[sacw] SACW | 7 Sept. 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 7 September 2002

__________________________

#1. Bloodshed in the Himalayas again? (Praful Bidwai)
#2. Appeal from Nahid Siddiqui, Kathak dancer
#3. New Film on India's Partition.
#4. Responsibility and Revenge (Mukul Dube)
#5. Hindu Swastika (Editorial in the Telegraph )
#6. Breeding Little Fascists : A review of documentary film on RSS=20
(Sudhanva Deshpande)
#7. INSAF Bulletin [5] September 1, 2002
#8. India Pakistan Arms Race & Militarisation Watch # 93 | 6 September 200=
2

__________________________

#1.

"The News International", Pakistan, September 5, 2002

Bloodshed in the Himalayas again?

Praful Bidwai

Such is the gut-level mutual suspicion and visceral distrust
between India's and Pakistan's rulers that they haven't
even tried to do what other, typically mightier, wielders of
power have practised for decades with varying degrees of
success: namely, manage, regulate and control their rivalry
so that it doesn't become destructive in an all-consuming
way. Thus, all that our two states have achieved over half
a century by way of strategic confidence-building measures
can be summed up in a few lines.

Arguably, the two most important CBMs are their
agreement not to attack each other's nuclear facilities, and
to activate the "hotline" connection between their
respective Directors General of Military Operations once
every week. Lahore-1999 was meant to improve on that
through more CBMs, but these haven't materialised.

One might argue that the weekly-call arrangement is too
meagre for two nuclear-weapons powers which,
strategically, live check by jowl and normally have
hundreds of thousands of troops close to their common
border. Yet, even the hotline can go dead in a crisis,
rather than, very vitally, become the sole means of
communication between states once regular diplomatic
contacts cease. "Routine" exercises and manoeuvres too
can spin out of control.

When that happens, our military establishments' first,
Pavlovian, response is to deny and/or cover up, and
pretend all is hunky-dory, thus allowing mutual suspicions
to fester and encouraging commanders to vow to "avenge"
setbacks, even "humiliation".

It is altogether unacceptable that such knee-jerk
responses should combine with mindless opacity while
there are one million troops on the border. Yet, that's
precisely what seems to be happening. Take the claimed
"unprovoked" incursion on August 23 by Indian troops
across the Line of Control (LoC) at Gultari, in (ouch!)
Kargil.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj-Gen Rashid Qureishi
claimed that 70 Indian soldiers, backed by a Mirage-2000
fighter, launched an "unprovoked" attack nine kilometres
inside Pakistani territory. He claimed that Pakistan
"successfully defended the Gultari post" and that 16 Indian
soldiers were killed. He even told Indian journalists on the
phone on August 23 that Pakistani forces could see "the
bodies of Indian soldiers strewn on the heights" of Kargil.

India described the charge as "false and malicious".
Defence minister George Fernandes said: "It is a total
falsehood. There could not be a greater lie than this. Such
white lies have become a habit (with Pakistan)". Curiously,
the remaining part of the official reaction came not from
the Defence Ministry, but the Ministry of External Affairs
(MEA). The same day, army chief Padmanabhan left for
Srinagar.

The incident coincided with Richard Armitage's visit to
India. The MEA saw a plot here. It accused Islamabad of
raising "the bogey of army operations by India" primarily
"to divert the focus from infiltration to mobilisation, thus
attempting to bring international pressure" on New Delhi.
Since then, India's Defence Ministry has "selectively"
briefed journalists-another nasty South Asian habit, this-to
claim that Pakistan had deliberately conflated the
"fictitious" August 23 incident with a real one which
occurred on July 29 (and reportedly ended only on August
4). In that real incident, Indian troops recaptured a post
codenamed 3610 at Loonda, overlooking the Neelam
Valley, on the Indian side of the LoC in the Machil sector.

Earlier, Pakistani troops had occupied 3610 "without being
detected by Indian troops"-in an operation reminiscent of
the capture of posts which triggered off Kargil in 1999.

This was deeply embarrassing to the Indian Army, which
launched a major operation reportedly using eight
Mirage-2000 planes to pound Pakistani positions with
1,000-lb precision-guided bombs. These destroyed four
bunkers. Also used were 155-mm Bofors howitzers. The
military intelligence assessment is that "at least" 28
Pakistani soldiers were killed.

