducive to the spread of
fanaticism in all its primitive realities. The Christian workers who have,
as part of their faith, been working tirelessly amongst the sick, poor,
depressed and oppressed sections of society, are suddenly being targetted.
This is not without reason or aim. It is part of the overall fascist
agenda which first targets the minorities and then attacks dissent. India
is witnessing the growth and spread of fascism which derives its own
peculiar character from domestic compulsions. The tragedy is that despite
the lessons of history, India is re-living history without even being
aware of it. The danger is that realisation might sink in too late when
minds have been captured and the stage has been set.
________________
#2.
Refugee Watch
September 1999

BARRICADED KASHMIRI PANDITS:
Letting go the Right to Return?
by Rita Manchanda

In the 10 years of insurgency in the Kashmir valley and the border hill
districts girdling the epicentre of conflict, more than a half millon
people have been displaced on both sides of the LOC. The exodus includes,
200,000 Kashmiri Pandits, 70,000 Kashmiri Muslims to India and 120,000 to
Pakistan. From Kargil and the border districts some 35,000 people have been
displaced in Pakistan and 100,000 in India.

As the guns fall silent along the LOC, after the Kargil war, the people of
the border districts will return to bury their animals, rebuild their homes
and replant their crops till the artillery duels across the LOC erupt
again. But for the thousands of displaced Kashmiri Pandits, can there be a
return home? Can there be a return to the "homeland", a return to a
remembered society imbued in the ethos of Kashmiriyat i.e. a common
Muslim-Pandit identity constructed around a shared history, language and
culture?

The mass exodus of Pandits from the valley in 1990 played into the hands of
the propagandists on both sides and people who had grown up in a culture of
social and economic interdependence have been communalised. The poison of
communal politics has constructed negative images of the Pandit as
abandoning his Muslim brethren to the guns of the Indian state and the
Muslim as waiting to grab the property of his Pandit neighbour.

Also, these 10 years have seen a hardening of the Islamicisation core of
the struggle and an Islamicisation of a reconstructed Kashmiri identity.
Symbolic of the new Islamicised Kashmir, is the fact that many more women
are wearing burqua. The measure of the change in the ethos of Kashmir can
be gauged by the relatively contained public outrage at the burning down of
Charar I Sharif, the mausoleum of Nund Rishi, the most revered Sufi Pir of
Kashmir. But the political, human rights and humanitarian discourse remains
locked in the presumption of return to an" original homeland". The
recommendations of the J & K Regional Autonomous Council on the "Return of
the Migrants" has proposed the creation of a Protector General of Migrant
Properties, the setting up of transit settlements and the promotion of a
social dialogue between the migrants and the majority community. The
presumption is that Pandits can and must return, irrespective of the
transformation of the "homeland".

For 10 years Kashmiri Pandit have been living as materially and
psychologically displaced, as poignantly evoked in Khema Kaul's elegiac "My
Diary". The possibility of return remains blocked, not only because of the
series of communal massacres by the militants but because of the
communalised mind set which has become entrenched in these 10 years. The
April'99 recommendations of the controversial J&K Regional Autonomy Council
insidiously seek to formalise the communalisation of the state in its
territorial recasting of Jammu and Kashmir Divisions.

No deal cut at a negotiating table to decide the final settlement of the
Kashmir dispute, including the fate of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits, can
be sustainable unless it is backed by the people of Kashmir. It has to be
Kashmiri civil society which has to demonstrate the capacity for
reconciliation, accommodation and tolerance, for the return to be possible.
JKDP(Jammu Kashmir Democrate Party) leader Shabir Shah has made a small
political gesture in choosing as the first beneficiaries of his Rs 1 crore
fund, 70 displaced Pandit families in Budgam. The healing process has to be
nurtured by civil society initiatives, which are not visible.

Where is the Pandit voice to weep over the suffering of the people of
Kashmir trapped between two guns."They brought it on themselves", retorts
Dr Shakti Bhan, a founder member of Daughters of Vitasta, the women's wing
of Panun Kashmir. In 1993, at the National Conference of Kashmiri Pandits a
resolution was passed expressing solidarity with Kashmiri women. But Dr
Bhan clarified, "my heart goes to the innocent women of Kashmir, not to the
Dukhtarane Millat". The problem is that in these 10 years, on both sides
the moderate voices have been silenced by fundmentalist ones. Over-
interpreting the significance of Kashmiri Muslims caring for stranded Hindu
pilgrims to Amarntha caves, is an apology for a much needed unblinkered
look at the possibility of return to what is an irrevocably transformed
Kashmir society.

