[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 17 Sept. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

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

#1. Yearning to Be Great, India Loses Its Way
#2. 'Aman-o-Aekjhuti' ['Peace and Unity'] : A film on Kashmir
#3. Pakistan: A nation of ostriches=20
#4. Pakistan: Labour's conscience: An interview with Karamat Ali
#5. Pakistan: Jamaat boss - women should'nt be decieved by ideas of equalit=
y
#6. RSS Resents Atal Explanation
#7. Hindu`hate groups' target students at Aligarh Muslim University

=20
--------------------------------------------

#1.

New York Times
16 September 2000
Opinion

YEARNING TO BE GREAT, INDIA LOSES ITS WAY

By PANKAJ MISHRA

NEW DELHI - In the last two years, the Indian government, dominated by the
Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata, has tried to establish an
exalted position in the world for India.

It has conducted nuclear tests, lobbied hard for a permanent seat on the
United Nations Security Council and played up the West's high demand for
India's skilled information- technology workers. Atal Behari Vajpayee, the
Indian prime minister, who met with President Clinton in Washington and
addressed the Congress this week, hopes to achieve, among other things, an
American endorsement of India's claim to superpower status.

For all these aspirations to 21st century greatness, however, the Hindu
nationalists remain attached to a stern 19th-century idea of nationalism,
which dilutes traditional social and cultural diversity and replaces it
with one people, one culture and one language.

The intolerant climate can be seen in the growing incidents of violence
against minorities, particularly Christian missionaries, the steady
takeover of government research institutions by Hindu ideologues and the
introduction of Hindu-oriented syllabuses in schools and universities.

In neighboring Pakistan, which was created as a homeland for Muslims in
1947, a similar attempt at building a monolithic national identity, through
Islam, has produced disastrous results.

Since Islam has failed to bind the country's many ethnic and linguistic
minorities, the job of holding the country together has fallen to the
Pakistani army. It has tried to pacify the minorities through brutal, and
sometimes counterproductive, methods. For instance, in 1971, the terrorized
Bengali Muslim population of East Pakistan seceded to form, with India's
assistance, the new nation of Bangladesh.=20

Despite that loss, the power of the Pakistani army grew and grew. Ruled by
a military dictator, Pakistan became the overeager host, in 1979, of the
C.I.A.'s proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The arms
received from the United States and Saudi Arabia found their way to the
black market. Civil war broke out as competing Islamic outfits fought each
other with their deadly new weapons. And a flourishing drug trade led to an
estimated five million Pakistanis becoming heroin addicts.=20

In the last 20 years, drug smugglers, Islamic fundamentalists and army
intelligence officers have come to dominate Pakistan's political life.
Jihad, now exported to the disputed territory of Kashmir and the Central
Asian republics, is the semi-official creed of many in the ruling elite.
Pakistan is now even further away from being a multi-ethnic democracy.

India looks more stable, but its political culture has changed drastically
in the last two decades. The central government, as distrustful of federal
autonomy as Pakistan's ruling elite, has used brute force in Punjab, the
northeastern states, and now in Kashmir to suppress disaffected minorities.=
=20

In the process, India's awkward but worthy experiment with secular
democracy has been replaced by a vague, but aggressive, ideology of a
unitary Hindu nationalism.=20

The new upper-caste Hindu middle class, created by India's freshly
globalized economy, includes this nationalism's most fervent supporters. It
greeted India's nuclear tests in 1998 euphorically.

But this middle class is also apolitical and a bit unsure of itself. Its
preoccupations are best reflected in the revamped news media, which now
focuses more on fashion designers and beauty queens instead of the dark
realities of a poor and violent country.=20

Popular patriotism brings temporary clarity to the confused self-image of
the new middle class and helps veil some of the government's more
questionable actions. For instance, in Kashmir, the government's failure to
accommodate the aspirations of the mostly Muslim population led to a
popular armed uprising against Indian rule.

The Hindu nationalists describe the uprising as an attack on the very idea
of India and have diverted an enormous amount of national energy and
resources =97 including some 400,000 soldiers =97 toward fighting the
insurgents and their Pakistani supporters.=20

Since the invisible majority of India's billion-strong population =97 its
destitute masses =97 couldn't care less about Kashmir, it is the affluent
Hindu middle class that enforces the domestic consensus on the subject. It
blames Pakistan for everything, ignoring the harshness of Indian rule and
the near-total collapse of civil liberties in Kashmir.

