SACW | 8 June, 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   | 8 June,  2003


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#1 Newsletter of the Kashmiri Women's Initiative for Peace and Disarmament
#2. Pakistan: Another fling at Shariat  I.A. Rehman)
#3. Pakistan - India: Analysing 1947 from a peace perspective (Ishtiaq Ahmed)
#4. Pakistan: The politics of Islamisation (Abbas Rashid)
#5. Axis Of The Apocalyptic	 (Satya Sagar)
#6. What if peace breaks out? (Naeem Sadiq)
#7. Police officer instigated violence against minorities in Bangladesh

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

#1.

Newsletter of the Kashmiri Women's Initiative for Peace and Disarmament.
<http://geocities.com/kwipd2002>http://geocities.com/kwipd2002


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#2.

DAWN, 8 June 2003

Another fling at Shariat
By I.A. Rehman

The shock waves generated by the adoption of the Enforcement of the 
Shariat Act by the Frontier Assembly can easily be appreciated. Apart 
from what the act proposes in the immediate or the long term, it 
raises very fundamental questions about the enforceability of the 
Shariat by a state authority, the desirability or otherwise of 
uniform codes of law and policies in the state, and the relations 
between the federation and its units. These are serious issues that 
need to be discussed in a manner unaffected by dogmatic stubbornness 
or arrogance of power.
The act in one part is a declaration of intent to the effect that the 
Shariat will be enforced in the Frontier province and, in another 
part, it lays down the process for realizing the declared objective. 
More legislation will follow in the light of recommendations of 
commissions on Islamization of education, economy, and the judicial 
system in PATA (provincially administered tribal areas). Some other 
objectives, such as projection of Islam by means of mass 
communication, protection of life, liberty and property, eradication 
of bribery, social evils, shamelessness and vagrancy, are presumably 
to be realized through administrative measures. The real issue is how 
this act is going to be interpreted and implemented.
In a sense, the Frontier law is meaningless and superfluous. It is a 
literal translation into Urdu of the Enforcement of the Shariat Act 
adopted by the federal parliament and gazetted on June 18, 1991. 
While the provincial enactment does omit some provisions of the 
federal act, it does not go beyond the latter. It also concedes 
(Section 15) that "regardless of what the Act says all legislation 
under it will be done in accordance with the Constitution of the 
Islamic Republic of Pakistan of 1973".
Article 143 of the Constitution quite clearly lays down that if a 
matter is covered by federal legislation and a provincial law both, 
the former shall prevail and the provincial law, to the extent of 
inconsistency with the federal law, shall be invalid. Thus, if the 
Frontier act, or subsequent laws and measures adopted under it, 
merely say what is already there in the 1991 act or is covered by 
measures taken under it, the exercise becomes redundant, and if 
anything inconsistent with the federal law is attempted, that too 
will be invalid. That makes the Frontier act, at least at present, 
meaningless in legal terms.
At the same time, the constitutional validity of the measure is 
questionable. The act refers to subjects that do not appear to be 
within the province's legislative domain. For example, it talks of a 
provincial commission's reform of the "fiscal laws, and laws relating 
to taxation, insurance or banking", which do not clearly fall within 
the provincial jurisdiction of law-making. It is possible that this 
aspect of the matter was blotted out of the Frontier regime's view by 
its decision to copy the 1991 act. Similarly, the act refers to 
reform of the judicial system in PATA and ignores the possibility of 
enlarging the discrepancy in laws meant for FATA and PATA.
The first question therefore is: Why did the Frontier government 
consider it necessary to undertake this legislation? Three answers 
are possible and each leads to a disturbing controversy.
The first reason could be that the provincial government did not look 
at the 1991 federal act, or was unaware of it. This assumption cannot 
be seriously entertained because the Frontier text is a translation 
of the 1991 enactment. Even otherwise, provincial law-makers are 
supposed to ascertain, before embarking on any new legislation, 
whether any identical law already exists on the statute book and also 
whether the matter falls within its legislative jurisdiction.
The second explanation possible is that the provincial regime 
responded to the lack of implementation, real or perceived, of the 
1991 act. That opens up the issue of options before a federating unit 
in case it finds that a federal law, on which it places high value, 
is not being fully implemented. It should be possible for the 
provincial government to approach the federal authority to rectify 
its lapse. The provincial assembly could pass a resolution requesting 
the federal government to ensure enforcement of the laws in question.
