[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 21 October 00

Fri, 20 Oct 2000 23:45:18 +0200

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
21 October 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

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#1. South Asia spends more on defence
#2. Pakistan's Jihad Culture
#3. Sindh's Babri Masjid
#4. India: Hindutva Threat To Make `Banswara District Free of Christians'
by 2000 AD
#5. UK Trade Union worried about Indian Stonemasons working at Hindu Temple
construction site

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#1.

BBC News Online: South Asia
Thursday, 19 October, 2000, 16:56 GMT 17:56 UK

South Asia spends more on defence

By South Asia analyst Solmaz Dabiri

The international arms trade saw a general decline in 1999, but the overall
defence spending in South Asia went up in real terms by 3.1%.

Defence spending

10% rise in India
13% drop in Pakistan
10% drop in Sri Lanka
20% drop in Nepal

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) says in its annual
report that India is the big spender in the region, with an increase of
more than 10% in its military spending to $13.9bn.

Pressure on spending included the Kargil conflict with Pakistan last year.

The conflict exposed the country's lack of advanced military technology,
though observers believe that the additional funds will be mainly spent on
the costly deployment of the army in Kashmir rather than on the much-needed
modernisation of the country's ageing weapon systems.

The report says the relations between the two neighbours showed no sign of
improvement in the past year, but notes that there were few major incidents
along the Indo-Pakistani border in Kashmir.

The London-based IISS also says that despite persistent concerns about an
arms race, the nuclear capabilities of India and Pakistan were not much
altered during the current year.

While Pakistan's missile capabilities have advanced, with the 2,400
km-range Shaheen 2 ready for flight-testing, says the report, its military
spending dropped in real terms by 13% in 1999.

Hit by depreciation

This means that budget allocations have increased in terms of national
currency, but since Pakistan imports nearly all its major military
hardware, the depreciation of its currency has hit it hard.

Sri Lanka seems to have suffered the same fate with a fall of 10% in its
military expenditure in real terms.

Nepal's defence budget too was affected by the depreciation factor. The
country spent $51m on defence in 1999 compared with $65m in 1998.

Bangladesh, which is concerned by the military build-up of its neighbours,
has decided to upgrade its ageing fleet of combat aircraft and bought nine
Mig-29s from Russia at a cost of more than $100m.

Internet links:
International Institute for Strategic Studies
http://www.iiss.org/pub/about.asp

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#2.

Foreign Affairs
November/December 2000

PAKISTAN'S JIHAD CULTURE

By Jessica Stern

FREE AGENTS

This spring the U.S. State Department reported that South Asia has replaced
the Middle East as the leading locus of terrorism in the world. Although
much has been written about religious militants in the Middle East and
Afghanistan, little is known in the West about those in Pakistan-perhaps
because they operate mainly in Kashmir and, for now at least, do not
threaten security outside South Asia. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's
military ruler, calls them "freedom fighters" and admonishes the West not
to confuse jihad with terrorism. Musharraf is right about the
distinction-the jihad doctrine delineates acceptable war behavior and
explicitly outlaws terrorism-but he is wrong about the militant groups'
activities. Both sides of the war in Kashmir-the Indian army and the
Pakistani "mujahideen"-are targeting and killing thousands of civilians,
violating both the Islamic "just war" tradition and international law.

Pakistan has two reasons to support the so-called mujahideen. First, the
Pakistani military is determined to pay India back for allegedly fomenting
separatism in what was once East Pakistan and in 1971 became Bangladesh.
Second, India dwarfs Pakistan in population, economic strength, and
military might. In 1998 India spent about two percent of its $469 billion
GDP on defense, including an active armed force of more than 1.1 million
personnel. In the same year, Pakistan spent about five percent of its $61
billion GDP on defense, yielding an active armed force only half the size
of India's. The U.S. government estimates that India has 400,000 troops in
Indian-held Kashmir-a force more than two-thirds as large as Pakistan's
entire active army. The Pakistani government thus supports the irregulars
as a relatively cheap way to keep Indian forces tied down.
What does such support entail? It includes, at a minimum, assisting the
militants' passage into Indian-held Kashmir. This much Pakistani officials
will admit, at least privately. The U.S. government believes that Pakistan
also funds, trains, and equips the irregulars. Meanwhile, the Indian
government claims that Pakistan uses them as an unofficial guerrilla force
to carry out "dirty tricks," murders, and terrorism in India. Pakistan, in
turn, accuses India's intelligence service of committing terrorism and
killing hundreds of civilians in Pakistan.

