[sacw] SACW #1. | 1 Feb. 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - Dispatch #1. | 1 February 2002

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#1. Yankee, Bin Laden Jehads and the Devastation of Afghanistan (Part 1)
#2. Book Review - Sri Lanka: Gender & Nationalism in Twentieth=20
Century Sri Lanka By Neloufer de Mel
#3. Pakistan: Karo kari murders of women on the rise
#4. Transforming Pakistan (Muchkund Dubey)
#5. India: The Sangh is One (Kamal Mitra Chenoy)
#6. India: Historians say 'Saffronised syllabus erodes NCERT credibility'
#7. India: Allahabad Teachers to 'expose' Joshi and Gaur
#8. India Pakistan Arms Race & Militarisation Watch (IPARMW) # 63
01 February 2002

________________________

#1.

Yankee, bin Laden Jehads and the Devastation of Afghanistan (Part 1)

by Hassan N. Gardezi

Revolution and Counter-Revolution
In April 1978 I was on sabbatical leave and teaching a couple of
anthropology courses at Qaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad on voluntary
basis. That is when the Saur revolution broke out in Afghanistan. Gul
Khan, one of my Pushtun students active in the Left politics of Pakistan
was in Kabul at the time. On his return he was ecstatic in his narration
of the details of what he had seen. Apparently, thousands of people had
been marching around the Presidential Palace in Kabul for several days to
protest the assassination of a prominent labor leader and subsequent
arrest of main leftist leaders by the regime of Muhammad Daud Khan. When
the army was called in to quell the protest, the soldiers turned their
guns at the palace and killed Daud Khan himself, who had in 1973 deposed
his cousin King Zaher Shah and sent him into exile in Italy. Daud regime
was replaced by Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), mainly a
coalition of two communist factions, the Khalq and the Parcham founded in
1965 under the leadership of Nur Muhammad Taraki, an affable writer and
intellectual.

Gul Khan, as many others on the Left in Pakistan, was very
optimistic that Afghanistan under communist rule had nowhere to go but
forward on the road to progress and social justice. King Zaher Shah, a
well traveled man had already taken some measured steps to open his long
isolated mountain kingdom to the world. A process of modernization and
capitalist development had begun since the Second World War. A modern
university was functioning in Kabul since 1946, staffed by internationally
qualified faculty. A liberal constitution was in place since 1964
recognizing freedom of press and expression in principle. Women could
appear in public without the veil, even dress in Western skirt suits, and
run for public office. Young and idealistic Gul Khan could hardly see a
more appropriate moment for the communists to have stepped in with their
agenda of revolutionizing the Afghan society on principles of scientific
socialism.

But in retrospect one can clearly see the heavy odds that were
against the fulfillment of Gul khan's hopes. To begin with, the internal
resistances and contradictions militating against a radical change in
Afghanistan were enormous. As Karl Marx himself had cautioned, "the higher
relations of production never appear before the material conditions of
their existence have matured in the womb of the old society." (Karl Marx
and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, Moscow, Progress Books, 1968, 189).
The economic development and social freedoms of the Kabul society had
hardly touched the vast countryside of Afghanistan where tribal and feudal
relations of production held sway. Much of Afghanistan outside the capital
Kabul and some provincial cities consisted of more or less autonomous
communities where tribal and ethnic loyalties were far too strong to allow
even the emergence of a collective sense of nationhood. Neither the
shared Islamic faith nor any other ideology served to integrate local
communities into the cohesion of a nation state since its final boundaries
had been drawn by Czarist Russia and Imperial Britain in 1893.

The PDPA government was soon to become painfully aware of this
disjunction between its ideas of reform and the local structures of power
and social folkways. For example, in their attempts to redistribute land,
the revolutionaries not only ran into fierce opposition from the landlords
and tribal chiefs but also felt rebuffed by the peasants who often
declined to accept titles to the land under their cultivation considering
it a theft from the rightful owners (khayanat).

The communists in Kabul had in fact two daunting and complicated
tasks on their hands. First of these was to integrate the tribal and
ethnic enclaves of the countryside into the administrative structure of a
nation state, and the second task was to usher in a communist society in
Afghanistan as quickly as possible by putting an end to the traditional
systems of privilege and entitlements as well as to eradicate class
disparities in the emerging urban sector. Both these projects were fraught
with challenges and grave risks which soon produced strong disagreements
within the leadership of the PDPA.