According to the Pakistani version, nothing happened on
July 29 at Loonda. According to the Indian version, nothing
happened on August 23 at Gultari.

It is extremely difficult to verify rival claims and piece
together the truth. Absence of direct access to Kargil
precludes on-the-spot reporting. There is plenty of
uncertainty about some details. Nevertheless, going by
reports in India's independent media, it seems plausible,
although not certain, that an incident occurred on August
23.

According to the "Star News" and "Aaj Tak" television
channels, Indian soldiers crossed the LoC, probably in
"retaliation" for a Pakistan incursion. Some reports
suggested that the operation was botched up; Gultari was
not captured. However, no one reported casualties on the
Indian side.

Qureishi told "Star News" that he had "evidence" of India's
incursion and would quickly present it. It soon became
apparent that the evidence would not be readily available.
Later, Qureishi promised some other Indian journalists
that he would display the evidence "in 10-15 days". This
has not happened at the time of writing.

According to Pakistani diplomatic sources, who shall
remain nameless, Indian troops did try to take the Gultari
post on August 23, but "failed" despite the use of
warplanes; the Americans have "irrefutable evidence" of
the incident. They also say there was "no incident" on July
29; the record of the weekly exchanges between the
DGMOs in the relevant period is silent on the issue! (I
could not obtain an official counterpoint from the Indian
side. But that position is well-reiterated.)

Several nagging questions arise. If the Pakistani claim is
correct, why would India's Defence Ministry lie? How does
that help it? But if my diplomatic source is right about the
(zero) casualties, Qureishi is wrong.

Could India's alleged August 23 operation, combining army
and air power, have been ordered without approval from
the "higher authorities", as would only seem logical? Or
has so much power been devolved to local commanders
that they can act on their own?

If the Gultari "incursion" indeed had approval from the top,
what does that say about unreasonable, if not reckless,
risk-taking in an already extremely tense situation? The
dangers of excessive decentralisation of military command
should be equally self-evident. Neither proposition speaks
of responsible leadership.

If the Pakistan Army merely "concocted" the August 23
incident, as the Indian's allege, what does that say about
Islamabad's motives and calculations? And its leadership
or command structures?

How are we citizens to trust and respect our
military-political leaders when they can't even provide a
remotely coherent account of what happened on July 29
and August 23, nor allow access to information which can
then be independently analysed? Must this remain an
article of faith: My Army, Right or Wrong?

Or must we depend on our collective hegemon, the US, to
tell us what happened? The Americans surely have the
relevant satellite pictures, and the human intelligence as
well. Besides, four days ago, I saw an Associated Press
picture of Jonah Blank, adviser to the US Senate foreign
relations committee, with a Col Smith of the US military,
being escorted by area commander Brig Firzouk Attaullah
in-guess?-the Gultari sector!

How one wishes the subcontinent's leaders had a little
less mutual suspicion, trifle more confidence, and
marginally greater respect for the truth!

______

#2.

Dear friends:

Internationally acclaimed U.K based Kathak dancer, Nahid Siddiqui, is
due to tour Britain, sponsored by the Arts Council of Britian. On
this tour, she needs to be accompanied by two musicians - who are
based in Pakistan. Four weeks ago, work permits were issued from the
UK for these musicians to accompany her on this tour. These work
permits were sent to the British visa department in Pakistan.
When the musicians went to the British High Commission, they were
told that they would be called for an interview. However, this has
not yet happened.
The Arts Council of Britain has also written to the British High
Commission in Islamabad, supporting this tour and asking for an entry
clearance for these musicians.In the past, Nahid has called many
musicians from around the world to accompany her on her performances
in Britain.
Visas have never been a problem for any of these musicians travelling
to UK. In this particular instace, the visas for these Pakistani
musicians have not been denied, but are being delayed unnessasarily.
The tour starts on September 18. That already gives little time for
the musicians to rehearse and prepare for the tour. Nahid Siddiqui
has been settled in England for the last 25 years and has been an
embassador of peace between the two countries. Please write to the
British High Commission in Islamabad and request them to please grant
the visas to Mr. Alah Loak and Mr. Mohammad Baksh on an urgent basis.
Friends, especially those based in the UK, are requested to please
write to the newspapers they read, and send copies of the letters to
the British High Commission in Islamabad. I'm copying below the
contacts of the British High Commissions in Islamabad, Karachi and
Lahore, in case friends there want fax them this appeal.