However, the structure of the governmental and human rights and
humanitarian agencies' discourse, remains tied to the logic of return and
thus oriented towards relief and not the reconstruction of lives. Is it
time, then, to advocate a move away f rom the damaging attachment to an
"original homeland" transformed beyond recognition, and turn to coping with
re- constructing home, identity and even an "imagined community"? It is a
revolutionary (counter-revolutionary) attitude that strikes at the basic
presumption of man/ women's rootedness in land and the territoriality of
the nation state. But what is the option-perpetuating the psyche of
displacement, predicating another generation of Kashmiri Pandits to be
brought up as "displaced"in migrant camps?

In these 10 years a generation has grown up in the valley and camps, which
has no memory beyond the bitterness of the Pandit-Muslim divide. School
children have learnt to view the Hindu as "the other". "Hindus, drink
urine!", a student of the elite Burn Hall school said to me. In Poonch, a
group of young schoolgirls I stopped to chat with, wanted first of all to
know, "What is your religion?"

The living tradition of Kashmiriyat, where foster mothers of Kashmiri
Pandits were commonly Muslims and vice versa, has become a memory of the
time of their grandmothers. There were common rituals at the time of birth,
marriage and death. Language, food, dress and names were the same
reflecting a common ancestor. The cultural heritage was common. Lalla was
equally revered as Lal Ded and Laleshwari. Khemlata Wakloo, a Kashmiri
Pandit politician remembers, the practice in Kashmir to shorten the first
names. An Abdul Gani would be called "Ghana", so would a Ganesh Das. It
emphasised a common Kashmiri identity. According to the 1981 census,
Muslims account for 64% of the population of J&K but in the districts of
the valley they comprise 96% of the population. The cultural ethos of
Kashmiriyat was common to both Pandits and Muslims.

Kashmiriyat which epitomises the liberal cultural ethos of tolerance in
Kashmir was based on a historical narrative of Islam coming to Kashmir in 1
2th century not as a religion of conquest but through itinerant Sufi
mystics who brought it as a message of love. It knitted well with the older
Kashmiri tradition of Hindu Shaivite Rishis (saints). The Sufi-Islam Pirs
too came to be styled Rishis and revered by both communities.

But as Wakloo explains, relations between the Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus
were based on a peculiar love-hate syndrome. The Pandit minority,
traditionally, had used their literacy skills to become the clerks of the
ruling classes, while the Muslims depended on agriculture and handicrafts.
The Kashmiri Pandits who were clerks and revenue officials of the
government, were the visible human face of the exploitative rule of the
Dogra (Hindu) Rajas. Held back by the maulvis, the Muslims took to English
education much later. But educated young Muslims, like Sheikh Abdullah,
found themselves discriminated against. After 1947, with thousands of
children getting modern education, the competition for jobs became acute
and bitter. While the Kashmiri Pandit took up jobs all over India, Kashmiri
Muslim youth felt insecure about moving out of J & K. Forthem employment in
the state government was the only option. Yet at the time of the
insurgency, when only 25 percent of the IAS cadre of the J&K belonged to
the state, of that number, only 5 percent were Muslims. There were more
than a lakh of unemployed educated youth.

In the "Quit Kashmir" movement against Dogra rule, a few leading Pandits
like P N Bazaz did identify with the National Conference which had emergeed
as a "secular" alternative to the Muslim Conference. After accession to
India, the peculiar unfinished status of J&K as a disputed territory
fostered contradictory allegiances in Pandits and Muslims which hinged on
Kashmir's ultimate historic destiny, i.e. i) union with Pakistan, ii)
integration within India and iii) I ndependence.

When the popular movement for freedom surged in 1989-90, the language was
resonant with Islamic revivalism, as echoed in the slogans raised by
thousands of marching demonstrators. The diktat of the militant group Allah
Tigers and the fundamentalist women's organisation Dukhtarae Millat on
purdah, sought to visibly reinforce markers of the Pandit-Muslim divide. At
the time the dominant militant group the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front
wanted an independent J & K for all Kashmiris, Muslims and Pandits. But the
attacks on government functionaries- many of whom were Pandits and the
targeting of "informers"-many of whom were Pandits, fuelled fear and terror
about a pogrom against Hindus. Rumours spread like wildfire that Kashmiri
Muslims were getting ready to rape Kashmiri Pandit women.

