[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 16 Sept. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

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

#1. Endless War Again Laps at Sri Lankan city
#2. 'The movement in Kashmir has degenerated ...'=20
#3. VHP of the Hindu Supremacist Right gets consultative status to UN
#4. On the RSS & recent changes in the BJP
#5. Shipbreaking Industry Puts Workers On The Scrapheap=20
#6. Request from a Delhi Photographer

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

#1.

New York Times
16 September 2000

ENDLESS WAR AGAIN LAPS AT SRI LANKAN CITY

By CELIA W. DUGGER

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Sept. 9 =97 The dull, explosive thud of mortar
fire and the roar of MIG-27's are the white noise of this war-weary city.
Separatist rebels have advanced to near the outskirts of this, the imagined
capital of the Tamil homeland that they have fought, killed and died for.
The ethnic conflict that has tormented Sri Lanka for 17 years is once again
knocking on Jaffna's door.

A plaintive, unsigned poster, pasted to walls all over town, asks, "Can't
we stop this madness?" It seems, as it has for so long, that the answer is
a melancholy "no."

In recent months, death has plucked people and other creatures from life
here on the Jaffna peninsula with the errant whimsy of a child picking
flowers in a garden.

A young woman riding a bicycle near her home was struck by shrapnel that
severed her femoral artery. A cow, lazily chewing its cud, was taken out by
a stray shell. A 5-year- old boy, whose grandmother had sent him to the
store to buy fruit juice, was struck in the spine by shrapnel from a shell
that had crashed into a drumstick tree. Two people died when incoming fire
hit a home for elderly residents.

The Sri Lankan security forces and the rebels are now locked in a military
stalemate for control of Jaffna, a city of 150,000, and the small peninsula
upon which it sits at the northern tip of this island nation. Sri Lanka has
been torn apart by civil war as the Tamil Tigers have fought for a separate
nation in the north and east, areas the Tamils regard as their traditional
homelands.

In April, people here believed the flag of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam would soon be flying over Jaffna, as it had before the government
retook the city in 1995. But the military stopped the rebels just short of
the city. And on the first weekend of September, the army opened an
earsplitting offensive to push the Tigers back farther. It produced some
gains at a heavy cost in lives. Pounded by mortar and artillery fire as
they ran across open, scrubby terrain, more than 100 soldiers were killed
and more than 400 wounded. Many rebels were also killed.

Both sides are armed with increasingly devastating weaponry. Humiliated by
a string of defeats at the hands of the rebels, Sri Lanka has spent more
than $360 million on military hardware in just the last four months, a
stunning sum for a country of only 19 million people with a per capita
income of just $810 a year.

A third of the peninsula's 470,000 residents have been forced to leave
their homes since last spring as a direct result of the fighting, according
to international relief organizations.

But their suffering has been muted to the rest of Sri Lanka. The government
has imposed strict censorship on military news and has not allowed any Sri
Lankan journalists to venture to the Jaffna peninsula since January.

Recently, though, the army has begun allowing a few foreign correspondents
to roam Jaffna and its environs unfettered by minders.

Residents are trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy in a city that
could be engulfed by war at any time. Locals have to be off the streets by
7 p.m. under the curfew. One morning, children in blue shorts and white
shirts walked to school. A woman in a flowing dress sat perched on a
bicycle, daintily holding a parasol in one hand as she steered around a
tank that lumbered through a narrow lane. Homemakers shopped in
thatched-roof shops where steel pots, straw baskets and stalks of bananas
dangled from the ceiling.

But beneath the surface, there is fear among people like Sarojini Sri
Somasegaram, a bank stenographer who came to the ornate Nallur temple to
join Friday morning worshipers offering buttercup and hibiscus blossoms at
a shrine to Lord Shiva's son. She said the shells were falling just a
quarter mile from her home.

Like most residents of Jaffna, she is an ethnic Tamil and a Hindu. She
feels discriminated against by the country's majority, which is ethnically
Sinhalese and Buddhist.