Thanks. beena [sarwar]

British High Commission Islamabad
Diplomatic Enclave, Ramna-5
Telephone +92 (51) 2206071-75, 2822131-5 (all sections)
Fax +92 (51) 2279356 (Consular)
+92 (51) 2824728 (Visa)
Email visqryislamabad@f... (Visa enquiries)

British High Commission Visa and Consular Office
Avari Plaza
87 Shahrah-e Quaid-e-Azam
Lahore-54000.
British Trade Office Lahore
65 Mozang Road, P.O Box 1679, Lahore
Telephone +92 (42) 6316589-90
Fax +92 (42) 6316591
Email btolahor@l...

______

#3.

The Guardian , Saturday August 31 2002

Historians have been stunned by previously unseen footage of the=20
human misery that followed India's Partition. Now the public can see=20
it - and it could damage Mountbatten's reputation
Vanessa Thorpe

They are images that will change the way we think about the British=20
Empire. Since the last days of the Raj, historians have wrangled over=20
the imperial legacy in India, but the full extent of the suffering=20
inflicted when Mountbatten, the last Viceroy in charge of the=20
continent, pulled out in 1947, is about to be revealed as never=20
before.

Following the enormous success of The Second World War in Colour, ITV=20
is now to screen The British Empire in Colour, an astonishing=20
collection of original colour film footage shot at the far-flung=20
outposts of empire and now restored for its first public viewing.=20=20

The three-part television series, broadcast later this month, will=20
feature unseen colour sequences from Africa, Australia, Canada and=20
the West Indies. Yet it is frames shot at the time of the Partition=20
of India that have stunned audiences at early screenings and already=20
provoked argument among eminent historians - some of whom have drawn=20
comparisons with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda.=20=20

The British, and in particular Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince=20
Charles's great uncle and adored mentor, come across as vainglorious=20
interlopers who left the continent when trouble loomed. Terrible=20
scenes, not seen before, of thousands of dispossessed refugees=20
trailing across the newly created border with Pakistan will make it=20
hard to defend the memory of colonial India as a caring, orderly=20
place, which was run in increasing collaboration with Indians.

But for the outspoken historian Andrew Roberts, and for Professor=20
Judith Brown, the Oxford academic who advised the programme-makers on=20
India, these distressing pictures will be a welcome jolt to Britain's=20
complacent self-image.=20

'At the time of transition the British establishment admitted that=20
around 100,000 had died,' said Roberts this weekend. 'But from my own=20
researches the figure is more like three quarters of a million. A=20
figure not unadjacent to what happened in Rwanda and worse, I think,=20
than in Bosnia.=20=20

'It is high time that programmes such as these should bring us=20
sharply up against our own failed responsibilities at the end of=20
Empire.'=20

Brown also believes the Carlton/TWI series will at last show viewers=20
'the human cost' of Mountbatten's fateful decision to pull out of=20
India at short notice and leave the Muslims and Hindus to fight over=20
the new division of territory.=20

'This is going to be something of an eye-opener,' she said. 'We talk=20
now about the awfulness of ethnic cleansing and, well, here it was.=20
Once you start talking to any family in Delhi they all have their own=20
terrible story of partition, and it is the same on the other side of=20
the border in Pakistan.

'The footage shows terrible trails of people and much of this is not=20
known about in Britain where it was described at the time as "a=20
peaceful transfer of power".'=20

Brown argues that the British were obviously 'delighted to extricate=20
themselves', but admits that the problems of partition cannot all be=20
laid at Mountbatten's door. He had, after all, opened up the=20
Viceregal Lodge to Indians and banned racist remarks.=20=20

'The diaries of the previous Viceroy, Wavell, show that he already=20
knew the British were living on borrowed time,' she said.=20

'But we could not send out troops to help because there were coal=20
shortages in Britain and people just wanted to have a roof over their=20
head and some coal in the grate.'=20

The horrifying new footage paints an unfair picture of the Raj,=20
however, according to the historian Jan Morris.=20

'On the whole the British Empire in India was benevolent and=20
enlightened as empires go,' she said. 'Of course, we now know that=20
the idea of Empire itself is wrong, but that doesn't mean all that=20
was done there was wrong. Mountbatten can't be blamed for the=20
antipathies between religions.'=20=20

Morris agrees with Brown that Mountbatten was something of a showman,=20
but she argues that the Raj was maintained by 'generations of decent=20
people who went out there selflessly'.=20

The controversial footage was bequeathed to the Imperial War Museum=20
in the 1990s but has been watched by astonished curators for the=20
first time this summer.