The killing of Sarla Butt, a Kashmiri Pandit nurse working at the Soura
Medical hospital was used by the community elders to raise panic about the
fate which would befall Kashmiri Pandit women if they remained. Sarla Butt
was raped and killed by the JKLF 1990, apparently, because she had passed
on information about wounded militants in the hospital. She reportedly had
JKLF scratched in blood on her naked torso, according to Kashmiri Pandit
sources.

On the night of January 19-20, 1990, thousands of Kashmiri Pandits fled, in
an exodus which is believed to have been engineered by Governor Jagmohan
who had just taken over the state. It irretrievably communalised the
situation. Dr Shakti Bhan, a former gynecologist at Lal Ded hospital,
Srinagar was one of the Pandits who fled. On January 20, at 4 AM, she left
her home with the daily army convoy to Jammu.

Dr Bhan 92s house was the largest in Sonewar in Srinagar and also the lone
house of a Hindu in the area. The city on January 19 was full of rumours
about curfew being broken and an imminent anti Pandit riot. She was
informed that evening that she too must join the colony people marching for
aazadi. "They wanted me to act like a shield", she feared. She sought
refuge in the home of a Muslim neighbour. They told her that her name had
been mentioned in the meeting at the local mosque. Her neighbours urged her
to leave. "I got into my car and with my mother and servant drove off".

For Dr Bhan there could be no choice other than Kashmir as an integral part
of India. "I was identified with India. An independent Kashmir, yes. But
there could be no question of Pakistan for me. And what did they mean by
aazadi except Pakistan," she said. Dr Bhan had been the only member of her
family to buy property in the valley, against the forebodings of her father
who warned that the valley was no place for the Kashmiri Pandits to sink in
roots. Dr Bhan, now works at Delhi 's Apollo hospital.

The bitterness runs deep in Dr Bhan, souring old friendships. When the
husband of her former colleague Dr Mehbooba Dar, died she wrote a letter of
condolence. "But there is no friendship left, no trust", she said. Her
mirror image was Mariam Nizam, a school teacher in Srinagar. "They never
told us they were leaving. Only 10 percent now are left. They took
everything and then filed false claims. They have made money," she said.

A fresh replay of the communalisation of Kashmir society was evident in the
border districts of Rajouri and Poonch in 1998. Shaheen Malik, a fresh
graduate from a college in Poonch, said, "When three Hindus were killed in
Surankot, the Hindus migrated to Poonch because there were more Hindus
there. They cursed us Muslims. But it wasn't the fault of Muslims. The
fight is between the militants and the army. What have we to do with it",
she said. The Hindus assured of security have returned. But things can
never be the same. "We do live together but last time when three Hindu
"informers" were killed, they fled because they didn't think that their
Muslims neighbours would side with them. Muslims were left alone. If the
army did something, it would be the Muslims who would suffer," she said.

Yet in the midst of this communalisation there are those who have resisted
like Neeraj Mattoo, a highly, respected former teacher of the Women's
college in Srinagar. Despite the fact that her husband the Conservator of
Forests, escaped an abduction attempt, the Mattoos have stayed on in
Srinagar. Unlike many of her co-religous brethren living in an essentially
~Auslim neighbourhood, she did not have to hide her Pandit identity and
give up wearing a saree.

At the Women's College in Srinagar, Pandit and Sikh teachers who stayed on
all through the 10 years, spoke of how their neighbours and colleagues had
protected them and urged them to stay on. Veena Kaur, the sole women lawyer
in Baramulla, said that as a Sikh, she had never felt she was under risk.
It was the security forces who reinforced communal tension when they stop a
public bus and single out the Muslims, she s3id.

Some Mother's Son All through the history of these 1() years, [~lere are
stories of women privileging their identity as "some mother's son" and
rushing out to save a boy from the neighbourhood being taken away. Mehjooba
Bidar, the wife of a former militant recalled how in 1993 in Baramulla,
when BSF jawans billeted at the Sheerwani College were taking away a young
boy, all the neighbourhood women came out to protect him. "A Kashmiri
Panditain and a Sardarni also came out. All of us, mothers came out. The
boy was some mother's son", she said. Nayema Ahmed Majoor, an executive
with Radio Kashmir, described how in Srinagar in 1991, when militants were
dragging away a local Hindu Pandit boy, first, one woman and then dozens
more from the locality rushed out and fell upon him to prevent him from
being taken away. The men remained inside, inhibited by political
considerations or their greater political vulnerability, but the women
spontaneously rushed out. But for every story of a Pandit boy being saved
by the neighbourhood women spontaneously coming out, there were stories of
Muslim neighbours watching while militants killed a Pandit boy. For every
story of Muslims protecting the property of their Hindu neighbours, there
were reports of arson and appropriation. Manipulated by the propaganda are
the women and men of Kashmir, struggling as refugees or negotiating
survival in a conflict wracked homeland.
________________
#3.
Just Released
"THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT AND THE RSS--A STORY OF BETRAYAL "
by Shamsul Islam

English and Hindi Editions

AVAILABLE FROM:
Joshi--Adhikari Institute Of Social Studies
14, Janpath,
New Delhi-110001. India.
E-mail: notointolerance@h...

