[sacw] SACW #1 | 22 July 02

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Mon, 22 Jul 2002 01:57:56 +0100


South Asia Citizens Wire #1 | 22 July 2002

>From South Asia Citizens Web:
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

__________________________

#1. Why the Meerwala Jatoi panchayat thought they would get away with=20
it (Beena Sarwar)
#2. Suburban Whites and Pogroms in India (Vijay Prashad)
#3. Burhan Wazir reports from Gujarat on an explosion of violence,=20
nationalism and Nazi-style politics
#4. Dharna for the Implementation of NHRC'S Recommendations (9 Aug. Ahmedab=
ad)
#5. VHP flexes muscles as British MPs plan visit
#6. India uses rape as tool of repression
__________________________

#1.

The News on Sunday
July 21 2002

Why the Meerwala Jatoi panchayat thought they would get away with it

Beena Sarwar

Why did the Meerwala Jatoi Panchayat pass the abominable decree that a youn=
g
woman be raped in revenge for a crime allegedly committed by her younger
brother -- and why did they think they would get away with it? For this is
what would have happened, had the local Imam of the mosque not spoken out
against it during the Friday prayers; a journalist attending the sermon
reported the case in a local newspaper, from where it was picked up
nationwide, and then worldwide, causing widespread outrage.

Firstly, the 'panchayat' or council which passed this 'decree' was obviousl=
y
certain that there would be no action against it. Jirgas or panchayats are
allowed to operate not only in the tribal areas under some sort of legal
sanction ('sentences' passed include execution, flogging, burning down
houses, and fines), but also in settled areas where they function illegally=
,
to settle property disputes and other matters. Such self-appointed councils
have even begun to pass sentences like public flogging for theft and 'moral
waywardness', as at a Muridke seminary near Lahore last year. Last July, a
jirga in village Johke Sharif, district Thatta, decreed that the sister of =
a
minor boy who had accidentally shot dead his friend, should be given in
marriage to the dead boy's father. The girl was also a minor.

Government officials routinely turn a blind eye, and even participate in
such councils. Police chiefs and district commissioners attempting to end
jirga law find no support from the government and are instead transferred
'in their own interest'. This is what happened with the Commissioner of
Shikarpur, Sanuallah Abbasi after he began a campaign against the jirga
system last year. Also last year, the Commissioner of Larkana division
(Sindh) actually withdrew the ban on jirgas imposed by his predecessor.

Secondly, it is no coincidence that the rise of religious extremism over th=
e
last couple of decades, encouraged by successive governments for political
reasons, has received the greatest support from the tribal areas. Often the
punishments awarded by tribal jirgas are assumed to have religious sanction=
,
even if they have nothing to do with Islam and are rooted in tribal
traditions and customs.

The Panchayat's decree that the 'punishment' be carried out by four men
resonates of the aberrations in the Pakistani law introduced by Gen. Ziaul
Haq in his attempts to 'Islamise' the country. The Zina laws (Hudood
Ordinance) introduced in 1979 require the presence of four witnesses to the
act of rape or adultery before the crime can be established. The law
obliterates the distinction between adultery and rape and criminalizes a
private offence, adultery (sexual relations outside marriage between two
consenting adults), while making rape a matter for private complaint, in
which the onus of proof lies on the victim. The confusion about what is
allowed in Islam and what is not; has only been exacerbated by politicizing
religion, and the severity of the punishments under these laws.

Even the Federal Shariat Court questioned their religious nature. In 1981,
the punishment of stoning to death was in fact removed as being un-Islamic,
but later reinstated under political pressure. The demand to review these
laws continues to be made, not just by civil society and rights groups, and
even the government-constituted, high powered Commission of Inquiry for
Women in its report of 1997, which was "convinced that all the Hudood laws
were conceived and drafted in haste. They are not in conformity with Islam.=
"

Girls as young as thirteen complaining of rape are instead found guilty of
adultery (zina), as the medical reports find evidence of sexual intercourse=
,
and declare them as being 'used to such activity' - as in the case of the
young Kohli girl who was raped in Hyderabad recently by an elected
councillor.