While there are impressive familiar images of colonial regalia and=20
imperial pomp, it is the scenes of partition that struck the museum's=20
archivist, Kay Gladstone.=20

'The refugee scenes are extraordinary,' he said. 'The immediacy of=20
the colour makes us respond because we all lack the imagination to=20
see this kind of pain in black and white newsreel.

'I don't think it can be viewed impartially,' he added. 'You can't be=20
complacent about what was happening there.'=20

Series producer Lucy Carter is prepared to face criticism about=20
editorial bias against Mountbatten and the British decision to pull=20
out of India at high speed.=20

'I knew we were going to get asked about our objectivity,' she said.=20
'But the fact is that when you get into a story like this, your=20
natural views come over.=20

'This is a story that still divides academics. Some think Mountbatten=20
created chaos; all I can say is that this is the most historically=20
breathtaking material I have ever seen.=20

'This was the largest forced migration the world had known and it=20
manages to capture the epic proportions of it. It makes history=20
suddenly become very real and we used as much of it as we could.'=20

* The TWI/Carlton series The British Empire in Colour will be=20
broadcast on ITV this month. A book, video and DVD will also be=20
available to coincide with the series

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited=20
Observer site, go to http://www.observer.co.uk

______

#4.

[ Please Note, the following article may not be quoted as it is still=20
to be published. Permision may be sought directly from the author at:=20
<payasam@v...> ]

Responsibility and Revenge

Mukul Dube

In no civilised society are the kinfolk and descendants of criminals=20
punished for the crimes of their relatives and ancestors. If I murder=20
someone and then abscond, my daughter will not hang for my homicide.=20
My neighbourhood will not be punished for my crime, nor my classmates=20
at school, nor my office colleagues, nor my wife's natal relations -=20
nor, certainly, people who may never even have heard of me but who=20
happen to bow to the same divinity as I do.

India's penal code is a modern system of laws. Only the individual=20
criminal may be tried and punished. Other individuals may be brought=20
in only if they also committed the crime (a group crime) or if they=20
were abettors or conspirators. The laws of evidence and proof are=20
aimed at establishing beyond a doubt which individual is guilty.=20
Descriptions such as "a one-legged Hindu in Marwari dress and hiking=20
boots with a brown cow and a loud transistor radio" do not hold,=20
because they can point to many people: whereas the particular=20
criminal must be unambiguously identified by face and name. Once this=20
person is identified, s/he alone is punished.

To Hindutva, however, every Muslim represents all Muslims, and every=20
collectivity of Muslims, no matter when in history or where in=20
geography, is represented by every living Muslim. Every Hindu alive=20
today is sought to be made to feel personally every harm that may=20
have been done to any Hindu at any time or at any place. Since the=20
meta-history concocted by Hindutva is bereft of anything remotely=20
resembling truth, what this means in effect is that every Hindu has=20
the right to avenge, in any way he pleases, any crime which he=20
chooses to claim as having been committed against anyone anywhere.=20
For the present, Muslims are the evil-doers: later it will be the=20
Christians and the Sikhs; and eventually the Incas and the dinosaurs=20
will suffer retribution at the hands of this spectacularly=20
reason-free Hindutva.

The sameness and alacrity with which the adherents of Sangh Hindutva=20
spring to the defence of their vilest actions will never cease to=20
amaze. Out it all comes in an unstoppable torrent: Somnath, Mahmud,=20
Aurangzeb, Jinnah, Bukhari.... There is never time to ask what all=20
these have to do, for example, with Gujarat in 2002. There is never=20
any point either: these soldiers' brains are warped beyond=20
straightening, their heads full of a glutinous mass in which=20
different times and places and individuals just cannot be separated.