Pakistan now faces a typical principal-agent problem: the interests of
Pakistan (the principal) and those of the militant groups (the agent) are
not fully aligned. Although the irregulars may serve Pakistan's interests
in Kashmir when they target the Indian army, they also kill civilians and
perform terrorism in violation of international norms and law. These crimes
damage Pakistan's already fragile international reputation. Finally, and
most important for Pakistanis, the militant groups that Pakistan supports
and the Sunni sectarian killers that Pakistan claims it wants to wipe out
overlap significantly. By facilitating the activities of the irregulars in
Kashmir, the Pakistani government is inadvertently promoting internal
sectarianism, supporting international terrorists, weakening the prospect
for peace in Kashmir, damaging Pakistan's international image, spreading a
narrow and violent version of Islam throughout the region, and increasing
tensions with India-all against the interests of Pakistan as a whole.

PAKISTAN, TALIBAN-STYLE?
The war between India and Pakistan over the fate of Kashmir is as old as
both states. When Pakistan was formally created in 1947, the rulers of
Muslim-majority states that had existed within British India were given the
option of joining India or Pakistan. The Hindu monarch of the predominantly
Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir chose India, prompted partly by a tribal
rebellion in the state. Pakistan responded by sending in troops. The
resultant fighting ended with a 1949 cease-fire, but the Pakistani
government continued covertly to support volunteer guerrilla fighters in
Kashmir. Islamabad argued then, as it does now, that it could not control
the volunteers, who as individuals were not bound by the cease-fire
agreement. (On the other hand, Maulana Abul A'la Maududi, the late founder
of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, argued that as individuals, these
"mujahideen" could not legitimately declare jihad, either.)

Pakistani officials admit to having tried repeatedly to foment separatism
in Kashmir in the decades following the 1948 cease-fire. These attempts
were largely unsuccessful; when separatist violence broke out in the late
1980s, the movement was largely indigenous. For their part, Indian
officials admit their own culpability in creating an intolerable situation
in the region. They ignored Kashmir's significant economic troubles,
rampant corruption, and rigged elections, and they intervened in Kashmiri
politics in ways that contradicted India's own constitution. As American
scholar Sumit Ganguly explains, the rigged 1987 state-assembly elections
were the final straw in a series of insults, igniting, by 1989, widespread
violent opposition. By 1992, Pakistani nationals and other graduates of the
Afghan war were joining the fight in Kashmir.

What began as an indigenous, secular movement for independence has become
an increasingly Islamist crusade to bring all of Kashmir under Pakistani
control. Pakistan-based Islamist groups (along with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, a
Kashmir-based group created by Jamaat-e-Islami and partly funded by
Pakistan) are now significantly more important than the secular
Kashmir-based ones. The Indian government estimates that about 40 percent
of the militants in Kashmir today are Pakistani or Afghan, and some 80
percent are teenagers. Although the exact size of the movement is unknown,
the Indian government estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 "mujahideen" are in
Kashmir at any given time.

Whatever their exact numbers, these Pakistani militant groups-among them,
Lashkar-i-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen- pose a long-term danger to
international security, regional stability, and especially Pakistan itself.
Although their current agenda is limited to "liberating" Kashmir, which
they believe was annexed by India illegally, their next objective is to
turn Pakistan into a truly Islamic state. Islamabad supports these
volunteers as a cheap way to keep India off balance. In the process,
however, it is creating a monster that threatens to devour Pakistani
society.

SCHOOLS OF HATE
In Pakistan, as in many developing countries, education is not mandatory.
The World Bank estimates that only 40 percent of Pakistanis are literate,
and many rural areas lack public schools. Islamic religious
schools-madrasahs-on the other hand, are located all over the country and
provide not only free education, but also free food, housing, and clothing.
In the poor areas of southern Punjab, madrasahs funded by the Sunni
sectarian political party Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) reportedly even pay
parents for sending them their children.

