[sacw] sacw dispatch (24 May 00)

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Wed, 24 May 2000 08:22:56 +0200


South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch
24 May 2000
__________________________
#1. Jihadi Islam: The last Straw on the Camel of Pakistan's National Unity
#2. India: Minister also arranged bail for attackers of Christians
__________________________

#1.

[A paper presented at the World Sindhi Institute conference at
Washington DC, May 20, 2000.]

Jihadi Islam: The last Straw on the Camel of Pakistan's National Unity

by Hassan N. Gardezi

A mushroom cloud of Islamic militancy or what has come to be known
as jihadi Islam is casting its grim shadow over north-western Pakistan and
neighboring territories. The fallout from it in the form of growing
internal political tensions and international isolation is already being
felt in the country. What is perhaps more sobering is the insidious
potential it carries to break up the federal structure of Pakistan,
regardless of the mythologies that have been maintained about the
unifying bonds of religion.

Islamic Ideology to Jihadi Islam
There is a phenomenal continuity between the "Islamic Ideology,"
used interchangeably with " Ideology of Pakistan," and what has appeared
as the jihadi Islam today. The Ideology of Pakistan, the construction of
which began soon after independence, maintains that Pakistan's nationhood
is founded exclusively on religion and belief in Islam is the only force
which will keep Pakistan's federation together. But there has never been
any credible evidence to support this proposition. On the contrary, the
most turbulent events in the history of Pakistan clearly point to the
failure of so called Islamic Ideology to serve as a viable basis for
national unity. Mere Islamic bonds did not
prevent East Pakistan from seceding in 1971 and
national unity did not fair any better in the territorially diminished
Pakistan. The Baloch alienation from the federation resulted in an
insurrection that lasted from 1973 to 1977 only to be suppressed by a
massive military operation. In 1983 when the Movement for Restoration of
Democracy (MRD) issued a call for civil disobedience the people of
interior Sind responded with a spontaneous uprising against the federal
authority which was again put down with a brutal and prolonged military
crackdown. Common faith in Islam has also failed to prevent the ongoing
bloody ethnic and sectarian conflicts in Karachi and other cities of
Pakistan.

Yet the diehard ideologists of Pakistan have never paused to
wonder if there might be something seriously flawed in their convictions.
They continue to insist that common faith in Islam is not only a necessary
but sufficient condition for preserving the national unity of Pakistan and
the integrity of its federal structure. If Pakistan has suffered
dismemberment in the past and disaffection with the federation continues
to mount, it only calls for a stronger reaffirmation of Pakistan's Islamic
roots and vigorous state action to implement Islamic ideology in practice.

That project of Islamization through state dirigisme also got
under way with a great leap forward under the dictatorship of Gen. Ziaul
Haq (1977-1988). Without a popular mandate to govern, and driven by his
compulsion to legitimize his rule, Zia moved assertively and schemingly to
"Islamize" the Pakistani state and society. On the one hand he issued a
stream of martial law and presidential ordinances to introduce an "Islamic
system" or Nizam-e-Islam" as it was called, and on the other hand he
involved Pakistan in the holy war to take on the Soviet infidels in
Afghanistan, to be rewarded by an immediate renewal of US military and
economic aid which had been blocked for some time.

This exercise however did little to promote national unity. On the
contrary, according to a common observation, it rendered Islam into "a
divisive force, pitting secular against religious forces, Sunni and Shii,
Muslim and non-Muslims, as well as proving impotent in subordinating
ethnic differences to a sense of national identity and unity."
(John Esposito and John Voll, Islam and Democracy, New York.)

More significantly, as the reality of this process began to
impinge upon the daily lives of women and men, all the questions and
contradictions concealed in the past rhetoric of Islamic ideology began to
surface sharply in view. Whose Islam?, which brand of Islam?, which
orthodoxy?, which codification of Islamic laws and social custom?, why
negative Islam? These and similar questions were now thrown open into the
public arena. But given the state of Pakistan's civil society, cramped
under authoritarian regimes, answers to these questions could not emerge
as a result of public debate and consensus. Instead they became points of
an ongoing conflict for the soul of Pakistan. While the oligarchic state
assumed the role of the arbiter, an array of Islamist parties jumped into
the fray with their power plays.

