[sacw] sacw dispatch #2 (15 May 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch # 2
13 May 2000
________________________________
#1. They, the people of Kashmir
#2. Pakistan: State and the Working Class
________________________________

#1.

[15/05/2000] - The Hindustan Times

Opinion

They, the people

(By Ashima Kaul Bhatia)

Had it not been for the
protest by the villagers of Bariargan in the Anantnag district of south
Kashmir and the subsequent firing which killed seven of them, the truth
about the identity of those killed by security forces after the
Chattisinghpura massacre would not have come out.

The incident attracted media attention and a cornered Farooq Abdullah had
no other option but to order the exhumation of the five bodies which the
security forces had claimed were those of militants involved in the Sikh
massacre.

After the exhumation and identification, the villagers=92 allegations were
vindicated. The dead men were indeed innocent villagers and not militants
as claimed by security forces. Truth prevailed and in the light of the
Anantnag incident, the smouldering discontent and rebellion of the Kashmiri
people is justified and understandable.

But some nagging questions persist. What if the truth had remained buried
in the Patribhal graves? Have the many who "disappeared" in the last ten
years of militancy met the same fate? And now, when the Chief Judicial
Magistrate has ordered a case to be filed against the erring officers, will
justice prevail?

The questions have naturally shifted the focus to the phenomenon of
missing people and to the contentious issue of human rights violation in
Kashmir. It is tempting to seek an explanation and justification for all
such actions committed in the past. But in our enthusiastic demands for
punishment and justice, we tend to overlook the onerous legal process with
its defunct legal machinery, breeding corruption and nepotism, which
actually helps the guilty to continue to commit such violations with
impunity.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the families whose men have disappeared have
harrowing tales to tell. For such families, it is not the incident of
disappearance itself, but the process of justice being delivered which has
become a nightmare. Take for example the case of women like Sara of Nowgam,
Zaina of Badgam and Rafiqa of Batmaloo in Srinagar. They wait for their
husbands Farooq Ahmad, Gulam Moiudin and Mushtaq Ahmad Khan to return home.
Labelled as half-widows, these women bear the burden of schooling their
children, feeding them and continuing the court cases they are fighting.

Do human rights exist for these women? Till date there has been no
redressal for any one of them. The guilty have not been identified, and
even in cases where they have been, no punishment has been awarded.
Although the wives and the parents of those who have =93disappeared=94 have
formed an association to highlight their victimisation =97 besides providing
moral support to one other =97 they have not been able to do much.

Their association has no funds, no office or patronage from a militant or
any opposition organisation to fight for them. They are also afraid to
protest or demonstrate for fear of being identified and eliminated. Each of
them thus fights a lonely battle running from pillar to post with no hope
of justice.

In 1991, an independent inquiry had established that there was evidence to
show that Javed Ahmad Ahangar of Batmaloo had been arrested by three
members of National Security Guard on August 18, 1990 and subsequently
"disappeared". His mother, Preveena, despite the evidence, continues to run
>from one agency to another pleading for her son=92s innocence. No verdict,
however, has been passed in her case.

It is necessary to go into the details of each of these cases, not because
one wants to impress upon the magnitude of the phenomenon, but to highlight
the pain, anguish, drudgery and exploitation of these people. There is a
need to communicate the fact that the experience of approaching police
officials, army authorities and the judiciary has not only left the
families =97 especially the women =97 bereft of emotions, but also robbed th=
em
of their dignity.

According to them, each time they plead their missing one=92s innocence, it
leaves them "feeling like worms". What makes things more difficult for
these families is that now they cannot approach the State Human Rights
Commission (SHRC) as their cases are still pending with the High Court.
Even if they could, their cases cannot be registered with SHRC as it is not
within the commission=92s parameters to deal with accusations against the
armed forces.

Also in such cases, it is the Central Government which has to give the
clearance for producing the accused in the State High Court =97 something
which till date has not happened.

The bitter truth is that disappearances in Kashmir and the trauma the
concerned families have to experience have not been able to attract
attention as a human rights abuse. In a sense, these disappearances remain
too "particular to be universal" or "too universal to be particular".

While it cannot be denied that the International Human Rights Group and
the Geneva Convention, of which India is a signatory, have raised the
visibility of abuses, the fact remains that the issue is confined to
rhetoric.