Supporters of Hindu nationalism assume that a country with a strong
military can absorb any amount of conflict and anomie within its borders.
But the preference for force over dialogue could end up undermining India's
fragile democracy and growing economy =97 just as the excessive reliance on
military solutions to political problems has blighted Pakistan.
Pankaj Mishra is the author of "The Romantics," a novel.=20
=20=20

______

#2.

Arjimand Talib (from kashmir), has recently made a 1 hour-long documentary
film in hindustani titled 'Aman-o-Aekjhuti' ['Peace and Unity'], dealing
with the role of sufi shrines in srinagar in promoting communal harmony.
Video copies of the film cost [Indian] Rs. 300 each and can be obtained:

Jamal Kidwai
c/o Oxfam [India] Trust
B-3 Gitanjali Enclave
New Delhi-110017

______

#3.

DAWN
16 September 2000=20
=20=20=20=20=20

A NATION OF OSTRICHES=20

By Irfan Husain=20

GENERAL Musharraf's refusal to meet Sheikh Hasina Wajid, the Bangladeshi
prime minister, in New York recently came as a rude shock to those of us
who thought relations between our two countries were cordial.

Just last month she had sent a personal envoy to the Pakistani Chief
Executive with an offer to mediate in the dispute between Pakistan and
India. The sudden freezing of relations occurred because in her speech at
the UN General Assembly, Sheikh Hasina had suggested that action should be
taken against military regimes that overthrow elected governments. Although
Pakistan was not directly mentioned, our diplomats took umbrage and
presumably advised General Musharraf to 'postpone' the planned meeting with
the Bangladeshi prime minister.

Big mistake. The fact is that military juntas and coups d'etat are now very
unfashionable, and the latest one in Pakistan was universally condemned.
Indeed, we were thrown out of the Commonwealth, and yet its
secretary-general was given a red carpet treatment when he came calling
recently. If we are so touchy about Sheikh Hasina's remarks at the UN, then
surely we ought to have snubbed the Commonwealth secretary-general. The
fact is that in today's scenario, we need all the friends we can get
instead of distancing ourselves from the few we do have left.

Both regionally and globally, we are more isolated today than ever before,
and this is not just because the generals have taken over. A number of
policies spanning the last two decades have contributed to our current
isolation. Turn by turn we have offended friends and refused to stay in
step with the far-reaching geopolitical and economic changes that have been
sweeping the globe. As a result, we are virtually alone in the world today.

Ever since Pakistan's creation 53 years ago, we have been preoccupied with
the threat we perceived from India, and virtually our entire foreign policy
since then has been directed towards neutralizing this threat. To some
extent, this was and remains a legitimate concern: every state has the
right and the duty to protect its frontiers. But this preoccupation has
become the be-all and end-all of successive governments, and support on
Kashmir is the yardstick by which our relations with other states are
measured.

Our Afghan policy was largely driven by the concept of 'strategic depth'
dreamed up by General Zia who saw a grateful and pliant Afghanistan
becoming a sort of client state that would give Pakistan the kind of
defensive depth denied us by geography. After the soviet pull-out, we have
continued playing favourites in the subsequent civil war that has
devastated our neighbour for the same elusive goal. By our open-ended
support of the Taliban, we have antagonized Iran, a traditionally close
friend. The fallout of this policy has also caused deep resentment in the
Central Asian Republics - countries that we had hoped to engage in
lucrative commercial deals.

The efforts of well-heeled religious groups to export militant Islam and to
support Islamic movements elsewhere have not been kindly received abroad.
The Russians are furious with us, accusing us of sending armed militants to
help the rebellious Chechens. While we may well sympathize with the
embattled Chechens, the fact is that sending armed men will naturally be
seen as a hostile act. The Chinese are upset over the activities of
Pakistani fundamentalists in Xingjiang where Muslim separatists are waging
a low-intensity struggle for their own homeland. The recent lethal
explosion in Urumqi has been attributed to them. And although these actions
have largely been undertaken by private groups and militias, the Pakistan
government has been perceived as turning a blind eye to these hostile and
subversive elements.

The nuclear devices that were exploded two years ago did not add to our
international popularity either. Granted that they were triggered by
India's earlier tests, the fact is that we had a real opportunity to occupy
the moral high ground and isolate our neighbour by foregoing testing at
that time. The rewards for such a bold act of statesmanship would have been
large, but Nawaz Sharif had neither the vision nor the courage to seize the
moment. The result of our knee-jerk reaction to the Indian tests was
international condemnation, the disastrous freezing of foreign currency
accounts and its resultant loss of confidence and crippling economic
sanctions.

