[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 17 Aug. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
17 August 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

#1. Bridging the India Pakistan gap
#2. Kashmir Endures Its Holiday of Contradictions
#3. Kashmir and Nagaland: lessons from the latter

#4. India: Book on Sangh Parivar Fascism Released
#5. Sri-Lanka: Valuable New Book by Kumari Jayawardena

_____________________

#1.

The News International, Pakistan
Wednesday, August 16, 2000
Opinion

BRIDGING THE GAP

by Anees Jillani

Five prominent former Indian diplomats, two being foreign secretaries and
the others being ambassadors, were in Islamabad to attend a seminar in
early August. I had an opportunity to meet them and had detailed
discussions with some of them. One thing that intrigued me about them was
their ever readiness to discuss the partition of India. They literally
appeared to be in such state that if they would be woken up in the middle
of the night, they could start with the minutest details about the Cripps
Mission and the Cabinet Plan. They are not alone in their preoccupation
with 1947; I have come across many Indians who fall in this category.

I notice it because this kind of engrossment with the subject is totally
missing on the side of the border that goes by the name of Pakistan. I
attribute it to two things. One is that the Indians generally tend to read
more about the independence and freedom movement. This fact can be gauged
by the number of books on the subject available in India and the number and
quality of articles periodically appearing in the country. Reading
naturally has helped the Indian intelligentsia to be better informed about
the events surrounding the independence movement and keeps the adrenaline
going with the latest.

The other reason is of course the trauma associated with the bifurcation of
the motherland. We in Pakistan perhaps were incapable of appreciating this
shock until we ourselves faced the breakup of the country in 1971 at the
time of the Bangladesh War. It may be quite traumatic and particularly for
the secular folks who dreamt of a giant united liberated India where all
religious communities could live freely; and could one day represent a
major power to the world.

It was not to be and it is now impossible to undo it. People with the
examples of East and West Germany or North and South Vietnam forget that
religious differences were not present in these two countries. And more
wars have been fought and more people ironically have been killed in the
name of religion than anything else. I would not fall in the trap of my
Indian guests and start to analyse the causes of partition.

I feel that it would a saner approach on the part of everyone who is
interested in forging friendly ties between the peoples of the two
countries to constantly think of ways to cultivate and enrich relations:
this could be at the political, diplomatic, religious, social, economic or
any other level. We all can do it in our own ways and every step helps.

A couple of years ago, I was sharing the driver's seat with the auto driver
at about 3 o'clock in the morning in Mumbai because there were too many of
us sharing the same auto. The driver had a picture of Bal Thackeray in his
front but he was friendly to me and we were constantly sharing jokes.
Suddenly, I asked him to guess as to where I was from. He came up with all
kinds of names from the North. He was shocked when I told him that I was
from Pakistan: he kept saying that I must be joking. He somehow found it so
hard to believe that he being from Shiv Sena could also like a Pakistani.
This has not been my only experience of this kind in India.

However, the situation in Pakistan is different because we do not have very
many people from communities other than the Muslim faith. As a result, a
person practising the Hindu religion could literally be the first one to be
visiting a village or even a town in many areas in Pakistan in decades.
What kind of understanding or communication could one expect in such a
situation? One former Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad wrote in one of
his books of an experience where he visited his neighbour to wish him Eid
Mubarak and the children in the house started dancing around the couple
with slogans of "Hindu Hindu" upon learning that they were from India. Whom
could we blame in such situations? The children? Their parents? The
schools? The government? The state?

The game of censuring each other would continue for some time to come.
However, what is needed on the part of all of us is to become slightly more
open minded and tolerant of the other's way of thinking. It would also not
hurt to learn a little more about each others' countries. Despite living in
this satellite age, the communication gap is mind boggling. And there is no
one to be blamed for this than the media. The reason is simple: they tell
the masses what they feel they expect and thus want to hear. We should all
try to come out of this rut.

______

#2.

New York Times
August 16, 2000

KASHMIR ENDURES ITS HOLIDAY OF CONTRADICTIONS

By BARRY BEARAK
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The Associated Press

A soldier kept watch in Srinagar on Tuesday as Indian forces beefed up
security after Islamic separatist rebels threatened to disrupt celebrations
marking India's Independence Day. No attacks were reported.

SRINAGAR, Kashmir, Aug. 15 -- Independence Day, as observed here today
in the unhappy summer capital of India's unhappiest state, was an eerie
kind of national holiday, with almost everyone staying indoors, partly out
of fear for their lives.

Their apprehensiveness had two sources: first, the militant groups who
are prone to protest Indian rule with explosive devices, and second, the
Indian security forces who are prone to treat the masses as if they were
the militants.