The matter could be raised at the Council of Common Interest. The 
alliance in power in the Frontier has a strong presence in the 
federal parliament and could use its representatives there to raise 
the issue. There is no evidence that the Frontier MMA leaders held 
any consultations with their colleagues in the federal legislatures. 
The enactment of a provincial law of doubtful validity was not the 
sole option available to them.
The third explanation is that the MMA legislators in the Frontier 
were aware of the superfluous nature of their piece of legislation 
and the lack of constitutional sanction for it but chose to proceed 
with their plan in order to secure two objectives - firstly, to 
assume the role of a vanguard in a new attempt to make Pakistan a 
theocratic state and, secondly, to create space for imposing 
socio-cultural codes of their choice on the population of the 
province. This explanation is the most convincing one.
This view receives strength when we look at what the Frontier 
law-makers have omitted from the 1991 Act. These omissions are:1. 
Section 3(2) of the 1991 act protected the country's political system 
(parliament, provincial assemblies, the system of government) by 
putting it outside the scope of the enforcement of the Shariat. No 
such reservation has been made in the new Frontier act. The 
implication is obvious. If the MMA jurisconsults so decide, they may 
abolish the assembly and the franchise system. The act of 1991 also 
protected international financial obligations and other existing 
obligations (sections 18 and 19). Perhaps it was decided that once 
you accept the supremacy of the Shariat (sec 3 in both the 1991 act 
and the Frontier act), such protective provisions become empty 
rhetoric, if not hypocritical.
2. Section 20 of the 1991 act, which protected the rights of women as 
guaranteed by the Constitution, has not been included in the Frontier 
act. One obvious conclusion is that the MMA leaders are not shy of 
proclaiming their resolve to keep women in bondage and are not 
prepared to save the constitutional guarantees available to them.
3. A minor but significant omission is that while in the 1991 act, 
jurists (along with ulema and other experts) were entitled to be 
nominated on the commissions for Islamization of education and the 
economy, the Frontier act has excluded them from the commissions 
envisaged under it. That may be taken in accord with the MMA's view 
of the judiciary.
A major issue that must be faced now is whether the units of a 
federation can have different legal, economic and educational orders? 
The matter requires extended discourse. A great deal can be said 
about provincial rights in a democratic context, but religious 
purists are unlikely to respect these rights to the extent democrats 
do. They may not accept provincial demarcations either. Whether the 
Pukhtuns are prepared to lose their identity under the spell of the 
MMA is for them to ponder, but other provinces may have ideas of 
their own. However, matters relating to citizenship and criminal laws 
cannot be put on different levels in different parts of the 
federation.
An even more fundamental issue that can no longer be ignored concerns 
the status of the Constitution once the Shariat is proclaimed the 
supreme law. Common sense tells us that you can have either the 
constitution or the Shariah, you cannot have both. The earliest 
law-makers in Pakistan carefully kept the constitution out of clauses 
that obliged the state not to make any law that was repugnant to 
Islamic injunctions. A distinction between the constitution and the 
sub-constitutional legislation was manifest. This distinction is now 
threatened with erosion.
In this regard the difference between the traditional definition of 
Shariat and the one used in the Frontier act may be noted.
The 1991 act followed the Ziaul Haq formula while defining the 
Shariat as Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and 
Sunnah, and the opinions of recognized schools of jurisprudence were 
to be taken into consideration. That amounted to binding the Muslims 
of Pakistan down to what Iqbal described as a 'frozen fiqh' and 
militated against the spirit of Islam, as understood by scholars 
outside the obscurantist lot.
The Frontier act defines Shariah as "injunctions mentioned in the 
Quran and Sunnah or derived from them". This suggests a contemporary 
process of deriving injunctions from the Quran and Sunnah, which 
could possibly be a good thing if the interpreters of the scriptures 
were liberal, or turn out to be a prescription for further regression 
if the task was entrusted to traditionalist.
In short the Frontier assembly has thrown a challenge to undo the 
state as it has so far existed. This is the inevitable result of the 
policy of appeasing the clerics followed till 1999 and of colluding 
with them since then. The remedies do not lie in federal 
misadventures against an elected provincial government. The only way 
out is a return to democratic rule, freedom of the political process, 
and an end to the treatment of popular political leaders as 
pestilential, to quote a phrase aptly used by Mr Suhrawardy.