To make matters worse, the PDPA itself fell victim to deadly
factionalism on ideological and personal grounds. The Parcham faction,
which had briefly cooperated earlier with the Daud regime to bring about
some secular reforms, wanted to forge a broad national democratic front to
lead the way to change, while Khalq, the larger of the two factions,
insisted on maintaining a hard line working class base to implement the
revolutionary agenda. From this bitter struggle Khalq's Hafizullah Amin, a
fanatic ideologue, emerged as the victor. Most of the Parcham leaders were
purged out of the ruling positions and Taraki, the founder of the PDPA and
the first prime minister of the revolutionary government, was killed.

But with the rank and file of PDPA in turmoil, Amin himself felt
isolated and insecure. He turned increasingly to external support in order
to maintain his grip on power and also for his personal safety. Reportedly
he sent out several calls for military help to the Soviet government, the
sympathizer and supporter of the communist regime in Kabul since its
inception. On December 27, 1979, a contingent of Soviet troops was flown
into Kabul ostensibly to protect Amin. At the conclusion of this high
drama, Amin also lost his life, Babrak Karmal, leader of the Paecham
faction, was installed as the head of the state and the Soviet Union stood
accused of invading Afghanistan. Karmal now attempted to bring an end to
the excesses of Amin rule and to regain the confidence of the people but
it proved to be too late. A clandestine operation sponsored by the United
states had already been launched a few months earlier to foment a large
scale armed rebellion in Afghanistan against communist rule from across
the border in Pakistan. The Soviet intervention provided an ideal pretext
to the United States to escalate this operation into a proxy war against
the Soviet Union, thereby drawing more and more units of the Red Army into
bloody combat with the well equipped Afghan rebels armed to the teeth by
CIA.

Jehad as the Cold war Weapon.
History tells us that any Third World country that has ventured on
the path of socialism or tried to sever its ties with the Western
imperialist powers has immediately attracted the attention of the United
States for special dispensation. Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1953, Cuba in
1961-62, Congo (zaire) in 1961-62, Vietnam in 1961-73, Chile in 1973,
Nicaragua in 1981-92 and Grenada in 1983 are only a few recent examples.
Afghanistan was not going to be an exception. But what turned out to be
tragically different in this case is that a much grander strategy was
devised not only to expel the communist influence and the Red Army from
Afghanistan, but also to use this opportunity to break up the Soviet Union
by extending the anti-communist crusade into Muslim-majority Soviet
republics of Central Asia. In the coming years this plan was to unfold in
the shape of a global Islamic holy war or jehad against the "godless
Soviet Communism" as its prime target. That this might also devastate
Afghanistan in the long run and spread terrorism around the world received
no attention or was callously disregarded.

The grand strategy was masterminded by Zbigniew Brgzezinski, a
virulent anti- communist and National Security Adviser to President Jimmy
Carter. Brgzezinski in fact claims that it was the covert operation
organized by him that drew the Soviet Union into the "Afghan trap" and
gave the "USSR its Vietnam war." (Interview, Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris,
January 15-21, 1998). It was by no means an easy strategy to put into
effect without enlisting the immediate support and cooperation of at least
two Muslim countries, namely Pakistan, the next- door neighbor of
Afghanistan with its brand new military dictator and long tradition of
serving the cold war interests of the United States, and Saudi Arabia the
authoritative seat of orthodox Islam, with its royal family's oil wealth
readily available to fund anti-leftist forces around the world.

Pakistan's Cooperation
The geopolitical situation of Pakistan was ideal for mounting the
anti-Soviet operations in Afghanistan. Its physical proximity and porous
border with that country, inhabited on both sides by Pushtun tribes, was
logistically well suited for channeling military supplies and training
the rebels, soon to be elevated to the position of mujahideen or holy
warriors of Islam. Pakistan was also harboring a number of Afghan radical
Islamists, products of fundamentalist ideologies emanating from Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan itself over the last decade. They had all fled
to Pakistan after confrontations with the Daud regime over its secular
reforms. Now these men were ready and willing to carry the banner of
jehad back into Afghanistan in order to fight the communists.

Most opportune for the successful launching of Brgzezinski's
project was the recently imposed dictatorship of Gen. Zia ul-Haq in
Pakistan. After his military coup in 1977 and the execution of prime
minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia urgently needed support for his regime.
Eager to do anything towards that end, he was ready to propel Pakistan
into the vanguard of global jehad and thereby gain the blessings of United
States as well as the support of Islamist parties within the country.

