SACW | 28 April 03

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  28 April,  2003

#1. Indian - Pakistan: War games of the mind (Kamila Hyat)
#2. 1947 Partition and Railways... : Walking down a sacred track 
(Majid Sheikh)
#3. Rise of political Islam in Iraq? (Iftikhar H. Malik)
#4. SARS, Wars and the Farce	 (Satya Sagar)
#5. India: Quarantine The Hindu Fascists (I.K.Shukla)
#6. India: Muting history (Amulya Ganguli)
#7. India: Picked Up (Editorial, The Telegraph)
#8. India: Will Hitler be the hero for tomorrow's children? (Pranava 
K Chaudhary)

--------------


#1.

The News on Sunday (Paksitan)
April 27 2003

War games of the mind

The realities linking Indians and Pakistanis together in a 
relationship moulded by a common historical heritage and culture make 
for a complex psyche. They encompass both a longing for better ties 
and a deep hatred for each other that is hard for outsiders to 
understand

By Kamila Hyat

The easy mingling between students from India and Pakistan at a lunch 
hosted by a campus peace organisation at a university in Canada a few 
weeks before US hostilities in Iraq got underway inevitably drew 
surprised comment from others present at the occasion. Many found it 
hard to believe that, given the tension between the two nations and 
the recent history of an almost hysterical exchange of hostile words 
between the leaders of the two countries, young people from India and 
Pakistan could evidently get on so well together.

Similar comment has come on other occasions bringing Indians and 
Pakistanis together over the past many years be it a sporting 
competition or the rare literary conference participated in by 
delegates from both the nations. This is not to deny that even as 
they share boxes of the sugar-laden sweetmeats unique to the 
subcontinent or begin efforts to track down the nearest restaurant 
offering 'desi' cuisine, Indians and Pakistanis will almost as 
inevitably lock in exchanges of hostile political sentiments. Indeed, 
this tacit agreement to disagree often appears an almost integral 
part of the relationships forged between the South Asian neighbours, 
in the Middle East, in London's Southall, in Toronto or in other 
parts of the world where they are thrown together by fate.

Sadly, the opportunities to mingle are not available closer to home, 
with tough travel restrictions now in place holding back what limited 
interaction existed in the past. Even as in recent months, the tone 
of the accusations made from both sides of the long border dividing 
Pakistan and India has hardened, the willingness of ordinary Indians 
and Pakistanis, once in a 'third party' setting, to exchange small 
talk, views on politics and reminisces of their homeland has not 
changed. In a curious way, even the 'hot and cold' strategies 
apparently pursued by the leaders of both countries seem somehow to 
be a part of this curious relationship.

The most recent proposals calling for talks heard from New Delhi and 
welcomed in Islamabad mean that once again, tension between the two 
nations that appeared to be spiralling out of control has been 
dampened by a timely pail of cool water thrown over the smouldering 
embers. It would also appear that with visits to the subcontinent 
scheduled by several US officials over the past few months, the 
fire-fighting instructions have been issued in no uncertain tones 
from Washington.

At the same time, the realisation by the leaders of both countries 
that in the final analysis war can have no benefit, and that in fact 
it opens up hugely ominous dangers given the presence of nuclear 
weapons in both nations, is also quite evidently a factor in the 
latest efforts to bring matters under control once more. This does 
not however mean that the flames will not be kindled once again. The 
ebb and tide in the state of Indo-Pak relations over the last two 
years indicates there is no reason to believe that the recent efforts 
made by leaders to move once more towards diplomacy will last. 
Indeed, what may eventually determine the kind of ties India and 
Pakistan establish over the next few decades is the psyche of 
ordinary people living within both countries.

In the longer run, this may prove to be of far greater significance 
than the psyches of the men or women who emerge as the leaders of the 
two nations, each of which today face their own political pitfalls. 
Initial assessments, based on a survey of the press from both 
countries and the results of polls conducted within them, would 
indicate that people, particularly the young ones, in both the 
countries are increasingly hostile to each other. A survey, carried 
out by a local television channel of schoolchildren in Karachi seemed 
to show that most of them between the ages of 10 and 15 held deeply 
antagonistic feelings for India, declaring that they would never 
visit the country. They however admitted openly that they 'sometimes' 
enjoyed Hindi films or music videos featuring Indian artistes.