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#3.

The Daily Times
June 08, 2003

Analysing 1947 from a peace perspective

Ishtiaq Ahmed

In 1997, India and Pakistan celebrated their fiftieth birthdays as 
independent states. The official ceremonies were conducted with great 
pomp and show but observers could easily see that both had lived in 
suspicion and fear of each other.
Indeed the nationalist profiles that have evolved over the years in 
both countries present different perceptions of the division of 
colonial India. For example, on the Indian side the term 'partition' 
has been assailed as a euphemism employed by the Congress leaders to 
hide their failure to prevent the separation of an integral part of 
India. In Pakistan the term is held in contempt because it is 
perceived to demean the idea of liberation of the Muslims as a 
separate and sovereign nation.
These perceptions are far removed from the perception of the common 
people. For the people view the event as the dissolution of the 
administrative machinery which had in the past provided law, order 
and security. For some hell broke loose because they became targets 
of revenge, greed and hatred. Others who were saved and protected by 
supposed enemies experienced human kindness and magnificence which 
comes to life only when life is threatened by human beings.
Indeed the freedom of India and Pakistan was marred by violence that 
left more than a million dead and dislocated many more. There were 
various other options available including the peaceful transfer of 
populations, but the worst scenario prevailed in the last few months 
and weeks of the otherwise peaceful and constitutional freedom 
struggles of the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim 
League.
The Indian writer and filmmaker Ramanand Sagar, originally of Chah 
Pichwara, Mozang, Lahore but now a resident of Juhu, Bombay aptly 
named his great novel on those days 'Aur Insaan Mar Gya' (And 
Humanity Died). Saadat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chander, Rajinder Singh 
Bedi, Amrita Pritam, Ustad Daman and many other giants of Urdu-Hindu 
and Punjabi literature wrote their best works on the partition riots. 
Manto's 'Toba Tek Singh' is undoubtedly the greatest short story on 
the theme. The inimitable Faiz Ahmed Faiz expressed his mixed 
feelings about the celebratory moment of independence in 'Freedom's 
Dawn'. He wrote:
This stain-covered daybreak, this night-bitten dawn,
This is not that dawn about which there were expectations
Scholarly research has thus far concentrated on the high politics of 
the division represented by the roles of Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, 
Patel, Maulana Azad and others with a view to establishing the 
villain in the piece. One can ad infinitum continue to seek the 
ultimate culprit(s) at the level of high politics and never find him 
conclusively. It can be shown that the enquirer chose an arbitrary 
date or event and from that vantage point found evidence to denounce 
the enemy's leader(s) and absolve one's own of responsibility. Indeed 
such is the case with all explanations based on high politics.
I am not denying that a fairly accurate study seeking to determine 
blame is possible but that it has never been attempted and perhaps 
from a realistic point of view never will be. The reason is that 
seeking evidence to apportion blame lends easily to manipulation of 
data. So, why not look for some other answers from the events of 
1947? For example, can we on the basis of our past experiences before 
and during the 1947 riots now live in peace as two good neighbours?
In recent years, research has begun to focus on the people's 
experiences of 1947. The official records of the British government, 
old newspaper files, magazines and publications of political parties 
and other printed material are now being examined with a new fervour. 
But there is a realisation that collection of oral histories through 
in-depth interviews with the survivors of the communal riots is 
essential to make sense of what happened. Consequently the focus is 
now on ordinary people and their surroundings.
It cannot be denied that even by concentrating on the experiences of 
the people one can tell a biased story. Indeed there are several 
reports collected by partisan enquirers which are notoriously 
one-sided. Ultimately all depends on the way the intellectual puzzle 
or research problem is formulated. Nevertheless I think if we climb 
down from high politics and try to tell the story of the division of 
colonial India from the point of view of the ordinary people, the 
pressure to subscribe or uphold the official story or theory lessens 
considerably.
For example, the fact that 15 million people safely crossed the 
borders between India and Pakistan seems to indicate that theories 
alleging all Muslims or all Hindus and Sikhs were seeking to destroy 
the 'enemy' are patently false. Indeed the one million who died need 
to be given full attention and I am not pleading in favour of some 
utilitarian measure to evaluate the moral consequences of the 
division of colonial India. The loss of even one innocent life is 
reprehensible.
Nevertheless my intuition is that there is a chance to heal the old 
wounds incurred physically and spiritually at that time. If we find 
evidence that people helped each other in crossing the border safely 
and that this happened on a large scale, we could use it to infuse 
pride in the fact that the help and protection given by people to one 
another was very important for the 15 million to escape death or 
injury.
This should be the basis of the relationship between India and 
Pakistan at present and in future. Even if no unequivocal proof is 
found, it would suffice to show that the situation was mixed. Such 
findings should prove a great impetus to policy aimed at tapping the 
good side of human nature in the service of peace and cooperation in 
South Asia.
There can be no doubt that India and Pakistan are two separate and 
sovereign states whose legality is firmly anchored in law and the 
vast majority of their people want them to stay that way. All they 
seek is an end to confrontation in the form of unfriendly ideas, 
attitudes and activities.