"We are going for work, but always in tension," she said. "Anytime,
shelling or bombing comes from all directions. We are frightened, but what
are we to do?"

She has stayed put in her home, but many people have sought shelter in
high-ceiling Roman Catholic schools, refugee camps and the homes of family
and friends. Farmers are cut off from their land, fisherman from the sea =
=97
and reduced to surviving on dry rations from the government.

Janita Irene, 28, her husband and her three daughters, ages 8, 5 and 3,
sleep at night on the cement floor of St. Patrick's College in Jaffna with
45 other families. Her husband used to make a good living catching prawns,
cuttlefish, crab and shark, but he now earns little more than $1 a day in a
tea shop.

"We used to be rich," she said wistfully.

Just outside the city, 30 families live in a small refugee camp built with
financial help from the United Nations high commissioner for refugees. The
huts are made of coconut fronds, mud, dung, plastic sheeting, twine and
sugar sacks.

Anthonyquinn Sril, 31, said he was napping on a bench in the sun at his
home east of Jaffna in May when shrapnel struck him under the arm and in
the hip. He staggered up only to discover that his 6-year-old nephew,
playing in the yard, had been killed by a shell.

Like most refugees on the peninsula, he did not move to the Wanni, a
Tiger-controlled area in the northern part of the mainland. Though he is
Tamil, he feels safer here near Jaffna in an area controlled by Sinhalese
troops of the army.

"We don't want to live in war places," he said. "We want to live in a peace
place."

The University Teachers for Human Rights in Jaffna, a Tamil rights
organization, said in a bulletin issued this month that Tamil refugees had
been voting with their feet for the army over the Tigers, also known as the
L.T.T.E.

"After listening to propaganda speeches, the L.T.T.E. cadre had come there
expecting the people to be grateful for being liberated," the group wrote.
"It came as a shock to them to find that the people were trying all
available ruses to get away from them."

But while Tamils may vote with their feet for the army, it is doubtful that
they will vote for Tamil parties that back the current government when
parliamentary elections are held on Oct. 10.

Tamil disillusionment with the governing coalition, headed by President
Chandrika Kumaratunga, runs deep. In her six years in office, she has not
been able to deliver what they yearn for most: peace.

Jaffna is now plastered with political posters, but an eerie quiet has
settled over the campaigning here. Many candidates are afraid to speak out
=97 afraid for their lives. Through the years, the Tigers have systematical=
ly
killed rivals for the loyalty of the Tamil people in their crusade for a
Tamil homeland in the country's north and east.

Democratically elected Tamils have been particularly vulnerable. In 1998,
the Tigers assassinated two mayors of Jaffna =97 a man, and then his wife,
who succeeded him. Both were members of the Tamil United Liberation Front,
a party committed to a nonviolent, political settlement of the country's
ethnic problem. The party decided not to replace its slain mayors. The city
now has none.

At the party's headquarters here, tucked behind an armed police guard and a
row of rusty barrels, V. Anandasangaree, a parliamentary candidate, said
his greatest fear now was of violence not from the Tigers but from other
thuggish Tamil groups who are former militants now backed by the government=
.

He has no plans to do what politicians normally do: speak at rallies and
press the flesh at public functions. Instead, he will run what he called
"almost a silent campaign."

Some here still expect the Tigers' hit squads to go into action soon. "We
don't know when they'll start killing the candidates," said the Rev. J.
Fernando, an English teacher at St. Patrick's. "Wait and see."

The tragedy of Jaffna, once the vibrant heart of erudition and culture for
the Tamil people, is written in the blasted ruins of some of its greatest
institutions. They are a ghostly, open-air museum of war.

The stately library is a gutted hulk, its thousands of volumes up in smoke
and its dome cracked open like an eggshell. There is nothing left of the
grand old post office but a bullet-pocked facade. Blue sky and wheeling
birds are visible through the gaping holes that used to be windows. All
that remains of the city's museum is a single stone wall in a weedy,
overgrown park.

But it is not only the Tamils who have suffered here in the battle zones of
northern Sri Lanka, but also the young Sinhalese soldiers, most of them
from poor, rural backgrounds, who have died by the thousands in recent year=
s.