President Carter who had already signed first of the directives to
provide clandestine aid to Pakistan based Afghan rebels in July 1979,
offered $400 million in aid to the Zia regime after the Soviet
intervention which the crafty General promptly declined, branding it
"peanuts." In 1981, with Ronald Reagan's elevation to the US presidency,
this amount was increased to $3.2 billion which Zia gladly accepted and
in return allowed the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, CIA,
free hand to launch what can only be described as the Yankee global Jehad
from Pakistan's territory.

The CIA immediately went to work to mobilize Pakistan's
institutional resources to spread a raging insurgency in Afghanistan. From
within the Pakistan army it helped transform the Inter Services
Intelligence Directorate , ISI, into a powerful rouge agency in its own
image. This was deemed necessary by CIA to get its logistical and
strategic work done by a surrogate organization while maintaining the
fiction of US noninvolvement in Afghanistan's affairs. The tasks allocated
to ISI included:

1. Recruitment of fighters from the Afghan refugees in Pakistan
and their military training and religious indoctrination in camps
established on both sides of the border.
2. Seeking out and grooming mujahideen warlords to lead the
anti-Soviet crusade in Afghanistan, some of the early celebrities among
them being Gulbaddin Hikmatyar, Ahmes Shah Masud,Yunis Khalis, Rasul
Sayyaf and Burhanuddin Rabani.
3. Coordinating all these activities with Pakistan's Islamist
parties having ideological and financial links with Saudi Arabia, and
enjoying the patronage of Zia dictatorship. The main role played by these
parties was to create and promote the so called jehad culture in Pakistan
through their expanding infrastructure of religious schools, madrasas and
mosques. Later they became involved in training holy warriors from among
their students and despatching them to wage jehad in Afghanistan and
Kashmir directly.
4. Channeling enormous quantities of sophisticated arms and
ammunition procured by CIA to Afghan warlords and facilitating the
movement of a steady stream of Jehadis (estimated at 35,000 between
1982-1992) coming from the Muslim countries and regions of Middle East,
Africa, Central and Southeast Asia to fight in the holy war against the
Soviet infidels in Afghanistan. (Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam,
Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, New Haven, Yale University Press,
2000, 128-130).

The Saudi Contribution
The second Muslim country to play a key role in this largest Cold
War operation ever launched by CIA was Saudi Arabia. Apart from the
billions of dollars that flowed from the Saudi royal family to fuel the
global jehad, the main contribution of that country was on two other
fronts. First of these was to export the Saudi brand of fundamentalist
(Wahabi) Islam and plant it in and around Afghanistan with the aim of
investing the CIA sponsored anti-communist operation with the sanctity
and aura of Islamic jehad.

In Afghanistan itself the notion of jehad as a holy war against
the infidels, kafirs, had no roots in the folk theology of the people.
Their religion was and still remains a mixture of Islamic beliefs and
practices superimposed on local superstitions and patriarchal tribal codes
rather than representing any form of doctrinaire Islam. Of course, there
has been the ubiquitous figure of the mullah, part Islamic pastor, part
shaman, that one encounters in the narratives of the social and martial
history of Afghans, the Pushtun tribes of the Southeast in particular. But
these mullahs have always owed their authority less to their Islamic
scholarship than their ability to deliver inflammatory sermons and self
serving exhortations. There is also the stereotype of religious fanaticism
associated with the Afghans built on frequent incidents of attacks on the
British during the raj. But one must remember that the targets of these
attacks were always the British officers and political agents who kept the
Afghans under constant pressure, even after the two disastrous
Anglo-Afghan wars, thus constantly provoking the fiercely independent
Pashtun tribesmen. Otherwise, European civilians, including the British,
roamed freely in Afghanistan as travelers and chroniclers encountering
only the traditional hospitality of the people. Neither are the Afghans
known for any intolerance towards non-Muslim minorities of Jews, Hindus
and Sikhs who have lived peacefully amidst the country's majority Muslim
population for ages.

It is therefore no surprise that the fanatical Wahabi orthodoxy
exported from Saudi Arabia and fervently preached though the madrasas of
the Pakistani Islamists had to be pressed into service to fan the fires of
anti-Soviet jehad in Afghanistan. In the long run even this failed to
produce any Islamic consensus or bond of unity among the tribal and ethnic
enclaves, as the so called Afghan jehad kept degenerating into simple wars
for control of territory and resources among rival warlords leading to
horrendous massacres of Muslims by Muslims.