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#4.

The Daily Times, June 08, 2003

The politics of Islamisation

Abbas Rashid
While the president ponders his limited choices, there is the budget 
session scheduled for Saturday and a Camp David meeting with the US 
president set for the end of June. Neither promises to be smooth 
sailing at this point
The NWFP Assembly passed a bill on Monday aimed at making the Sharia 
the supreme law of the province. While the law is vague in different 
aspects it is difficult to ignore its general thrust. As in any such 
initiative, women are likely to be the most affected under the drive 
against 'obscenity' that was spearheaded, symbolically, by the 
destruction of billboards in Peshawar as a sort of prelude to the 
passing of the law. The mobility of women beyond the four walls of 
the home will be restricted, access to education reduced and 
employment opportunities further curtailed.
The creation of a Department of Vice and Virtue is envisaged, in a 
throwback to a similar set-up under the Taliban in Afghanistan. The 
powers of the Ombudsman under the envisaged Hisbah Act would amount 
to creating a parallel judicial arrangement with vice-squads taking 
care of enforcement. There is already a declaration by Chief Minister 
Akram Khan Durrani that Friday will be observed as the weekly holiday 
in the NWFP. It is not clear what all of this will do for the 
millions who live in stark poverty and deprivation in the NWFP, as 
indeed in the rest of the country.
There is a pointed observation in the bill, as proposed: it is 
obligatory on the part of the provincial government to implement 
Shariat within the limits of its jurisdiction. It is this issue of 
jurisdiction, among others, that has been taken up by a petitioner 
who has approached the Supreme Court, Wednesday, with a request that 
the court decide some questions of public importance such as whether 
the provincial assembly has the authority or the jurisdiction to 
adjudicate on or declare any act or law to be repugnant to Islam or 
is the matter of Islamisation of laws and their enforcement the 
exclusive domain of the federal government?
In many ways the issue of jurisdiction is central. Over the years as 
many groups became engaged in Jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir the 
question arose as to who was entitled to declare Jihad. Only the 
state, it seems. To argue otherwise is to court anarchy. It would 
certainly put paid to the project of the nation state if different 
groups, or for that matter different provinces, were to follow their 
own preferences and inclinations while making such a decision.
As to the issue of Shariah being enforced at the provincial level the 
court will have to decide whether the act falls within the ambit of 
provincial autonomy or is violative of the constitution. There are, 
of course, other examples of Sharia being enforced at the provincial 
level... in Nigeria, for instance.
But, this also raises the issue of what is the appropriate level for 
the enforcement of Sharia. Could, for example, district authorities 
choose to enforce the Sharia according to their own understanding? 
Not least, the court may want to indicate as to whether it is the 
duty of the state to enable its citizens to adhere to their faith or 
should it take it upon itself to force them to become good Muslims. 
Perhaps, it can review the efforts made by General Ziaul Haq in the 