Some in the Sri Lankan security forces have committed human rights
violations. About 500 people disappeared from the Jaffna area in 1996, and
the army is believed to have slain many of them. But few people interviewed
here seemed to hate the troops, whom they described as generally polite.

Soldiers with machine guns slung over their shoulders shopped for manioc,
onions and potatoes at a vegetable market a few miles from Jaffna one
recent afternoon.

"The soldiers are very friendly," said S. Tharamaratam, a vegetable seller.
"They pay the money honestly."

Vijaratne Vasanta, a 28-year-old soldier with a wife and 3-year-old son at
home in his village, said he was fighting to keep the country united. "We
Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese are all Sri Lankans," he said.

At the Palali air force base here on the peninsula today, soldiers snapped
smartly to attention and saluted as stretcher-bearers passed by, carrying
two dead comrades in white plastic bags. The bodies were loaded onto a dank
troop carrier for the hourlong flight to Colombo, the capital.

Soldiers, some of them bandaged and hobbling on crutches, sat on benches
that ran the length of the plane with the body bags laid out on the floor
between them. The grinding roar of the engines made conversation
impossible, so the men sat in silence, napping and looking out the windows
or at the ceiling =97 anywhere but at the fallen men who lay at their feet.

______

#2.

Tehelka.com
SPECIAL SERIES=20
by V K SHASHIKUMAR
Mission Kashmir
The Intellectuals who didnt speak

(Part VI)

'THE MOVEMENT IN KASHMIR HAS DEGENERATED AND THAT IS THE GENIUS OF PAKISTAN=
'=20

by Agha Ashraf Ali

Historian and veteran educator Agha Ashraf
Ali is not in the habit of mincing words. Forceful and forthright, he
ensures that he stays away from politics. Except in1994 when he gave a
speech during the book release of Yasin Malik's Our Dream. His son Shahid
Agha Ali is a famous Kashmiri-American poet. "Kashmir is a sorry spectacle
of our humanity," says Agha Ashraf. He says that the trust between India
and Kashmir has completely broken down. In 1947 and 1965, the Kashmiris
could have betrayed India and gone to Pakistan, but no one did. In the
1970s and 1980s India broke that silken thread, points out the embittered
historian.

Agha Ashraf Ali believes that if the 1,400-year-old prescription of the
Fourth Caliph Ali - son-in-law of Prophet Mohammad - is followed, will
enlighten politicians to find a solution to the turmoil in Kashmir:

Meet the lowly and the oppressed Periodically In an open Conference And
conscious of divine presence there Have a heart-to-heart talk with them For
I have heard The Prophet of Allah saying That no nation or Community can
achieve honour or distinction Unless in that society The Strong protect the
weak or The weak are able to wrest their rights From the Strong

Srinagar, September 8

It is the endgame in Kashmir because we think so. We think so because of
the US pressure, because of things which have gone wrong for 10 years and
the kind of vulnerability of India's half a million army in Kashmir. The
cantonment in Srinagar is not safe, nothing is safe. How can it be safe?

I can't tell you what the way out is because I am a teacher and I have not
bothered my head about it. That's for the politicians, for Clinton,
Vajpayee-ji and Musharraf. From the Kashmiri point of view, I would say
that you have to talk to the people of Kashmir and see what they want. I
hope they (Kashmiris) make a sane decision so that they don't start
regretting going to Pakistan.

If the people are asinine, then we are asses=85then we have the government =
we
deserve and we will go to the dogs. Having denied us democracy we produced
couturiers and sycophants who went to Delhi to dance and get jobs as chief
ministers and whatever.

Whoever will be the leader can be easily established by talking to the
people. Shabir Shah was the leader from 1994-1995. He was called the Nelson
Mandela of Kashmir, but now he is nothing. Nothing in the sense that there
is chaos in his party because his lieutenants like Naeem Khan left him for
money. Money is a great corrupter. Except Yasin Malik, most of the others
have become rich and bought best houses and live like kings. People are
dying like dogs and the leaders of the Kashmiri struggle are living in luxu=
ry.