The other contribution of the Saudis to the CIA-led operation in
Afghanistan was the supply of Islamic fanatics to join the Yankee jehad.
Among these was Osama bin Laden, the man destined to leave his mark as a
holy warrior of Islam, far beyond the Brgzezinski-CIA vision. An engineer
by training, bin Lasden came from the affluent family of Mohammad bin
Laden, owner of a vast construction business in Jeddah. His services for
the Afghan jehad were enlisted by Prince Turki al-Faisal, manager of the
Saudi Secret Service, working in close contact with the CIA and ISI.
Arriving in Afghanistan shortly after the Soviet intervention in 1979, bin
Laden organized the Arab contingent for guerrilla attacks on the Red Army,
and also supervised the construction of roads, bunkers and cave complexes
to facilitate the storage and movement of CIA procured heavy armaments,
thus ensuring the success of guerrilla operations against the Soviet
troops.

The Soviet Withdrawal
After a decade of battling this biggest guerrilla war machine ever
put together in history, fitted with latest weaponry, the Soviets called
it quits. Having described this engagement as his country's "bleeding
wound," Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew his army from Afghanistan in February
1989 under the terms of Geneva Accords. These Accords were signed under
the UN auspices by Afghanistan and Pakistan as principal parties in April
1988. The main clauses of the agreement stipulated non-interference in
each other's internal affairs, voluntary return of Afghan refugees camped
in Pakistan, withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan and
monitoring of the agreement by the United Nations. The Soviet Union and
the United States also signed the Accords as guarantors. But
unfortunately, the only clause of the agreement honored was the one
pertaining to the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The
Soviets went home to nurse their collective wound but Afghanistan and its
people were kept bleeding due to non- compliance on the part of Pakistan
and its US backers.

Pakistan was still under the Zia rule when the Geneva Accords
were signed and the government in Kabul was headed by Dr.Mohammad
Najibullah who was trying his best to assert his faith in Islam and reach
out to the refugees and the mujahideen for conciliation since taking over
from Babrak Karmal as President in 1986. Zia died in the mysterious
mid-air explosion of his military plane shortly after the Accords were
signed and the onus of their implementation from the Pakistani side fell
upon the newly elected prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Prior to her
election Benazir and her party had campaigned for recognizing the PDPA
government in Kabul and seeking a political settlement of the Afghanistan
conflict.

But all that changed when Benazir paid her maiden visit to
Washington in June of 1989 and later to London as Prime Minister of
Pakistan. After her "very cordial" meeting with George Bush (senior),
Benazir announced her total agreement with the US president that
Najibullah must resign as a precondition for any political settlement with
Afghanistan. In London Benazir was bluntly told by Margaret Thatcher that
war in Afghanistan will continue until complete "military victory" was
achieved (Manchester Guardian, Weekly, July 16, 1989).

So the CIA and Pakistan's ISI stayed on the course of arming the
anti-Najibullah rebels and providing them with military training and
political support. These operations continued even after the Soviet Union
collapsed in December 1991, as did the waves of death and destruction in
Afghanistan and flight of refugees from the country reaching a figure of
five million, about half ending up in miserable camps on the Pakistan
side of the border.

The Fall of Kabul and the Naked Face of Jehad
Finally, in April 1992 Kabul fell to the mujahideen and
Najebullah was forced to seek refuge in the United Nation's compound. That
was the end of the days when girls could still go to school and women to
work. For the United States and its allies this was the moment of triumph,
the complete "military victory" over communism. But within days,
Afghanistan predictably plunged into a bloody civil war. The mujahideen
leaders of an interim Afghan government cobbled together by Pakistan's
military establishment promptly resorted to heavy gun battles over power
sharing disputes. It was during these battles that Hikmatyar's heavy
artillery destroyed much of Kabul and more Afghan civilians were killed
than had ever died during the entire period of anti-Soviet guerrilla war.
Now the naked reality of tribal and ethnic warfare for the control of
territory and resources revealed itself clearly as the veil of Islamic
jehad fabricated by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan came off
the face of Afghanistan.