Vengeance is its own justification. Never mind that the collective=20
manifestation of the "eye for an eye" brand of justice was abandoned=20
centuries ago by the civilised world; and that an impartial, neutral=20
justice is preferred everywhere over vengeance. Hindutva constantly=20
harks back to what it imagines to have been the Vedas. The Vedic Age,=20
for it, is another crazy patchwork of half-truths and utter untruth.=20
Need we wonder, then, that the notion of rational justice is entirely=20
absent from its construction of collective pan-historical vengeance?

If the Hindutva Brigade should burn a Christian missionary in=20
Jharkhand, its action would be declared to be revenge for the force=20
used by the Portuguese during the Goan inquisition. If it should=20
slaughter a Muslim carpenter in Naini Tal or a Muslim chaukidar in=20
Port Blair, that would be to avenge Mohammed Ghori's depredations and=20
something to do with Alauddin Khalji and something else to do with=20
the Babar-Aurangzeb lineage, all in one breathless, unholy jumble.

So convoluted is the illogic of Hindutva, so breathtaking are its=20
leaps of unreason, so wildly fantastic are the connections which it=20
seeks to establish, that it can make literally anything the cause of=20
literally anything else. Narendra's wife-beating is justified, so to=20
speak, because Santa Claus did not feed his elves on time or because=20
Vesuvius was not plugged securely by those divine idiots on Olympus=20
who were, of course, gods of the wrong religion.

When a tape measure is made of elastic material, anything can measure=20
any length one pleases, and nothing has any meaning any more. With=20
the merest flick of an eye-lash, the ideologue of Hindutva bend rods=20
of steel into the most grotesque shapes. Unfortunately the result is=20
always a weapon - the more cruel, the better. Never is a jalebi the=20
outcome. All the mental energy of Hindutva, all its hyperactive=20
imagination, all its highly evolved sophistry, all the acrobatic=20
side-stepping it goes into when someone attempts rational argument -=20
all these are always channelled destructively. Fear and hatred are=20
the well-springs of Hindutva. Neither can know reason: neither can=20
work for the good.

______

#5.

The Telegraph
Saturday, September 07, 2002
Editorial
HINDU SWASTIKA

Liberalism and belief in the democratic ethos hit their limit with Mr=20
Singhal's celebration of the Gujarat pogrom

There is one thing to be said in favour of Mr Ashok Singhal, the=20
international working president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. He=20
never leaves you in doubt about where he stands. Those who have been=20
following his singularly unedifying but spectacular rise to public=20
prominence know of his hatred of Muslims and of his advocacy of a=20
creed he calls Hinduism but which has no resemblance to any of the=20
tenets associated with the faith that goes by the name of Hinduism.=20
Thus it is not surprising that Mr Singhal announced, in a small=20
function in Amritsar, that Gujarat had been a very successful=20
experiment. He acclaimed the fact that entire villages had been=20
"emptied of Islam" and that large numbers of Muslims had been=20
dispatched to refugee camps. All this, according to Mr Singhal, was a=20
victory for Hindu society. For good measure, he added that the=20
Gujarat experiment would be repeated all over India.

It is true that fanatics all over the world, irrespective of their=20
religious and ideological colour, do not follow the dictates of=20
reason nor do they speak the language of decency. Thus, it is only to=20
be expected that Mr Singhal should spout hatred in the name of=20
religion and that he should celebrate the killing of Muslims and the=20
destruction of their properties. The problem lies elsewhere. The=20
immediate question that springs to mind concerns the extent of=20
freedom that can be allowed in a democracy. Should Mr Singhal or any=20
one else be allowed to make statements of this kind and propagate a=20
creed that violates not only the tenets of secularism enshrined in=20
the Constitution but also destroys the very basis of any kind of=20
civilized existence? Liberalism in India and the belief in the=20
democratic ethos hit their limits with the kind of pronouncements=20
made by Mr Singhal. At a strictly legal level, Mr Singhal is guilty=20
of inciting communal passions, and his speech in Amritsar was openly=20
inflammatory.