As illegal as jirga sentences are the fatwas or 'religious decrees' that
incite violence. Yet, rarely are charges brought against those who make suc=
h
incitements. A recent exception was Hafiz Abdul Latif, Pesh Imam of the
Jaranwala mosque.On July 5, 2002, he issued a 'fatwa' against Faraz Javed,
who had objected to the Pesh Imam making a political sermon while leading
the Friday prayers. Javed was saved from being lynched by his American
citizenship. The police moved swiftly to arrest those who had besieged his
house, proving that when shows that where the state wills it, it can be
effective.

Less lucky was Zahid Shah, an insane young man in Chak Jhumra village, who
was accused of blasphemy by a cleric and stoned to death by an enraged mob.

Clerics issuing such fatwas have been emboldened by the amendments to the
'blasphemy laws' of the Pakistan Penal Code, particularly since the life
imprisonment option in Section 295-C of the PPC lapsed in 1991, leaving a
mandatory punishment of death for those convicted under it. Before 1980,
when the PPC began being amended by Gen. Zia to include sterner punishments
for religious offences, only four or five cases were registered for such
offences. Since then, the severity of the new laws has "provided a handle t=
o
the unscrupulous to settle their own scores," notes the HRCP.

Thirdly, women in this society are largely considered as lesser beings,
family property and repositories of the family honour; rape for revenge is =
a
common phenomenon, particularly in the southern Punjab and upper Sindh
region.

Violence against women has increased, including in the form of 'honour
killings' and other forms of brutalities. In the first week of July alone,
several cases were reported: the burning with acid of a young woman,
resulting in the loss of one of her eyes as well as injuries to her sucklin=
g
infant, at a remote village near Layyah in the Punjab; the rape of the youn=
g
peasant girl in Hyderabad mentioned above; the stripping naked and parading
of two women in a Khairpur village.

Where is the outrage for all this violence against women, which so many in
this society condone in one way or another? Certainly the self-appointed
custodians of our morality, with rare exceptions like the Imam of the
Meerwala Jatoi mosque who broke the silence on that case, rarely speak out
on the matter, which only encourages this mindset illustrated so clearly by
the Meerwala case.

And lastly, the complacency of the Meerwala Jatoi panchayat stemmed from th=
e
social system: Ghulam Farid's family is poor and 'low caste'. The rape of
Mukhtaran Bibi appears to be part of an attempt to cover up yet another
heinous crime, the sexual assault on Abdul Shakoor, her young brother aged
between eleven and fourteen years old, on June 22. After the culprits
realized that the boy was not going to hide the incident, they took him to
their kinsman, Abdul Khaliq, to seek his help. Khaliq was already trying to
pressurize his neighbour, Ghulam Farid, to give up his two acres of land.
"He confined the boy to a room of his house and also pushed his 25 year old
sister, Naseem, inside.After locking the door, he ran to inform the
tribesmen than he had found the boy engaged in a sexual act with the woman"=
.
('The land of shame', The News on Sunday, Encore, July 7, 2002).

When he went to the police to get his son freed, Farid's poverty and low
social status again came into play. Instead of filing a case against the
kidnappers/sodomisers, the police took young Shakoor into custody and
demanded money for his release.

What followed next also began routinely. A panchayat was gathered by Khaliq=
.
It would have been normal, if illegal, for such a council to decree that a
woman from Ghulam Farid's family approach them to seek mercy for the accuse=
d
boy. Or even that Farid give a daughter in marriage to the Mastoi family.
Instead, the jirga pronounced the sentence of 'rape for honour' on the
daughter of Farid - who was falsely assured by some that the 'sentence'
would not be carried out.

These issues must be addressed in order to go beyond the outrage and
breast-beating that has followed this horrific incident. Stoning, flogging
or hanging the culprits to death in public in order to 'set an example' as
many, including the victims, have suggested, will only amount to amputating
a diseased limb while allowing the illness to continue festering within the
body. Such punishments were administered during Ziaul Haq's time, when the
screams of the convict were amplified for the watching crowd. The result wa=
s
only to further brutalise society and contribute to a culture of violence.
The culprits must be punished, but in accordance with law - and the affecte=
d
family must be tended to with sensitivity and care, not made to sit on the
ground outside the court waiting for hours for their case to be heard, as i=
s
currently happening.