In the 1980s, Pakistani dictator General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq promoted the
madrasahs as a way to garner the religious parties' support for his rule
and to recruit troops for the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. At the time,
many madrasahs were financed by the zakat (the Islamic tithe collected by
the state), giving the government at least a modicum of control. But now,
more and more religious schools are funded privately-by wealthy Pakistani
industrialists at home or abroad, by private and government-funded
nongovernmental organizations in the Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia,
and by Iran. Without state supervision, these madrasahs are free to preach
a narrow and violent version of Islam.

Most madrasahs offer only religious instruction, ignoring math, science,
and other secular subjects important for functioning in modern society. As
Maududi warned in his 1960 book, First Principles of the Islamic State,
"those who choose the theological branch of learning generally keep
themselves utterly ignorant of [secular subjects, thereby remaining]
incapable of giving any lead to the people regarding modern political
problems."

Even worse, some extremist madrasahs preach jihad without understanding the
concept: They equate jihad-which most Islamic scholars interpret as the
striving for justice (and principally an inner striving to purify the
self)-with guerrilla warfare. These schools encourage their graduates, who
often cannot find work because of their lack of practical education, to
fulfill their "spiritual obligations" by fighting against Hindus in Kashmir
or against Muslims of other sects in Pakistan. Pakistani officials estimate
that 10 to 15 percent of the country's tens of thousands of madrasahs
espouse such extremist ideologies.

Pakistan's interior minister Moinuddin Haider, for one, recognizes these
problems. "The brand of Islam they are teaching is not good for Pakistan,"
he says. "Some, in the garb of religious training, are busy fanning
sectarian violence, poisoning people's minds." In June, Haider announced a
reform plan that would require all madrasahs to register with the
government, expand their curricula, disclose their financial resources,
seek permission for admitting foreign students, and stop sending students
to militant training camps.

This is not the first time the Pakistani government has announced such
plans. And Haider's reforms so far seem to have failed, whether because of
the regime's negligence or the madrasahs' refusal to be regulated, or both.
Only about 4,350 of the estimated 40,000 to 50,000 madrasahs in Pakistan
have registered with the government. Some are still sending students to
training camps despite parents' instructions not to do so. Moreover, some
chancellors are unwilling to expand their curricula, arguing that madrasahs
are older than Pakistan itself-having been "designed 1,200 years ago in
Iraq," according to the chancellor of the Khudamudeen madrasah. The
chancellor of Darul Uloom Haqqania objects to what he calls the
government's attempt to "destroy the spirit of the madrasahs under the
cover of broadening their curriculum."

Mujibur Rehman Inqalabi, the SSP's second in command, told me that Haider's
reform plan is "against Islam" and complains that where states have taken
control of madrasahs, such as in Jordan and Egypt, "the engine of jihad is
extinguished." America is right, he said: "Madrasahs are the supply line
for jihad."

JIHAD INTERNATIONAL, INC.
If madrasahs supply the labor for "jihad," then wealthy Pakistanis and
Arabs around the world supply the capital. On Eid-ul-Azha, the second most
important Muslim holiday of the year, anyone who can afford to sacrifices
an animal and gives the hide to charity. Pakistani militant groups solicit
such hide donations, which they describe as a significant source of funding
for their activities in Kashmir.

Most of the militant groups' funding, however, comes in the form of
anonymous donations sent directly to their bank accounts. Lashkar-i-Taiba
("Army of the Pure"), a rapidly growing Ahle Hadith (Wahhabi) group, raises
funds on the Internet. Lashkar and its parent organization, Markaz ad-Da'wa
Wal Irshad (Center for Islamic Invitation and Guidance), have raised so
much money, mostly from sympathetic Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, that they are
reportedly planning to open their own bank.
Individual "mujahideen" also benefit financially from this generous
funding. They are in this for the loot, explains Ahmed Rashid, a prominent
Pakistani journalist. One mid-level manager of Lashkar told me he earns
15,000 rupees a month-more than seven times what the average Pakistani
makes, according to the World Bank. Top leaders of militant groups earn
much more; one leader took me to see his mansion, which was staffed by
servants and filled with expensive furniture. Operatives receive smaller
salaries but win bonuses for successful missions. Such earnings are
particularly attractive in a country with a 40 percent official poverty
rate, according to Pakistani government statistics.