Similarly, the increasingly aggressive attitude taken even by usually 
more moderate elements within the Indian press towards Pakistan and 
its sometimes extremely poorly informed criticism of the country, its 
government's policies and of 'Islamic extremism', appear to echo 
sentiments against India expressed by at least some editorial writers 
in Pakistan. But, it is also obvious that such perceptions lie only 
on the surface. Even a few layers below exists a convoluted maze of 
far more complex thoughts, identifications and opinions. These act to 
both show how firmly Indians and Pakistanis are bound together by the 
forces of a shared history spread over centuries, and how even 
despite their most determined efforts, they find they cannot escape 
these chains. This factor may also in part explain the 'love-hate' 
element in this relationship, forced upon the generations of today by 
a past that is unalterable, despite the clumsy attempts made by 
text-book writers in both nations.

An extremely informative insight into the nature of this relationship 
is provided by the many sites on the Internet that bring Indians and 
Pakistanis together, on message boards, in chat-rooms and through 
exchanges of more literary writing. The best among these, such as 
www.chowk.com on which a number of well-established Asian authors 
writing in English began their careers, provides a quite fascinating 
window into the souls of today=EDs young Indians and Pakistanis. The 
easy exchange of ideas, the maturity of the debate that exhibits an 
ability to rationalise well beyond what politicians in either India 
or Pakistan appear to be capable of and the thoughts often expressed 
in poetry or fictional prose, throw up the many questions of 
identity, of belonging and of a shared heritage that still haunt many 
in the sub-continent.

Other sites may not be able to exhibit quite the same literary 
talent. But the views expressed are still hugely revealing. The 
rather inappropriately named www.urdunewsnetwork.com features 
messages written in astonishingly bad Urdu or Hindi, or in some cases 
the curious cross between Hindi and English that seems to be gaining 
dominance as the lingua franca of choice among at least some circles 
in the sub-continent.

The messages on the board are at times no more than crude attacks on 
the basis of religion, nationality or belief worded in the kind of 
language most in the subcontinent are all too familiar with. 
Accusations against Pakistan of terrorism, against Indian Muslims of 
being subservient to Hindus, various conspiracy theories and so on, 
punctuated with words that would not have been permitted in most 
parliaments, abound.

But some of the messages, the writers protected by the comforting 
anonymity the Internet provides, express interesting notions. One, 
from a person who identifies himself as Javaid Rahat from Karachi, 
writes: "Every one love to their homeland, we love our home land 
Pakistan as well as we love our historic homeland India where we have 
been ruled for 1000 years, why don=EDt we work for re-establish great 
hindustan. We're being lived together for 10/12 centuries then why 
not now? agr muslim rule mein alag culture alag zaban alag religion 
ki baat nahi kii jati thi to aaj kiyon? Infact hum eik hi bhasha 
boltey hain jisse eik taraf hindi aur dosri taraf urdu ka naam 
dekar.... India is our homeland, we assure to all communities 
especially Hindu community, we will appreciate their all rights as 
well as we did in past in our 1000 years rule in india. so please 
come with us and work for a united India, as iqbal says, sub se acha 
hindustan hamara." [Errors uncorrected]

Others, on this and other forums, stating they are from various 
cities in Pakistan, seem surprisingly to support the views put 
forward. The Internet is apparently for them a means to express ideas 
that are virtually taboo at academic or social settings as well as 
within the media. Of course, many others in the country are obviously 
angered by such views, and speak out fiercely against them on the 
same forums.

=46rom the Indian side too, the ideas for peace put forward are often 
radical. A surprising number advocate the setting up of a 
confederation of semi-autonomous states in the region. Others though 
simply echo the views of the hard-line Indian establishment, some 
express a huge desire to visit Pakistan or cities described to them 
by family elders who have happy memories of times before Partition. 
Other website messages focus on the exchange of ideas on 
non-political issues, with Bollywood films dominating.

Perhaps inspired by the story line of many such films, an astonishing 
number of chat-rooms also seem to bring Pakistani and Indian 
teenagers together in pseudo-romantic, net-based relations. The most 
passionate among these youngsters speak of making their way across 
the border to be united with their loved ones. Almost no one, judging 
by the message boards, seems to follow up on these extravagant 
promises. While at times amusing, often irrational and sometimes 
refreshingly irreverent, the messages from the faceless people on the 
Internet highlight in a sense how limited the opportunities for such 
exchanges are in 'real', non-cyber-based life. They also provide a 
revealing look into the minds of young men and women, on both sides 
of the divide.