The conflict has since widened to engulf the future of Pakistan's
nationhood and indeed its very existence as a state. Yet, it is a strange
conflict. While the stakes are great for Pakistan and its people the
Islamist parties most fiercely engaged in the combat happen to be
culturally, spiritually and geographically alien to much of the country.
This is a fact which has gone generally unnoticed, but cannot be escaped
if a little closer attention is paid to the historical background of the
Islamist parties, their involvement in Pakistan's politics and their
doctrinal positions.

The Alien Islamists
(a) Jamat-e-Islami.
Let us begin with the Jamat-e-Islami (JI), one of the two Islamist
parties coopted by Zia to guide him in the implementation of his Islamic
system. Its supreme leader, Maulana Maududi, a prolific writer,
and opponent of the Pakistan movement, had
formed his fundamentalist party in 1941 in Pathankot, India, but migrated
to Pakistan at partition with the aim of blessing the new nation with his
Islamic political and social system. As the party expanded its operations
in Pakistan during the intense Cold War decade of 1950-1960, it forged
ideological links with Saudi Arabia, attracting at the same time the
patronage of the American CIA for its right-wing anti-communist politics.

Although the JI established well-funded militant, and later armed,
student cadres in Pakistan's colleges and universities and was able to
create a base of support in some sections of the petty bourgeoisie and
salaried professionals, its politics of Islam never made a headway among
the people in general. This is evident from its history of involvement in
electoral politics. In the first national elections of Pakistan it won
only 4 seats out of 300 and was never able to improve upon that
achievement in any subsequent electoral contest that it entered.

It was the Zia dictatorship that provided the JI an opportunity to
accomplish, what it could not achieve through electoral success. From its
agenda Zia took and enforced punitive, patriarchal shari'a laws,
instituted parallel shari'at courts, and introduced the so called Islamic
tax of zakat. Maududi's construction of Islamic governance essentially
revolved around an all- powerful head of state, the amir or khalifa. Gen.
Zia had little problem appropriating that office for himself, with
unlimited prerogative to define and enforce proper Islamic conduct and
thought.

More strategically for the regime, the JI hatched the first
private holy warrior or jihadi militia, named Hizbul Mujahideen, to assist
the Pakistan army in its US backed operations in Afghanistan. Its men
trained by Inter-services Intelligence agency (ISI) linked up with Afghan
warlord Hikmetyar's Hizb-e-Islami to channel the flow of US arms and stage
guerrilla attacks against the Soviet troops. With the takeover of Kabul by
the Taliban in 1992 Hikmetyar was driven out of power and JI's Hizbul
Mujahideen lost its camps in Afghanistan, shifting its Jihad to the
Kashmir front.

(b) Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam.
The Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, the second Islamist party coopted by
Zia, also has its roots outside Pakistan in Deoband, Utter Paradesh, where
a religious seminary called Darul Uloom was the training center of Muslim
clerics or ulema since 1867. These ulema were disenchanted with the
British colonial rule because it had all but ended the privileges enjoyed
by them as functionaries in the Mughal administration. With the advent of
the anti-colonial movement in early 20th century they formed a
religio-political party, Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Hind and joined hands with the
Indian National Congress in opposition to the colonial rule as well as the
Pakistan movement. In 1945 JUI was formed as an offshoot of
Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Hind and latter established itself in Pakistan. Within
Pakistan the activities of the JUI became concentrated in the North West
=46rontier Province (NWFP) where before partition the Deoband ulema had
established a sub-center of their religious schools or madrassas and
provided political support to the Congress party of the province.

In the electoral politics of Pakistan the JUI has done a little
better than the JI but its main support has been confined to the
NWFP and Pakhtun areas of northern Balochistan. In the national elections
its performance has progressively declined from winning 7 seats in the
parliament in 1988 to just 2 in 1997. Over the last decade the JUI has
immersed itself in Afghanistan's civil war on the side of the Taliban,
displacing the JI as a major Pakistani player in the so called Afghan
jihad. The Taliban, literally meaning students, whether Afghan or
Pakistani are mainly the product of JUI madrassas, although the party has
spawned its own exclusively Pakistani jihadi militia, Harkatul Mujahideen.
This militia was originally called Harkatul Ansar, a name promptly changed
after it was declared a terrorist organization by the United States in
1994 for its alleged role in the murder of four Western tourists in
Kashmir. When in August 1998 US Cruse missiles struck the suspected
hideout of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, all the Pakistani nationals
killed were members of the JUI militia.