The United States and Saudi Arabia funneled some $3.5 billion into
Afghanistan and Pakistan during the Afghan war, according to Milt Bearden,
CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989. "Jihad," along with guns
and drugs, became the most important business in the region. The business
of "jihad"-what the late scholar Eqbal Ahmad dubbed "Jihad International,
Inc."-continues to attract foreign investors, mostly wealthy Arabs in the
Persian Gulf region and members of the Pakistani diaspora. (As World Bank
economist Paul Collier observes, diaspora populations often prolong ethnic
and religious conflicts by contributing not only capital but also extremist
rhetoric, since the fervor of the locals is undoubtedly held in check by
the prospect of losing their own sons.)
As the so-called jihad movement continues to acquire its own financial
momentum, it will become increasingly difficult for Pakistan to shut down,
if and when it tries. As long as "Jihad International, Inc." is profitable,
those with financial interests in the war will work to prolong it. And the
longer the war in Kashmir lasts, the more entrenched these interests will
become.

ADDICTED TO JIHAD
As some irregulars are financially dependent on what they consider jihad,
others are spiritually and psychologically so. Many irregulars who fought
in Afghanistan are now fighting in Kashmir and are likely to continue
looking for new "jihads" to fight -even against Pakistan itself. Khalil,
who has been a "mujahid" for 19 years and can no longer imagine another
life, told me, "A person addicted to heroin can get off it if he really
tries, but a mujahid cannot leave the jihad. I am spiritually addicted to
jihad." Another Harkat operative told me,
We won't stop-even if India gave us Kashmir�. We'll [also] bring jihad
here. There is already a movement here to make Pakistan a pure Islamic
state. Many preach Islam, but most of them don't know what it means. We
want to see a Taliban-style regime here.
Aspirations like these are common among the irregulars I have interviewed
over the last couple of years.

The "jihad" movement is also developing a spiritual momentum linked to its
financial one. Madrasahs often teach their students that jihad-or, in the
extremist schools, terrorism under the guise of jihad-is a spiritual duty.
Whereas wealthy Pakistanis would rather donate their money than their sons
to the cause, families in poor, rural areas are likely to send their sons
to "jihad" under the belief that doing so is the only way to fulfill this
spiritual duty. One mother whose son recently died fighting in Kashmir told
me she would be happy if her six remaining sons were martyred. "They will
help me in the next life, which is the real life," she said.

When a boy becomes a martyr, thousands of people attend his funeral. Poor
families become celebrities. Everyone treats them with more respect after
they lose a son, a martyr's father said. "And when there is a martyr in the
village, it encourages more children to join the jihad. It raises the
spirit of the entire village," he continued. In poor families with large
numbers of children, a mother can assume that some of her children will die
of disease if not in war. This apparently makes it easier to donate a son
to what she feels is a just and holy cause.

Many of these families receive financial assistance from the militant
groups. The Shuhda-e-Islam Foundation, founded in 1995 by Jamaat-e-Islami,
claims to have dispensed 13 million rupees to the families of martyrs. It
also claims to provide financial support to some 364 families by paying off
loans, setting them up in businesses, or helping them with housing.
Moreover, the foundation provides emotional and spiritual support by
constantly reminding the families that they did the right thing by donating
their children to assist their Muslim brethren in Kashmir. Both
Lashkar-i-Taiba and Harkat have also established charitable organizations
that reward the families of martyrs-a practice common to gangs in
inner-city Los Angeles and terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas.
Although these foundations provide a service to families in need, they also
perpetuate a culture of violence.

BAD BOYS
The comparison to gangs and terrorist groups is particularly apt because
the irregulars often hire criminals to do their dirty work-and sometimes
turn to petty or organized crime themselves. Criminals are typically hired
to "drop" weapons and explosives or to carry out extreme acts of violence
that a typical irregular is reluctant or unable to perform. For example,
members of the Dubai-based crime ring that bombed the Bombay stock exchange
in March 1993 later confessed that they had been in Islamabad the previous
month, where Pakistani irregulars had allegedly trained them to throw hand
grenades and fire Kalashnikov assault rifles. Law-enforcement authorities
noted that the operatives' passports contained no Pakistani stamps,
suggesting the complicity of the Pakistani government.

