[sacw] [ACT] sacw dispatch #2 (25 Jan 00)

Harsh Kapoor act@egroups.com
Tue, 25 Jan 2000 17:39:02 +0100


South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #2.
25 January 2000
_________________
#1. Labour in Pakistan - A Conference Report
#2. India: Hindu Right's Political Laboratory
#3. Opposing Terrorism: A comment from India
#4. India: Why is Murderer of Staines protected - A newpaper Demands Answers=
!
_________________

#1.
Conference Report

Labour in Pakistan
Karachi, 26-28 December 1999

(By Kamran Asdar Ali)

The conference was organized by the Pakistan Institute of Labour
Education and Research (PILER) with partial support from the
Changing Labour Relations in Asia (CLARA).

The conference, the first of its kind in Pakistan, had the formative
agenda of initiating a dialogue and discussion between trade union
activists and academics on Pakistani labour history on the
changing labour relations in late twentieth century.

The introductory session was marked by its emphasis on creating
a central archive of trade union politics. A general appeal was
made to the participating trade union leaders and activist to donate
relevant material consisting of reports, meeting memoranda,
pamphlets, posters, photographs, newsletters, correspondences,
etc. Participants were also requested to be interviewed either on
tape or on camera in order to consolidate, along with a print
archive, a collection of audio-visual resources at one primary site.

The first session, in the shape of the key note address given by the
convenor of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, further
spelled out the other major themes that became the central
discussion agenda fo the following three days. The speaker
stressed how the process of globalization has reduced the number
of factory-based organized workers. A majority of workers are
employedas casual or contractlabourers and/or in the informal
sector with female home based production processes and child
labour becoming dominant forms of labour relations. The speaker
argued that in light of these changes Pakistani trade union politics
cannot be divorced from the larger struggle for democratic norms
and social justice in the country. Moreover, there is an urgent need
to rethink traditional forms of trade union politics and strategies for
organizing labour. Hence it is necessary to link the process of
labour rights to the struggle for citizenss rights and the subsequent
construction of a vibrant civil society.

The following three days of presentations were divided into
sessions on labour history, the construction of class and
community, the legal aspects of labour problems, the history of left
parties and the contemporary changes in labour relations. The
discussions and responses provided further nuances and subtleties
to the arguments put forward in the opening session. Papers, for
example, demonstrated the historically diverse and fragmented
nature of the working class. Presenters emphasized that labour
organizational effort need to take into account the fundamental role
ethnic/cultural difference and religion play in the creatioin of
working class aspirations, consciousness and politics.

A major contribution to the conference was the analysis of non-
factory based work processes and the level of union formation in
these sectors. Detailed examination was presented on the working
conditions and plight of mine workers, of rural labour, of white collar
bank employees, of bonded labourers in brick manufacturing, of
child labour and of home based female labour in the garment and
other industry. These presentations served to strengthen a set of
pivotal papers on the declining numbers of factory based
workersand the expansion of non-formal sector which was
increasingly absorbed the majority of the working population in
Pakistan. Arguments were also presented at the narrowly
focussed trade union politics of plant-based unions and collective
barganing agents, which helpsto further weaken labour bargaining
power in the ever shrinking formal sector. Suggestions were put
forward to organize labour in the informal sector and also to pay
attention to industry wide trade unions.

Legal and political problems that would hinder the process of labour
organization in the informal sector were finally addressed by
reemphasizing the political process itself. The discussion
crystallized around the issue of how labour politics has to address
the diverse forms of prevalent working conditions and the lived
experiences within working class communities. A larger social
movement on democratic reform and on a rights based agenda was
thought to be the major form in which working men, women and
children in Pakistan would acquire their legitimate place in society.
This process would help create a new and inclusive meaning of
citizenship within the context of Pakistani politics.

Workshop participants committed themselves to further
cooperation and continuing dialogue. Proposals were made for
regional cooperation and sharing of experiences with researchers
from South Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Tentatively in this
regard a timetable was proposed to organize a comparative
regional labour workshop at the end of the next two years.
Concrete undertakings were also given by all the trade union
activists and eladers for providing resource material for the
archives. They were persuaded to identify key individuals who could
be a part of a proposed oral history project on Pakistani labour
history. A consensus also developed on long term and short term
research agenda which would incorporate historical and
contemporary situations. Finally, a commitment was made toward
a social action based research enabling a close association among
the participating academics and labour activists.

Speakers: I.A. Rehman, Khizer Humayun Ansari, Karamat Ali and
Christopher Candland, Sarah Ansari, Kamran Asdar Ali, Usman
Baloch, Riffat Hussain, Fasihuddin Salar, Allana Hingoro, Hasan
Karrar, Ahmad Saleem, Abdul Aziz Memon, Ehsan Azeem Siddiqi,
Saleem Raza, Ali Amjad, Nabi Ahmad, Muhammad Waseem,
Jaffar Ahmad, Hamza Ali, Yunas Samad, Ifikhar Ahmad, Asad
Sayeed, Mir Zulfiqar Ali, Umer Abbas, Farhat Parveen.