Although boosting the rule of fanatic Taliban is an objective it
has shared in common with the Pakistani state, the JUI has increasingly
become independent in its militant actions, waging jihad in Afghanistan
and Kashmir, and forcing the hands of the Pakistan government to concede
Taliban style shari'a rule in parts of NWFP which it hopes to extend to
the entire country.

(c) Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.
The JUI also has close doctrinal and political ties with the
rabidly anti-Shia, Deoband-Wahabi organization, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
(SSP) and its death squad, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The later by its own
admission has conducted massacres of Shias at the sites of their religious
congregations and engaged in targeted killings of Shia religious leaders
and professionals along with Iranian diplomats. Retaliatory killings by
Shia militants have perpetrated an unending
cycle of sectarian bloodshed in the country. When nothing to do, the
SSP's hirsute soldiers of Islam hang around in crowded bazaars and
command passing women to cover their faces.

(d) The Jamiat-e-Ahle-Hadith (Markaz Dawa wal Irshad).
Not to be outdone by these Islamist parties and their militias,
yet another organization of the orthodox Ahl-e-Hadith has entered the
jihad business in a big way by launching its own Allah's army, the
Lashkar-e-Taiba (army of the pure). The Ahl-e-Hadith practice a more
radical brand of Wahabi Islam, akin to the Saudi Arabian Wahabism. Their
political party, the Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadith, was totally rejected at the
polls when it entered the first national election of Pakistan in 1970,
failing to win a single seat in the parliament. Having remained in
political wilderness for many years thereafter, the Ahle Hadith leadership
renounced democracy altogether as un-Islamic, and finding the political
climate more favorable under the Zia regime launched a new organization
named Markaz Dawa-wal-Irshad. In 1987 this organization opened its center
or Markaz in Muredke, a town north of Lahore, with the dual objective of
preaching and waging jihad projected as the original mission of Islam.
Within a short period the Markaz at Muredke has grown into a huge
fortress-like complex of educational buildings, residences, drill
compounds and a firing range, bank-rolled by Saudi Sheikhs, some
Pakistani businessmen and expatriate contributors living abroad. In
addition to imparting regular education, this complex is the headquarters
of Lashkar-e-Taiba which has outgrown all other jihadi militias in
Pakistan. The martial and educational facilities inside the complex match
any state-run military academy, in blatant disregard of Pakistan's
constitutional provision against maintenance of private armies.Training
camps for Laskar-e-Taiba are also run in Afganistan and Azad Kashmir.

Every winter the Markaz holds its annual congregation at Muredke
attended by as many as 100,000 people. Among the prominent guests in
attendance are government ministers, leading politicians, retired generals
such as Hamid Gul of ISI fame, and the parents of living and dead Lashkar
warriors. The entire premises is bedecked with colorful life-size posters
and resounds with fiery speeches exhorting the faithful to wage jihad
against the world of unbelievers, the Alam-e-Kufr, and drink the cup of
martyrdom.

(e) The Tablighi Jamat and Others.
The convening of mass congregations as a means of winning converts
and show of force has become a common practice with Islamist parties and
organizations. The largest of such congregations is held annually by the
Tablighi Jamat in Raiwind, another town south of Lahore. Founded in 1927
in India, the Tablighis are an umbrella group of Deobandi organizations.
They claim to be non-political and have established a world-wide network
of proselytizing activities especially among the expatriate communities in
Europe and North America which also serve as their base for fund raising.

The annual congregation of the Jamat in Raiwind is attended by an
estimated crowd of two million. Ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was a
regular guest at these mammoth congregations although, being a woman,
Benazir Bhutto was not to be seen at these affairs during her years as
prime minister. What is significant to note is that these annual
congregations are held in a Punjab town, the people who gather are 90
percent Pakhtuns from the NWFP and orations are delivered in Urdu.

