[sacw] [ACT] sacw dispatch #2. (12 Feb 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch #2.
12 February 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

***
[ANNOUNCEMENT to all recipients of SACW Dispatch:
Between the period 13 Feb - 17 March 2000 the dispatches
will be discontinued, except for urgent &
important announcements & must read news & articles etc. !]
__________________________
#1. Militancy in Kashmir could come back to haunt the people of Pakistan
#2. India had better heed the lesson from Austria
#3. India: Like it or Not RSS is Political
__________________________

#1.

Newsweek International,
=46ebruary 14, 2000

AVID SUPPORT FOR ISLAMIC MILITANTS IN KASHMIR COULD COME BACK TO HAUNT THE
PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN

By Steve LeVine and Zahid Hussain

Zarar Ahmad looks more like a motorcycle outlaw than a soldier. The
25-year-old warrior has tried to stuff his prodigious shock of black hair
under a camouflage cap, but it protrudes untamably in all directions. A
wild broom of a beard juts from his chin. "Look at this man!" exclaims his
friend Abdullah, 28, with a proud flourish of his hand. "This really
frightens the Indians!" Both men laugh. They belong to the militant Islamic
organization Harkat ul-Mujahedin, sworn to eradicate India's rule in the
disputed region of Kashmir. Of all the Kashmiri separatist factions openly
operating and recruiting in Pakistan, Harkat ul-Mujahedin is among the most
notorious. Plenty of things about the group worry New Delhi=97and the least
of it is their slovenly haircuts.

The group is at the center of a tense diplomatic standoff, set in what may
be the world's most dangerous flashpoint. The U.S. State Department has
urged Pakistan to outlaw Harkat ul-Mujahedin as a terrorist organization.
=46or one thing, the Americans believe the group was responsible for the
Indian Airlines hijacking in late December, in which more than 150
passengers were held hostage for a week and one was killed. But the group's
leaders deny engaging in terrorism of any sort, and so far Pakistan has
refused to ban them. Last week the White House announced Bill Clinton's
long-awaited plans for a March visit to India and Bangladesh. Pakistan was
conspicuously missing from the itinerary. The question is whether
Pakistan's pragmatic military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, can keep a lid
on the radicals around him. Some of the most dangerous individuals belong
to a phalanx of pro-Islamic officers immediately below him. "There has been
an alarming fundamentalist Islamic trend in the Army," a senior military
official told NEWSWEEK. "The struggle at this stage is what kind of society
Pakistan will be."

Pakistan's distress is reflected in the Kashmir conflict. Through a series
of exclusive interviews with the guerrillas themselves, as well as
armed-forces officers and militant Islamist clerics, NEWSWEEK has been told
that the rebels are linked to the Pakistani military's InterServices
Intelligence Directorate (ISI)=97the agency that organized and armed the
Afghan resistance against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. The Pakistani
government has repeatedly denied any connection to the insurgency=97but some
of Pakistan's leaders seem to be supporting the rebels despite the denials.
"Kashmir runs in the blood of almost every Pakistani," says Gen. Rashid
Qureshi, a spokesman for Pakistan's armed forces. "There is no way we can
expect Pakistanis to stop moral, diplomatic and psychological support for
the Kashmiris."

On the contrary, their passion for the cause keeps growing. Witness the
triumphant national tour of Masood Azhar. The Muslim cleric, 31, spent six
years in an Indian prison until the hijackers traded their hostages for his
freedom. He condemns the jetliner's seizure and denies any connection with
it. "I'm not a hero," he told NEWSWEEK. "People come to listen to me
because of their concern for Kashmir. A world that talks about human rights
should welcome my freedom." Hardly anyone in Pakistan knew his name before
the hijacking. But his fame has grown fast. Some 10,000 enthusiasts
welcomed him last month in Karachi. They crowded into a lane outside a
local mosque and cheered as he promised to enlist 500,000 volunteers to
march across the border into India.

Azhar and his heavily armed followers go where they choose in Pakistan.
The utter lack of interference from police or soldiers appears to suggest
at least tacit official approval of the paramilitary marches. At times the
rallies begin to resemble some bizarre gathering of motley Rambo
impersonators, parading through the city streets with a fantastic variety
of weapons. Strangest of all are the bodyguards who follow him everywhere.
Even while he talked to NEWSWEEK at a private apartment in Karachi, the six
men formed a protective half-circle around him. Their weapons included an
Uzi and an AK-47. One of them was wearing a football helmet and white
tennis shoes, laces untied=97an outlandish get-up even by Kashmiri standards=
=2E
The military insists it can't legally interfere with the public displays of
firepower. "Unfortunately," says Qureshi, "these are all licensed weapons."