The spirit, relevance and significance of the Geneva Convention loses its
meaning as it fails to penetrate the nexus at the grassroots level where a
local policewala or a vakil are only waiting to exploit and make fast
money. Worse is the fact that there is a high level of ad hocism at the
higher echelons of judiciary in Kashmir. Added to this is the disinterest
shown by the bureaucracy and the politicians towards any efforts to expose
the "system", of which many of them are a part.

However insignificant or inconsequential the cases of human rights abuses
are made to appear, any violations by security forces need to be singled
out and dealt with speedily in accordance with the law. At no stage should
state-sponsored terror or the denial of rights become a part of the Indian
Government=92s policy in combating armed opposition groups.

The Indian nation has always stood for non-violence, truth and justice. It
has an obligation towards these ideals not because of its commitment to
international treaties it has ratified, but because of its commitment to
itself and its people.

Its biggest advantage does not lie in the fact that it has the biggest
army in the world or that it is a nuclear power, but in the fact that it is
the world=92s biggest democracy. Let the common Kashmiri experience real
democracy.

_________

#2.

The News on Sunday / The News International (Lahore , Pakistan)
14 May 2000
Political Economy

State And Working Class
The Rising Workers Fight Back; Their Union Leaders Fear it most "If the
already secured rights of workers are under threat the workers, at times,
do not rely on the old mechanisms of trade union leaders to get them
restored, rather they spontaneously develop their own leaders=8A.." "If the
state is intervening with the harshest hands the army the workers are
rising with newest forms and in mass numbers". Political Economy reports
and analyses how

Riaz Ahmed

The union bureaucracy is both reformist and cowardly. Hence its
ridiculously impotent and wretched position. It dreams of reforms but fears
to settle accounts in real earnest with the state (which not only refuses
to grant reforms but even withdraws those already granted) and it also
fears the rank and file struggle which alone can deliver reforms. the union
bureaucrats are afraid of losing their own privileges vis-a-vis the rank
and file. Their fear of mass struggle is much greater than their abhorrence
of state control of the unions" (Tony Cliff, in International Socialism
Journal)

How the state strikes back was recently demonstrated by the attack on
public rallies of railway workers in Karachi.On May1,the thirty two years
old tradition of the Railway Workers Union was attacked by the Army
Monitoring Cell (AMC) by forcibly disallowing the May Day rally at the
Platform 4 and 5 of Karachi Cantt Station.A protest meeting was held at the
Railway Colony near Kala-Pull, amid tight security. By disallowing the
rally, the AMC was settling a score. There had been a clash between the
military personnel and the rail workers a month ago, the military suffered
humiliation as a result. On March 29, over 2600 Karachi Cantt Workshop Shed
workers struck for 6 hours against the manhandling of one worker by Subedar
Pervaiz of AMC, posted at the Cantt Station.

Subedar Pervaiz had to tender apology in the presence of thousands of
workers.This was utter humiliation. Military authorities promised inquiry
against him, but it was a tactical retreat . No action was taken against
Pervaiz.

The workers rose and struck within minutes of the manhandling of the
workshop painter Maqsood, without the presence or lead of the union
leaders. In fact during the whole strike no union leader of significance
bothered to visit the strikers. The leaders fear the army more than the
ordinary workers do. The same phenomenon happened in Lahore in early
November last year. 10,000 workers of Mughalpura Railway Workshop at Lahore
struck to get the peace-work-payment and overtime restored. On May day the
army wanted to make it clear to rail-workers that if they had won on March
29th, then it was the army day on May day.

The preparation for giving a lesson to the most defiant workers ever since
General Musharaf came to power were afoot many days before the workers day.
On April 29th a notification was issued banning all public meetings of rail
workers. An application by the rail workers for using the local Railway
Hall for Workers Day rally was filed on April 20th, it remained unanswered.
The leaders of Railway Workers Union were called at the Cantt Station
Police Station on April 30th and told that no rally or meeting should take
place. The area police had and warned all decoration shop owners in workers
colony not to lend any tents or loudspeakers to the rally organizers. All
night long the army and police stayed at the Cantt Station to ward off any
rally related activity.