Kargil was a defining moment for Pakistan in many ways. Internally, the
brief but bitter fighting had the effect of driving a wedge between the
army chief and Nawaz Sharif, and led inexorably to the latter's ouster. But
externally, the fallout was equally severe: the world saw Pakistan as an
irresponsible nation that put regional security at nuclear risk by
launching a military adventure without provocation. And when the perceived
author and executor of the Kargil plan took power through a coup, Pakistan
was well and truly in the doghouse.

Right or wrong, the world now sees Pakistan as a dangerous country that has
nuclear capability and is governed by irresponsible leaders; a country
where armed militias roam around under different religious banners without
being stopped by the government; a country where women and the minorities
are second class citizens; and a country where neither local foreign
currency accounts nor foreign investments are safe.

Indeed, our isolation is not just diplomatic: the way the previous
government and this one have mishandled the Hubco issue has made Pakistan a
bad word in international financial circles. Here is a showpiece power
project - one of the largest in the private sector anywhere - that is
financed by a consortium of prestigious multinational banks and guaranteed
by the World Bank that has been vilified and squeezed for the last three
yeas and its executives treated like criminals. Although General Musharraf
had promised that the problem would be resolved in a month soon after he
took over, the fact is that after endless meetings, the only concession the
company has received is that criminal charges against its officers have
been withdrawn. How the government expects any foreign investment after all
this is difficult to understand. The signal that has been sent out is that
contracts and agreements have no sanctity in Pakistan, and courts here will
side with the government to the extent of not permitting international
arbitration.

By our own actions and policies, Pakistan is now isolated as never before.
But instead of recognizing this and doing something about it, we behave
like a flock of ostriches, content to bury our heads in the sand.

=A9 The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2000

_____

#4.=20

The News International / News on Sunday
17 september 2000

'OUR LABOUR POLICIES REFLECT THE INTEREST OF USURPERS'

Labour's conscience: An interview with Karamat Ali, director of Pakistan
Institute of Labour Education and Research

Mansoor Raza

His father was a textile worker and he himself led the students' movement.
For him those were the glory days. He earned the reputation of a hardliner
while he was a mainstream trade union leader. His colleagues observed that
when it came to the rights of industrial workers, he made no compromises.
Today Karamat Ali is the director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour
Education and Research (PILER), a position he rose to after doing his
master's in labour studies from the Netherlands. The project cum programme
of PILER--a vital part of the labour movement--is a brainchild of Karamat A=
li.

In his student days, he was a diehard Maoist who served the National
Students' Federation (NSF). But after spending years trying to change the
system and landing in jail a few times for the offence, Karamat has come to
terms with the realities of the system. There seems to be a noticeable
shift in philosophy. A one-time believer in the destruction of the system,
he now seems ready to make elbow room for the left-out segments of the
society. From an effort to eliminate the upper class of the society to an
attempt at ensuring a more equitable relationship among the classes-from
agitation to dialogue-from a socialist state to a civil society, from
dictatorship of proletariats to democracy. It appears that Karamat has
traveled a long road before this transition took place.

I ask Karamat about the role of industrial workers in a society and whether
they should be radical or be mere facilitators for collective bargaining.
"The responsibility to change the system cannot be put on the shoulders of
a particular segment of society. It's a collective effort and carried out
by the harmonious effort of all those who think and act at a particular
frequency and with a specific target," he says.

"Further, when the objective conditions are such that people are oppressed
and moreover are aware to a reasonable extent about oppression and its
reasons, then they strive for revolution. Also, it's not fair to think in
black and white that an industrial worker is either a revolutionary or a
collective bargaining agent. We have to understand the existing situation
objectively. An industrial worker, like other human beings, strives for the
betterment of life. On the other hand, his life is subjected to many
shackles in a capitalist society. Collective bargaining is an outcome of
the effort to improve his life while to stand for revolution is an effort
to get rid of those shackles, which makes his life miserable. Both these
actions are various stages of a single process and an outcome of a
philosophy based on human realities."