Inevitably, some of those marchers turn up in Kashmir=97"licensed weapons"
in hand. At the Lahore headquarters of the Kashmiri insurgent force
Harkat-i-Jihad-i-Islami, a fighter identifies himself as Hazrat, 32. He
says he has just returned from a tour of duty behind India's lines. In
preparation, he underwent six months of special military training, building
the mental and physical toughness needed for survival in the cold,
mountainous Kashmiri terrain. He tells of slipping past the "Line of
Control" into Indian-held territory with a small group of fellow militants.
"The launch" is the fighters' term for the crossing. After their launch,
the raiding parties spend the next three months living in the open,
communicating with other rebel units by radio under a strict hierarchical
command. By Hazrat's estimate, the various insurgent groups have a combined
strength of some 5,000 fighters.

Authorities in Pakistan deny giving operative support to the insurgents.
The truth is something else, according to a military official and sources
in two of the separatist groups, all of whom requested anonymity. They say
the rebel groups are chiefly sustained by the same clandestine network that
served as paymaster, quartermaster and taskmaster to the mujahedin during
the Afghan war=97a conduit largely supervised by the Pakistani military's
ISI. As in Afghanistan, the militant groups use Pakistan as a staging
ground and rear base; Pakistan's military covertly provides logistical
support like fuel and radios, the sources say, as well as some arms and
ammunition. Much of the funding comes from another Afghan-era network, a
financial web of private donors in Pakistan and Arab states.

Afghanistan's veterans moved on to other embattled lands after the 1989
Soviet withdrawal. They dispersed to Bosnia, Tajikistan, Egypt, Algeria=97an=
d
by the thousands to Kashmir. Many fighters there are already talking about
where the next front for their jihad (holy war) will be. The breakaway
Russian republic of Chechnya is often mentioned. "Our mission is not
confined to Kashmir or Pakistan, but extends to Chechnya and the world,"
says Zarar Ahmad's friend Abdullah, at the Harkat ul-Mujahedin office in
Peshawar. "We want to bring revolution and an Islamic way of life. Jihad is
the way to bring about revolution in the world."

Washington has to proceed with extreme caution. Sanctions against Pakistan
can only worsen the appalling economic and social conditions that have
already bred a generation of anti-Western extremists in places like
Afghanistan, Sudan and Pakistan itself. And what would be gained?
Musharraf, who seized power in a coup last October, insists he needs a
chance to carry out his own moderate revolution in Pa-kistan, curing the
country's desperate economic and political corruption. And sources in
Washington say there's little chance that the White House will make good on
its threat to leave Pakistan out of the president's South Asian trip.
Experts worry that such a snub might add to the region's instability,
worsening the threat of outright war and a possible nuclear exchange
between Islamabad and New Delhi.

Such a risk is unacceptable. That's why practically any gesture of
accommodation from Islamabad will probably be rewarded by a visit from
Clinton. And Musharraf has wasted no time proving his good will. Already he
is speaking of a possible visit to Afghanistan. His agenda would likely
include talks on the status of Osama bin Laden, the Afghans' resident Saudi
radical, wanted by the United States for allegedly masterminding the 1998
U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Not that anyone expects
the Afghans to extradite their ill-behaved Saudi friend.

It's equally unlikely that Pakistan's government will crack down on the
Kashmiri militants. Few Pakistanis would stand for it. "Why is America
troubled with us?" demands Fazalur Rehman Khalil, the leader of Harkat
ul-Mujahedin, denying any role in the Indian Airlines hijacking. "Our war
is with India, not the United States." Maybe. Nine members of the group
were killed in August 1998 when U.S. cruise missiles blasted bin Laden's
training bases in Afghanistan, as punishment for the embassy bombings. The
jihad has spread from Afghanistan to Kashmir and Chechnya. It surely will
not stop there.

With Ismail Khan in Peshawar and Munir Ahmed in Lahore

=A9 2000 Newsweek, Inc.
______________

# 2

The Hindustan Times
=46ebruary 13, 2000
Op-Ed.

INDIA HAD BETTER HEED THE LESSON FROM AUSTRIA
(By Kanti Bajpai)

Austria and India are far apart geographically but not so far apart
politically.