And there was a third reason as well for ignoring the nationwide
festivities: most people here don't consider themselves part of the nation.

"I am a Kashmiri, not an Indian," said Ghulam Muhammad, 64, one of the
few who emerged from his house to enjoy a balmy summer day. "We want our
freedom."

He paused for a moment, allowing his emotions to be moderated by his
pessimism. "But this will never happen," he said. "India will never let us
go."

That is the prevailing sentiment in the Kashmir Valley, a place of
legendary beauty, and, for the past decade, unremitting bloodshed.

Since 1989, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has been one of the
most violent places in the world with more than 25,000 people killed: by
separatists who want their own homeland; by Islamic holy warriors who
believe India's only Muslim majority state should be part of neighboring
Pakistan; by Indian forces who have tried to crush rebellion with the
might of an occupying army.

Today, with all the paradoxes of an Independence Day among a citizenry
that thinks itself so oppressed, Srinagar was, more than usually, a place
of militarized vigilance, of rifle-toting soldiers on every street, bunkers
surrounded by sand bags, road blocks, drop gates, speed bumps and car
searches.

The day's only official event was a morning ceremony in huge Bakshi
Stadium. In a rare bit of agreement, both the militants and the military
agreed that people should not attend. The militants had called for a
strike; the military cordoned off the area and allowed no one near.

"Who would want to attend anyway?" said K. Rajendra Kumar, the deputy
inspector general of the state police. His men were in battle gear, his
snipers peered down from windows. "People are afraid to die."

Inside the stadium, Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah -- often criticized
in Srinagar as too close to New Delhi -- gave an impassioned speech, his
amplified words floating out across the empty seats. His audience was
mainly a brass band and army regiments. The spectators in uniform
overwhelmingly exceeded those in plain clothes -- and those in plain
clothes were mostly state police officers.

The Indian flag, a rare sight in Indian Kashmir, was successfully
hoisted. "I hope to God that the kind of security arrangements we have
done today, we will not need to do again in the future," Mr. Abdullah
said later.

There was a second ceremonial flag-raising, this time by the Indian
border security force. They raised the nation's tricolor banner above the
clock tower in Lal Chowk, ordinarily a teeming bazaar in the center of the
city but nearly deserted today.

K. Vijay Kumar, who heads the border force in Srinagar, made a good
attempt at normalcy. He smiled broadly, "Come, have a cup of tea," he
said to a bevy of photographers there to capture the feeble pageantry.

Most of the soldiers on patrol, including the border force, are not
Kashmiris. Their presence is resented, sometimes even by the local police.

"People have been brutally massacred for the past 10 years --
economically, militarily, spiritually," a deputy superintendent of police
said. "All that people are interested in now is peace, whichever way it
can come. But no one is making a sincere effort at peace."

Sadly, just three weeks ago, rare optimism surged through Kashmir. One
of the main militant groups, the Hizbul Mujahadeen, had declared a
three-month cease-fire. The Indian government agreed to open preliminary
peace talks.

This sudden turn seemed to surprise many of those involved, most notably
Pakistan, one of the Hizbul's patrons; other militant groups, who
declared the Hizbul traitorous; and even some of the Hizbul leadership
itself, who began to complicate the unconditional cease-fire with
difficult conditions. They finally issued an ultimatum, and, by Aug. 8
deemed peace to have had enough of a chance.

Killing has since resumed its rigorous pace. And indeed, Independence Day
was expected to be marked in blood. Little violence was reported, however,
something the security forces attributed to their own wariness and
circumspection.

On Monday night, the bombing of a train did claim at least 10 lives, but
that was in the state of Uttar Pradesh and was most likely the work of
anti-national elements with concerns entirely different from those in
Kashmir.

The Kashmir dispute actually has its roots in independence. In 1947,
when Pakistan and India were carved from the British Empire, both of the
infant countries felt a rightful claim to the princely state of Jammu and
Kashmir.

Among their first acts of nationhood was to fight a war, which left India
with about two-thirds of the most populous part of the territory and
Pakistan with the rest -- a situation that has proven unsatisfactory to
all involved.

Chief Minister Abdullah, orating in Bakshi Stadium, pointed out that the
conflict was now all the more perilous, with India and Pakistan possessing
nuclear weapons. He beseeched Pakistan to stop supporting militants in
"cross-border terrorism." And, as his voice disappeared into the
emptiness, he insisted that "friendship must be better than threatening
each other with atomic bombs."

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

______

#3.