The government must take action against illegal rulings, whether made by
tribal chiefs or religious leaders. It must ensure that no one takes the la=
w
into their own hands, pass or execute 'sentences'. And, finally, it needs t=
o
ensure that its functionaries will no longer participate in such activities=
.

____

#2.

Suburban Whites and Pogroms in India
Vijay Prashad

(July 18, 2002)

Every few years I teach a class called "Hippies." The main theme of
the course is to follow the white, suburban middle-class in its
homage to Asia - from the 1967 Summer of Love debut of Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Mediation to the 1990s version=20
via Deepak Chopra and the Dalai Lama.
We study the genuine sense of malaise among suburban youth (the
condition that Paul Goodman called "Growing Up Absurd"), but we
also tend to the way in which "Asia" functions as an alibi for a
politics to transcend the condition of the suburb. A bumper sticker
that says "Free Tibet" seems to offer an entry into a transcendental
politics, far removed from the social melancholy of suburban life.
Does Tibet or Hinduism offer a coherent program to reconstruct the
oppression of suburban capitalism? My own sense is that it
facilitates an escape from the rigors of our world. The conceit that
whites have no culture and that they can get cultural from this tryst
with Asia also contributes to the continued fascination with the
surface and/or spiritual level of Asian cultures.
When Gwen Stefani of No Doubt or Madonna can wear a bindi and get
accolades for it, those thousands of South Asian girls and women who
get teased in school and at work for the "dot" on their forehead feel
rightfully bitter and angry.I've got nothing against cultural
borrowings because I believe that culture comes without boundaries,
without discrete origins and it does anyway move across the frail
boundaries set-up by one cultural orthodoxy or another. Polycultural
existences or cultural fluidity is inevitable.
But what do we do about the romantic entry of suburban whites into
Hinduism when many of the organs that disseminate the faith are
linked to the groups that conduct pogroms against Muslims in India?
Are "curiosity" and "respect" sufficient grounds for the entry of the
suburban white into the theocratic fascism of these variations of
faith?
In a perfect world, yes, but not in this one.
For about a decade, Biju Mathew (best known for his work with the New
York Taxi Workers' Association) and I have conducted research on the
Hindutva Right in the US and we've found that millions of dollars
travel each year through illegal and legal networks to finance right-
wing activity in the subcontinent.
This long-distance theocratic fascism was part of the destruction of
the mosque at Ayodhya in 1992, the anti-Christian riots in Gujarat a
few years ago, and now, certainly, in the state-engineered pogrom
against Muslims in Gujarat where at least two thousand people died.
Kanwal Rekhi, a neoliberal entrepreneur, co-wrote a powerful opinion
piece in the Washington Post (22 May 2002):
"Many overseas Indian Hindus, including some in this country,finance
religious groups in India in the belief that the funds will be used
to build temples, and educate and feed the poor of their faith. Many
would be appalled to know that some recipients of their money are out
to destroy minorities (Christians as well as Muslims) and their
places of worship. Mr. Vajpayee could deal a severe blow to such
covert causes by simply labeling them as terrorists."
What Rekhi missed was that it was not only "Indian Hindus" who
financed the pogrom, but also many suburban whites who uncritically
join temples and other such organizations. They give the Hindutva
Right money certainly, but also the much needed legitimacy of white
followers in the movement.
Of course the bulk of the saffron dollars comes from the Indian-
American community, but the suburban whites who don the robes of
Hindutva give prestige and legitimacy to the movement. The legacy and
persistence of racism provides respect to any artifact or institution
of color that is worn or frequented by whites.
This was the reason, for instance, why it was so important for the
erstwhile right-wing Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center at Columbia
University to attract large numbers of white scholars for its project
to whitewash Hindutva. Many came, mainly white women ,who study
various aspects of Hinduism and are themselves very well known and
otherwise respected scholars of Indology. Eager for cash, they
disregarded the role they played for Hindutva, just as those whites
who become Hindus in this day and age do not actively engage with the
crucial role Hindutva plays within global Hinduism.
Let's stay with the Hinduja institute. Funded by the arms-dealer and
industrialist S. P. Hinduja, the center is named for his late son
Dharam. Dharam, a Wharton graduate, fell in love with and married an
Anglo-Indian Catholic woman whom he wanted to marry. Adamantly
opposed to it, the family chased him off and, as a result, he
committed suicide in 1992.
Those so-called "Hindu values" that would not accept the child's
desire to live as a human being in a complex world were now to be
cruelly sanctified in a research institute that bears his name.
Even as Columbia University abandoned the money after sustained
protest by secular forces, Cambridge University continues to host
such a center (there is also one in New Delhi).
And the suburban whites in the Hindutva Right movement are not only
followers, because a few of them are important leaders. This should
come as no surprise to those of us who have been accosted by ISCKON
workers (the "Hare Krishnas") in airports and other places. Two of
the main grandees are men who converted to Hinduism, became important
intellectuals of the Hindutva movement and now flog the ideology via
the Internet, in their books and periodicals:
(1) David Frawley, aka Swami Vamdev.
Frawley is affiliated with various theocratic fascist organizations
such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Hindu Students Council
(HSC) and the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) - all three arms of the
global Hindutva movement whose teeth were bared in Gujarat recently.
In 1996,Frawley traveled across England as an honored guest of the
VHP.
>From Arise Arjuna (1995) to Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations
(2001), Frawley offers a Huntingtonian analysis of the clash between
Islam (bad) and Christianity (almost good), with Hinduism being the
necessary ally of the good. The anti-Muslim tenor of his books is
also evident in his works on ancient India (such as Gods, Sages and
Kings, 1991) where Frawley joins a series of theocratic fascists to
argue that Vedic India was bliss and that everything since then has
been a disaster.
(2) Satuguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami and Satguru Bodhinatha
Velanswami.
Founders of the magazine Hinduism Today and of the ashram in Hawaii
that houses the Hindu Heritage Endowment, these two swamis (Satguru
or Gurudev has since died) have very close ties to the VHP. Their
materials regularly quote approvingly from VHP documents and the
money raised by the HHE goes toward Hindutva activities.
There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with the pursuit of
spirituality under the sign of Hinduism; indeed there is perhaps much
to be gained from it. However, as Hindutva-style cruelty devastates
the landscape of Indian life, it is imperative for those who claim
Hinduism to offer ruthless criticism of global Hindutva.
If you attend a temple, ask the priests and others about their
relationship with the pogrom in Gujarat: and don't take their denials
at face value. Demand to see the account books, investigate the
guests who come and speak to the members, find out if any group like
the HSS runs the show. Do not allow liberal multiculturalism to give
global Hindutva cover from secular forces.
Finally, as global Hindutva tries to get United Way clearance and as
its front organs try to pose as charitable organizations, be ready to
fight them all the way. The current exchange rate is fifty rupees for
one dollar. Even a few greenbacks translate into crucial resources in
impoverished zones and become a saffron bludgeon against the Indian
masses.