The rise of Jorg Haider and the Freedom Party in Austria, and of the BJP
and its Sangh Parivar allies in India invites comparison. Comparisons
are bound to have their limits; no two cases have exact parallels. On
the other hand, any social commentary is bound to be comparative in some
measure. The question is: is the comparison useful? A comparison of the
two cases is revealing =97 and, especially for Indians, is extremely
worrisome, for the rise of right-wing politics in India is far more
advanced and violent than in Austria.

The rise of Haider is part of the growing visibility and
"respectability" of extreme right and neo-Nazi politics in Europe. A
number of social, economic, cultural, political, and international
factors are responsible.

=46irst, neo-Nazis have capitalised on the fear and dislike of the
"outsiders within", immigrants from the Third World, the Balkans, and
Eastern Europe. The demonisation of immigrants can be traced to a second
factor: economic distress, particularly among young unemployed males.
There is no evidence that immigrants are "taking jobs away", but the
accusation has stuck.

A third factor that has contributed to right-wing extremism in Europe is
a cultural one. Two trends stand out here: nostalgia for some "pure" or
"authentic" historical era, and revulsion or anger over past events or
episodes. Evocations of racial purity and of pristine and idyllic
origins, or golden ages, have combined with resentment over historical
"injustices", debility or shame to produce a popular philosophy of
"declinist" history, a philosophy of rise and fall. All over Europe,
this is evident enough in different forms and guises.

The decline of the leftist and centrist parties that defined political
liberalism in Europe after 1945 is another factor in the rise of
right-wing extremism. In Austria, there is clearly a growing
disenchantment with the established parties that are seen as clique-ish
and predictable. By contrast, Haider appears fresh, dynamic, and
charismatic. He is young, attractive, runs in marathons, and is a
rousing speaker.

He is also politically astute. He has manoeuvred his way into the
coalition politics of Vienna and yet stays away from the daily fray of
national politics. Haider uses another familiar tactic to good effect:
advocate extreme positions and then settle for something less, be
flagrant and then apologise. This disarms critics and opponents, who are
relieved that the worst has been avoided and comfort themselves with the
thought that their pressures are working.

=46inally, international politics has contributed to the rise of
>right-wing extremism. The greatest factor here is the end of the Cold
War. With the Soviet threat absent, extreme right-wing forces, which
would not have been tolerated in the past because they might endanger
internal stability and therefore the fight against global communism, are
now freer to operate.

Islamic fundamentalism is another factor. The media's representation of
Muslims as fanatical and violent has contributed to an anti-immigrant,
anti-foreigner feeling. The war in the former Yugoslavia has confirmed
Europe's image of the Balkans as the Third World at its own doorstep.
=46eelings of pity and kinship for the former Eastern Europeans have been
replaced by fear and contempt =97 fear that hordes of easterners will
migrate westward, and contempt for eastern backwardness. All this has
helped build a "fortress Europe" mentality.

Right-wing extremism and the rise of the BJP in India can be traced to
similar factors. Thus, clearly, the right has used the fear of
"outsiders within" to build a support base. Immigration has been one way
of doing this (Bangladeshi migrants, for instance), but more important
in India has been the portrayal of religious and ethnic minorities as
aliens whose loyalty to the nation is questionable.

Secondly, economic deprivation has played a role here too. The lack of
employment opportunities for young men in particular has been a factor.
Unemployment and economic fears (post-Mandal) have made available a pool
of recruits for the shock troops of the right.

Thirdly, a popular philosophy of history that is built around India's
golden past and its subsequent defeats, conquests, and shames has gained
ground in the elite and even popular imagination. The theme of national
weakness, even 'cowardice' (to quote the RSS) has been all too evident
in the breastbeating over separatism, Kargil, and the recent hijacking.

Politically, too, there are parallels to Europe and to Austria in
particular. The decay of the left and centrist parties in India is so
palpable that it hardly needs comment. The game of shifting coalitional
politics since 1977 has been played brilliantly by the Indian right.
While it has no charismatic personalities, the right has used
Haider-like tactics.

Thus, the RSS deliberately cultivates an image of aloofness from the
mundane affairs of state in Delhi, just as Haider stays away from
Vienna. This ensures that the Sangh cannot be blamed for political
mismanagement, and its weaknesses cannot be exposed. The right here too
advocates extreme and flagrant positions and then retreats and recants
as a way of disarming critics and opponents =97and succeeds only too well.