While the leaders of both nations remain lost in the often aimless 
maze created by aggressive rhetoric, before making their way back to 
the starting spot as they realise that further onward movement is 
impossible or too hazardous, ordinary citizens on both sides of the 
border seem to have moved well beyond politicians. Sharing bonds of 
language, symbol and culture, they seem ready to explore the question 
of their identities. The complex matter of what aspects of heritage 
they hold in common and what makes them different, separate 
nationalities is taken up again and again. Clearly, the issues 
involved are complex ones. The opinions put forward inevitably cause 
friction. But the willingness of so many people to address these 
problems, to talk about them, to debate them, to include them in 
their writings and to respond to comments from others shows an 
ability among people to venture into territory on which their leaders 
are not willing to tread.

The question of when these leaders will follow the example of 
ordinary citizens, and show a real desire to understand each other 
and respect each other's views, rather than responding only to the 
immediate needs of 'real politick', may eventually determine what 
kind of relations take shape between India and Pakistan over the 
decades that lie ahead.


______


#2.

DAWN (Pakistan), April 27 2003

Walking down a sacred track

By Majid Sheikh

Last week I was in "the zone" -- as athletes like to describe that 
special feeling of perfect union of mind and body. Having parked my 
car near Sherpao Bridge, I decided to walk along the railway track 
from the Lahore Cantonment railway station to the Walton station -- 
that sacred rail track where thousands of would-be Pakistanis were 
received dead in 1947.
I was reading this piece about institutionalized "low intensity 
conflict" that the bureaucracies of India and Pakistan, through 
mutual 'silent' understanding, nature. It makes them rich and the 
people poor, in perpetuity. Dr Mubashir Hasan did a great service by 
stating the "unstated".
Silence is sin in every book that I know of. How could such a 
magnificent set of people hate each other? With these thoughts I 
walked along wondering at just how much effort had gone into the 
building of these tracks, the thousands of railways stations that dot 
the sub-continent, and the trains and the locomotives, and the people 
who built them.
The railways arrived in the sub-continent in 1850, just one year 
after Lahore was taken and the entire track from Calcutta (Kolkata) 
to the Afghan border was under British rule. Mind you, the railways 
had not been fully laid in most European cities by that time. So it 
was a revolutionary step by any reckoning.
By the year 1899, rail tracks had been laid from the south of Madras 
to the Afghan border, more than 23,000 miles. It was the biggest and 
the costliest construction project undertaken by any colonial power 
in any colony anywhere in the world. It was also the largest single 
investment of British capital in the whole of the 19th century.
By 1863, some three million tons of rails, sleepers and locomotives 
had been shipped to India from Britain in approximately 70 ships a 
year non-stop for half a century. Such was their commitment to the 
railways of the sub-continent. Engineers had looped tracks over the 
steepest mountains in the world, sunk foundations hundreds of feet 
into the hot shifting deserts, bridged rivers as wide and as 
turbulent as the Ganges and the Indus.
It was an undertaking the world had never seen, and probably might 
never see again. Yet today it remains a most unresearched subject, 
for we just do not have any railway buffs like they do in Britain and 
all over the world. We simply do not treasure what we have. Somehow 
it seems to be in the spirit of the times in which we live -- in 
constant low intensity conflict, in constant tension.
The railways also brought about an economic and social revolution. As 
travel time shrank, the resultant mobility added to the economic 
development that such mobility brings. Mobility brought with it the 
feeling of the sub-continent being one huge unified mass.
Ironically, a century later, the same railways also made possible the 
irreparable division of the sub-continent. The partition of India led 
to what was probably the greatest migration in human history. More 
than 12 million people exchanged both their homes and their 
countries. Twelve million souls tore themselves apart from the land 
of their ancestors.
That very act is still a fresh wound; the severing of a bonding 
cemented over thousands of years and probably part of our very genes. 
The railways managed to transport a major chunk of those moving, and 
in the process over one million people lost their lives in the space 
of merely 100 days.
Never before, and hopefully never again, will mankind see such 
slaughter, and the rail track between Walton and the Lahore 
Cantonment railway stations is living testimony of the slaughter that 
people are even today scared to talk about. Such has been the impact. 
Such is the intensity of hate. Walking on that track brings forth 
such thoughts.
It brought forth the question, 'would partition have been possible 
without the railway?' Many researchers are of the view that it would 
not have been possible, for millions of people had to be shifted over 
long distances in a small time space.
My view is that partition would have taken place, only the slaughter 
would have been far greater. It was on the railways that much of the 
worst violence took place. Lahore station was "the eye of the 
whirlwind". The fate of Lahore remained uncertain until the final 
maps of the boundaries between the two nations were released.
In the event the city went to Pakistan, just 15 miles from the Indian 
border, and the city and its people were instantly torn apart. 
Thousands of Hindus and Sikhs fought their way to the station to flee 
to India. At the same time train after train began arriving from the 
south carrying hundreds of thousands of Muslims to their new 
homeland. The Lahore railway station became a battleground. This is 
where the worst slaughter took place.
On the night of Independence the last British officials in Lahore 
arrived at the station. They had picked their way through gutted 
streets, many of which were still littered with the dead from the 
riots. On the platforms they found the railway staff grimly hosing 
down pools of blood and carrying away piles of corpses on luggage 
trolleys for mass burial. Minutes earlier a last group of desperate 
Hindus had been massacred by a Muslim mob as they sat waiting quietly 
for the Bombay Express.
The late Khwaja Bilal had the unenviable job of being the Station 
Master of Lahore in August, 1947. He is on record as having said: "On 
the 14th of August I was on duty. We heard an announcement that 
partition had taken place. Soon after that the killing started, the 
slaughter began. Despite the presence of British soldiers, hundreds 
were being killed on the platforms, on the bridges, in the ticket 
halls. There were stabbings, rapes, and arson. It was unstoppable.
"At night I could not sleep because of the screams and moans of the 
dying coming from the platform. Every morning hundreds of slaughtered 
bodies would be lying everywhere. One morning, I think it was August 
30, the Bombay Express came in from Delhi via Bhatinda.
There were around 2,000 people on this train. We found dead bodies in 
the lavatories, on the seats, under the seats. We checked the whole 
train, but nobody was alive except one person who had hidden in the 
engine water tank. We used to receive one hundred trains a day. There 
were hundreds of corpses in every one".
When Lord John Lawrence broke the earth on the future site of the 
Lahore railway station in February 1859, the silver shovel he used 
bore the Latin motto 'tam bello quam pace' - better peace than war. 
Little did he know how things would turn out.