_____

#3.

The Observer (London)
Sunday July 21, 2002
Observer Worldview

Militants seek Muslim-free India

Burhan Wazir reports from Gujarat on an explosion of violence,=20
nationalism and Nazi-style politics and its result: 2,000 killed and=20
100,000 homeless

At the elegantly simple home of Mahatma Gandhi in Ahmedabad, the=20
bustling capital of Gujarat state, a museum eulogises his=20
contribution to the founding of India. Gandhi's clothes, books,=20
journals and photographs line the walls. Outside in the freshly=20
watered gardens the mango trees are in full bloom. One journal=20
contains Gandhi's simple denunciation of violence: 'The science of=20
war leads one to dictatorship. The science of non-violence alone can=20
lead one to a pure democracy.'

More than 50 years after his death at the hands of a nationalist=20
militant, Gandhi would find India unrecognisable. In the past five=20
months his home state has been stunned by religious violence that=20
shows few signs of fading.

India's worst religious violence since the 1947 partition was sparked=20
at the end of February when 57 Hindu pilgrims were killed in the=20
alleged torching of a train carriage by Muslim militants in Godhra.=20
Hindu militants sought a swift revenge.

Since then, massacres by Hindu gangs have become commonplace. In five=20
months, more than 2,000 Muslims have been killed and more than=20
100,000 displaced, congregating in squalid camps around Gujarat.