For the next four years Afghanistan suffered the total collapse of
its civil institutions. The fall of the PDPA government left the people
totally at the mercy of predatory mujahideen warlords. The country was
emptied of its well educated population and professional cadres. Much of
the country's agricultural lands were destroyed by years of war. The local
mujahideen commanders began to force the farmers to put the rest under
poppy cultivation as a cash crop, making Afghanistan one of the world's
biggest opium producers. Heroin factories began to mushroom on both side
of the border. Drug production and trade in other smuggled goods across
borders, ranging from automobiles and household appliances to automatic
weapons, became the mainstay of the economy. Rival warlords, the only
overseers of this economy, exacted taxes from the traders and tolls at the
road checkpoints from smugglers accumulating wealth and entertaining
themselves by raping women and boys. Modern education came to a standstill
and the cultural heritage of the country in museums and art collections
laid to plunder.
(continued in SACW Dispatch #2. - 1 Feb 2002)

_____

#2.

The Telegraph
1 February 2002

BOOK REVIEW / SECOND CITIZENS OF AN ISLAND
BY VISHNUPRIYA SENGUPTA

WOMEN AND THE NATION'S NARRATIVE: GENDER AND NATIONALISM IN TWENTIETH=20
CENTURY SRI LANKA
By Neloufer de Mel,
Kali for Women, Rs 250

Not often does one come across a book that pivots around the feminine=20
gender without actually making out a definitive case for feminism. A=20
meticulously researched non-fictional work backed by statistical=20
figures and innumerable data, Women and the Nation's Narrative=20
examines "selected strands of nationalism" in 20th century Sri Lanka,=20
particularly among the dominant Sinhala Buddhist and militant Tamil=20
nationalists. Having placed a few select women of diverse backgrounds=20
and women's organizations in historical and political contexts,=20
Neloufer de Mel sheds light on their involvement with nationalism=20
and, in the process, foregrounds the relationship between gender and=20
nationalism.

The founder editor of a magazine on Sri Lankan women's issues,=20
Options, de Mel is well-versed with the pitfalls of being a Sri=20
Lankan woman in the concentric nationalist paradigm. The male is=20
regarded as the subject of the nation while the female denotes the=20
nation itself, in need of male protection. De Mel provides an=20
unbiased account of how women have been appropriated by a protean=20
nationalism. She also shows when and how women act in their own right=20
and negotiate patriarchy, capitalism and political opportunity, how=20
the contradictions within nationalism itself is worked to their=20
advantage.

This seminal work comprising an introduction and five chapters=20
maintains a chronology. It begins by setting the stage for the=20
Sinhala nationalist playwright, John de Silva, who used the Tower=20
Hall stage to forge an ethno-Sinhala Buddhist identity, paving the=20
way for the professional stage actor, Annie Boteju. De Mel also=20
connects the journalist, biographer and art historian, Marcia Anil de=20
Silva, poet and short story writer, Jean Arasanayagam, with the Sri=20
Lankan women militants, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the Mothers'=20
Front and contemporary feminist organizations.

De Mel points out that Annie Boteju lent a certain degree of=20
respectability to stage actresses. However, her entrance has to be=20
viewed against the Buddhist revival of the 19th century, the rise of=20
the local bourgeoisie and the colonial government's response to its=20
anti-British sentiments. On the other hand, de Silva's response to=20
the "nationalist" gaze was set against the fierce backlash of an=20
upper caste, upper class Sinhala lobby, which, fearing a hegemony=20
after independence, opposed the rise of the labour movement in Sri=20
Lanka.

Women, writes de Mel, have had to pay a price for their achievements.=20
Even when Boteju played a significant role in reinforcing early 20th=20
century Sinhala Buddhist nationalism through the theatre, she=20
remained outside its privileges of capital accumulation and equity,=20
and died a pauper. De Silva lived her life in exile, driven out of=20
Sri Lanka by a powerful caste and political lobby, while Jean=20
Arasanayagam's quest for a nation which values her heterogeneity=20
still remains elusive.

Little wonder then that Sri Lankan women have been among the harshest=20
critics of the dominant nationalism. They have had to contend with=20
the fact of their difference within the nation: their difference from=20
men as citizens as well as members of ethnic, religious, class and=20
caste groups whose affiliation they have to symbolically bear. De=20
Mel's exhaustive account, therefore, is of much relevance in the=20
present day strife-torn Sri Lanka, where women's intervention has=20
become imperative as they contest the ethno-nationalism and=20
autocratic patriarchal nation-state.

De Mel also highlights another significant aspect. She points to the=20
Indian women's movement that inspired and complemented the efforts of=20
Sri Lankan women on issues of women's rights and development. The=20
Lanka Mahila Samiti closely followed the Indian Mahila Samiti's=20
example.