Criminals joining supposed jihad movements tend to be less committed to the
group's purported goals and more committed to violence for its own sake-or
for the money. When criminals join private armies, therefore, the political
and moral constraints that often inhibit mass-casualty, random attacks are
likely to break down. Criminal involvement in the movement also worsens the
principal-agent problem for Pakistan: pure mercenaries are even harder to
control than individuals whose goals are at least partly aligned with those
of the state.

EXPORTING HOLY WAR
Exacerbating the principal-agent problem, Pakistani militant groups are now
exporting their version of jihad all over the world. The Khudamudeen
madrasah, according to its chancellor, is training students from Burma,
Nepal, Chechnya, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Yemen, Mongolia, and Kuwait. Out
of the 700 students at the madrasah, 127 are foreigners. Nearly half the
student body at Darul Uloom Haqqania, the madrasah that created the
Taliban, is from Afghanistan. It also trains students from Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, Russia, and Turkey, and is currently expanding its capacity to
house foreign students from 100 to 500, its chancellor said. A Chechen
student at the school told me his goal when he returned home was to fight
Russians. And according to the U.S. State Department, Pakistani groups and
individuals also help finance and train the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,
a terrorist organization that aims to overthrow secular governments in
Central Asia.

Many of the militant groups associated with radical madrasahs regularly
proclaim their plans to bring "jihad" to India proper as well as to the
West, which they believe is run by Jews. Lashkar-i-Taiba has announced its
plans to "plant Islamic flags in Delhi, Tel Aviv, and Washington." One of
Lashkar's Web sites includes a list of purported Jews working for the
Clinton administration, including director of presidential personnel Robert
Nash (an African American from Arkansas) and CIA director George Tenet (a
Greek American). The group also accuses Israel of assisting India in
Kashmir. Asked for a list of his favorite books, a leader of Harkat
recommended the history of Hitler, who he said understood that "Jews and
peace are incompatible." Several militant groups boast pictures of burning
American flags on their calendars and posters.

INTERNAL JIHAD
The "jihad" against the West may be rhetorical (at least for now), but the
ten-year-old sectarian war between Pakistan's Shi'a and Sunni is real and
deadly. The Tehrik-e-Jafariya-e-Pakistan (TJP) was formed to protect the
interests of Pakistan's Shi'a Muslims, who felt discriminated against by
Zia's implementation of Sunni laws governing the inheritance and collection
of zakat. Iran helped fund the TJP, probably in hopes of using it as a
vehicle for an Iranian-style revolution in Pakistan. Five years later, Haq
Nawaz Jhangvi, a Jamaat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) cleric, established the SSP
to offset the TJP and to promote the interests of Sunni Muslims. The SSP
was funded by both Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Since then, violent gangs have
formed on both sides.

After Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni sectarian gang, attempted to assassinate
then Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif in early 1999, Sharif proposed to
expand the special military courts that try terrorist crimes from Karachi
to the rest of the country. Pakistan's Supreme Court later deemed the
special courts unconstitutional. Musharraf has continued Sharif's attempt
to rein in the terrorist groups by implementing, among other things, a
"deweaponization" plan to reduce the availability of guns to sectarian
gangs and criminals.

The problem for Musharraf is that it is difficult to promote the "jihad" in
Kashmir and the Taliban in Afghanistan without inadvertently promoting
sectarianism in Pakistan. The movements share madrasahs, camps,
bureaucracies, and operatives. The JUI, the SSP's founding party, also
helped create both the Taliban and Harkat. Deobandi madrasahs issue
anti-Shi'a fatwas (edicts), and boys trained to fight in Kashmir are also
trained to call Shi'a kafirs (infidels). Jaesh-e-Mohammad, an offshoot of
Harkat and the newest Pakistani militant group in Kashmir, reportedly used
SSP personnel during a fundraising drive in early 2000. And the SSP's
Inqalabi, who was recently released after four years in jail for his
alleged involvement in sectarian killings, told me that whenever "one of
our youngsters wants to do jihad," they join up with the Taliban, Harkat,
or Jaesh-e-Mohammad-all Deobandi groups that he claims are "close" to the
SSP.