The point is important because hatred of Muslims and all things=20
Islamic is at the very core of the creed Mr Singhal advocates. It is,=20
in fact, the raison d'=EAtre of the organization, the VHP, that Mr=20
Singhal heads. Moreover, such hatred was the driving force in the=20
formation of the Hindu Mahasabha, out of which have sprung=20
organizations like the VHP and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Both V.D.=20
Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar, the founding fathers of the Hindu=20
Mahasabha, made no secret of their belief that Muslims were aliens in=20
India and of their intense hatred of Muslims. Mr Singhal is part of=20
this long line of fanaticism and he is merely echoing his gurus.=20
That, of course, makes his ideas even more despicable and dangerous.

The danger does not lie only in the threat that Mr Singhal and the=20
VHP embody in a pluralist society like India. It lies in two opposite=20
directions. One is the relegation of Mr Singhal to the loony fringe=20
of Hindutva. The other is the space being given to him and other=20
elements of the sangh parivar to set the national agenda. Critics of=20
Mr Singhal are guilty on both counts and that is why he flourishes.

______

#6.

Breeding Little Fascists
Sudhanva Deshpande

As Kali, a young ex-swayamsevak (volunteer) from Nagpur is asked,
=EBWho was Shivaji?=ED we see him straining with thought. His eyes reach
into the recess of his memory, trying desperately to dig up
information on a name that seems dimly familiar. The film cuts to
that moment eight years ago, when Kali, then a young school-going
boy, is being told in his RSS shakha (branch) about Shivaji. The film
cuts to his classroom in school where his teacher drones on in
English about how Shivaji fought Muslim rulers on behalf of the
oppressed Hindus. In the end, Kali is asked to answer a question by
his teacher on what he has just heard. Clueless, Kali gets up and
stares into space, pretending to think hard. Cut to the present, as
the older Kali struggles hard yet again for that elusive answer. =EBI
don=EDt know=ED, he says finally, =EBbut I think he had something to do
with the Shiv Sena.=ED

Kali features in The Men in the Tree, a 98-minute documentary on the
RSS by Lalit Vachani. If the title is a little confusing, that is
because the film is a sequel to Boy in the Branch, a much shorter
film made in 1992. This earlier film documented the activities of one
RSS shakha in Nagpur, where the organization has its headquarters.
Vachani wanted to see how the RSS recruits and trains its young
activists. The commentary tells us that he went to Nagpur expecting
to see images of fascist indoctrination reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
What he saw instead was so simple in its ingenuity that it was almost
brilliant. Young boys came to the shakha and under the watchful eye
of the shakha pramukh (branch leader), they played games. These games
were the first step in an elaborate chain of RSS indoctrination. For
instance, one game begins with the children shouting =EBKashmir belongs
to us!=ED Another, a name game, is interesting in how certain names
from Indian history are included (Sardar Patel, Rani Lakshmi Bai,
Rana Pratap, Gandhi, etc.), how some are excluded (Ashfaqullah Khan
or Akbar), and how some names are juxtaposed with others (thus Gandhi
would be followed by, say, Golwalkar). Through these games, the
young boys acquire a sense of belonging to the collective of the RSS
shakha even as their consciousness is systematically communalized.
And it is through these games that the boys also acquire the other
RSS traits: a sense of discipline, uncritical obedience and reverence
of authority, and hatred of the enemy. The enemy as defined by the
RSS, of course. Muslims, Christians, Communists, whatever.

The crucial question obviously is how much of this indoctrination
survives in the boys as they grow older. If we were to take Kali as a
representative case, very little. Kali thinks that the demolition of
the Babri Masjid was wrong, and he has a complete disregard for
presumed historical rights and wrongs. Sadly, however, Kali is
perhaps not the typical case. When Vachani went back to Nagpur in
October 2000 to track the boys who had formed the central characters
of Boy in the Branch, he found that Kali attended the shakha for
about two years, and then the shakha itself wound up and he drifted
away from Hindutva into the more benign occupation of running a small
shop. This was not the case with Sandeep, who sells ayurvedic
medicine today, after having worked six years as an RSS pracharak
(full-time propagandist). Sandeep is charming, articulate and
passionate in a quiet sort of way. His smile lights up his face. He
never looks like someone who will go around murdering and looting.
Unlike Shripad, a building contractor, who used to be the physical
instructor in Kali=EDs shakha. Shripad looks like a goon, and talks
like one. He tells us, eyes gleaming with pride and hatred, that he
was among those who stood atop the dome of the Babri Masjid on that
fateful December day ten years ago. Sandeep had not been among those
who razed the mosque to the ground. He was one of those, he tells us
with his easy smile, who was manning the =EBbase camp=ED. Different
personalities, different styles; united, however, in a fierce
allegiance to a fascist ideology. Arun Jaitley, Vinay Katiyar.