_____________
#2.

The Indian Express, Ahmedabad,
January 24, 2000

THE SANGH PARIVAR'S POLITICAL LABORATORY
by DARSHAN DESAI

When the Chief Minister of Gujarat made an appearance at an RSS camp
which was recently held in Ahmedabad, in the august company of Union Home
Minister L.K. Advani, he was clad in regulation khaki shorts, white shirt
and black cap. He forgot a minor detail, however. When he walked up to
swadeshi stalwarts of the RSS like Rajendra Singh and H.V. Sheshadri, it was
shod in flashy Nike sneakers. But never mind the footgear; Patel's heart is
saffron, and he has given ample evidence of it in recent days.

Right on the third day of the millennium, Patel's government
rescinded an order, issued way back in 1986, prohibiting its employees from
participating in RSS activities. Next, it ordered a crackdown on illegal
abattoirs to protect ``the cow and its progeny''. Earlier, in order to
allow the controversial shilanyas of a temple by the VHP in the Dangs on
Christmas day, it withdrew a circular which banned activities that could
lead to trouble during the religious festivities of any community.

Patel and several ofhis ministers have a long association with the
RSS. But in the past, he had tried hard to convey the impression at least by
his utterances that he was conscious of his responsibilities as Chief
Minister and knew where to draw the line. It is another matter that he
often appeared ineffective against the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the
Bajrang Dal, the Sangh Parivar's fraternal organisations which have been
running a campaign against the minorities. A few months ago, at a meeting
in Delhi where he met foreign ambassadors to sell Gujarat as an ideal
investment destination, he had taken pains to assure them that no one would
be allowed to repeat the lawlessness which occurred in the Dangs around
Christmas in 1998. So, has Patel lost his capacity to resist the
hardliners? Or is he showing his true colours?

In Gujarat, Sangh Parivar hardliners dominate the BJP. Moderates like
Industry Minister Suresh Mehta, who is number two in the government, are a
small minority. If there was one state where a BJP government would ever
consider the kind of decisions which the Patel government has pushed
through, it had to be Gujarat. Yet, given the Sangh Parivar's style of
functioning, decisions like allowing state employees to participate in RSS
activities could not have been okayed without consultations in the upper top
echelons, believes political analyst Dinesh Shukla. ``There is some definite
design. Gujarat is their laboratory; whether it was the campaign for the Ram
Mandir at Ayodhya or the VHP campaign against Christians, both began in
Gujarat'', he says.

Some moderate BJP leaders link these developments to the hardliners'
disenchantment with the Vajpayee government and point out that they followed
close on the heels of criticism of the Centre by the RSS and the VHP for its
handling of the Indian Airlines hijacking. Even otherwise, RSS leaders have
been trying to distance themselves from the government, often saying that
while the BJP may have its political compulsions, they were firm in their
views. Said a BJP leader,``They cannot force Vajpayee, but here was a man
who would do their bidding. So they are trying to send out the message
that there is no change in their agenda. The fact that it embarrasses
Vajpayee also helps.'' Already, the decision to allow government employees
to participate in RSS activities seems to be snowballing into a
controversy.

Keeping the hardliners in good humour suits Patel. Organisations
like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal have been regularly creating problems for
the state government by using inter-religious marriages to stoke communal
passions, disrupting fashion shows and targeting Christians. ``So why not
keep them happy?' remarked a party leader, adding, ``The fact that the
Congress in the state is directionless and the BJP moderates small in
number ensures that the Chief Minister has no one to fear.''

The government's actions have created a sense of unease. Former
Director General of Police M.M. Singh believes the government decision
concerning participation in RSS activities will``disturb the apolitical
character of theservices.'' Predicts Leader of Opposition and former Chief
Minister Amarsinh Chaudhary, ``It will lead to a division in the
administration between RSS supporters and others.'' Congress leader and
social activist Madhusudan Mistry regards the government action as ``a
suggestion to the employees to participate in RSS shakhas. The staff would
soon realise that the road to career growth is via the Sangh Parivar.''

Senior officers are immediately concerned about the possible
impact on law and order. They fear that the government actions may whet
the hardliners' appetite, while the closet sympathisers of the Sangh
Parviar in the administration will lose fear of exposure and have little
need for circumspection. In the past, there have been many cases where local
officials allowed the Hindutva hardliners to indulge in lawlessness in
spite of advance notice. With the Union Home Minister, the Chief Minister
and several others openly attending the RSS camp at Ahmedabad,
everyofficer will think ``a hundred times'' before showing firmness, said
one officer, and remarked, ``After all, the VHP and Bajrang Dal are
offshoots of the RSS.''

But Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya sees nothing wrong in
government staff taking part in the activities of ``an apolitical
organisation like the RSS, which is committed to character-building and
nation-building.'' Others have, however, been quick to point out that the
RSS professes a highly controversial ideology, based on the supremacy of its
own brand of Hinduism. Also, the RSS sends its cadres to work in fraternal
organisations, including the BJP, which is its political front. As
political analyst Achyut Yagnik puts it, ``Any organisation where members
are trained to migrate to a political organisation cannot be apolitical.''
__________

#3.
The Hindustan Times

OPPOSING TERRORISM
By Achin Vanaik

In opposing morally unacceptable forms of terrorism there should be no
place for double standards or selectivity. But when Prime Minister Vajpayee
demands that the world and the US in particular declare Pakistan to be a
terrorist and rogue state, he, and others who are willing to support this
call, are doing just that. One of the central problems in all discussion
about terrorism is the highly partial and selective manner in which this
phenomenon itself is defined. Far too many people define it in such a
manner as to exclude what are in fact the biggest culprits, the ones which
practise unacceptable forms of terrorism most frequently and cause
suffering and deaths at a much wider, even grander scale than can ever be
done or contemplated by those considered to be the usual villains =F1
hijackers, squad bombers and their like. These primary culprits are, of
course, governments themselves and the apparatuses of the state they
control like the armed forces and the police.

The agents of terrorism then are both sub-state, i.e. individuals, combat
groups, and state-level, i.e. the apparatuses of the state. Terrorism can
be state-independent, state-sponsored and state-directed. Any meaningful
definition of terrorism must be objective. That is to say, it must be
evaluated independently of the motives and purposes which the agents
themselves have of their acts. Which terrorist action is not justified by
one side or the other as part of some freedom struggle or being in the
national interest or required by the dictates of law and order? If the
first motive is usually claimed by sub-state agents of terrorism, the
second and third are the usual refuges of state actors. The most the
defenders of the latter might concede is that states/governments may be
guilty of `human rights excesses=ED but never of terrorism. This subterfuge
needs to be treated with the contempt it deserves.

If domestic forms of terrorism are more likely to be carried out by
non-democratic and authoritarian governments than by democracies this does
not mean that the latter are blameless. Far from it. The Indian record, for
example, from police `encounters=ED to counter-insurgency operations in
Nagaland and Kashmir valley to the involvement of the para-military forces
in communal riots is a shameful one. And for their opponents in the
northeast and in Kashmir this is seen as a form of `foreign=ED oppression. O=
f
course, India is not alone and the record of many countries regarding
domestic and international terrorism =F1 from the Taliban to Pakistan to
Israel to Kampuchea to Indonesia to Russia (witness Grozny) to China -- can
be considered not much better, as bad, or even worse. When it comes to
international forms of terrorism, however, i.e. the flagrant violation of
all international, legal, and civilized norms of state behaviour, without a
shadow of doubt the worst culprit is the United States of America itself.
Surely this point should need no elaboration =F1 the examples are innumerabl=
e
from the bombings and civilian deaths in Kosovo, and Iraq to the
arbitrariness of US attacks on Sudan, Libya and Afghanistan to the shocking
legacies of what it did in Vietnam and in Hiroshima/Nagasaki and so many
other places. No government has come even close to killing as many
civilians (in the millions) outside its territory as has the US!

If there is one country which deserves more than any other to be declared a
terrorist and rogue state it is the US. But so hypocritical are the leaders
of this Indian government and so conditioned to be the servitors of power
are the vast bulk of those who comprise the national security establishment
of this country, that few would dare to demand such condemnation of the US.
On the contrary, though anti-US rhetoric on occasions serves as a
propaganda cover-up for some particular form of Indian belligerence, (e.g.
going nuclear which, incidentally, means immorally holding whole
populations as hostages and is therefore itself a terrorist act =F1 not for
nothing is a nuclear face-off called a `balance of terror=ED) the biggest an=
d
most constant preoccupation of our `national security experts=ED is how to
get on the good side of the US!

Only if we are honest and consistent and determined not to be biased in the
name of some distorted conception of nationalist loyalty can we fully and
properly recognize the scale and depth of the problem of terrorism. Of
course, the recent hijacking of an Indian airlines plane was horrific and
had to be unequivocally condemned. And certainly the Indian government
bungled, and partly to cover up its bungling, is pointing a finger at
Pakistan with evidence which as yet does not decisively establish that the
Pakistan government sponsored the hijack as distinct from simply harbouring
the hijackers or at some point in the unfolding drama getting in
communication with them or their intermediaries. If it does come out at
some point that this was an Islamabad sponsored terrorist act then this
will only reinforce the central argument presented here =F1 that it is
state-directed and state-sponsored terrorism that constitutes the biggest
problem not independent combat squad terrorism.