Sectarian clashes have killed or injured thousands of Pakistanis since
1990. As the American scholar Vali Nasr explains, the largely theological
differences between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims have been transformed into
full-fledged political conflict, with broad ramifications for law and
order, social cohesion, and government authority. The impotent Pakistani
government has essentially allowed Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi'a Iran to
fight a proxy war on Pakistani soil, with devastating consequences for the
Pakistani people.

WHITHER PAKISTAN?
Pakistan is a weak state, and government policies are making it weaker
still. Its disastrous economy, exacerbated by a series of corrupt leaders,
is at the root of many of its problems. Yet despite its poverty, Pakistan
is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on weapons instead of schools
and public health. Ironically, the government's "cost-saving" measures are
even more troubling. In trying to save money in the short run by using
irregulars in Kashmir and relying on madrasahs to educate its youth,
Pakistan is pursuing a path that is likely to be disastrous in the long
run, allowing a culture of violence to take root.

The United States has asked Pakistan to crack down on the militant groups
and to close certain madrasahs, but America must do more than just scold.
After all, the United States, along with Saudi Arabia, helped create the
first international "jihad" to fight the Soviet Union during the Afghan
war. "Does America expect us to send in the troops and shut the madrasahs
down?" one official asks. "Jihad is a mindset. It developed over many years
during the Afghan war. You can't change a mindset in 24 hours."

The most important contribution the United States can make, then, is to
help strengthen Pakistan's secular education system. Because so much
international aid to Pakistan has been diverted through corruption, both
public and private assistance should come in the form of relatively
nonfungible goods and services: books, buildings, teachers, and training,
rather than money. Urdu-speaking teachers from around the world should be
sent to Pakistan to help. And educational exchanges among students,
scholars, journalists, and military officials should be encouraged and
facilitated. Helping Pakistan educate its youth will not only cut off the
culture of violence by reducing ignorance and poverty, it will also promote
long-term economic development.

Moreover, assisting Pakistan will make the world a safer place. As
observers frequently note, conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir
is one of the most likely routes to nuclear war in the world today. The
Pakistani militants' continued incursions into Indian-held Kashmir escalate
the conflict, greatly increasing the risk of nuclear war between the two
countries.
Although the United States can help, Pakistan must make its own changes. It
must stamp out corruption, strengthen democratic institutions, and make
education a much higher priority. But none of this can happen if Pakistan
continues to devote an estimated 30 percent of its national budget to
defense.

Most important, Pakistan must recognize the militant groups for what they
are: dangerous gangs whose resources and reach continue to grow,
threatening to destabilize the entire region. Pakistan's continued support
of religious militant groups suggests that it does not recognize its own
susceptibility to the culture of violence it has helped create. It should
think again.

Jessica Stern is a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's
Kennedy School of Government and Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations.

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#3.

POLICE COMPLICITY IN REPRESSION OF TRIBALS IN RAJASTHAN
GOVERNMENT SILENT ON HINDUTVA THREAT TO MAKE `BANSWARA DISTRICT FREE OF
CHRISTIANS' BY 2000 AD

Rajasthan, a desert state in West India, is among the poorest in the
country. Banswara district is among the poorest in the state, populated
mainly by tribals who have been victims of social and economic
exploitation for generations. The district now has the dubious distinction
of being the only place in India which has been hand-picked by the
Hindutva Parivar for an exercise in what can really be called ethnic
cleansing. The Parivar's leaders have made repeated public statements that
they will clear the district of all Christian presence by 2000 AD.