latter vein, for patently political reasons, and the results that are 
evident two decades down the line.
Meanwhile, there is a complex political context that has built up 
around this latest effort at Islamisation. As far as the MMA is 
concerned, its long-running battle with President Pervez Musharraf 
over the LFO can be resolved if only he would accept the enforcement 
of the Sharia law in the NWFP. But, it does not seem that a deal can 
go through on this basis.
Parliamentary endorsement of the LFO is a key objective but there is 
serious apprehension over developments in the NWFP taken together 
with the growing rumblings in Afghanistan. Predictably, then, a tough 
line is being adopted by the Centre. The chief secretary of the 
province as well as the IG Police have been summoned to Islamabad to 
be replaced presumably by those who may be entrusted to do the 
centre's bidding rather than that of the provincial government they 
are meant to serve.
It is also difficult to believe that the petition before the Supreme 
Court challenging the Sharia bill does not have the blessings or 
endorsement of the federal government. Another issue before the court 
is whether the seminary degrees of MMA members in the assemblies are 
equivalent to a BA degree from an accredited university. If the 
judgment is in the negative, it could lead to their disqualification.
Crucially, there is the issue of the 24 NWFP district nazims 
resigning on the grounds that the provincial government is not 
allowing them to perform their role. A number of tehsil and union 
council nazims have followed suit. The nazims are essentially the 
president's constituency. They owe their existence to the president 
and played a pivotal, if controversial, role in the referendum that 
confirmed him in office. That they tendered their resignations to the 
president rather than the governor also suggests that there was a bid 
to render the crisis federal rather than provincial in nature. The 
government has taken up the nazims' complaint as a serious issue of 
misgovernance.
The prime minister indicated on Wednesday that the government would 
take stern action against the provincial government of the NWFP for 
interfering in the affairs of the nazims and violating the Local 
Government Ordinance 2001. It has also been clarified that the 
resignations of the nazims have not been accepted. In other words, 
the nazims remain in place and can be supported by the centre as a 
counter-weight to the provincial government.
The government may be inclined to exercise the option of imposing 
Governor's rule in the province. But all such options that entail a 
decisive parting of the ways between the MMA and the PML-QA require 
political realignments in the National Assembly and the Balochistan 
Assembly as well, even if the government feels confident that it can 
handle whatever the MMA can throw at it, at the level of the street.
The MMA has already announced protest rallies from the 10th of this 
month. Matters are unlikely to be helped by the recent events in the 
Punjab Assembly, either. While the president ponders his limited 
choices, there is the budget session scheduled for Saturday and a 
Camp David meeting with the US president set for the end of June. 
Neither promises to be smooth sailing at this point.
Abbas Rashid is a freelance journalist and political analyst whose 
career has included editorial positions in various Pakistani 
newspapers


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#5.