______


#3.


DAWN (Pakistan), 27 April 2003

Rise of political Islam in Iraq?
By Dr Iftikhar H. Malik

Seeing multitudes of impassioned, chest beating yet totally orderly 
Shia pilgrims converging in Karbala so soon after the demise of 
Saddam Hussein's regime have sent shivering messages to different 
sections of global populace. While Muslims of various doctrinal and 
ethno-national backgrounds may retrieve a greater sense of unity and 
pride from the spectacles of elderly and young, men and women defying 
heat and dust walking barefooted to celebrate the Chehlum of Imam 
Husain's assassination in 680 AD, the Anglo-American alliance finds 
itself in a quandary.
It appears as if the floodgates of energy and pent-up feelings have 
been suddenly removed to usher a new-found solidarity among those who 
have suffered the most heinous bombings, destruction of 
infrastructure and a total disappearance of any semblance of civic 
authority. Rather than fighting their fellow Sunnis and garlanding 
the Arbrams and Challengers, or emptily gazing at a cruel sky, these 
masses may represent a new Iraq, a new phase of Political Islam and, 
maybe, a more robust rebuke to daisy cutters, cluster bombs and Moabs.
Here is the people's defiance at its best - something that reveals 
the inadequacies of the Western intelligence agencies and their 
opinionated pundits in once again understanding the dynamics and 
tribulations of the world of Islam. No wonder, a totally decimated 
Iraq with its looted heritage and broken economy is rising 
Phoenix-like, as rightly predicted by Dr. Muhammad Iqbal (1875-1938) 
several decades back. Every Karbala - the most traumatising tragedy - 
to the great poet-philosopher, was to be the harbinger of a new Islam!
No wonder, this massive outpouring of hope and collectivity coincided 
with Iqbal's own 65th death anniversary on the 21st April. But, wait 
a minute: are we being carried away by this spontaneity, or is it 
really a new chapter in this saga of tragedies all the way from wars, 
ethnic cleansings, self-flagellation, Islamophobia, sectarianism, 
Chechnyas, Mazar-i-Sharifs, Jenins, Ayodhyas and Gujarats, gnawing 
poverty all piled upon an enduring legacy of exploitation, 
humiliation and betrayals! Is Iraq waking up to another Hulago-like 
post-1258 stampede or is it a typical emotional outburst where 
fanaticism comes in handy to opiate a crest-fallen nation? Or, is 
this a sustained Islamic fervour, a mere temporary outburst, and just 
a sheer balm or there is more to it?
[...]
Neither a theocracy nor the dictatorship will take Islamicists 
anywhere, it is only through democracy, peace and guarantees for 
pluralism, away from unilateralism and militarism, that Political 
Islam with all its anti-colonial, anti-hegemonic, anti-racist and 
anti-violence traditions can come to the rescue of have-nots.
If the Muslims of Iraq are unable to establish such a paradigm then 
their chest beatings and verbose pronouncements will simply reiterate 
the contention that Political Islam may not be dead as a mobiliser 
and motivator yet is still far from maturing into a systemic 
ideology. Its Huqooul Ibaad (rights and duties to the people) may 
offer a greater hope for Iraqi civil society and could transform 
itself from a mere ideology of displacement to a fully-fledged 
mechanism of replacement.