Formulating an effective collective bargaining agents union is quite a
radical step in a country like Pakistan, where only five per cent of the
trade unions are organised and where the laws and the attitudes of
employers are anti-labour, the director of PILER says. "Further, if you
impose a self-conceived task on a particular segment of the society, then
you will be trapped in your misinterpretation, because then you will start
analysing the objectivity in a subjective fashion. Yes, I agree that there
exists a potential in the working class to uproot the system and I believe
that there exists a continuous contradiction between the employer and the
employee and that there is an immense disparity between living standards of
those who work under the same roof, but this will not necessarily brew a
revolution.

"Therefore, I do not subscribe to the idea that an industrial worker must
be a revolutionary. I consider this a dogma which has emanated either from
our frustration or wishful thinking. Though I reiterate, that workers as a
class holds potential and only realization of the objective condition
auspice with the support from other segments can bring a successful
revolution."

Still, he admits that it is important to analyse the emergence of the
industrial workers in Pakistan in a historical perspective. "Those who
migrated from India at the time of partition were displaced from their
motherland and the utmost reality for them was to seek shelter and food.
Since they were the most affected, made sacrifices and faced lots of
miseries, they thought they had made Pakistan. They build their
relationships according to their needs and typically with those who
belonged to the same cultural clan and could also, by virtue of their
bureaucratic power, help them to settle down. So there emerged a
contradiction.

"Migrants' social class demanded a different set of relatives, whereas
their needs forced them to build others, more inequitable, sets of
relationships. Therefore, they got alienated from their own community and
collectively never emerged as a class in itself. It holds true for those
also who migrated from other parts of Pakistan. In most of the cases they
were knitted together on ethnic and cultural basis and evolved as a
community rather than a class. So there is no uniformity in class, no
particular thinking pattern and no collective expression and hence no actio=
n.

"Third, there is no continuation of experience in the trade unions; the
continuation which is mandatory for the conversion of a trade union into
some form of institution. A trade union itself is not something very
absolute or tangible. Its functions, strategies and effectiveness all
depend on individuals. When industrial workers pass through a process of
struggle, they gain maturity. This experience of struggle should ideally be
transferred to new comers; to a younger generation of workers. But our
misfortune is that there has been continuous migration and perpetual
displacement and every time a new constitution of trade union takes places.
Any industrial worker today would know nothing about what had happened in
1968 or 1972 or 1983. No continuation of experiences hence no learning.

A crisis of leadership also emerged from this discontinuity. Those who were
mazdoor leaders some fifty years back are still recognised as labour
leaders. So to convert a worker into a revolutionary one depends on a lot
of factors."

When I inquire about the present government-traders conflict and the goose
egg role of trade unions, Karamat says, "the basic reason for dormancy is
that trade unions are developed in a myopic manner and act within narrow
parameters. Either they are very focussed or issue-based, for example,
increase in salaries of co-workers or they address very broad issues like
elimination of the feudal system. Daily happenings in the lives of workers
from informal sector, which do not very directly relate to the industrial
worker, do not fit into the above mentioned mandates and thus are not
catered by majority of the unions.

Second, these traders are conventionally seen as the allies of religious
parties since most of them are financiers of later. Third, it's a game of
semantics; only that worker is considered a mazdoor who fits in the legal
definition of the word defined by law. We, incorrectly, do not consider the
workers of informal economy, like cart pushers, cleaners and others of this
clan as mazdoors, since legally they do not qualify for the term. But now
experience has taught us. Due to this strike when mills started getting
closed and a price hike was felt then at that point in time we recognised
that it is not an issue that can be looked or dealt from a distance, rather
it was directly affecting our lives. After realising this we started to
contact various actors of the game, but it was too late then. You are right
that issue was not tackled, the way it should have been."

When I ask him about the labour policy, he says: "Our issue is not a
policy, rather it is the acceptance of rights. We want rights as rights and
not as privileges. Over the past many years we have observed, and we
deplore it, that every government tried to curb the rights of workers. The
unholy alliance of bureaucratic and industrialists with the auspices of
state instruments always reduced workers to a sub human level. Their basic
rights were denied and usurped and all was done in the name of one policy
or the other. Our industrialists are trained in such a way that they want
return before investment (RBI) then return on investment (ROI). They do not
value human lives so they do not maintain bare minimum of working condition=
s.

"It is an irony that their financial management allows them to account for
the depreciation of machines but not of human beings. We also regret the
fact that these bureaucratic and industrialists are afraid of workers
organisations and are extremely resistant towards them because such type of
organisations can effect the political structures as well. We are also
ashamed of their lies about the cost of production.