The state is in turmoil. On Friday, only hours after the state's top=20
elected official, Chief Minister Narendra Modi, resigned and=20
dissolved the legislative assembly to seek a fresh mandate, at least=20
two people were killed and eight others injured when police opened=20
fire to disperse rioting mobs. In recent months Mohdi had come under=20
attack for his delayed response to the killings. His resignation was=20
eclipsed, however, on Thursday when 70-year-old Muslim scientist Dr=20
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, an unrepentant nationalist and the father of=20
India's nuclear missile programme, was elected to the largely=20
ceremonial role of President.

The violence has been linked to the rise of extremist Hindu groups=20
such as the Association of National Volunteers, or the RSS - a=20
khaki-clad nationalist paramilitary sect formed in the Twenties - and=20
its offspring, the World Hindu Council, or the VHP.

Gujarat is one of the few states in India controlled by the ruling=20
Bharatiya Janata Party. The state has been described as a 'laboratory=20
for Hindu fascism'. Since rising to power in the mid-Nineties, the=20
BJP has aggressively pursued a pro-Hindu agenda.

It has also backed the construction of a temple in Ayodhya, where=20
Hindu nationalists destroyed a mosque in 1992. Several members of the=20
present Cabinet, including the Indian Deputy Prime Minister, L.K.=20
Advani, were present at the demolition.

The RSS and the World Hindu Council, described locally as 'Saffron=20
Warriors', have one clear aim: Hindu expansion by mass conversion.=20
The militants believe that India was once an empire of 75 countries=20
stretching from Cambodia to Iran.

They have introduced textbooks that convey former Hindu glories, and=20
they propagate the myth of an India under siege from native Islamic=20
militants. The RSS also lobbies to reintroduce the traditional names=20
of cities like Mumbai, until recently Bombay.

'The situation is getting out of control,' says Arvind Sisodia,=20
vice-president of the VHP in Gujarat. A passionate advocate of the=20
Hindutva or 'global Hindu conscious ness', Sisodia is a middle-class=20
worker at the Life Insurance Corporation of India.

'In Gujarat, the Muslims own all the shops; they are involved in=20
illegal trade,' says Sisodia. 'And Muslim boys steal our Hindu girls=20
and marry them. So the situation is unbearable.'

In the days after the first killings in Gujarat, the VHP distributed=20
leaflets asking Hindus to pledge a boycott of Muslims - including=20
refusing to be taught by Muslim teachers and ensuring sisters and=20
daughters did not fall into 'the love-trap of Muslim boys'.

'It is up to all Hindus to make sure that we restore India to=20
dominance,' says Sisodia. 'Hinduism was once the dominant faith.=20
Muslims have to learn to adapt. Otherwise, it will be dangerous for=20
them. We don't want them here.'

A few days after the deaths at Godhra, on a humid morning in an=20
inner-city enclave of Ahmedabad, around 20 men marched up to the=20
Indian flag and offered the Nazi salute. This was a training camp, or=20
shakha, run by the RSS. There are about 40,000 camps scattered=20
throughout India and informal ones abroad for expatriates.

The men, many of them in their thirties, are middle-class=20
professionals - employees of Ahmedabad's bustling industrial=20
community. India's middle classes are the keenest recruits to the RSS=20
- drawn by fears of Islamic terrorism and of Westernisation amid a=20
crumbling national economy.

In a fashionable Ahmedabad gated community lives Vijay Chauthaiwale,=20
a microbiologist. Over lunch, with the World Cup playing on a=20
satellite channel behind him, he explained his attraction to the RSS:=20
'We are a very modern family,' he said, 'but I feel that the more we=20
move towards the West, the more likely we are to lose our Hindu=20
values.

'Gandhi would not have understood,' he said. 'He was an old-fashioned=20
man with old-fashioned ideas. No one believes those things any more.=20
The world has changed. And for Hindus to survive, we have to protect=20
our culture and our way of life.'

For middle-class families such as Chauthaiwale's, the Indian secular=20
experiment has proved disastrous. The country's Muslim population -=20
now 11 per cent - is seen as a primary threat. 'Where do the=20
allegiances of the Muslims lie?' asked Kaushik Mehta, general=20
secretary of the VHP in Gujarat.