{ Full Text at: http://www.dawn.com/weekly/encounter/encounter.htm#1  }


______


#4.

ZNet (USA)
April 25, 2003

SARS, Wars and the Farce
by Satya Sagar

The depression hits  me  on a warm and humid Bangkok evening. I am 
just through with dinner in the city's crowded Sukhumvit business 
district, my head full of the War on Iraq and I spot these people- 
with masks on their faces.

A couple of weeks ago anybody with a cloth covering his face in this 
city would have been branded a `jihadi' a possible Arab/Muslim/dark 
skinned/dark intentioned `terrorist'. The city has been on alert well 
before the war on Iraq started to prevent `Arab looking' people from 
doing bad things- for eg., looking Arab.

Just around the time of the Anglo-American attack on Iraq,  if  there 
were to be an  `Arab' behind a mask in Bangkok - the entire city 
would have been evacuated.

Apparently, not anymore. Respectable people wear  masks now in 
Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong. In fact mandatory they say 
to save yourself from SARS- the flu-like virus that has much of 
south-east Asia in deep panic. Tourists are canceling their trips in 
droves, schools are closing down, economies plunging, governments in 
crisis and the Chinese- oh those `super-contaminating  Chinese'- are 
being spurned everywhere.[...]
  { Full Text at: 
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=3D37&ItemID=3D3519 }


_____


#5.

[27 April 2003]

QUARANTINE THE HINDU FASCISTS
I.K.Shukla

The Rajasthan and Madhya Praesh governments deserve thanks and 
compliments for implementing the statutory obligations in respect of 
law and order. Governments at the center and in the states, after the 
HinduTaliban takeover, have been willy-nilly supportive of or 
acquiescent in the drift to disaster that Indian polity has been 
forced into. Under BJP-NDA, law and order is a major casualty, 
misgovernance marking this combine, anarchy its trade mark.

Whether the Congress will quit the path of appeasement of saffro 
criminals and thus whet their appetite is for it to decide. But 
having decided to write its obituary in saffron it brought massive 
destruction to polity and grim death to citizens on a scale that 
staggers the imagination. It thus became comrade-in-arms of an 
openly, avowedly fascist party. In the process it haemorrhaged India 
grievously.

Congress has chosen exile or exclusion from the political arena. To 
hasten its end, it joined the Hindutva hordes in disfiguring the 
spirit of the Constitution and the egalitarian thrust it had verbally 
committed itself to post-47. How else to explain its cowardice and 
moral lapse when it failed to rush to Gujarat to save Ehsan Jafri. 
Such delinquency and dereliction on its part helped foster the 
Hindutva goons in their campaign of savage stomping of the land.