"They always say that in our country that the cost of production is high.
Yes, I agree that it is so, but not because of workers' salary. It is
solely due to salary structure of higher management and the perks
associated with their financial packages. It is also due to the higher
consumption level of our elite. To my amazement, while going through a
balance sheet of a pharmaceutical company, I found that the salary of
managing director is much more than the cumulative salary of its 150
employees. And yet our labour policies reflect the interest of these
usurpers. Before going into the debate of the pertinence of any policy, we
want to establish the phenomenon of our basic rights."

His comments in response to a question about the obsoleteness of the basic
laws pertaining to industry are interesting. "These (the laws) are very
old, mostly framed in British raj in the years of 1920s and 1930s. But
catastrophically after independence, with the passage of time, we curtailed
whatever provisions of rights these laws contained. In 1986, a visiting
mission of the International Labor Organisation remarked that the laws in
Pakistan do not cover 25 per cent of the workers. I think that that now in
1995 they do not cover, quantitatively, more then ten percent. This is a
sharp decline. They, on one hand, do not cover the workers of the informal
sector, and, on the other hand, were trimmed to discourage union formation.=
"

When I ask him if my perception of him as a revolutionary turned reformist
is accurate, he says, "We have to act according to the objective conditions
prevailing around us. Yes, I was a revolutionary in my student days and I
do not have any regrets about that. But it was a directionless and a
strategy-less struggle. We (other comrades and myself) didn't have a
clearer idea about the model of revolution we were following neither we had
a blueprint of it. We were advocating the Chinese model of revolution on
the premise that both societies are in their very nature peasantry ones. We
forgot that in China the freedom struggle spearheaded the revolutionary
one. This was a blunder of analysis. Later, we thought that Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto was the Chiang Kai-shek of Pakistan.

Such ...silly mistakes were made only because we were not very objective in
our analysis. Further experience taught me that only those changes last
that could be brought through the empowerment of people. A society cannot
be changed by wiping out other classes but by establishing a more equitable
relationship among various classes. So, you can say that there is a change
but it's a change of strategy only. The ultimate aim was to work for the
downtrodden and is still the objective of my life. The desire for
revolution was the result of humanistic approach and the struggle through
PILER is also the result of the same."

It is clear that Karamat, like some diehards of the right and left, didn't
fall prey to dogmatism. He realises only too well that change has taken
place in society and any development model, whether revolutionary or
reformist, must accommodate these changes in its respective mandate.
_____

#5.

The News International
17 September 2000

WOMEN BEING DECEIVED IN THE NAME OF EQUALITY: QAZI

By our correspondent

KARACHI: Chief of Jama'at-e-Islami (JI) Qazi Husain Ahmad has said that
attempts were being made to deceive women in the name of freedom and
equality and urged women to play their role in upholding of Islam instead
of succumbing such propaganda, aimed at promotion of Western culture in the
country.

Addressing a public meeting of JI women workers at Idara Noor-e-Haq on
Saturday, Qazi said that giving representation to women in local bodies
could not resolve problems of women of our society. Attempts are being made
to hold responsibilities of men on women, which would spoil the entire
family life," he added.

Qazi claimed that non-government organisations were being promoted to
westernise Pakistan and asked the women to concentrate on educating their
children on Islamic lines and strive against vulgarity, obscenity and other
menaces from the society.

" Under an international conspiracy of Jews, federation is being attacked
through privatisation, globalisation and localisation and UN, World Bank,
IMF and NOGs were being used for the purpose," the added.

_____

#6.

The Telegraph
17 September 2000

RSS RESENTS ATAL EXPLANATION

FROM RADHIKA RAMASESHAN

New Delhi, Sept. 16: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee=92s clarification =
on
his =93swyamsevak=94 status has not gone down well with the Sangh.

Senior RSS leader K. Suryanarayana Rao told reporters in Chennai today that
it was =93regrettable=94 that Vajpayee had sought to distance himself from =
his
description of himself as a =93swayamsevak=94 at a function in Staaten Isla=
nd
in the US earlier this week.

=93It is regrettable that Atal Behari Vajpayee has distanced himself from t=
he
RSS, that too within a fortnight of his declaring at the RSS headquarters
at Nagpur that he is proud to be a swayamsevak,=94 Rao said.