Eventually, de Mel proposes what Bruce Robbins has termed a "lateral=20
cosmopolitanism" that will allow coalitions to form and to practice=20
an oppositional politics of peace. At the same time, she says, there=20
must be attempts to re-imagine the nation in a far more pluralistic=20
manner, enabling the formation of empowered women's groups who=20
practise progressive politics within a nationalist framework. De=20
Mel's clarity of thought and its logic are complemented by a lucid,=20
reader friendly style that drives home the point.
=20=20=20=20
_____

#3.

The Nation
31 January 2002
Editorial

Karo kari on the rise
ACCORDING to a report compiled by Madadgaar, the horrifying crime of=20
karo kari or honour killing is thriving. The study, based on media=20
reports, notes that 753 women including 22 minors fell victim to karo=20
kari in 2001, Sindh leading with 453 cases, followed by Punjab with=20
204, Balochistan 69 and NWFP 27. Factoring in population size, the=20
problem seems acuter in Balochistan and Sindh. However, these=20
statistics do not reveal the complete picture, being based only on=20
reported incidents. The actual volume of this crime must be much=20
higher. A recent study by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,=20
bears out these figures and reveals that the crime has risen from 110=20
cases in 1999 to 850 in 2000 and over 700 by September 2001.
The most conspicuous feature of the crime is that it mostly targets=20
women. It is also apparent that the banner of karo kari is=20
conveniently applied by many to get off with lighter sentences for=20
murders actually motivated by revenge or plain greed. Most studies=20
suggest this crime is encouraged by deeply ingrained gender bias, in=20
turn validated by tribal traditions. More unfortunately, this bias is=20
as deeply embedded among the police investigators and trial judges.=20
Offenders either get off at the investigative stage, while trial=20
courts accept this as a sudden provocation entitling the offender to=20
a lighter sentence.
It is expected that the government, which has made strident claims=20
about dealing with this issue, and equated karo kari with murder,=20
should now actually do something. It has been proposed repeatedly=20
that it may not be necessary for a victim's relatives to lodge the=20
FIR. The Sindh administration's decision that the state, via the=20
local SHO, should be the complainant, also has its pitfalls, given=20
corruption and bias. Any citizen should be qualified to register an=20
FIR, while NGOs be activated to begin monitoring the case after this.=20
Also, postmortems of karo kari cases, where sentence has been light=20
or there have been out-of-court settlements need to be undertaken.=20
However, the litmus test remains whether the government has the will=20
to make a test case of high profile offenders, some of whose crimes=20
have been reported globally. Whether or not it will allow them to go=20
unpunished, reinforcing the social biases that encourage the heinous=20
practice.

_____

#4.

The Hindu
1st February 2002

Transforming Pakistan
By Muchkund Dubey
India should not do anything that will come in the way of Pervez=20
Musharraf pushing through the reforms he has announced.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002020100030800.htm

_____

#5.

Times of India, January 27th, 2002 =
=20

The Sangh is One
--Kamal Mitra Chenoy

The Ramajanbhoomi campaign leading to the demolition of the Babri=20
Masjid and the riots that followed tragically proved the intimate=20
links, through the RSS, between the BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal, etc. The=20
VHP campaign for the Rama temple during the UP election campaign is=20
clearly to bolster the BJP's flagging electoral prospects. Terrorism=20
and warmongering is being supplemented with the temple. The temple is=20
back in the BJP manifesto, and because of the importance of these=20
elections for the Vajpayee government, the BJP's secular allies are=20
quiet. Despite the fact that the property dispute over the Masjid is=20
pending in the Supreme Court, the VHP leaders illegally entered the=20
sanctum sanctorum of the Rama temple last year. No punitive action=20
was taken. Judges in the CBI special court dealing with cases against=20
the accused in the demolition are regularly transferred, stalling=20
proceedings. The Liberhan Commission set up in December 1992 to=20
submit its report in three months, is meandering along 11 years=20
later. In these years it has not held one sitting in Ayodhya or=20
Faizabad, and reportedly has UP police video footage and some 40=20
audio tapes of December 5 and 6, 1992, which have not been used to=20
confront the accused.