He pointed to an enclave of Ahmedabad dubbed 'mini-Pakistan' for its=20
madrassahs, or Islamic schools. 'We can't allow such places to exist.=20
They train terrorists. Muslims have to integrate. If they refuse to,=20
we'll be forced to make them. Or they can leave.'

For the 100,000 Muslims in squalid camps around Gujarat there is no=20
such escape. In nearby Pakistan, India's Muslims are viewed as=20
traitors who betrayed Pakistan after partition. And now the Muslim=20
camps are being shut down, casting their occupants into the streets=20
and into the hands of Hindu extremists.

Most are fearful of returning to their villages. 'They can't go back=20
because they face death threats,' said Father Cedric Prakash,=20
director of Prashant, a human rights group in Ahmedabad. 'The=20
fanatics have all the power.'

More violence seems inevitable. At the end of February, Anjum Bana=20
escaped her village in Panderwala with her six-week-old daughter. As=20
Hindu militants torched the village, she hid in the forest. 'There=20
was nothing to eat or drink for three days,' she said. 'I could hear=20
people shouting RSS slogans all around me. And my child was dying. I=20
know I can't go back.'

The hawkish former Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narinder Mohdi,=20
however, is unconvinced. In the early days of the rioting, as the=20
body count escalated, Mohdi famously said Gujarat's Hindus had shown=20
'remarkable restraint'. Shortly before resigning on Friday, he said:=20
'There is no problem with people returning back home. If they don't=20
want to go, they should be forced back. They have to go back.'

In a shabby camp in a graveyard in Ahmedabad, residents have taken to=20
organising a night-time watch. 'They know that once we are on the=20
streets we are vulnerable. I can't understand it. I have lived with=20
Hindu neighbours for 40 years, and there have never been any=20
problems. Now those same neighbours have turned on me. And no one=20
will look after us.'

=B7 Burhan Wazir presents 'Unreported World: Saffron Warriors' on=20
Channel 4 on Saturday at 7.40 pm.

_____

#4.

MOVEMENT FOR SECULAR DEMOCRACY
C/o, Narmad-Meghani Library, Opp. Natraj Railway Crossing,=20
Mithakhali, Ellis Bridge, AHMEDABAD-380006. Ph.no: - (079) 6404418.=20
E-mail: - <mailto:dnr@i...>dnr@i...

ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF NHRC'S RECCOMMENDATION

Friends

As per the resolution taken in Vasant Rajab Conference on D.30-6-02 a=20
meeting will be held at AMBEDDKAR CENTENARY HALL, near Dashkoi=20
Chamber, Jalaram Mandir, Khamasa Gate, Ahmedabad on 1st. AUG.at 5.30=20
P.M. to work out action programme on the implementation of the NHRC's=20
recommendation and other peoples issues. Please attend and inform=20
others.

DHARNA ON 9th. AUGUST near Martyr Vinod Kinariwala Memorial

To pursue the matter a Dharna Programme is taken on 9th.August the=20
day of the Quit India movement day. The Dharna will start at 8A.M.=20
near Gujarat College. At 9 A.M. Tribute will be paid to the MARTYR=20
VINOD KINARIWALA at Gujarat College. The Dharna will continue up to=20
12 noon. The highlight of the programme will be the fullest=20
implementation

_____

#5.