There are still other localized Islamist groups, such as the
Tanzeem-e-Akhwan with its madrassa near Chakwal spreading jihadi fervor,
but this brief sketch of the main standard bearers should provide a fairly
good idea of the brand of Islam that has come to dominate the official
religio-political discourse in Pakistan. That it has acquired the label of
jihadi Islam makes sense in view of its great preoccupation with waging
holy war. It is also unmistakably divisive, doctrinaire, fanatic and
misogynist. Above all, it has no roots in the soil of Pakistan and its
traditional culture as indicated by its antecedents and lack of popular
political support.

A Product of State Patronage
Despite all this the political clout and capacity of the
Islamist's to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men for their objectives
calls for a little further clarification. From a sociological perspective
the dehumanizing and alienating conditions of urban poverty, youth
unemployment, failure of the state sector to provide adequate schooling
facilities for children and the influx of foreign money and jihadi
warriors into Pakistan in the wake of the Afghanistan conflagration are
important factors. But underlying all these factors is the already noted
opportunistic relationship that the Islamist parties have enjoyed with the
Pakistani state. The unitary and highly centralized structure of this
state has been built on the basic maxim of one religion, that is Islam,
one enemy, that is India and one language, that is Urdu. The Islamist
parties have been instrumental in providing ideological support for this
maxim. Their orthodoxy provides the construct of one Islam, and their
enunciation of kufr (non-belief) identifies India as the prime enemy.
Arabicized Urdu, of course. is the language of their seminaries and
sermons and therefore must be accepted as the only Islamic language of
Pakistan.

This maxim of Pakistan's unity must be upheld through a perennial
ideological offensive otherwise it can easily fall apart under the weight
of its own flagrant contradictions. There is no room here to go over
these contradictions, but the case of Punjabi elite will illustrate. More
likely a heterodox Barailvi if he is a Sunni, the Punjabi of the
ruling class has not only to deny all other ethno-cultural identities in
Pakistan, bu must also renounce his own spiritual and linguistic
heritage. No wonder Punjab, the most privileged province in the
federation cannot claim a single Punjabi language mass circulation
newspaper to its name.

For the Islamist parties, of course, there is no contradiction in
all this so long as they can use the ideological bargain with the ruling
elite to promote their own agenda. One of the biggest advantages they have
reaped from this bargain is the acquisition of vast resources to expand
their religious schools or madrassas. While the educational system in the
public sector has languished and the literacy rate of Pakistan has
stagnated at the lowest level in South Asia, the madrassas of the
Islamists have more than doubled since the Zia regime began to pump zakat
funds into their coffers. By 1995 an estimated 2.5 million students were
being taught and trained in these schools, many of them shipped regularly
to the jihad camps of Afghanistan and Kashmir. In addition to controlling
their own madrassas, the Islamists have used their state patronage to make
deep inroads into the public education system at all levels, acquiring
added opportunities to disseminate their ideological biases. This is
particularly evident in the many textbooks authored by them with official
blessings for tailored courses that have proliferated in such subjects as
Pakistan Studies and Islamic Studies at secondary and post-secondary
levels. A review of these textbooks by a reputable Pakistani scholar finds
them replete with fabrications, lies and distortions about the creation of
Pakistan and its subsequent history to suit the ideological offensive of
the state in which the Islamists are collaborators. (k. K. Aziz, The
Murder of History, Lahore.) No other political party or formation in
Pakistan enjoys such a degree of control over educating the young, a
powerful means of indoctrination and recruitment.

What is important here is not just the power of the Islamist
parties and their brand of Islam but also the uses of this power. The
very mode by which this power has been acquired and its militant mission
renders it incapable of serving any benign purpose in the political
affairs or the civic life of Pakistan. On the contrary its manipulative
influence on the state's internal and external policy has proved
counterproductive in more than one sense. What is alarming from the
perspective of national unity, the focus of this paper, is that the
jihadi Islam and its ascendency represents a perfidious negation of
whatever spiritual bonds unify the people of Pakistan.