Congress, again, to write itself off, and facilitate the takeover of 
India by the BJP-led goon squad, is saddled with a leadership which 
lacks vision,ideology, and character. It had Hindutva moles in it. 
Consequently, mired in confusion and blinded by miasma, it has been 
advocating a diluted saffronazism in order, ostensibly, to attract 
"Hindu" votes. Poison in small driblets is no poison? This 
disingenousness and lack of scruple on the part of Congress has 
plunged the nation in a deadly dark and drenched in grimy blood.

If only it had chosen betimes to confront the saffronazis headlong, 
in every sector of national life, India would have been spared the 
hell Gujarat turned it into; it would have been spared the shame of 
Hindu Nazis lording it over, and dragging it back by centuries.

If Rajasthan and MP have proved anything it is this: don't let 
criminals in under any disguise, don't cuddle them, don't strike a 
bargain with them, it is never too late to call their bluff, they are 
misfits in a democracy and would destroy it, and that fascists should 
be isolated , not anointed, they should be cremated not crowned.

If it sounds harsh, consider this: Pictures of outlaws and seditious 
hatemongers, who should be in the slammer, are being splashed in the 
bania media daily as garlanded figures, are being referred to as 
Acharya, free publicity attracting more followers via media 
complicity. This is both a sacrilge and stupidity. This is not their 
name. These are honorifics, going a dozen a dime, that they have 
appropriated and tagged to their names. They were not named by 
parents as Acharya Papendra, Acharya Gobar Kishore. They should be 
named as they are in their educational or birth certificates. 
Usurpation in any form deserves to be scotched, not sacralized. If 
their cabals, covens, caves and nests call then Lords of the Cosmos, 
let the deluded and the dragooned chant inanities. But "people", 
i.e., thenewspapers' readership should not be forced and brainwashed 
to call the criminals Acharyas, the idiots scholars, the traitors 
patriots.

If Congress wants to respect Indian citizens, let alone winning their 
hearts and minds, and if it is persuaded to believe that there is a 
bigger India than the state assemblies and the Parliament, it should 
show some courage against the fascist thugs to look convincing and 
credible as serious and stroing

_____


#6.

The Hindustan Times (India)
Monday, April 28, 2003
Editorial
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/printedition/280403/detIDE01.shtml

  	 
Muting history
Amulya Ganguli

One of Murli Manohar Joshi's kar sevaks in the academic field has 
given a laboured explanation as to why he failed to comment on 
Gandhi's assassination in his piece on the Mahatma in one of the new 
saffron textbooks.

Hari Om, a 'Professor of History' and a member of the Indian Council 
of Historical Research (no less!) has said: "I committed a very 
serious mistake by not reflecting on the murder of a world leader 
such as Gandhi...

"At the same time, I would like to point out that this omission was 
not deliberate. My major problem was the time and space constraint. 
It was impossible for me to include each and every development in the 
limited span available to me as one of the authors of Contemporary 
India. Another problem was the font size."

So, 'time and space constraint' and 'font size' (!) can persuade a 
'professor' to, say, write about the life of Jesus without mentioning 
crucifixion. Or, if that is too alien an example for the saffron 
crowd, write about the Ramayan without Sita's 'return' to Mother 
Earth. No 'professor' worthy of the title will do so unless he has an 
insidious objective in mind.

When Mountbatten was asked about the killer's identity immediately 
after Gandhi's assassination, he said, 'a Hindu' even though the 
governor-general did not know this for a fact at the time. But he 
knew that if he said anything else, it would have set off a fresh 
round of communal carnage. It may also be fair to assume that if a 
Muslim had really been the assassin, no font size or time and space 
constraint would have prevented a writer from the Hindutva camp from 
commenting at length on the incident.

The reason for the omission is something else. It is that Nathuram 
Godse killed the Mahatma for reasons which reflect the saffron 
ideology. Therefore, any mention of these would have displeased the 
purported professor's political masters who had entrusted him with 
the task of distorting history. The killer, however, was more 
forthright. "I might mention here," said Godse in his submission to 
the court, "that it was not so much the Gandhian Ahimsa teachings 
that were opposed by me and my group but Gandhiji while advocating 
his views always showed or evinced a bias for Muslims, prejudicial 
and detrimental to the Hindu community and its interests."