The Times of India
July 22, 2002

VHP flexes muscles as British MPs plan visit
RASHMEE Z AHMED
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SUNDAY, JULY 21, 2002 10:04:50 PM ]
LONDON: In an indication of their intense and continuing interest in=20
the aftermath of the Gujarat violence, eight MPs of Britain's=20
governing Labour Party have said they will visit the state to get "a=20
clearer picture of the situation on the ground", even as a ding-dong=20
battle has begun between Muslim organisations and the VHP for=20
Labour's heart and soul.
MPs, who include some from Muslim constituencies, such as Terry=20
Rooney of Bradford and Fabian Hamilton of Leeds, have dismissed the=20
Indian government's oft-stated concern that British politicians are=20
making domestic capital out of foreign issues, with one eye on the=20
Muslim votebank.
In March, India criticised the British High Commission's leaked=20
report into the Gujarat violence and asked other countries to mind=20
their own business.
But Rooney, who announced the MPs' forthcoming visit at a 400-strong=20
public meeting in Bradford late on Saturday, told TNN the new=20
fact-finding mission to India was an expression of "concern about=20
human rights".
He said, "the Indian government always churns out such nonsense when=20
anyone wants to visit from anywhere. They should know that people do=20
care about human rights abuses. One has to ask, why are the Indian=20
government is so afraid. Perhaps they do have something to hide".
Rooney confirmed that the MPs would visit Gujarat and Kashmir in October.
Rooney's passionate words come after a series of well-attended public=20
meetings about Gujarat, organised across Britain by disparate Muslim=20
organisations and attended in most cases by local Labour Party MPs=20
and leading Labour activists.
The organisations, which include several Indian Gujarati Muslim=20
groups, told this paper they were seeking to keep up the pressure on=20
Tony Blair's government to demand answers from the Indian government=20
and redressal for the victims of the Gujarat violence.
Ismail Lahir of the 1,000-member Federation of Gujarati Muslim=20
Organisations, which organised Saturday's Bradford meeting, told TNN=20
they wanted to focus on "the 100,000 Gujarat refugees still in camps,=20
who are homeless in their own country".
More controversially, said Lahir, the Bradford meeting renewed its=20
call for the British government "to include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad=20
in the list of banned terrorist organisations".
The call for the VHP to be banned has been put to several Labour MPs=20
with sizeable numbers of Muslim constituents.
The VHP, however, said it had been assured by British home secretary=20
David Blunkett and junior home minister Angela Eagle that nothing of=20
the sort would happen.
VHP spokesman Hasmukh Shah told this paper that he met Blunkett and=20
foreign secretary Jack Straw just before Straw's departure for India=20
last week.
"The VHP is a registered charity. This is serious mischief by=20
Muslims, a case of sour grapes because attention is focussed on most=20
British mosques, whose madrasas breed extremists".
The VHP, he said, would now lobby Blair's Labour Party seeking=20
answers to the question why its MPs were lending support to meetings=20
where the VHP was referred to as a terrorist organisation.

_____

#6.

The Columbus Dispatch
Letters to the Editor
Saturday, July 20, 2002

India uses rape as tool of repression

A recent Dispatch article, "Rapes left unpunished after rioting in=20
India", highlighted the failure of the police to act against the=20
culprits who raped hundreds of Muslim women in the state of Gujarat=20
in recent months.

The abhorrent crime of rape has been employed against Muslim, Sikh=20
and Christian communities in India to teach minorities a lesson.

A citizens commission report stated: "The women were herded together=20
into one room. Some of them ran away but were pursued to the nearby=20
nallah (creek) where they were raped. Their shrieks and cries for=20
help fell on deaf ears.

"From among the women held in the room, the hoodlums asked each other=20
to select whomsoever they chose. All the women were stripped and many=20
dishonored.

"Their lust satisfied, they told the women to get out, naked as they=20
were. For fear of their lives they did so, hiding their shame as best=20
as possible. Each begged or borrowed a garment from relenting=20
neighbors and sought shelter wherever they could.''

Surprisingly, the above horrific report is not from the recent=20
incidents in Gujarat but from more than 17 years ago, when hundreds=20
of Sikh women were publicly raped in November 1984 in the capital of=20
India. Even today, the culprits remain at large because the police=20
say that specific persons can't be identified within murderous mobs.

Torture and rape of Sikh women detainees in Punjab was a regular=20
feature of the Indian state police and federal security forces in the=20
1980s and 1990s.

In Kashmir, the Indian security forces are reputed to be proud of=20
raping Muslim women as a form of collective punishment and=20
humiliation for the Muslim community. In September 1998, two=20
Christian nuns were gang- raped by a local mob in Madhya Pradesh.=20
Many accused have never been brought to justice.

Why does India encourage the continued use of rape as a tool for the=20
persecution of religious minorities? Because the world's most=20
populous democracy views the brutal rape of women as an effective=20
tool to humiliate and show minority faiths their place.

TARUNJIT S. BUTALIA
Dublin
<butalia.1@o...>

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