The Islamic Spiritualism of Pakistan
One cannot deny the importance of shared religious beliefs, values
and symbols in generating perceptions of common nationhood which can help
in the building of a successful federal structure. However, the brand of
Islam that has been promoted in Pakistan as the foundation of its
nationhood does not reflect the beliefs, values and symbols shared by a
majority of the people. Its very semantics is alien to the indigenous
languages of Pakistan - Sindhi, Seraiki, Balochi, Brahui, Punjabi and
Pashto. What most of the people share in common, particularly in the vast
southern part of the country, is an indigenous and rich tradition of
Islamic spiritualism popularized by great Sufi poets, Shah Abdul Latif of
Bhit, Sachal Sarmast of Daraza, Baba Farid of Multan/Pakpatan,
Khawja Ghulam Farid of Mithankot,
Sultan Bahu of Jhang, Bhulle Shah of Qasur, Mian Muhammad Bakhsh of
Mirpur, to name just a few. Although most of them were well versed in
orthodox Islamic theology and the classical Arabic and Persian,
they chose the Sufi path absorbing in it the best of the local folklore,
and communicating their ideas in the native languages of the people among
whom they lived. Furthermore they chose poetry as a medium of expression,
composed to be sung in the prevalent musical modes, which is an anathema
to the orthodox ulema. But presented in this sublime form the Sufi
religious beliefs and spiritualism became a powerful vehicle of unifying
and synthesizing the diverse cultural heritage of the land. A Western
scholar who has translated the Siraiki poems of Khwaja Farid in English
notes that "the sung Sufi poetry in the languages of the Indus valley and
its plains ... is in the most immediate sense a central part of the
cultural heritage of Pakistan." (C. Shackle, Fifty Poems of Kwaja Farid,
Multan).

In this treasury of beautiful and inspiring poetry is embodied the
centrepiece of Sufi faith, the concept of wahdat-ul-wajud, the oneness of
all being. And from this central concept flows the Sufi message of
universal humanity, love and respect for all creation. The God of Islam,
so visualized represents a Oneness perceived as Universal Beauty,
Truth or Eternal Reality from which all creation emanates, just as
light radiates from the sun. If one cultivates the love of God, or the
Beloved of the Sufi poetic parlance, the divine presence can be seen in
all creatures, including in one's own self. Conversely, it is the destiny
of all creation to be reunited with the Creator or the Beloved. Shah Abdul
Latif poses this riddle of oneness in diversity in the following words:

The echo is the call itself
If you understand the puzzle!
One already, but twice to listen.
Single Palace, doors and windows in millions
Where ever I look, the same God I see.

Similarly, Bulhe Shah sees the Divine Beloved where the jihadi might see
a kafir. In his words:

How long this hide-and-seek?
You are the Cowherd in the jungles of Bindraban
You are the Victor in the land of Lanka
You are the Pilgrim coming from Mecca
How lovely the colors you change
How long this hide-and-seek?

In actual deeds, this veneration and quest for the Beloved translates into
love and respect for all human beings no matter how different they may be.
"All human hearts are gems; to distress them is not good; if you
desire the Beloved do not distress any one's heart," says Baba Farid.
In this vision the religious act is not just offering of ritual
prayer to an impersonal Deity; it is becoming aware of the beauty of
God in its myraid manifestations and falling in love with the Divine
Beloved. Without the spark of love no true knowledge of oneself or
external reality can be achieved, and above all it is love that teaches
higher morality, cures alienation of human beings from their own selves,
from other fellow beings and from what exists in nature.
It is this belief and attitude that makes the Sufi highly
suspicious of the religious clerics. To quote Sultan Bahu:

Majestic are the gates of religions
(But) God's way is a narrow passage
Better to hide from the pandits and mullas
They kick and create much dissension
Better to sing the song of union with the Beloved
And live where no pretenders be

The Sufi tradition is not just another exercise in religious
scholasticism. In much of what is Pakistan today it has served as an
anchor of peace and harmony for centuries amidst the turmoil and plunder
of the invading armies of Arabs, Afghans, Mughals and the British. It has
also served as a vital spirit of tolerance and sharing among culturally
diverse communities that have lived in this land. Nowhere can one find a
stronger evidence of this spirit than in Sindh, the heartland of Islamic
mysticism in Pakistan. Not long ago a senior British civil servant,
translator and admirer of Shah Abdul Latif's poetry, wrote that from the
Islamic mysticism
of Sindh "flowed certain important consequences, ... an absence of
bitterness between Sunni and Shia, and a kind of rapprochement between the
deeper mystical ideas of Muslim and Hindu thought. The last especially
helps to explain the extraordinary fact that the typically Islamic
mysticism of the Resalo (the anthology of Latif's poems) is understood and
loved in Sind by Hindus as much as by Muslims". (H. T. Sorley, Shah
Abdul Latif of Bhit: His Poetry, Life and Times, Karachi). Similar is
the appeal evoked by the poetry of other Sufi masters, whether Balochi,
Siraiki or Punjabi.

