[sacw] [ACT] sacw dispatch #1 (8 Feb 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
8 February 2000

Please share the below information with others!
____________________
#1. Hindutva's Foreign Tie-Ups In The 1930's: Archival Evidence
[RSS is not a Song & Dance club, but political operation of fascists !=
]
#2. Hindu students attack schoolteacher for glorifying Pakistan
#3. India: Minorities commission report for '99' indicts the goings on in
Gujarat
#4. Andolan - Organizing South Asian Workers in New York
____________________

#1.
Check out this very important paper on the intellectual connections between
Hindu fundamentalists the Italian and German Fasicsts; 'Hindutva's Foreign
Tie-Ups In The 1930's: Archival Evidence', In Economic and Political
Weekly, 22 January 2000
The paper is available on line at: http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/casolari.html
________

#2.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 22:50:09 PST
=46rom: AFP <C-afp@c...>
Newsgroups: clari.world.asia.india, clari.world.asia+oceania
Subject: Hindu students attack schoolteacher for glorifying Pakistan

NEW DELHI, Feb 4 (AFP) - Student activists from Indian Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist BJP party attacked
a schoolteacher and tarred his face for "glorifying" Pakistan, a
newspaper reported Friday.
The Indian Express said the students, members of the Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), All India Students'
Organisation) beat up Dharmanand Khotkar and tarred his face in the
western resort state of Goa on Monday for setting an "unpatriotic"
question in a school examination.
"Pakistani soldiers were glorified while Indians were shown as
cowards," Bhushan Bhave, chief of the ABVP's Goa chapter told the
Express.
Khotkar told the newspaper that he simply wanted to test the
students' "creative skills" by asking them to complete the story of
an Indian soldier whose humane Pakistani captors refuse to kill
him.
The soldier's capture is set during last year's two-month
conflict between Indian troops and Pakistan-backed guerrillas in
Kashmir.
Apart from the 1999 conflict, arch-rivals India and Pakistan
have fought three wars since their independence in 1947.
Khotkar said many of the students finished the story by making
the Indian soldiers "regroup and attack the enemy."
________

#3.

Outlook
=46ebruary 14, 2000

MINORITIES COMMISSION

State of Wilful Amnesia There's a pattern to the way the BJP buries facts
injurious to itself. A stinging report on the Dangs is but the latest
instance. "The Keshubhai regime's ATR is an eyewash. The wall writings in
Ahmedabad are enough to know that all isn't well in Gujarat."

State terror: destruction in the Dangs

The war of attrition between the National Minorities Commission (NMC) and
the BJP-led central government shows no signs of abating. The NMC report
for '99' compiled last April in the wake of communal trouble in the Dangs,
is a withering indictment of the Gujarat government's handling of the
crisis. This, perhaps, explains why this catalogue of the Keshubhai
regime's sins of omission is yet to be tabled in Parliament.

Predictably, the Vajpayee government has not been kindly disposed to the
NMC's approach. The first rub came in the immediate aftermath of the Dangs
violence in December '98'. The NMC urged the Centre to invoke Article 256
and 355-both of which express a lack of confidence in the state government
and oblige the Centre to intervene during crises. Of course, the suggestion
never made it to Parliament.

Last year, the Maharashtra government issued a warrant against NMC members
probing the targeting of minority educational institutions.

Sources in the NMC fear the '99' report-the result of two fact-finding
missions-too will meet this fate. Especially given its unambiguous tone, as
in: "Events (in Gujarat) have seriously wounded minority sentiments and
created a feeling of fear, dismay and disillusionment with the national
secular, egalitarian tradition".

Outlook has gained access to the report. Some of its findings are:

* The state home ministry is biased and didn=92t issue proper guidelines to
the district officials on how to handle a communal crisis. * * Some
district police officials have close contacts with local goons and
criminals infamous for triggering riots.* * The state government has
allowed the majority community to organise protest rallies on minority
festival days.* * Police and district officials took a partisan stand and,
in cases, even tortured minority community members. Fear of the police made
the minorities apprehensive of even lodging FIRS.*

While coming down heavily on the government, the Commission also issued a
set of 30 recommendations. The key ones are: 1 By a policy statement, the
state government should (a) publicly disapprove of recent unconstitutional,
unlawful and penal incidents that have offended religious sentiments, and
(b) affirm its commitment to protect the human rights, civil liberties and
fundamental freedom of all citizens. 2 Effective and time-bound
investigation by high-level state agencies should be promptly ordered into
each incident. Pending the investigation, police and administrative
officers of disturbed areas should be transferred to avoid possible
allegations of having influenced its impartiality. 3 After investigations
are over, all individuals who may have committed a punishable
offence-regardless of their community or group-as also those guilty of
dereliction of official duties or negligence should be given exemplary
punishment as per the law. 4 After an in-depth investigation into violence
against the minorities, the state government should reprimand offenders and
shouldn=92t spare officials who failed to control it. 5 The DG of Gujarat
police should be directed to call periodical meetings of all SPs and other
officers to brief them about civil rights and liberties of all citizens,
including those of the minorities and to guide them properly for effective
protection of those rights. 6 In order to create and maintain a congenial
atmosphere and cordial inter-community ties, deterrent measures should be
undertaken by the state government to curb the tirade against a particular
community and their religious practices carried on through pamphlets,
leaflets, periodicals and false or exaggerated media reports. 7 Regular
state-level meetings of non-political representatives of all religious
communities should be convened by the state government to evolve ways and
means to create, promote and preserve communal harmony in the state and to
make all citizens of the state fully aware of national obligations and
responsibilities towards each other. 8 The government should closely
scrutinise the activities of Swami Achitanand, who is noted to have been
camping in the tribal areas of Gujarat and is stated to be the main factor
behind the prevailing tension in the area. Action should be taken against
him if the content of his speeches is found to be communal. 9 The state
government should initiate an inquiry on why the state home department
failed to tackle the situation on a number of occasions and did not issue
proper directives to the concerned officials in the district
administration. 10 Adequate compensation as per the legal and judicial
norms should be paid as early as possible if property and institutions of a
religious nature were damaged in the violence (specially referring to the
churches which were burnt). 11 The conversions record should be properly
kept to counter false propaganda. 12 The state government should formulate
and announce all possible measures for protecting the honour, rights and
civil liberties of the minority communities living in the state. 13 The
decision to elevate the Gujarat minorities board to a corporation (with a
larger ambit of powers and functions rather than just being a
quasi-judicial watchdog), reversed by the present state government, should
be restored and the board made more powerful and effective for promoting
the socio-economic development of the minorities. 14 On the pattern of the
minorities welfare departments set up by the Andhra Pradesh, Assam and West
Bengal governments, the Gujarat government should also set up a special
department to effectively deal with all matters and problems relating to
the minorities.