The movement in Kashmir has degenerated and that is the genius of Pakistan.
In the beginning (of the movement) Pakistan was sure that the leaders would
be bought over by India, so that created a host of different parties. They
started encouraging the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen at the cost of the Jammu Kashmir
Liberation Front (JKLF), which was the spontaneous movement of Kashmir, led
by people like Yasin Malik. By giving arms and money to the Hizb, Pakistan
emphasised pro-Pak Jamaat-e-Islami orientation, which leads directly into
the arms of Taliban, which again leads dangerously into the arms of
Afghanistan.

The Pakistanis are using people who have destroyed Afghanistan. The
Afghans, brave people who fought the Russians, where are they today? This
is what can happen to us. Kashmiris know that foreign mercenaries are our
enemy. We have suffered the Mughals, the Pathans and the Sikhs, and now we
are suffering at the hands of our own sharks.

Except Yasin Malik, most of the others have become rich and bought best
houses and live like kings. People are dying like dogs and the leaders of
the Kashmiri struggle are living in luxury

Our own ruling class is an exploitative class. Our own ministers are
corrupt. Our own bureaucracy is downright corrupt. They are all rotten, are
destroying Kashmir and just making money. The point is not about idealism=
=85.
The movement had idealism, when the youth of Kashmir were pining for 22
years to see the great Lion of Kashmir,

Sheikh Abdullah. But when he came out in 1975 they saw him making money and
property and installing his son as his successor. He was not the Sheikh
Abdullah of 1953. The feeling was - Sheikh sahab makes money, so let us
also make money!

When Yasin Malik and Asfaq Wani went across to get a gun, they were
idealistic and the movement grew. Then anybody could go to Pakistan and get
a gun. It was then not a movement, not even an idea that had caught on. It
was not like Gandhi's or Sheikh Abdullah's movement where it progressed
step by step and leadership emerged.

It was a question of shortcuts. You go across and get a gun. By wielding
that gun you make money and enjoy life. A man went to Pakistan to get a gun
and went to Doctor Aziz, a well-known doctor in Srinagar, and holding the
doctor at gunpoint said, "I want to marry your daughter. I have been your
servant for 10 years and now I will marry your daughter." Dr Aziz said,
"Yes, why not, you are a wonderful man. Go and bring your parents, I am
ready." By night he packed his bags and took his family to Malaysia. He has
been in Malaysia since 1990. The point is that these kind of gun-toting
people were not the "movement". They were not people steeped in the ideals
of Yasin Malik or Asfaq Wani. They were mercenaries who went to Pakistan to
get a gun.

Pakistan gave a gun to whoever wanted it and do you think they wanted to
help Kashmir? That was the evil genius of Zia-ul-Haq, former martial law
ruler of Pakistan. The turning point in the Kashmiri struggle was when
people who led the movement became exploiters rather than helpers of the
people. They started extracting money from the people. Once you do that,
degeneration starts. I am told that Israelis helped us understand how we
can use ex-militants - in counter-insurgency operations - and Kuka Parrey
is an ideal example.

Once Pakistan destroyed our movement by creating rifts, India in order to
win has done the same. Pit Kashmiris against Kashmiris. Wisdom in Delhi and
Srinagar could not see through this because of the amazingly stupid and
myopic rulers of India and Pakistan to destroy the two countries and the
people. Now they have nothing left, so they go to the US with begging
bowls. And the US is calling the shots now.

A few hundred people in India have Mercedes cars and BMWs and Gucci and
Armani suits and they think it is being modern. That does not fool a
Gandhian like me because when the rich get richer, another 10 million
people go below the poverty line. In the US whenever 10 millionaires come
up, another 1 per cent of the population goes below the poverty line in
that country even today. People should read Dollars and Dreams based on the
census of 1980 and 1990 in the US and also the New Dollar and Dreams. The
middle class has been squeezed in the US to make the top 1 per cent rich.
This is also being replicated in India.