Here we have in a nutshell the theory of appeasement of Muslims which 
forms the cornerstone of the Hindutva doctrine. "On 13th January 
1948," continued Godse, "I learnt that Gandhiji had decided to go on 
fast unto death. The reason for such fast (sic) was that he wanted an 
assurance for Hindu-Muslim unity in Indian Dominion. But I and many 
others could easily see that the real motive behind the fast was not 
merely the so-called Hindu-Muslim unity, but to compel the Dominion 
Government to pay the sum of Rs 55 crore to Pakistan, the payment 
which was emphatically refused by the Government."

So, Gandhi was not only an appeaser of Muslims, but also of Pakistan! 
Godse later called him the Father of Pakistan. Little wonder that 
Narendra Modi used to tell his listeners in Gujarat that the 
Congress's success in the election would be celebrated in Pakistan. 
One can see the identity of views between Godse and the Sangh 
parivar, an uncomfortable fact which our 'professor' would have found 
difficult to hide if he tried to explain Gandhi's assassination. 
After all, the Mahatma's death couldn't be just a throw-away line. It 
would have needed an elaborate explanation. But that is exactly what 
is impossible for a saffron sycophant to provide.

The issues of Vande Mataram and cow-slaughter are two of the many 
explanations given by Godse for his act. "It is notorious," said 
Godse, "that some Muslims disliked the celebrated song of Vande 
Mataram and the Mahatma forthwith stopped its singing or recital 
wherever he could... It continued to be sung at all Congress and 
other national gatherings but as soon as one Muslim objected to it, 
Gandhiji utterly disregarded the national sentiment behind it and 
persuaded the Congress also not to insist upon the singing as the 
national song. We are now asked to adopt Rabindranath Tagore's Jana 
Gana Mana as a substitute of Vande Mataram. Could anything be more 
demoralising or pitiful...?"

On cow-slaughter, Godse quoted one of Gandhi's speeches in which the 
Mahatma said that "no law prohibiting cow-slaughter in India can be 
enacted. (Digvijay Singh, please note) How can I impose my will upon 
a person who does not wish voluntarily to abandon cow-slaughter? 
India does not belong exclusively to the Hindus. Muslims, Parsees, 
Christians all live here. The claim of the Hindus that India has 
become the land of the Hindus is totally incorrect. This land belongs 
to all who live here".

Clearly, Gandhi had no time for Savarkar's fascistic 
pitribhu-punyabhu concept which said that only those who are born in 
India and whose holy sites are in India are true Indians. Instead, 
the Mahatma articulated the modern ideal of statehood, as enshrined 
in the Indian Constitution, in which no distinctions are made between 
citizens on the basis of caste or creed. How different the Mahatma's 
views are from the Hindu Rashtra of Golwalkar, Savarkar and Godse.

In the days before his death, Gandhi had expressed a desire to go and 
live in Pakistan. He wouldn't have gone by train, of course, let 
alone fly. He would have walked. Slowly, as during the Salt March 
which shook the British empire, the Mahatma would have wended his way 
across the dusty plains of north India with his band of followers - 
and the international press - in tow.

It is unlikely that the Pakistanis would have stopped him - or 
insisted on a visa. They would have looked ridiculous before the 
world. But whether the Mahatma did enter Pakistan or not, the Long 
March would have served its purpose. Once again, at a time of trauma, 
it would have united hearts and minds as nothing else - and put the 
fanatics on both sides of the border on the defensive. They wouldn't 
have known how to refute this extraordinary affirmation of the unity 
of the subcontinent, of the absurd nature of the two-nation theory 
(which was to become a three-nation theory only 24 years later).

In his textbook on modern India, historian Sumit Sarkar described the 
period before Gandhi's assassination as the Mahatma's finest hour. It 
showed his total disdain for the trappings of power and unswerving 
loyalty to the cause of communal peace. Had he lived and gone to 
Pakistan, who knows what curious turn the history of the subcontinent 
would have taken. But perhaps it was the fear of peace which 
motivated Godse.

As his 'Father of Pakistan' jibe showed, he had no time for communal 
amity. So Gandhi had to die. And the saffron 'historians' of today 
have to play dumb when it comes to explaining why.


_____


#7.