ZNet , June 06, 2003

Axis Of The Apocalyptic
by Satya Sagar

As old, established global alliances break like empty beer bottles in 
a Bombay street brawl- the War on Terror is giving birth to a strange 
coalition across the continents. India-Israel-USA.

In their own words they call themselves a Triad against Terrorism. In 
reality they are nothing more than the curious progeny of a spurious 
theory- Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations.

The Hindus, Jews and Christians versus the Moslems of the world today 
and the Confucians of China tomorrow. This is nothing less than the 
Axis of the Apocalyptic.

On May 8, India's National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra formally 
announced its arrival at the 97th annual dinner meeting in Washington 
of the American Jewish Committee, an out-and-out Zionist outfit.

To quote Mishra " a core, consisting of democratic societies" must 
emerge, "which can take on international terrorism in a holistic and 
focused manner ---- to ensure that global terrorism is pursued to its 
logical conclusion". The India-Israel-USA triad would form the core 
of this 'democratic' alliance. (He could have added that the 'logical 
conclusion' will be annihilation of all those defined as 
'terrorists').

Topping up his irrational exuberance over the viability of this axis 
Mishra went to make a startling announcement. Israeli Prime Minister 
Ariel Sharon will visit India sometime in the second week of June 
this year.

Before we get into discussing the life expectancy of this newborn 
creature a little bit of background first. This is an axis that has 
been in the making for a while now ever since the quasi-fascist Hindu 
chauvinists came to power in India a few years ago.

The Indian loony right have used 'Islamic terrorism' as the 
ostensible excuse for their assiduous cultivation of both the US and 
Israel in search of strategic partnership. But for those who know 
them well it is also obvious they harbor grandiose illusions about 
the destiny of the nuclear-armed 'Hindus' becoming a great power in 
global affairs.

While Israel responded warmly to the Indian overtures right from the 
start, the US was initially indifferent. It already had an old and 
trusted slave in South Asia- Pakistan- the pet hate object of the 
Hindu chauvinists- and was reluctant to retire it hastily.

The events of September 11 however have seen the US do precisely 
that- fire Pakistan- and allow India to qualify for the post of Uncle 
Sam's favorite vassal in the region. The blooming India-Israel 
romance has merely helped seal this dubious deal between three very 
different countries.

For the obvious question that arises is - what do the world's only 
hyper-power, a nation set up by the survivors of the Nazi holocaust 
and the world's largest producer of masala movies- really have in 
common ? It seems, their interests do intersect on several themes.

To begin with- they are all deeply in love with Osama Bin Laden.

Seriously, in Bin Laden all three governments have found their 
perfect demon- a demon with designer horns. He is Muslim, suitably 
long-bearded, a religious fanatic, a confirmed terrorist and likes 
living in caves. Even better he pops up once in a while on our 
television screens speaking in a strange tongue. Just like the odious 
villain in a James Bond flick threatening to blow up the world if not 
allowed to take it over. (Heck, I thought the Talebs prohibited 
music, dance and photography)

All of which makes it easier for the regimes that run these three 
countries to keep their citizens perpetually scared, jack up military 
spending and justify whatever economic/social policies their 
corporate masters want them to implement.

Secondly, since all three nations pretend to be great democracies 
(the messiest, the costliest and the loneliest) the Bin Laden bogey 
allows them to squash every semblance of civil and political rights 
from the lives of their citizens- while getting extreme right wingers 
re-elected on ultra-nationalist, anti-terrorist platforms.

At a deeper level there is another interesting commonality emerging 
between these three countries. The power elites ruling all of them 
are deeply obsessed with manipulating the structures of the STATE.