When the British came, they created a small class of quislings and now the
World Bank and the rest are doing the same thing - creating a small class
of quislings. If I had the energy, I would have joined the movement of
Kashmir's struggle for azadi (independence) and told the Kashmiri militants
how to fight: look after and help the poor and not extort money from the
people. If you ask what went wrong I would say degeneration.

The army is here to do a job and they are out to kill the militants. If one
armyman dies, then 10 other Kashmiris are killed. It is not a war

Sheikh Abdullah's arrest in 1953 was the turning point. It was the point of
inner break. Something snapped in the Kashmiri mind and s/he would never
trust India again. In 1947 if the Kashmiris had not wanted India, they
could have killed Sheikh Abdullah and gone to Pakistan.

Shaikh sahab had no force and the Maharaja had run away with his army. In
those 10 days before the Indian Army came, they could have gone to Pakistan
and could have destroyed Sheikh Abdullah who was building India here in
Kashmir. The crucial political decision was that the people sided with him
and not with Pakistan in 1947.

In 1953, after the man who took Kashmir to India was arrested, people were
fed up with India. A Kashmiri would always throw a stone at an army truck
and say: "Paltu kutte, chale jao (you dog, leave our land)." But look at
the Indian statesmanship. They kept giving them rice at 40 paisa and the
army did not misbehave for 30 years between 1950 and 1988. The denial of
democracy in Kashmir was proved in 1977 when Morarji Desai, Jagjivan Ram
and Charan Singh won the general elections. That was the first time Kashmir
had free elections. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed lost from two places and Iftikar
Ansari also lost. Everybody who had won elections so far lost. It was the
first time that the Kashmiris tasted democracy!

After that, Farooq Abdullah manipulated elections and there was no
functioning democracy in Kashmir. The whole point is that democracy in
India was functioning, but it was not allowed in Kashmir fearing that the
moment free and fair elections are held, we would go to Pakistan.

And what about the indignities suffered by the Kashmiris everyday? It is
routine. Everybody is caught up in an evil situation because we called
India here. The army is here to do a job and they are out to kill the
militants. If one armyman dies, then 10 other Kashmiris are killed. It is
not a war. The Kashmiri style is to throw a grenade and run away and then,
in retaliation, the forces kill many others. That's how the forces have
antagonised the people.

The most important point is that the whole of India and Pakistan saw
Kashmiris as a cowardly race. They thought they could always lord over us.
The objective that this movement has achieved is the "manliness" of Kashmir=
is.

We are not afraid of dying anymore and you can never rule a people who not
afraid of dying. Fifty to 60,000 have died=85this is not a cricket match th=
at
you count runs. The guns can be taken away at the negotiating table. The
masses are fed up with violence. We have suffered so much in the last 10
years that I can't bear it anymore.

copyright =A9 2000 tehelka.com=20

______

#3.

K. Natwar Singh writes in Asian Age, 15 Sept. 2000 in the editorial page
article:=20
"PM gained nothing from New York":

"It has gone almost unnoticed that with the approval of the Vajpayee
Government, the VHP has been bestowed consultative status at the United
Nations as a non-governmental organisation. This can only be done at a
government's behest, not otherwise". =
=20

______

#4.

Frontline
Volume 17 - Issue 19, Sep. 16 - 29, 2000
Cover Story

HOMILIES ABROAD :
ON THE CORE ISSUE OF THE RSS AND HOW THEY FARE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE NEW
LAXMAN LINE.=20

SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN
VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN=20

EVIDENTLY, there is something about the company of the
American citizen of Indian origin that sets free the most backward-looking
longings of the average Hindu preacher. Great acts of creative concoction
are spawned when material wealth devoid of social status meets the promise
of spiritual solace.

The dust from the BJP's National Council meeting in Nagpur was yet to
settle and the basic task of reorganising the top leadership tiers of the
party remained incomplete. But on a tour of the U.S. when he evidently had
more time on his hands than is cust omary for visiting leaders, Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee chose to make an appearance at a conclave of
"Indian Americans", which in all but name was a showcase for the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP).