The Telegraph (India)
Monday, April 28, 2003
Editorial

PICKED UP

The police in Ahmedabad appear to be almost sublimely inefficient. 
All that the murder of as important a leader as the state's former 
home minister, Haren Pandya, seems to have done is to catapult them 
into a frenzy of midnight arrests. The number of people taken into 
custody so far would suggest that the police have made no headway 
yet. What is most unfortunate, however, is that this flurry of 
activity, at its peak after midnight till the early hours of the 
morning, is acquiring the appearance of a targeted campaign against 
the minority community. Young men are being picked up from areas 
where the dominant population is from the minority community. 
Sometimes all the men from a family may be arrested and detained. 
Worse, if one young man is missing, the police might pick up his 
brother and threaten not to release him unless his sibling 
surrenders. It seems as though any event is excuse enough to unleash 
mayhem on the minority community. There is no doubt that the first 
priority of the police is the discovery of Pandya's murderer. But it 
is doubtful whether the force is helping its own cause by spreading 
panic and causing fresh insecurity among the minority community.

It may be a mark of the slightly improved sense of security among the 
Muslims that women have come out in the streets in vocal protest 
against the continuing arrests of their men. Equally, it may be the 
sign of desperation. It is inexplicable that the police have detained 
so many people for days without bothering to show any results so far. 
A murder investigation that turns into targeted harassment is in 
itself bad enough, what augurs really ill is the way the use of the 
Prevention of Terrorism Act is being perceived by the minority 
community. The protesting women have repeatedly asked why POTA was 
being used against their men while those guilty in the anti-minority 
carnage last year were not being held under it. If all that the 
police are afflicted with is inefficiency, they should ensure that 
their bumbling does not create a situation for another communal 
conflagration in Gujarat. But it is a pity that Gujarat's recent 
history would leave most observers sceptical about the police's 
innocence in the matter of the arrests. It would be tempting to 
discover the lineaments of a pattern that uses Pandya's murder as an 
occasion to distress and distance Gujarat's Muslims further. At the 
moment, perhaps, there is no need to go to that extent. But it is 
high time that restraint and accountability were displayed by the 
police, because alienating the minority community will hinder, not 
help, the investigation into Pandya's murder.

______


#8.

The Times of India
APRIL 27, 2003

Will Hitler be the hero for tomorrow's children?
PRANAVA K CHAUDHARY

PATNA: Dwelling on Swami Vivekanand's speech at the Parliament of 
Religions at Chicago, the new NCERT book "Contemporary India" (class 
IX) says: "(Swamiji) established the superiority of Indian thought 
and culture over the Western mind."

"Do we want our students to be brought up on this type of chauvinist 
and utterly baseless statement?" asks historian Bipan Chandra.

He clarified that although Swamiji did make an impact at Chicago, 
this played an important role in creating self-respect among Indians 
and not on the intellectual developments in the rest of the world.The 
book, according to Chandra, is a combination of ignorance and 
prejudice. "It is not based on research of the last 50 years," he 
says. "It is essentially based on older, pre-1950 textbooks or even 
made-easies."

On Nazism the book says: "The ideology of the Nazi party was a sort 
of fusion of German nationalism and socialism." This, according to 
Chandra, is to accept the self-perception of the Nazis.

Chandra points out that the book does not refer to anti-Semitism or 
the killing of over seven million Jews, nor is the Nazi view that all 
Africans and Asians, including Indians, were an inferior race brought 
out. The Italian Fascists' view is similarly accepted, he said.

Chandra says that the treatment of the 19th century Indian 
renaissance is "utterly onesided"; the role of Lokhitvadi and other 
Maharashtrian reformers, the reformers in south India, and Young 
Bengal is missing.

Instead, there is onesided emphasis on Bankimchandra Chatterji and 
Swami Dayanand, both of whom were important but represented only one 
aspect of the reform movements.

"The worst feature of the textbook is the clear effort to introduce a 
communal bias in the teaching of history in various ways. The primary 
effort is to teach that communalism was born and existed in India 
only in the form of Muslim communalism," he says.According to him, 
the Hindu Mahasabha or the RSS find no mention; nor their efforts to 
arouse communal feelings among Hindus.

The partition is declared to be the result of Muslim communalism but 
the responsibility of Hindu communalism as well, as was brought out 
by Gandhiji and others and by later scholars, is not mentioned.

"Jinnah's critique of Gandhiji as anti-Muslim is brought out but not 
Savarkar's and Golwalkar's critique of Gandhiji as anti-Hindu in the 
same language and manner.



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