Conclusion
Unfortunately, the political climate fostered after independence
has not been conducive to sustain this social harmony and spirit of
tolerance, and jihadi Islam now poses a serious challenge to its very
survival. No one can realize this more acutely than those who have grown
up in Sindh and adjacent regions where Sufi beliefs and attitudes are
part of a living reality from generation to generation. A year before his
ouster from office when Nawaz Sharif tabled his latest version of the
Shari'at Bill in the national assembly as the 15th Constitutional
Amendment, a few words were spoken by a veteran Sindhi member of
parliament, soon to be lost in the din of debate, but quite revealing
nonetheless. Abdul Hameed Jatoi of Sharif's own Muslim League Party
pleaded passionately in the house, "In the name of Allah, I appeal to all
my brothers, especially those from Punjab, not to let this happen. I saw
the creation of Pakistan and I have also seen it break. Today I am again
looking at a situation where no one will be able to save the country from
dismemberment." By no means a fervent champion of secularism or provincial
autonomy, this Jatoi elder's apprehension makes much sense when put in its
proper context.

To begin with, the brand of Islam that defines the faith in terms
of negative injunctions, shari'a laws, sterile rituals and jihadi fervor
is based on the interpretations and enunciations of orthodox ulema. As
noted earlier, their theology has no roots in the soil of Pakistan,
especially in the vast southern part of the country. Yet, it has become
part of the ideological apparatus of the state and is used as a mechanism
of social control rather than the spiritual uplift of the people. The
political leaders and their followers who profess this brand of Islam are
almost exclusively Urdu, Punjabi and Pushto speakers. Their role in the
aggressive implementation of shari'a laws and other political uses of
religion deepens the existing conflicts on ethnic and linguistic lines.
The Sindhis, Siraikis, and Balochis find it yet another unwelcome
intrusion of the central state into their affairs. Furthermore, despite
being submersed in national politics, the cup of the Islamists'
faith is empty of any social ethics that could inspire national unity.
Their overwhelming and almost pathological obsession with holy war and
sectarian battles precludes any prioritization of values of human love,
social justice, and equitable sharing of national resources, elements
essential to build a viable federal structure. Clearly the baggage that
comes with jihadi Islam is doing much harm to Pakistan's national
unity, not to speak of its other liabilities. It may very well prove to
be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

________

#2.

Indian Express
Tuesday, May 23, 2000

Minister also arranged bail for attackers of Christians

by PRAFULLA MARPAKWAR

MUMBAI, MAY 22: Dairy Development Minister Arjun Tulsiram Pawar did not
just join the welcome party outside Nashik jail that received the 33 youth
who were arrested for attacking Christians in Abhona village on May 9. He
was also actively involved in organising legal help for the accused to
secure them bail.

This piece of information comes from none other than Pawar himself. In a
report submitted to Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, Pawar's office
confirmed that the Minister had taken a lead in organising lawyers for the
accused. Pawar had taken the trouble, the letter explained, to ensure
``peace and harmony in the area''.

But though there is no sign of remorse or even a hint of an apology from
the minister, the Nationalist Congress Party (to which Pawar belongs) and
the Congress (which makes a song and dance about protecting minority
rights) have not as much as reprimanded the minister for brazenly
associating with activists of the BJP, RSS and VHP in welcoming the accused
persons.

``On one hand Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has taken a lead to draft
schemes and programmes for the members of minority communities and on the
other, Cabinet members like Pawar were directly sympathising with
anti-minority elements. This is against the spirit of the two parties,
Congress and NCP,'' a senior Congress Minister said.

The Minister said since prima facie Pawar was at fault, it was for the NCP
to take action against him. ``Since he belongs to NCP, it will be better if
NCP takes action against him,'' the Minister said.

According to a NCP Minister, since both NCP president Sharad Pawar -- who
had condemned the Abhona attack -- and Bhujbal were not in town, a
decision on what action to take would be decided later.

Both NCP as well as Congress cabinet members admitted that pressure is
building on the Chief Minister to immediately sack A T Pawar for siding
with communal organisations.

Copyright =A9 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

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