=46inally, international politics has encouraged right-wing extremism in
India too. The United States=92 victory, the collapse of the Soviet Union,
and the rise of China have contributed to a feeling of geopolitical
vulnerability that has been exploited by the right. Globalisation too
has made Indians feel vulnerable. Economic globalisation has implied
economic exploitation and political penetration. The globalisation of
human rights has been seen as a form of external intervention. The
extension of the non-proliferation regime appears like a dagger drawn
against India. Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism and Pakistan's
unremitting involvement in Punjab, Kashmir, and other parts of India
have fostered a sense of siege.

The parallels notwithstanding, India is worse off than Austria. The
record of intimidation, destabilisation and violence by the right here
has no match in Austria.

Consider the record: the Rath Yatra in 1991, the demolition of the Babri
Masjid in 1992, the attacks on Muslims in Mumbai after the Babri
demolition, the vandalisation of cricket pitches, the attacks on
Christians, the enumeration of Christians in Delhi by the local police,
the threats to cultural personalities (Hussain over the paintings, Dilip
Kumar during Kargil, Deepa Mehta for her films), the rewriting of
textbooks and curricula, the calls to outlaw western-style clothing for
Indian girls in Delhi schools and universities, the threat to overturn
well accepted norms (on religious conversion, on places and practices of
worship in UP, on RSS membership for civil servants, on the sanctity of
Article 370 and the basic structure of the Constitution), the
maintenance of intimidatory organisations such as the RSS, VHP, and the
Bajrang Dal =97 the list can go on.

Indians can be philosophical about Haider and Austria. They cannot
afford to be so about right-wing extremism at home. The hope that
right-wing politics is being moderated by elections, coalitions, and
day-to-day governance is misplaced. The opposite is true. Right-wing
politics has used the electoral system to gain power with 25 per cent of
the vote; the BJP is gradually absorbing its coalition partners; and the
levers of governance are being deployed to accustom Indians to the
domination of the right.

(The author teaches International Politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University)
_____________

#3.

The Hindustan Times
=46ebruary 13, 2000
Op-Ed.

LIKE IT OR NOT, RSS IS POLITICAL
(By D R Goyal)

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) is not a political outfit. It is a
cultural and social organisation and I do not think objection should be
raised on anybody joining it, said Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

This he said to justify the Gujarat government's decision to lift the
ban on state employees joining the RSS. Encouraged, Uttar Pradesh chief
minister Ram Prakash Gupta, too, has followed suit.

The controversy has arisen as the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules
specifically prohibit government servants from joining any political
party or organisation which participates in political activity, and
subscribes or assists in any manner any political movement or activity.
Now, Home Minister LK Advani has decided to examine whether the
restriction under Central Services Rules is applicable to the RSS.
Apparently he, like the PM, believes that the RSS is a non-political,
socio-cultural organisation, and poses no threat to the civil democratic
order.

If one is not to doubt the motives of these gentlemen, one can only say
that their training in the RSS has not only immunised them to the pain
and misery that the Sangh Parivar has caused, but also affected their
sense of discrimination and objectivity.

The RSS may not take part in day-to-day politics, but has a definite
political philosophy. The current RSS chief, Rajju "Bhaiya" and his
predecessor, Balasaheb Deoras, in a deposition in 1978 in the court of
that Nagpur Charity Commissioner had claimed in "the RSS activity is
akin to a work for a political purpose, though the RSS as an
organisation eschews participation in active politics of power as of
policy." (Para 27)

Earlier in the same deposition, it was said: "It is possible for Sangh
to change its policy and even participate in politics." (Para 14)
=46urther, Para 19 stated, "Tomorrow the policy could be changed and the
RSS could participate in even day to day political activity as a
political party because policy is not a permanent or irrevocable thing."

So, why did the RSS shy away from political activity despite having a
definite 'political philosophy'? Firstly, it was opposed to democratic
practice. According to its ideologue MS Golwalkar, democracy bred
self-praise and denunciation of others, both unworthy traits. It also
feared both government action and popular disapproval. People like Dr
Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, who sponsored and nurtured the RSS, belonged to
that Hindu elite which sought to surpass Muslims in currying favour with
the British. Significantly, Golwalkar described the prevailing
anti-British attitude as unfortunate in his book, We or Hindu Rashtravad
Defined.