The VHP had, through various front organisations, scheduled a series of
events in the U.S. for the weeks following the U.N. Millennium Summit. This
was in part to celebrate its elevation to the status of a participant
organisation in the deliberations on religion that preceded the summit.
Vajpayee was a featured speaker in the VHP event in Staten Island (New
York) according to the schedule fixed in advance. His participation was
only lent an element of piquancy by the immediately preceding BJP strategy
session in Nagpur when the party had sought, quite consciously, to distance
itself from the extremists and broaden its appeal to sections of India that
were earlier regarded as enemy elements.

Vajpayee at the conclave of Indian Americans at Staten Island in New York.
The special invitees at the function included External Affairs Minister
Jaswant Singh.

Expectedly, all the VHP rhetoric was presented with renewed vehemence at
Staten Island, with the Prime Minister in attendance. Apart from Vajpayee,
External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and Gujarat Governor Sundar Singh
Bhandari - presumably the "secul ar" leaders of the Hindu community - other
invitees included over 100 Hindu sadhus, sants and mahants, typically
self-appointed to their positions of spiritual authority. The Laxman Line
was immaterial to this motley grouping of spiritual hucksters, who spoke
with one voice of the greatness of Bharat, a nation that had been reduced
to pitiable circumstances because of "forced conversion" and the zealotry
of religions born out of "violence and guilt".

In the VHP's strategic scheme, the gathering in the U.S. was designated as
a "mandir nirman pratiggya sammelan" - or a session to reaffirm the
collective Hindu resolve to build a temple at the site in Ayodhya where the
Babri Masjid stood. But in o bvious deference to the presence of the Prime
Minister, the point was expressed in tones of relative moderation. One of
the 100-odd saffron clad mendicants in attendance posed the question: could
Vajpayee help hasten the construction of the Ram mandir at Ayodhya? The
reply was suitably ambiguous. If he could obtain a parliamentary majority
on his own, said the Prime Minister, then he would certainly build the
Bharat that Hindutva dreams are made of.

As a reply to a fairly pointed question, this was suitably ambiguous. It
gave nothing away and sought to shift the emphasis away from the Ram mandir
as a physically accomplished reality. Rather, in Vajpayee's rather clever
response, the temple at Ayodhya was elevated to metaphorical status,
representing in a figurative sense the quest for renewed national glory.

Among the other homilies delivered by the Hindu sants in attendance at
Staten Island was the exhortation to the Indian-American community to
"protect their children". Danger, they said, lurks at every corner: "The
only protection is teaching them the Ved as and our ancient and glorious
culture. Then they will get samskara."

VAJPAYEE'S participation at this rather bizarre congress of cultural
alienation was undoubtedly part of his strategy of blunting the force of
the Hindutva weapon. The BJP is approaching the first anniversary of its
renewed term in office without serious threats from within the ruling
coalition. The main challenge to the stability of the ruling arrangement
now comes from the Hindutva fold. After having propelled the BJP's ascent
to authority, the Hindutva forces are now facing the unpleasant prospect of
political isolation. The compulsions of coalition politics have made the
BJP indifferent to the core issues of the Hindutva agenda, such as the
construction of a temple at Ayodhya, the abrogation of Article 370 of the
Constitution and the enactment of a uniform civil code. From the standpoint
of the hardline Hindutva element, the new Laxman Line must seem utterly
unpalatable, with its advocacy of a rapprochement with Muslims and other
religious minorities.

There have been sufficient affirmations from the Hindutva cabal that the
eclipse of their agenda is only a temporary phenomenon. First,
K.N.Govindacharya, the soon-to-be-exiled general secretary of the BJP,
stated quite definitively that the withdrawal o f the Hindutva agenda was
only an arrangement of convenience. Then came the statement of Pravinbhai
Togadia, the international general secretary of the VHP, that the
construction of the Ayodhya temple would begin at a convenient date after
March 2001.