Of the 30 recommendations, the Gujarat government claims it's accepted 24.
But, according to Tahir Mahmood, former NMC chairman who put together the
report, this isn't true. "The Keshubhai government's 'action taken report'=
=92
became an eyewash. You need political will to implement those
recommendations. All you need is to go to Ahmedabad and see the wall
writings to be convinced that all isn=92t well," he says. In fact, it took
many letters from the NMC before the state government even acknowledged
receipt of the report. Then, some recommendations were rejected outright.
The list includes setting up of a minorities commission and minority
welfare schemes.

But the Commission's main worry is that though the Gujarat government has
agreed to implement 24 recommendations, there's likely to be a gap between
what's promised by Keshubhai Patel and what he actually does. Points out
Mahmood, "Politicians as a rule don't take the Commission seriously. They
don't follow our recommendations and don't heed our findings." In fact, the
BJP-Sena government even issued a warrant last year against Commission
members who'd gone to Maharashtra to study the targeting of minority
educational institutions. Says a member of the Commission, "Whenever an
incident happens, state governments are quick to say they'll investigate
it. But they don't really mean it. And when we go to find the truth behind
a riot, politicians are the first to block us. They are also quick to
badmouth us."

Giving scant importance to NMC's findings is understandable given the BJP's
view. The party's '98' election manifesto clearly stated their intention of
winding up the Commission-this wasn't done to keep NDA allies happy. But
the Centre didn't think it obligatory to table NMC's report in Parliament,
nor was the Gujarat government pressurised to implement recommendations.
This saffron agenda, at least, is overtly articulated.

By Suman Bhattacharyya
________

#4.

8 February 2000

please distribute.=20

ANDOLAN - ORGANIZING SOUTH ASIAN WORKERS
Telephone: 212-358-598
Andolanorg@h...
JOIN US JOIN US.!!!* To demand that respect for human rights be held above
diplomatic protection of employers of domestic workers!!* * What: Domestic
workers' organization and supporters protest to demand that the United
Nations and the Bahrain Mission hold their employees accountable for Human
Rights violations!!!
Where: Ralph Bunche Park, 43rd Street and First Avenue in Manhattan [New
York City]
When: 2 PM, Friday, February 11, 2000
=46or Information contact: Andolan: 212-358-5985 or Neela Trivedi: 718-381-9=
571
or Sheuli Zakia: 212-666-9017
BAHRAINI MISSION AND THE UNITED NATIONS MUST HOLD THEIR EMPLOYEES
ACCOUNTABLE!!!
STOP EXPLOITATION AND ABUSE OF DOMESTIC WORKERS!!!
Shamela Begum worked as a live-in domestic worker for Mohammed Saleh (the
Second Secretary at the Bahrain Mission to the United Nations) and his
wife, Khatun Saleh, for about ten months. Begum describes how she worked
seven days a week and was kept almost imprisoned. Begum, a member of
Andolan*, is now suing her employers for state and federal labor law
violations. Represented legally by the Asian American Legal Defense and
Education Fund, she accuses the Salehs of false imprisonment and of keeping
her in indentured servitude. The Salehs are trying to hide from their
violations under the cover of diplomatic immunity.
Begum, from a poor rural Bangladeshi family, came to work for the Salehs in
their Upper East Side Manhattan apartment as a domestic worker in order to
help her family survive. She was supposed to get paid a minimum wage of
$5.15 per hour and receive free room and board. Instead, she worked without
days off, was given inadequate food, subjected to verbal and physical
abuse, and lived as if imprisoned. She was humiliated on several occasions
and felt she was treated as if she was unclean and not really a full human
being. Begum was also isolated from anyone outside.
Begum's case is part of an increasing trend in such exploitation of workers
under the protection offered by diplomatic immunity. We believe that such
protection offered to employees of the United Nations and diplomatic
institutions of national governments is inhumane. Exploitation of workers
cannot be part of a diplomat's personal benefits.
*Andolan is an organization for South Asian low-wage workers in New York Cit=
y
________

#4. India: Homophobia - My sexuality is your business

__________________________________________
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.
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