Tehelka.com
14 August 2000

KASHMIR AND NAGALAND: LESSONS FROM THE LATTER

Can both sides on the Kashmir Line of Control have access to each other,
uniting families and opening up trade and communications? The longest
journey begins with the smallest step-the Naga militants, who continue to
believe in separation, have shown that it is possible to take that step,
if one has the true interests of the people at heart

When smiling, top Indian officials stood side by side with senior leaders
of the Hizb ul Mujahideen, the predominant (some would say the only)
Kashmiri insurgent force (the others comprise of non-Kashmiris, especially
Pakistanis and Afghans) fighting Indian troops in Jammu and Kashmir, it
appeared that they were cheering a major breakthrough for peace in that
tragedy. But the smiles were too early, even in that bright drawing room in
Srinagar, taking too much for granted from those behind the men in masks
and those without.

Within days, those smiles were gone, replaced by the tension and worry
lines of the past years. Once again, a small chance for a little peace had
fallen through the cracks in the floor and one could presume that haste had
something to do with it as much as the violent opposition of our neighbour,
whose only raison d'etre for existence appears to be a blind hatred of
India. Although internationally India may even have come out looking
better than the others in this drama-the United States pointedly stressed
that bringing in Pakistan as an after thought following the ceasefire
announcement was not a move that would have been acceptable to any serious
negotiations. Pakistan was forced into a corner and reacted only as it
could. Yet, there are still some issues that need to be discussed.

As a result of the Naga ceasefire, there is today a Ceasefire Monitoring
Cell with members from both sides, which studies complaints of ceasefire
violations by Indian troops and the insurgents In this context, the
Indian government's long experience as far as negotiations with the Naga
militant groups is concerned is worth looking at. Discussions with the Naga
leadership of the dominant faction (Issak Swu-Th Muivah group) of the
National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) have gone on for over three
years. A ceasefire, first announced in 1997 July by the then prime minister
H D Deve Gowda, has endured all these months and been renewed despite
confrontations and serious differences between the two sides.

As a result of the ceasefire, there is today a Ceasefire Monitoring Cell
with members from both sides, which studies complaints of ceasefire
violations by Indian troops and the insurgents. There is a code of conduct,
as it were, which bans the insurgents from carrying weapons within town
limits and other designated places; in addition, the central Indian forces,
meaning the army and the Assam Rifles, apart from the Central Reserve
Police Force (CRPF), which have been the main striking formations against
Naga militants since the 1950s when the insurgency first flared, are
virtually restricted to barracks in Nagaland. They have been active in
Assam and Manipur but not much in Nagaland where the India-NSCN (I-M)
ceasefire has been most effective these past 36 months. This means that the
state police are unencumbered by the ceasefire although they have not been
involved in many confrontations.

The ceasefire, which was first informally extended by New Delhi to other
areas such as the hills of Manipur where Nagas are dominant, has now to all
purposes been extended to all parts of the Northeast where the NSCN (I-M)
is functional. This is the latest step in the three-year process and
follows discussins in Bangkok with I-M leaders before the ceasefire was
renewed. This decision may not be liked by the governments of Assam,
Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, for it could bring them directly in conflict
with the Naga group without the support of the Central forces. But if good
sense prevails on either side (and politicians are shrewd bargainers and
quick to turn opportunities to their advantage), this can be seen as
another reason for both sides to stay away from fighting, increasing the
area for peace. The peace process thus strengthens chances for people
from civil society to continue developing the building blocks for a
long-term peace and honourable settlement between the two sides. Credible
non-government organisations have been active especially from within Naga
society.

The Naga saga, until recent years, has seen the "underground" fighters
appear in a more honourable light than other groups fighting for
"independence" in different parts of this country, not to speak of Kashmir
and Punjab, the latter in a 10-year period between 1982 and 1992. We all
know how the latter was crushed, with brute state force-but which had
public sanction, especially in the rural areas where families, especially
women had been assaulted.

The Naga saga, until recent years, has seen the "underground" fighters
appear in a more honourable light than other groups fighting for
"independence" in different parts of this country The Naga fighters,
on the whole, have not targeted civilians although their methods of
extracting "taxes" amounting to nothing less than blatant extortion has
brought them a bad name in recent times. This problem is not just confined
to one group but is true for others operating in the Northeast. Incidents
of rape and molestation are rare-and more heard and documented in relation
to the behaviour of the Central Indian forces. Yet, again since the
ceasefire, more Nagas have died in the internecine fighting between the
dominant groups than in clashes with Indian troops.

Another significant element of the peace talks has been the fact that they
took place after much preparation between Deve Gowda and the Naga leaders,
Th Muivah and Issak Swu abroad. These have been followed up, without much
obvious progress, by the Prime Minister's Special Negotiator and the Naga
leaders. The Naga problem is not new-it is more than 50 years old.
Obviously, it will take time and trouble to resolve it to the satisfaction
and honour of all concerned.