Communalism is a profitable and safe electoral card. Riots and=20
communal tensions would scare away minority voters to the BJP's=20
profit. So POTO against the always suspect Muslims, never against the=20
VHP and Bajrang Dal, even if they create animosity between=20
communities and destroy public property. UP under the BJP is clearly=20
not a law governed State. Since war is not working, go back to Lord=20
Rama's accommodation problem, even though there are other Rama=20
temples in Ayodhya. A Hindutva campaign is intended to rally=20
disenchanted upper caste voters, and scare away minority voters,=20
while the appeal to patriotism against Pakistani-backed terrorism,=20
along with the Agni launch, is intended to deflect criticism of major=20
corruption in the Defence Ministry, for electoral gain. Scores of=20
criminals have been given tickets, so the coming polls are likely to=20
be marked by muscle power and attempts at rigging. When this is=20
widespread, it is difficult to curb. In any case it will drive off=20
many genuine voters.

The larger question is what are the democratic institutions including=20
the judiciary doing? Why are cases, inquiries allowed to drag on for=20
so long by the High Courts and Supreme Courts? The Srikrishna=20
Commission submitted its report years ago. Why not the Liberhan=20
Commission? Why haven't the courts intervened against the stalling of=20
the CBI Court, even under suo moto powers? Why are the regular=20
breaches of law by the Sangh brigade not being brought to the benches=20
of the higher judiciary? Where is investigative journalism in=20
exposing all this, which is public knowledge? Why haven't the secular=20
parties consistently raised this issue in public fora and=20
Parliament? Why have upright bureaucrats not resisted to the=20
saffronisation of education both at the Centre and in BJP-led States=20
like UP?

Renewed Hindutva in UP reflects the decline of our democratic=20
institutions, threatening not only secularism , but democracy itself.=20
The VHP has repeatedly said that it is bound only by its Dharam=20
Sansad, which supersedes both the Constitution and the judiciary. It=20
claims to be above the law, and sadly, for the most part, it has=20
been. No matter who wins in UP, and by all accounts the BJP is in=20
deep trouble, there is little indication, that this sustained assault=20
on secular democracy, will be vigorously curbed. It surely will not=20
end on its own.

_____

#6.

The Hindu
Friday, Feb 01, 2002

Saffronised syllabus erodes NCERT credibility'
By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN. 31. Breaking their silence a week-and-a-half after=20
the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)=20
released its syllabi for all subjects, historians opposed to the=20
Sangh Parivar school of thought today said the history syllabus was=20
not only ``saffronised'', but it also failed to stand up to academic=20
scrutiny.

Coming together under the SAHMAT banner, the historians said the=20
manner in which the curriculum had been revised - despite objections=20
from a cross-section of society - had eroded the credibility of the=20
NCERT as an academic body. [...]
http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002020103340900.htm

_____

#7.

The Times of India
JANUARY 31, 2002
Teachers to 'expose' Joshi and Gaur
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2002 12:54:20 AM ]
LUCKNOW: In a move aimed at disturbing the unquestioned 'hegemony' of=20
Dr Murli Manohar Joshi and Dr Narendra Kumar Singh Gaur, a section of=20
the teachers of the Allahabad University will launch a 'Benaqab=20
Abhiyan' (expose movement) beginning February 7 to apprise the people=20
of BJP's move towards saffronisation of education and its efforts to=20
indoctrinate students with its philosophy.
Both Joshi and Gaur have been intimately associated with AU having=20
been teachers there.
Addressing a press conference, Dr Pankaj Kumar and Dr Harsh Kumar,=20
both of Allahabad university, said they along with other teachers of=20
the varsity would be branching out in different districts. They would=20
hold meetings with the teachers from the other universities and=20
degree colleges in an attempt to mobilise them on this count. Joining=20
the AU teachers in their effort would be the mayor of Allahabad Dr KP=20
Srivastava.
Dr Kumar rapped the BJP for denying the students the right of free=20
option in education by "imposing upon them its own philosophy of what=20
was right and wrong". He said the process of thesis, anti-thesis and=20
synthesis was the very basis of a questioning mind and good=20
education, but the saffron party was determined to deny this right to=20
the teachers and the students. The introduction of a new syllabus was=20
a step in this direction, he said.
Asked why the intellectuals had decided to hit the road and more=20
particularly on the eve of election, the duo said it was to dispel=20
the notion that intellectuals aimed at revolutions by speaking about=20
the same in drawing rooms.
The time, they felt, was just opportune to raise issues.

______

#8.

India Pakistan Arms Race & Militarisation Watch (IPARMW) # 63
01 February 2002
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/messages

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