Despite restrictions the workers managed to hire some tents. But early
morning on May 1, the truck bringing the items was seized by the police
near the Cantt station. When union leaders reached the station at about 10
am, the Chairman of the Railway Workers Union Aslam Siddiqui was arrested
by the DSP Sikander Shah and detained for 3 hours. A group of workers
coming from Kotri to participate in the rally via train was intercepted at
Landhi railway station, their banners and bunting were seized and the group
was disallowed to move towards the Cantt Station. On offering resistance 3
workers, Vice President RWU Mohammed Haroon Bhutto, Joint Secretary Mungal
Pretam and Nabi Baksh Mastoi were arrested. Platforms 4 and 5 were cleared
of all waiting passengers and collies and many police personnel along with
Subedar Pervaiz and two others were posted there.

When a group of photographers was taking photos of a tiny group of
protesting trade union leaders assembled at the station it was intercepted
by the police and told by the army monitoring cell personnel including
Subedar Pervaiz not to take photos because the photographers had not taken
permission to do so! When told by the photographers that they had come to
take pictures of a workers' rally the army officer said that no rally was
supposed to take place at the platform.When shown a pasted poster saying
that a workers rally would take place,he had no answer.

May day rallies at Cantt station have never been highly charged. Very few
workers attend the meetings. The rallies have become more of a ritual, a
kind of moral pressure on rail trade unionists to celebrate May day and
raise slogans of 'mazdoor, mazdoor bhai bhai' and 'chikago kay shuhda ko
surkh salam'. Usually three to four unions have separate May Day rallies,
all with small number of workers. At these meetings, the mood is more
towards projecting second rate union leaders. These leaders are under-class
people who have the ability to put an argument vociferously and somewhat
analytically than others. There are some 'outsider' ( a term used to denote
non-working and not employed to the workplace leaders that still lead a
section of workers) leaders but they too are of mediocre type. You would
expect rail worker leaders to be corrupt to core, rich with property and,
so forth just like the bank or port worker leaders who, in terms of status,
are far far away from the working class they represent. Similarly you would
expect the 'outsider' leaders to be mobile with a cello-phone, car and
stewards. But the rail worker leaders are certainly not that breed. The
reason there have not been any collective bargaining agent elections for
the past 32 years in Pakistan Railways. The main-line and workshop-shed
workers had no chance to elect their unions. The "unions" have no status or
official recognition of any sort. they are all illegal.

Thus for the 'professional' 'outsider' and mobile trade unionists there is
no charm in trade-unionism at the railways. Those who do get involved are
of two types. The sincere ones with an old leftist background and the
influence-seeking run-of-the-mill leaders who are educated or experienced
enough to know that 'getting involved' and 'becoming a leader' brings some
extra leverage and gets some money form the corrupt system.

The 'unions' that exist now are actually not unions in the literal sense of
he words. they are groups of workers, each with a hierarchical and regional
set of leaders spreading from Lahore to Karachi. The rail-workers are
deeply divided. For the 98,000 workers all over Pakistan there are 140
'unions' or rather groups. So for each 700 workers there is a
representative but un-official group of leaders. The first division is
among the open-line and workshop shed, but that leads to more division as
there are competing groups for fitters, engine-drivers, ticket-collectors,
collies, goods and passenger service etc, the list goes on and on. Along
with professional divisions there are divisions on the basis of caste,
bradri, nationalism, ethnicity, regionalism and so forth. All the divisions
in society are reflected in a workplace. As Trotsky said: "The trade union
embraces broad masses of workers, at different levels. The broader these
masses, the closer is the trade union to accomplishing its task. But what
the organization gains in breadth in inevitably loses in depth.
Opportunist, nationalist, religious tendencies in the trade union and their
leadership express the fact that the trade unions embrace not only the
vanguard but also heavy reserves.The weak side of the unions thus comes
from their strong side." Why workers join or associate with a group,
largely depends on the strength of the leader whose function is to solve
the day-to-day grienavances of these workers which are essentially of petty
nature. A functional leader is at best a go-between.Tony Cliff, the
revolutionary socialist, puts it this way: "The trade union of official
balances between different sections of the union's own membership. He keeps
inn check the advanced active, rebellious sections by relying on the
passive, apathetic or ignorant=85 The presence of many different unions in a=
n
industry-and therefore the difficulty of organizing totally united
action-provides the officials of each with a convenient alibi for their own
inactivity".