The Hindu right wing is desperately trying to capture the Indian 
State and cleanse it of all the secular, pluralist, democratic 
elements inherited from the Indian struggle against British 
colonialism (a struggle to which they contributed absolutely 
nothing). They want to redefine what it means to be an Indian 
completely in 'Hindu' terms and define what it means to be a Hindu 
according to the Weltenschauung of a minority upper-caste. And all 
this in a country where there are large non-Hindu minorities present.

Sharon's 'Likud'ationists are ruthlessly seeking to consolidate and 
expand the racist Israeli State to fulfill an ultra-nationalist 
vision of lebensraum for a Greater Israel.

The most audacious of all manipulations is of course the attempt by 
the US elites to breakdown existing international structures and 
create a completely new State- at the global level. A State that will 
serve their interests and their interests alone. The 100 year 
American Reich.

But is that all it is about- their common grounds ? I wish it were. 
Really. Quite frighteningly, all three regimes are today run by 
people who will not show a moment's hesitation in using weapons of 
mass destruction against anyone they dub their 'enemy'.

The repeated pronouncements in recent times by the United States that 
it 'reserves the right' to exercise the nuclear option, even for a 
first strike, is to be taken seriously. Particularly as it comes from 
a nation that is the only one on this planet to have ever carried out 
a nuclear attack anywhere.

Israel, the middle-east's only nuclear power, has also repeatedly 
threatened there will be 'devastating consequences' for countries 
that dare to strike Israel even with conventional weapons. Surely a 
clear signal of their willingness to use WMDs.

The Indian Minister of Defense George 'loose cannon' Fernandes, has 
in the past year said publicly several times that if there is a 
nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan ' We will lose a few 
million people but Pakistan will be wiped out completely'. (I want to 
know the names and addresses of these few million people he is 
willing to sacrifice)That a senior minister of any government will 
even talk about such a possibility so casually shows the material 
these madmen are made of.

Wait, it gets worse. What is even more horrific about this emerging 
Axis of the Apocalyptic is that all of them today harbor elements who 
have classic Nazi-like intentions towards Muslims (in the abstract).

In the US there are those who talk of 'nuking Mecca' who are 
dangerously close to the powers-that-be. In Israel the extreme 
rightwing would like to ethnically cleanse the West Bank and Gaza of 
its Palestinian people.

In India the state sponsored pogrom against Muslims in the western 
Indian state of Gujarat two years ago showed the world the true face 
of Hindu fascism. Over 2000 Muslim men, women and children were 
systematically killed by Hindu mobs while state authorities looked on 
or even joined in. A clear attempt was made by the Hindu fanatics to 
push the entire Muslim community out of the province by destroying 
their sources of income.

At the national level, echoing the practices of the Nazis, the 
current Indian regime, has systematically rewritten history text 
books and cooked up archaeological evidence to suit its fanciful 
theories about India's past, persecuted religious minorities and sent 
storm troopers to physically intimidate its critics.

In fact, talking about the Nazis - the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh 
(RSS), a militarist, so called 'cultural' organization, which 
mentored many senior leaders of the current Indian government, is a 
vintage fascist organization. The Prime Minister Atal Behari 
Vajpayee, considered a 'moderate ' (and believe me he looks like one 
compared to the rest) among the Hindu Hawks, has been a life-long 
member of the RSS. And I do not use the term 'fascist' as an abuse 
word (I have choicer words for that purpose) but to refer 
specifically to the political ideology spewed up by Mussolini in 
Italy of the 1920s and later 'developed' so devastatingly by Herr 
Hitler in Germany. But there will be no irony at all when Ariel 
Sharon shakes hands with his Indian counterpart later this month. 
Unfortunately, the man presiding over a nation built to say Never 
Again to the Nazi holocaust (built on somebody else's land of course) 
will be very comfortable in bed with this bunch of Indian 
Nazi-lovers. Sharon's visit to India at this juncture will be just 
one more episode in the relentless realpolitik of the Zionists that 
has seen Israel transform from a land of the 20th Century's greatest 
victims to one of its most reviled oppressors.