A senior VHP leader contacted by Frontline, sought to underplay the
significance of the Nagpur conclave. It was a fortuituous circumstance, he
seemed to imply, that the National Council was dominated by the
pro-Vajpayee elements. This balance of p ower within the party is bound to
change in the next few months, he asserted.

A series of meetings have been planned under the auspices of the Sangh
Parivar to bring the Hindutva agenda to the foreground again. Apart from
the ongoing cycle of observances in the U.S. that the Prime Minister has
himself become a participant in, ther e is a Jaipur to Ayodhya yatra
planned, which would put the model of the proposed Ram Mandir on display
for public edification. A meeting of the Marg Darshak Mandal, the guidance
committee of saffron clad spiritualists, has been scheduled for October in
Goa. This would be followed by a convention of the Dharma Sansad, or
"religious parliament", comprising an assortment of Hindu sants and
mahants, in Allahabad early next year.

GOPAL SUNGER A model of the proposed Ram Mandir on display in Jaipur. The
model is planned to be put on show during a Jaipur-Ayodhya yatra planned by
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

Govindacharya has also explained away the BJP's decision to relegate the
Hindutva agenda to the background in terms of the compulsions of coalition
politics. By implication then, the revival of the agenda must await the
BJP's arrival in Delhi as the sole party of governance, with an unambiguous
parliamentary majority of its own. To this extent, Govindacharya's
assertions seem to echo the sentiments expressed by Vajpayee at the Staten
Island gathering. Differences could arise, however, over the strategic
devices that the BJP should adopt to achieve the status of the single
ruling party.

The Vajpayee line, articulated by Bangaru Laxman in Nagpur, is that the BJP
needs to broaden its appeal to achieve a more inclusive representation of
social classes within its political programmes. The Hindutva line would be
that the party should press o n with the hardline agenda and consolidate
the allegiance of those sections that respond to this slogan. The battle
between these two strategic perspectives remains to be joined.

It is evident from the response of the official party organ, BJP Today,
that the battle, when it is fought, will be bloody. In what seemed a
pointed rebuff to the strategy of moderation that Laxman had proposed in
Nagpur, BJP Today ran a co ver story terming the party as the "Gangotri of
Hindutva". The lead article in this issue of the party organ seeks, quite
diligently, to trace the history of Hindutva from its supposed golden
period in the ancient days to the assaults that have been made against it
in the medieval period and, finally, to its resurgence in the modern age.

BJP Today has generally been the bastion of L.K. Advani camp-followers. Its
former editor, Praful Goradia, carried his ardour to such an extreme that
one whole recent issue of the magazine was devoted to portraying a
larger-than-life image of Adva ni even at the cost of knocking down
Vajpayee. He paid for this transgression with his job. But the magazine
continues to be secure in the hands of the anti-Vajpayee forces. It is
evident that in the months to come party organs such as BJP Today w ill
prove as important instruments through which the ideological battle between
the Hindutva forces and the pragmatic elements will be waged.=20

_____

#5.=20

Asia Times
September 16, 2000=20
=20=20=20

SHIPBREAKING INDUSTRY PUTS WORKERS ON THE SCRAPHEAP=20
By Tabibul Islam=20

SITAKUNDA, Bangladesh - The land along Sitakunda's
beach was once covered by trees and greenery. Now all that can be seen is a
vast sandy stretch littered with metal scrap from ships that are being
taken apart by hundreds of men and children.

In the 1990s, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have emerged as the main
centers of ship-breaking. The industry generates more than US$500 million
annually in Bangladesh, with Dhaka taking home $90 million a year of that.
And in the past three decades, Sitakunda, a town nearly 50 miles to the
northeast of Chittagong port, has become one of the world's largest ship
scrap metal centers.

Some 70 to 80 ocean-going ships are dismantled every year in 55 separate
places along a 20-mile stretch of sea shore. But it is also home to one of
the most exploitative working environments in the world, according to
rights groups. On top of which, environmentalists say the area's
ship-breaking industry is exposing workers to serious health hazards while
polluting the coastal ecosystem.