Existence of most of these groups suits the rail authorities. Rail traffic
is a core communication system in Pakistan's economy, so the state never
allowed worker's their freedom of association. Along with some union
leaders, the corrupt mafia at the Pakistan railways is directly responsible
for the deficit of 28 billion rupees. Almost all of this deficit is
directly due to the inept and corrupt higher authorities, and not the rail
workers. Five projects of huge funding were, over the past 50 years,
started but all ended up in producing almost no growth in the revenues of
railways. These are the electrification of rail-lines, computerised
national booking system, microwave hook up for rail traffic control, the
giant pipri marshaling yard, all have been projects of multi-billion
rupees. Ironically, none is operational or was ever completed.
Electrification has been abandoned and the Lahore, Khanewal line is not
operational any more, computerised booking system failed to take off,
microwave hook-up hardly ever worked, and the only 5% of the pipri-yard is
used by the railways.

On the other hand the public perception is that the railway is in debt due
to the corruption of the ticket-collectors, checkers and counter-clerks.
Corruption of tickets is only a tiny element of a much bigger problem.
Actually, railways gets to sell all the tickets because that is only when
they can be black-marketed. Therefore tickets are not the reason for
railway losses, it is the higher administration. It is this administration
that needs to keep a check on the workers demanding their rights.Ordinary
workers that account for over 80% of the workforce are between 1 and 15
grades, they on average, earn Rs 2800 as monthly wage contrary to public
perception rail workers are unlike government servants drawing huge extra
salary benefits. The army intervention instead has made a big cut in the
concessions to these poor workers.Rail passes have been abolished and
monthly travel pass fares have been doubled from Rs 350 to Rs 720. The
5,000 new workers were to to be employed by the railways last year but
their appointment has been halted and instead 5,000 army-men have been
inducted in the name of Army Monitoring Cell. It is this growing
intervention of the state and its fear of a backlash that motivates it to
put a clamp-down on all union or group activity.

However, given the feeble strength of the worker unions and their leaders
one question arises: If the union leaders were not involved in the
uprisings at Lahore in November and at Karachi in late March, then why is
the AMC shutting down the shops of union leaders who are most useful to the
rail administration, some even to the AMC? Above, all the monitoring cell
knows more than anyone else that the traditional unions have little
militant workers' support, for had it been so, the leaders would have been
present at Mughulpura and Karachi Cantt when workers struck. When the
leaders are left behind by the followers, they no longer remain in the
lead, they fall back. A relegated set of union leaders or unions can never
be a threat to the state. The answer lies in the better understanding of
the army, about those it rules as a state institution. Far more than what
the media may project, the unions can still become the focussing ground of
future uprisings. The military knows that the seeds of uprising need not be
planted in the infertile soil of unions but they can grow and quickly
transforms a backward-looking slow-moving union into a dynamic machine. In
fact some of the rising new leaders do have a sort of attachment with the
old unions but not their leaders. Both the experiences of Lahore and
Karachi show what a) spontaneous uprisings against the fearsome monitoring
cell can occur b) the spontaneous outbursts certainly do not need the old
unions as their basis c) workers are fighting to restore their old rights
d) the worker leaders when not allowed to hold rallies on May day instead
avoid confrontations and hold in-house meeting e) on the other hand when it
comes to workers rights, workers themselves strike and fight-back and win
at their workplace, there and than f) the traditional union leaders fear
the state power while the workers move on to challange that power.

If the already secured rights of workers are under threat, the workers at
times, do not rely on the old mechanisms of trade union leaders to get them
restored, rather they spontaneously develop their own leaders. They also
show that the workers are not demanding new rights. The general perception
by the mass media plays a hangover effect on the consciousness of the
workers themselves who are badly paid. But the risings in sum total do
indicate for the time being that if the state is intervening with the
harshest hands the army the workers are rising with the newest forms and in
mass numbers. It is these mass strikes and lockouts that a weak state fears
most. With the military at the helm of affairs such risings are a good sign
for a stagnanant society, they show there is life beyond military, there is
a working class that fights back.

__________________________________________
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