This being the case, the argument that under no circumstances should
terrorist demands be conceded in part or full because it sets a terrible
precedent, becomes a very weak one. Of one thing we can be certain, most
forms of state terrorism will continue unabated and unaffected by the
outcomes (positive or negative) of what are very dramatic
publicity-catching forms of individual and group terrorism but constitute
only a very small and occasional part of the overall problem of terrorism.
The finger cannot simply be conveniently and selectively pointed at a few
states, agents or forms i.e. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Islamic
terrorists/terrorism or whatever happens to be the Indian or
Western/American bugbear of the month or year.

The weakness of the `setting a bad precedent argument=ED means that each
hijacking-type terrorist act must be treated as sui generis. There has to
be a careful weighing of possibilities and the principle of humanitarian
concern for hostages must be given due weight. Of course, this Indian
government leadership was not motivated to do what it did because of some
overall or rounded or balanced conception of the problem of terrorism. The
Sangh is itself a political outfit guilty repeatedly of terrorizing various
sections of Indian society. New Delhi conceded to the hijackers because it
had few other options once the plane left Amritsar for Kandahar. But this
leadership having the mind-set it has (one shared with so many others who
have commented on the episode) has been disturbed most not by how the
episode has highlighted the problem of terrorism in all its complexity and
forms but by the affront it may have caused to Indian state power.

This is why so much of the discussion is focused on whether the Indian
state is `hard=ED enough or not and whether or not its `softness=ED has been
exposed or exacerbated. The authority of the state, not its insufficient
decency but its insufficient hardness, becomes the paramount issue. This is
not a mind-set that is fundamentally concerned with the problem of
terrorism (domestic and international) and the human rights or moral or
even some of the political dilemmas it poses. It is a mind-set that will
not only remain selective and hypocritical in attacking terrorism but will
even endorse and cover-up certain forms of government sponsored or directed
terrorism if it believes this is necessary to `harden=ED the character or
image of the Indian state.

__________

#4.
The Statesman
25 Jan 2000

WE DEMAND ANSWERS!

Dara Singh roams free one year on
IT is exactly a year since Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two
young sons Philip and Timothy were burnt alive in their jeep by a mob, but
the prime accused Dara Singh still roams free. Eyewitnesses as well as the
Wadhwa Commission set up to inquire into the gruesome murder record police
reports that Dara Singh, affiliated to the Bajrang Dal, had taken the lead
in instigating the mob, but the police have not apprehended him. Gladys
Staines, Graham's widow, who continues his unfinished work in the leprosy
home in Baripada with exemplary courage and conviction, says she has
forgiven her husband's murderers. Her strength of character comes from the
faith to which she has devoted her life and which demands self-sacrifice
and inculcates the virtues of forgiveness. But in the eyes of the law he is
still absconding and should be brought to trial.
Dara Singh has not been tamed by his implication in the Staines murder, on
the contrary he has been emboldened by the inability, or more correctly,
the unwillingness of the police to catch him. Comments from Union Home
Minister, LK Advani like "I know the VHP, they are not criminals" and "I
have a different perspective" (on the killing), are bound to have
emboldened him. Since the crime, he has appeared on a private cable channel
giving an interview on his philosophy, he has been sighted in other towns
when Muslim shops were torched and one shopkeeper had his hands chopped off
before being burnt alive and yet the police cannot find him. It is
impossible that one of the most wanted men in the country, whose demonic
deeds precede him, can escape the police dragnet unless he is receiving
protection from very important people and groups.
Dara Singh's political patrons are powerful and he has demonstrated this
by taunting the police to catch him. The longer he manages to evade the
law, the greater his image rises among his supporters. Already those
belonging to his ideology chant "Dara Singh zindabad" when perpetrating
similar crimes. The political aim of the Staines' killing was to frighten
and oppress the tiny Christian community. It was a signal to the minorities
that unless they learn to live within the dictats of the Hindutva
protagonists, they will meet a similar fate. If Dara Singh is not brought
to book, then apart from losing face in the international community, and
being condemned as a lawless society, it will be yet another blot on the
secular fabric of the nation.
A heinous crime is committed. The prime suspect is identified. The police
admit they are looking for him. He is sighted frequently. He gives
interviews on television. Several people welding political power openly
shield him and make statements designed to weaken the will to get him. That
Gladys Staines forgives him is no concern of the law. Mahatma Gandhi would
have forgiven Nathuram Godse had he not died instantly. But he was hanged.
Is this a country governed by the rule of law or by extraneous and
irrelevant considerations. This newspaper demands an answer!

__________________________________________
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WEB DISPATCH is an informal, independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
(http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since1996.