This statement violates every canon of the nation's law code. The
governments of the state and of the Union of India are yet to take any
action. There is in fact considerable evidence now that the police and
civil authiorities in many cases have actually connived with the culprits.
The state has been ruled for much of this decade by the Bharatiya Janata
party, the political wing of the Hindutva parivar. For the record,
Rajasthan's chief minister Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, has been pilloried
by India's feminist movements for his tacit condoning of some cases of the
tradition of `Suttee', in which a widow immolates herself on the burning
pyre of her husband. Suttee was outlawed in the early years of the British
Raj at the insistence of Indian social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy and
others. The chief minister, Mr Shekhawat, has also been under attack for
not discouraging the tradition of child marriages. Every year, Indian
newspapers carry photographs of ten to twelve year old boys marrying
really young girls, some barely three or four years of age. The girl is
sent to the husband's house soon after puberty despite the face that in
India the age of consent is 18 years for girls.

The Indian Social Insitute recently sent a team of two independdent
investigators, one of them a lawyer, to probe into allegations that
Christians were under severe pressure in the district, and charges of
atrocities on the tribals by the Hindutva parivar. The investigators came
across evidence of brutal oression and violence. The following is the
report submitted by Advocate P.L. Mimroth and M.P. Chaudhry):

"Short report on brutal repression of tribal Christians in Banswara Dist
(Rajasthan)
"On behalf of the Legal Department of Indian Social Institute, Lodi Road,
New Delhi we two signatories mentioned at the end of this report visited
the Banswara Distt in Rajasthan for two days between 31st March & 1st
April 1998 in order to assess the situation arising out of continued
excesses, torture and violations of basic human rights of tribal Christian
in that troubled area. It may be mentioned here that Banswara Distt is a
tribal predominate area where a good number of tribal Christians families
are residing peacefully over the last many decades.

We are greatly assisted in our work by Mr Peter Masih and Siter Deepika,
President and Secty of the WARD Christian Association, Village AGORIA Post
Bangalore, Distt Banswara. We also got the assistance of several other
members and also Siter Carol Advocate from SASVIKA Legal Cell Ajmer.
We confined to our enquiries to comparatively recent incidents of
atrocities and excesses committed on Tribal Christian, so that our report
may reflect the present human rights situation in the area. Besides
meeting a large number of people of the area we have directly interviewed
the aggrieved persons and victims who described how they were harassed
tortured and subjected to implicate in false police cases by police at the
instance of able to gone through very minutely the various representations
and complaints including FIR's relating to the grievances of the victims.

We give below, in very short as far as possible an account of places
visited by us what we saw and heard there as well the substance of our
discussions with some of the important persons interviewed by us. This is
followed by the general conclusion reached by us on the grave violations
of basic human rights of the tribal Christians in the area and the
recommendations for seeking justice & fairdeal to them. During our two
days stay in Bansawara Distt, we visited village AGORIA, BAGIDORA and
other adjoining places and Banswara. On 1/4/98 the WARD Christian
Association also organised a meeting at village AGORIA in which almost all
the victims and aggrieved persons were present and submitted their written
Complaints before us for perusal and scrutiny. The officials of the WARG
Christian Association also informed us that earlier they have personally
submitted a memorandum containing 13 incidents of excesses on local
Christians to Dr James Massey Member of National Minorities Commission,
New Delhi which was subsequently forwarded to the National Human Rights
Commission, New Delhi on 27/11/97. On 6/12/97, the National Human Rights
Commission issued a notice to the Chief Secty Govt of Rajasthan for
conducting high level inquiry and sending report to the commission within
three weeks. Accordingly, the Rajasthan Govt submitted the enquiry report
in respect of all the 13 cases of excesses and atrocities before the
National Human Rights Commission vide No P1 (194)HHR/97 dated 13/2/98,
copy of the same was also forwarded to the WAGD Christian Association for
comments. We has also studied the Report of the Govt of Rajasthan with
reference to the original complaints and also in the light of personnel
hearings of the victims. After a very close scrutiny of documentary
evidences adduced by the victims of each & every case, we noticed large
number of contradictions and factually incorrect position explained by the
Rajasthan Govt in its aforesaid report. It was therefore, advised to the
WAGD Christian Association to file a comprehensive and detailed Rejoinder
to the said Report strongly controverting the official version of the
Rajasthan Govt duly supported by documentary evidences. We have
interviewed one Shri War Singh Bhagat a local Christian priest resident of
village GOAPAD who was subjected to serious physical assault at the hands
of miscreants and also by police people besides implicated false criminal
cases. On 9/11/97 while he was waiting for bus stand at Talwara he was
taken away in jungle and seriously beaten up at the instand of local
police. Later on he was insulted, humiliated & harassed by police also on
the mare ground that he belongs to Christian religion. The another
Christian priest Gavji Bhai resident of village Bokhedi narrated his sad
story of undue harassment at the hands of police staff of Thikriya police
station who at the instance of RSS elements lodged a false FIR No 463/97
against Paster Govji. A large number of residents of village Borkhedi have
also stated on oath that no such incident was ever took place on 3/11/97
as mentioned in the above said FIR and even the police have admitted the
no conversion took place.