>From dawn to dusk, thousands of workers, many of them as young as 10 years
old, are said to work in conditions resembling slavery. The entire area is
strewn with broken glass, steel spikes, sharp-edged iron sheets and piles
of metal scrap. Workers can be seen carrying heavy iron sheets on their
shoulders. According to rights groups, at least 18 to 20 workers are
injured every day, yet no medical facilities are provided by the employers.
Nor, say activists, is any compensation paid if they suffer injury.

For those who toil onsite, the fear of death is a constant companion.
Eighteen workers died in two explosions in May and June an oil tanker they
were dismantling. However, the unofficial death toll is said to be at least
40. Rights groups allege that employers hide the bodies of those killed in
such accidents to avoid paying compensation. In the few cases when
compensation has been paid, it has amounted to a mere $200 to $300.

According to some government officials, who asked to remain anonymous,
about 400 workers have been killed and 3,000 injured by accidents at the
site in the last 21 years. Many of those injured suffered seriously
disabilities, including the loss of sight or limbs. In most cases, the
mishaps occur as many of the ships worked on are oil tankers. Workers
attempting to cut them open with flame torches light pools of residue gas
and oil triggering catastrophic explosions.

Workers recently told a team of visiting journalists that they toiled
between 10 to 12 hours every day, for which adults are paid $2 a day and
children just 60 cents.

The Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) has served legal
notices on the Ministry of Environment and other concerned government
departments for not enforcing basic health and environmental safeguards in
Sitakunda. ''The nation has observed with great shock and dismay that the
concerned statutory bodies showed negligence, leniency and inaction in
fulfilling their legal obligations,'' says one BELA statement.

International environmental group Greenpeace has also accused Bangladeshi
of negligence in protecting the industry's workers. ''Foreign shipowners
and Bangladeshi ship-breakers are party to the crime of sacrificing the
lives of workers for their personal profits,'' says Nityanand Jayaramaman
of Greenpeace.

Activists also complain that the export of ships as scrap to Bangladesh
without removing hazardous substances is equal to rich nations dumping
waste in poor nations. Environmental scientist Yusuf Sharif Ahmed Khan
blames the government for not regulating the import of old ships for
scrapping.

''The government will have to apply the 'polluter pays' principle and
ensure that shipowners and operators are held financially liable for the
safety of the workers,'' says Khan.

(Inter Press Service)=20

_____

#6.

16 September 2000

Dear Friend,

Last New Year's Eve, 3500 photographers from around the world, spread acros=
s=20
the globe to document the turning of the new century. The idea was to creat=
e=20
an important historical record in the form of a collector's item book, that=
=20
people could hand down from generation to generation. The project was calle=
d=20
'The Millennium Photo Project'.

A small group of volunteers organized the entire project on the internet,=20
without any commercial backing. A publishing company did get behind it in=20
November, but later pulled out unexpectedly. Now the group's only option is=
=20
to self publish the book independently.

The book is an important work of both art and history and was the=20
culmination of many people's hard work and effort. Nothing like it had ever=
=20
been attempted before and the publishing industry was scared by it, perhaps=
=20
because it came about on the internet. Now that same industry has abandoned=
=20
it.

The volunteers and photographers are now attempting to raise the money=20
needed for the printing of the book. They are seeking a philanthropic=20
individual(s) or vision oriented company to come to their aid.

I am one of the lucky photographers to have been involved with this project=
=20
and you can help our campaign to save this book by doing one of three=20
things...

- Please pass this message on to your friends
- If you like the idea of the book, please call your local bookstores and=20
ask if they have heard of or plan to carry the book (Please PLEASE do this!=
)
- Reserve a copy of the book at the project website by leaving your e-mail=
=20
address

If you would like to visit the site and see some of the photos to decide fo=
r=20
yourself how worthy the project is, please visit

http://www.millenniumphoto.com

The book is called 'How the World Celebrated'.

Thank you for your time,

Sahir Raza
14 yrs.
sahir_raza@h...
8, Vithalbhai Patel House
Rafi Marg, New Delhi-110001

_____________________________________________
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