Vachani also interviewed two ex-RSS members. Des Raj Goyal, author of
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, talks in the film about his years in the
RSS. The other =EBinsider=ED testimony is provided by Purushottam
Agarwal, who teaches at the Jawarharlal Nehru University in New
Delhi, and who was a member of an RSS shakha in Gwalior for a couple
of years as a child of some 13 or 14. On several questions, their
testimony is remarkably similar, though they were RSS members in
different times and in different cities. On the question of Gandhi,
for instance, whatever it may claim in public, it is clear that the
RSS has a seemingly dual, almost contradictory attitude. On the one
hand, they have a tremendous antipathy to the man. Thus, Agarwal
tells us that in his shakha, they used to be told that if Gandhi is
the Father of the Nation, he is the father of Pakistan, not India. On
the other hand, though, there is also an attempt by the RSS to
=EBco-opt=ED Gandhi. Thus, we see images of RSS comic books that show
Gandhi saluting the RSS flag! Yet, the duality of the RSS attitude to
Gandhi is clearly a front. Goyal recalls how, in the late 1940s, as a
young RSS activist, it was his duty to report Gandhi=EDs speeches to
his RSS bosses. But the young Goyal, relentlessly fed with abuse and
slander for Gandhi, hated him so much that he listened to the
speeches on the radio, rather than seeing the man=EDs face. The only
day that he planned to go to Gandhi=EDs prayer meeting was on 30
January 1948, as there was expectation that something big was going
to happen =F1 just a few days prior to that day, a bomb had exploded at
the venue of Gandhi=EDs prayer meeting. When Goyal reached Birla House,
he saw people running out of the gate =F1 Gandhi had already been shot.
Goyal was destined never to see the man=EDs face.

This brings up the tricky question of Gandhi=EDs assassination. The RSS
was banned for a while after the event, even though the organization
itself claimed, as it does to date, that it had nothing to do with
the act. Nathuram Godse was technically not a member of the RSS when
he killed Gandhi. But he was a follower of Savarkar, the ideological
guru of the entire Hindutva brigade, including the RSS. In the film,
Goyal says while the RSS did not kill Gandhi, the work of Hindutva
organizations created the ideological environment which made a Godse
possible. Even so, Goyal considers the killing of Gandhi as the first
step towards the creation of the Hindu rashtra. The statement is
significant. He does not single out the demolition of the Babri
Masjid as the first step. What this tells us is that the Hindutva
forces work with the truly long run in mind. For instance, the RSS
was quite happy to even dissolve the precursor of the BJP, the
Bharatiya Jan Sangh, when it was given the opportunity by Jai Prakash
Narain to enter the national political mainstream as part of the
Janata Party. So the electoral or other fortunes of the BJP do not
per se form the main concern of the RSS. The RSS project is about
something much larger: the reshaping of the whole of Indian society
along authoritarian, majoritarian lines. This would entail the
dismantling of the very democratic setup that has enabled the BJP to
come to power in the first place. That is the real meaning of the
Hindu rashtra. This term, Hindu rashtra, has come into mainstream
political consciousness relatively recently. In particular, Gujarat
is being described, quite correctly, as the laboratory of the future
Hindu rashtra. Yet, the term itself is of course much older, and the
point that Des Raj Goyal is making in the film is that Gandhi=EDs
killing, way back in 1948, was the first concrete step in that
direction.

How the electoral performance of the BJP is only one amongst many
concerns of the RSS, but certainly not the central one, is brought
out by Sandeep when he is asked about the strength of the RSS. The
shakha and the parivar (family), he says without hesitation. The more
the number of shakhas, the more the RSS influence over individual
minds. And the more the different member-organizations of the parivar
grow, the more areas where the RSS has an influence. And in
mentioning the members of the parivar, Sandeep is quite clear that
the BJP is only one among them.