RSS leaders were simultaneously afraid of adverse popular reaction
because Gandhi with his mantra of Hindu-Muslim unity had emerged as the
patron-saint of composite Indian nationalism, and had taken politics to
the working masses. Dr Mookerjee, the patron of Dr KB Hedgewar, was an
admirer of Mussolini and wanted a Hindu organisation on fascist lines.

Open political activity, therefore, would have brought the RSS in
conflict with either the British or the Gandhi-led movement. To steer
clear of the dilemma it adopted the strategy of infiltration. Both the
administration and the freedom movement were targetted for the purpose.

=46or instance, KR Malkani, former editor of the Organiser, has recorded
that there was a shakha [branch] in the secretariat (The RSS Story). And
Rajeshwar Dayal, the Chief Secretary of UP in the late forties, has
mentioned in his autobiography that the Speaker of the state assembly,
Kher, was an RSS sympathiser. Kher was instrumental in stalling the
arrest of Golwalkar in 1947, when the police had found copious evidence
to prove he had masterminded a conspiracy to unleash an orgy of communal
violence in western UP.

Post-Independence, the RSS hoped to be invited to participate in
government. The Congress Working Committee had, in fact, adopted a
resolution to associate the RSS with itself. The resolution was
subsequently rescinded because of strong and determined opposition from
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The hope died with the assassination of
Mahatma Gandhi. Even Sardar Patel, who had earlier advocated its cause,
lost sympathy for it. So intense was the public outrage against it that
open political activity was just out of the question.

That also rendered the infiltration strategy infructuous. It, therefore,
took recourse to launching a political party which could defend the RSS
in the political sphere and, simultaneously, build public sympathy for
its ideology. Dr SP Mookerjee's exit from Nehru's Cabinet provided the
opportunity. The RSS needed a publicly-known personality; and Dr
Mookerjee was looking for an organisation. So was set up the Bharatiya
Jana Sangh, which was kept under control through the network of
organising secretaries who, according to its leader Balraj Madhok, were
all RSS pracharaks, paid by the RSS and answerable only to it.

Over time, the RSS cadres attached to Dr Mookerjee learnt the ways of
politics and emerged as public figures. And yet they never developed the
confidence to snap the umbilical cord that tied them to the RSS. The
most glaring evidence of it was when the RSS men in the Janata Party
walked out on the issue of that relationship =97 and established the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

At the founding conference in Bombay, the BJP adopted a public posture
that made its ideology look different from the RSS=92. The camouflage did
not bring the expected political dividends in the 1984 elections and the
party veered back to the old Jana Sangh ideology. It was not openly
flaunted because the party did not want to lose the respectability it
had found in the anti-Congress conglomerations.

The objective of the political formation has been to build and
consolidate a separate Hindu political entity. Towards that end it had
been adopting agendas calculated to widen the communal gulf. If it was
the demand for a uniform civil code and abolition of Article 370 at one
time (1951), it later became ban on cow-slaughter (1967) and revengeful
demand for return of temples supposedly destroyed by Muslim rulers.

=46or creating popular hysteria, other RSS fronts like the Hindu Dharam
Raksha Samiti (Ahmedabad, 1969), the Rashtriya Utsav Mandal and Shree
Ram Tarun Mandal (Maharashtra, 1970), and Bajrang Dal (Moradabad, 1980)
were floated. Inquiry commissions have revealed their true character.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal have been quite prominent
during the last two decades.

To deny that the RSS is a political organisation is to fly in the face
of facts. The only difference from what we generally recognise as
political parties is that it is neither democratic nor secular. American
researcher Donald E Smith had come to the conclusion: "Nehru once
remarked that Hindu communalism was the Indian version of fascism, and,
in the case of the RSS, it is not difficult to perceive certain
similarities. The leader principle, the stress on militarism, the
doctrine of racial-cultural superiority, ultra-nationalism infused with
religious idealism, the use of symbols of past greatness, the emphasis
on national solidarity, the exclusion of religious or ethnic minorities
from the nation-concept =97 all of those features of the RSS are highly
reminiscent of fascist movements in Europe."

Its 'socio-cultural character' has been on display recently in Ahmedabad
and Varanasi.

__________________________________________
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WEB DISPATCH (SACW) is an informal, independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
(http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since1996. Dispatch archive from 1998
can be accessed by joining the ACT list run by SACW.
To subscribe send a message to <act-subscribe@egroups.com>
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D