PRICE : Rs.5. $3

Rashtriya Sawyam Sewak Sangh (RSS), the fountainhead of Vishwa Hindu
Parishad(VHP), Bajrang Dal(BD), Hindu Jagran Manch(HJM) and such other
rabid communal organizations, claims to be the greatest embodiment of
nationalism in the country today. There has been a concerted attempt to
market it as being synonymous with patriotism in India. It is also a fact,
though that the claims of the RSS in this regard have always been
challenged by individuals and organizations who were in the thick of
struggle of the Freedom Movement against the British rule. There is no
dearth of writings exposing the negative role of the RSS during the Freedom
Struggle.

However, this booklet is the first attempt to collect facts of the Freedom
Movement era from the documents of the RSS itself. It has been the
intention of the author that the documents of the RSS should speak
themselves instead of others commenting on its role in the Freedom
Movement. This booklet is going to shock surely those who believe that the
organizations like RSS played any role in securing freedom of August 15,
1947. They will hear from the horse’s mouth that not only a silence
was maintained but all attempts were made to sabotage the fight against the
British rulers.

In this booklet a unique method of thematic indexing of the available RSS
literature, pertaining generally to that period was adopted. For the
purpose of Thematic Indexing the literature was studied keeping in view
certain themes relevant for this study. For instance we looked for
references where the RSS might have given a call to the British rulers to
leave India or supported the fight of the revolutionaries against the
British imperialists or written something on events which proved to be
milestones in the history of the Freedom Struggle like Jalianwala Bagh
tragedy, martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev and other
revolutionaries or supported some call of Mahatma Gandhi.The final picture,
which arose out of this exercise, is presented in the booklet with
astonishing results and are self explanatory. (For instance the whole lot
of literature has absolutely no reference against the British rulers and
not a single reference supporting the freedom movement)
_______________
#4.
The Straits Times (Singapore)
October 23, 1999
SECTION: World; Pg. 14

S. Asian Arms Race Goes On
By Nirmal Ghosh, India correspondent

Military downsizing plans are shelved in Pakistan, as India gets set to
hike defence budget by about $ 3 billion

NEW DELHI-While India is due to hike its defence budget in the wake of the
recent war in Kargil, Pakistan's new military junta has reportedly
suspended an exercise-initiated by the government of ousted Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif -to trim the size of the army.

Indian dailies have reported that the new Bharatiya Janata Party-led
government is expected to hike defence spending by about US$ 1.8 billion
(S$ 3 billion).

The army is reported to be the largest beneficiary, taking up a significant
chunk of the budgetary increase to fund the indigenous manufacture of
equipment as well as higher allowances for soldiers.

Across the border, Pakistan's ousted government had initiated downsizing in
the army by banning further recruitment at the middle and lower rungs.

Sources in the military said the Sharif government was convinced that
Pakistan could not extricate itself from its economic problems without
downsizing the military.

The ousted government believed the country no longer needed massive
conventional defence forces, since it had the benefit of a nuclear umbrella.

The process has now been stopped by the new military government, led by
General Pervez Musharraf.
________________
#5.

Far Eastern Economic Review
10/28/1999
Page 85

INDIA 'S NUCLEAR COSTS

Many figures have been bandied about on the costs of an Indian
nuclear-weapons programme. But I was mortified to find a $178 billion
figure for this attributed to me in Choosing the Target {Sept. 16}.

Your correspondent and I talked about many other things besides the cost
of a nuclear deterrent, and hence missed out on the articulation of this
large figure. The cost of a build-up to around 350 nuclear weapons over 30
years would be 700 billion rupees($16 billion). Only if the U.S. and its
Western allies were to react punitively to such a programme (something I
don't expect) by imposing trade embargoes, credit cut-offs, etc., would
costs multiply about ten-fold to 7.7 trillion rupees, or about $178 billion
at today's rate.

Bharat Karnad
National Security Studies Centre for Policy Research

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