The process received a major impetus because of the lack of media hype and
government propaganda. The talks, at the Hague, in Geneva and Bangkok, have
been unconditional, low-key. The interlocutors have never gone beyond a
customary paragraph or two about the discussions in press statements. If
one is to tackle such difficult problems, clearly patience is the key as
well as sensitivity to each other's concerns. Talks on issues of such
vast portend must always be unconditional. India has agreed to this
approach in the Naga case and offered no less in the Kashmir situation. But
for such talks to have a chance of success, they must also be secret-at
least at the initial stage, if either side is not to be trapped by
rhetoric and public posturing.

This does not mean that leaders of the talks are not accessible to the
media. They are and have been. But the talks themselves have not been held
hostage by the genie of false publicity. The Naga issue is not as simple
as it looks. At one time, both the People's Republic of China and Pakistan
were deeply involved in it. China withdrew from the scene in the mid-1970s
but Pakistan still plays a role, through the ubiquitous ISI, in the
Northeast although one tends to believe that this role is exaggerated by
Indian security agencies. There is something called indigenous genius and
capability!

At the peoples level, informal peacemakers continue to fight the internal
demons that torment and trouble the Naga people, including ethnic
divisions, extortion, and corruption. Without the ceasefire and
statesmanship on either side, even this would not have been possible. The
Naga leadership has recongised that it is in the interests of their people
to hold talks with New Delhi. There has been extensive pressure on them to
do so from civil society in the area. The continuation of the talks is an
expression of faith in their own people and vice versa. They have not lost
their long-term vision. But they are realistic enough to realise that time
does not wait for any one.

China withdrew from the scene of Naga separatism in the mid-1970s but
Pakistan still plays a role, through the ubiquitous ISI, in the Northeast
although this may be exaggerated by Indian security agencies l The
Nagas have held talks, infructuously, with the Indian government in the
1960s; one group signed a peace accord that was denounced by others in 1975
and now the present fragile process holds the hope of a genuine, long-term
peace. Is such statesmanship too much to expect of the Kashmiri leaders?
Can they function without Pakistan's control? Who does the bloodletting
help? Can both sides on the Kashmir Line of Control have access to each
other, uniting families and opening up trade and communications? All these
will take time-but it is well said that the longest journey begins with
the smallest step.

The Naga militants, who continue to believe in separation, have shown that
it is possible to take that step, if one has the true interests of the
people at heart. Let that step be taken quietly, away from the cameras
and notebooks of the media.

______

#4.

Book on Sangh Parivar Fascism Released

EKTA (committee for Communal Amity) released its Marathi Publication
Burkhya Aad Che Chehre (Faces Behind the Mask) at a very well attended
function at Bhupesh Gupta Hall Prabhadevi Mumbai (15th August, 5 P.M.).
This book is a translation of the English book 'Fascism of Sangh Parivar'
( Ram Puniyani), which was published by EKTA in 1998.

This book has simplified various concepts and one new Chapter (6) has been
added by Mr. Deshpande. Its Chapters are as follows
- Background : Rise and Growth of Fascism in Europe, social roots of
Fascist Onslaughts, Neo Fascist Movements in West, Dangers to Indian
Democracy.
1. R.S.S.: Foundation, Ideological concepts, Hindutva, Hindu Rashtra,
Organisational pattern. Rise of BJP.
2. Independence Struggle, RSS and Hindu Maha Sabha- Role of Savarkar,
Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Gandhi Murder
3. Hinduism and Hindutva: Rise and Formation of present Hinduism,
Brahminical Hinduism.
4. Social Base of Sangh Parivar: Socio Economic changes in 60s,70s, rise
of middle classes, Hindu Rashtra vis a vis Secular democratic India.
5. Hindutva and Exploited Sections of Society: Attitude of Hindutva
politics towards Dalits, Workers, Women and Minorities.
6. Struggle Against Fascism :What needs to be Done

----
The inaugural function was attended by around 200 social activists and was
addressed by Shama Dalvai, Pradeep Deshpande, and Ram Puniyani. Kumar
Ketkar (Editor Maharashtra Times) released the book and noted Secular
Activist Dr. Asghar Ali delivered the presidential talk.

The book (160 pages) is priced at Rs. 35 and can be obtained from

Dr. Uday Mehta
Convenor
EKTA
Next to Gujarathi Club
Beasant Marg, Santa Cruz (W)
Mumbai, India

______

#5.

Nobodies to Somebodies:
The Rise of the Colonial Bourgeosie in Sri Lanka

by Kumari Jayawardena

Available from:
Suriya Book Shop
The Social Scientists Association
425/15, Thimbirigasaya Road
Colombo 5
Sri Lanka
Phone: 501339
Fax: 595563

___________________________________
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