This is precisely what makes the film frightening. The RSS has a very
long memory, and it works with the truly long run in view. And that
is the reason why it targets, most of all, the young. The current
Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, Sudarshan, told Vachani in 1992 that the
RSS inducts children into the shakha because it is at that
impressionable age that one can make a real difference to the child=EDs
life, and leave him with ideas that he will carry around for the rest
of his life. Sandeep is no longer a pracharak, he is a harmless
looking seller of ayurvedic medicine; Shripad is no longer a physical
instructor in the shakha, he is a not-so-harmless-looking building
contractor; both, however, are Hindutva bigots for life. And though
the film itself does not say this, it is quite clear that all
communalism =F1 Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, whatever =F1 targets the
minds of the young. The ingenuity of the RSS is that it does so by
involving the child in play and recreation =F1 apart, of course, from
running its own schools and educational establishments. And as the
film shows, it also produces pop-history through its comic books,
which are tremendously fascinating for young minds.

The strength of Vachani=EDs film is that it lets the RSS do the talking
and expose itself. Thus, for instance, Sandeep tells us how we have
only heard so far the distorted, Marxist notion of history and
therefore are not aware that Akbar was actually a lascivious man who
did many unmentionable things with Hindu women at the Chandani Chowk
in Delhi. Even more priceless is the footage Vachani has of activists
going on a house to house campaign in New Delhi, explaining what the
RSS is. As a man opens the door of his house, the RSS activist
begins: =EBWe are from the RSS. We do not kill Muslims and Marxists.=ED
With footage like this, who needs commentary?

The real lesson the film has, however, is that it underlines the
stress the RSS places on organization and discipline. Both Sandeep
and Shirpad candidly share on camera their respective roles in the
demolition of the Babri Masjid. What comes out clearly is the sheer
level of organization that went into staging that massive fascist
spectacle. It was all neatly orchestrated and carefully calibrated.
Everyone knew exactly what to do. The argument that the demolition
was the =EBspontaneous=ED result of the mob going =EBout of hand=ED is
rubbished by the testimonies by these two RSS activists in the film.
To quote Sandeep, =EBmicro-level planning=ED went into the operation:
karsevaks went to Ayodhya in groups of five, each group had a leader,
each group was given precise tasks on the fateful day. There was just
no question of spontaneity. In the RSS scheme of things, organization
is as important as ideology. Clearly, the RSS understands that social
change is only possible if led by an organized force. There is a
lesson here for secular forces: organize, or perish.

It is for this reason that towards the end, the film is a little
weak. After having underlined throughout how the RSS organizes, to
then claim, as both Agarwal and Goyal do, that the RSS is basically a
self-limiting phenomenon, that the essentially tolerant Hinduism of
the masses =F1 or Gandhi=EDs Hinduism for that matter =F1 will eventually
assert itself is rather simplistic. Vachani=EDs commentary tells us
that the growth of RSS shakhas has reached a plateau. This is a claim
virtually impossible to verify, given that the RSS has never made its
membership records public. But even if it is true, clearly the RSS
influence in various fields is growing, and it has been able to
infiltrate many areas of public life and the state apparatus.
Gujarat, again, alerts us to the danger. Not only have the multitude
of RSS fronts =F1 and maybe the RSS itself as well =F1 in the state
registered a growth, the RSS has also been able to win over sections
of the dalits and advasis as its foot soldiers. What will defeat the
RSS, as Gujarat clearly shows us, is not appeals to a tolerant
religion, but an engagement with fascist ideology by a solid
organization that can resist and roll back the increasingly ferocious
attack of Hindutva on our society, culture, and politics. Vachani=EDs
film ends on a note of perhaps a little exaggerated hope. But this is
a minor blemish in an otherwise engrossing, disturbing and
challenging film, a must-see for all those fighting Hindutva fascism.

Sudhanva Deshpande is an actor and director with the theatre group
Jana Natya Manch and works as editor at LeftWord Books, New Delhi. He
can be reached at deshsud@r...

______

#7.

INSAF Bulletin [5] September 1, 2002 is available for all from:
International South Asia Forum
Secretarial office: 2520 Lionel Groulx #13, Montreal, QC, Canada H3J=20
1J8 (Tel. 514 939-2522)
(e-mail; insaf@i... or visit our website http://www.insaf.net)

_____

#8.

India Pakistan Arms Race & Militarisation Watch (IPARMW) # 93
6 September 2002
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/message/104

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