We also interviewed the other victims who too complained about the biased
and partial attitude of the local police towards them. They further
complained that local administration and police are aiding the RSS and VHP
volunteers who said to be behind these incidents of excesses on tribal
Christians to harass & humiliate them not as an organisers but as
efficient executioners of attacks.
It was the general complaint from the members who attended our meeting on
1/4/98 that local administration and police officials are condoing the
criminal acts being committed by powerful religious & dominant social
groups in the area especially on tribal Christian & poor people. We were
shocked to learn from the victims that the police normally refuse to lodge
the FIR of the tribal Christians and instead have registered numerous
false criminal cases against them at the instance of RSS & VHP elements.

It was the general complaint from the members who attended our meeting on
1/4/98 that local adminstration and police officials are condoing the
criminal acts being committed by powerful religious & dominant social
groups in the area especially on tribal Christian & poor people. We were
shocked to learn from the victims that the police normally refuse to lodge
the FIR of the tribal Christians and instead have registered numerous
false criminal cases against them at the instance of RSS & VHP elements.

Conclusion
In retrospect, it seems that the object of the excesses on tribal
Christians in Banswara area is to harass, and terrorise and compelling
them to wind up their educational and health care institutions and stop
their social welfare activities. This is probably the main reason of their
harassment that Christian are peacefully pursuing the social development
activities and in the area especially in tribals who are being subjected
to grave social oppressions and intolerable economic exploitations.

We, therefore, squarly blame the hard core Hindu fundamental
organisations for planning the present phase of virulent attacks on tribal
Christians communities and their places on faith in Banswara district.

Recommendations
There should be a through enquiry and indepth investigation in to all the
cases of excesses and harassment on tribal Christian in Banswara Distt and
all false cases lodged against tribal Christian people of the area should
be withdraw hereforth. The culprits, miscreants officials and police staff
responsible for initiating false police cases against tribel Christians of
the area should be indentified and punished in accordance with law of the
land. Govt should contain the aggressive rise of fundamentalism of all hues
and kind.
Effective steps be taken to ensure protection and safety to the Christian
community of the area about basic rights of the equality, equal acess to
the rule of law & the rights of humane treatment by local administration &
police.
Urgent need to coordinate, support and promote secular and human right
organisations to act as watchdog machinery in the area.

M.P. Chaudhry
Social Activist
General Secty.
Delhi Kamgar Dal
Newdelhi

P.L. Mimroth
Advocate
Hony. Genl. Secty.
Society of Depressed
People for SocialJustice,
New Delhi

______

#4.

PRESS RELEASE

20 October 2000

The Shirco Site
Sri Sanatan Temple
Ealing Road, Brent

Construction Workers' Union UCATT are preparing to take up the case of the
Indian Stonemasons allegedly being paid 30p an hour. The twenty specialist
Stonemasons, all from India, are working on the new Hindu Temple in
Wembley, Middlesex. The men are said to be living on site in Barrack type
conditions reminiscent of the third world. Construction Union Boss George
Brumwell says:

"This situation beggars belief, we have sent an investigating team to
ascertain the exact situation and we are instructing our legal department
to determine the legal rights of the men."

He added,

"If the allegations are true, UCATT will be ready to take up the men's case
with fullest vigour: we will stamp out exploitation in the construction
industry wherever we find it, however the wider issue of labour being
brought in from other countries, especially Eastern Europe, is still to be
addressed."

Contact Michael Dooley
Regional Officer
UCATT
020 7622 2362

[or Contact: "Sheila Stevenson" <sstevenson@u...>]

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