After facing flak from the Opposition and the liberal intelligentsia for
his remarks, Vajpayee had been forced to clarify that the word
=93swayamsevak=94 meant that he was a =93volunteer=94 in the service of the
=93nation=94, and by implication, not the RSS.

Rao said nobody could deny that Vajpayee was a RSS swayamsevak. =93He has
denied that he is an RSS swayamsevak only to satisfy his opponents,=94 he s=
aid.

However, an article in the forthcoming issue of RSS mouthpiece Organiser
holds a brief for Vajpayee=92s Staaten Island remark and asserts that there
has been no flip-flop in his stand as was being made out by a section of
the media.

=93Whether in office or out of it, Vajpayee has been unwavering in his
association with the RSS. Although as a thinking person he may have
different perceptions on certain issues and has his own inimitable style of
articulating them, he has never denied his identity as a swayamsevak
whatever the cost,=94 it was stated in an article titled =91A swayamsevak i=
s
always a swayamsevak=92.

However, the writer has criticised the Prime Minister=92s Office for its
subsequent clarification. =93But what was the rationale behind the written
clarification issued in his name by his spin doctors? His media advisers
must take the blame for prolonging a futile controversy by trying to
distance him from his own remarks that were heard by everyone present at
the function.=94

If Vajpayee has got away from the Sangh net, BJP chief Bangaru Laxman has
not been so lucky. The September 17 issue of Organiser in an article titled
=93Bangaru=92s Laxman Rekha=94 said his presidential address in the BJP=92s=
Nagpur
conclave had caused =93utter confusion not only among BJP detractors but al=
so
within a section of its cadre=94.

The author specifically referred to Laxman=92s objections voiced to some
reporters against describing the BJP as a =93Hindu nationalist party=94 and=
his
claim that it was a nationalist party and not a Hindu party, and remarked
that his statement questioned the =93very foundation of BJP ideology=94.

=93He will do well to remember his illustrious predecessor L.K. Advani=92s
assertions that Hindutva is the BJP=92s mascot and that the BJP is a Hindu
nationalist party,=94 the article said.

_____

#7.

The Times of India
17 September 2000

SAFFRON `HATE GROUPS' PREY ON AMU TENSION=20

by Akshaya Mukul

ALIGARH: Hatred comes easily to the saffron youth brigade of this city. It
seems they have been trained to hate -- a hate that gnaws at them like the
hunger of an animal waiting to be fed. Barely into their teens, they are
part of the Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) (an RSS outfit), Bajrang Dal, Shiv
Sena and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. And the ongoing controversy at AMU has
given them an opportunity to add fuel to an already volatile situation.

Though there is nothing new in their demands -- remove AMU's minority
status, downsize it, closely monitor the movements of its teachers and
students, allow police to arrest anyone from campus at will and, if need
be, close it forever -- what is alarming is the prescription suggested by
them. Dinesh Mishra, head of Hindu Jagran Manch, Aligarh, says, ``Anyone
from AMU even suspected to be involved in anti-national activities should
either be killed through encounters or be hanged.''

Though these organisations had no role to play in AMU's problem this time,
they now want to make the most of it. And the obvious thing to do is to
spread rumours. For instance, when Intelligence Bureau's Rajan Sharma was
manhandled by students in the campus, the HJM spread a rumour that Sharma
is on his deathbed. The few scratch marks on his back were intentionally
read as `Allah-o-Akbar' and soon the entire city knew of it. By the time it
was denied by Aligarh district magistrate Deo Dutt, passions were running
high.

Similarly, the HJM came up with a press release saying that Mobeen Ahmed's
diary had the phone number of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin. Soon
Aligarh was talking about a grand conspiracy being hatched against Hindus
in far-flung Islamabad. On checking, it was found that the Salahuddin in
Mobeen's diary was actually the former chief of the Students Islamic
Movement of India (SIMI), who now resides in Dubai.

But all this would not have been possible without the local media, which
willingly highlights these rumours. And the administration rarely reacts to
their canards. In fact, as Priyavrat Mishra, a functionary of the Bajrang
Dal, points out, a few senior officials have privately encouraged them to
mount the offensive.

Not that these outfits need any encouraging. Dinesh Mishra doesn't rule out
communal riots if the ``situation aggravates further''. The Hindu Jagran
Manch has publicly declared that if the 12 AMU students named in the FIR
for attacking Rajan Sharma are not handed over to the police by the
university administration, the task should be given to them. A readymade
solution for the worst.
_____________________________________________
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