India's Hindu fundamentalists too will see no contradiction in 
admiring Hitler and Sharon in the same breath. With their paranoia 
about 'Muslim terrorism' and their own vision of a Greater India the 
proponents of an Indian fascism are ardent fans of Sharon- for his 
willingness to use disproportionate force to put down the rebellious 
Palestinians, his contempt for both international and human rights 
laws and his ability to make the monkey (s) in the US White House 
dance to his tune.

Coming back to how this new Axis is likely to fare in the future it 
is obvious that there are glaring contradictions within its fold. 
Contradictions, that have to do with the sheer mismatch in the 
abilities and ambitions of India and Israel on one hand and the 
United States on the other.

The simple fact is that while India and Israel delude themselves 
about being invited to sup with the Superpower for the latter they 
are both a highly dispensable duo. Mere client-states to be disposed 
off with when their utility is over.

Israel, as the United State's best bulldog in the turbulent Arab 
world, to keep an eye on those precious oil reserves. India the dumb, 
short-sighted elephant to be suckered into conflict with the Chinese 
dragon someday. And both to seek, hunt and destroy subversive Muslim 
militants on behalf of Uncle Sam.

So, on closer observation, this Axis of the Apocalyptic turns to be 
not a single creature but a strange menagerie of a bulldog, elephant 
and the man-eating tiger that the US has currently become. A tiger 
that has always had permanent interests, never permanent friends.

Together in the short run they could be a terrifying lot indeed. But 
if the prey turns out to be tougher to get and the hunt gets longer 
than planned the tiger will surely not mind supping solo. All alone 
by itself- on elephant steak and bulldog burger. SHLURP ! BURP ! 
SHALOM ! NAMASTE!

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Satya Sagar is an Indian journalist based in Thailand. He can be 
reached at sagarnama@yahoo.com

_____


#6.

The News on Sunday | The News International
June 8, 2003
What if peace breaks out?

Many serious concerns must be urgently addressed if India and 
Pakistan are to be better prepared to handle the totally alien and 
unusual eventuality of peace breaking out in the Sub Continent


By Naeem Sadiq

Having spent the long hot summer of 2002, with a million soldiers 
bunkered on both sides of the border, a thousand fighter jets ready 
to scramble at a moment's notice, and hundreds of restless fingers 
itching to push the buttons that could rapidly transform a bunch of 
sleepy cylindrical objects into missiles of untold destruction, one 
cannot dispute the readiness status that India and Pakistan maintain 
to destroy each other at short notice and for a shorter reason.

With at least three major wars to their credit, the two countries do 
seem to have a fair idea on how to handle wars. Which brigade will 
tear to shreds the soldiers of which battalion on the opposite side; 
how the dead would be honoured as martyrs or simply pushed into 
hurriedly dug graves; and how their innocent widows and children 
would be broken the news of grief and pain that they must bear for 
the rest of their lives. All these are issues that have occupied much 
debate and documentation on both sides of the border, and one assumes 
there are enough 'war plans', 'battle instructions' and 'standard 
operating procedures', which could be readily pulled out to unleash 
waves of 'shock and awe' at one's own neighbour.

But have we ever even for a moment pondered at our state of readiness 
for the eventuality of peace? What if there is a sudden outbreak of 
peace between the two countries? Are we even remotely prepared for 
such a serious and totally unfamiliar eruption? Where are the 
exigency plans and procedures to handle the colossal fallout that 
usually occurs with the detonation of peace? How much area and how 
many people would be positively impacted within the first few weeks 
or months of a peaceful strike? How will the various formations of 
the military cope with their daily existence under such extremely 
unoccupying and unchallenging circumstances? What would be the impact 
on the health and performance of politicians when deprived of the 
primary contents from their frothy venomous speeches?

How would the ordinary citizens go about their daily chores without 
the always present fear of themselves and their families being 
suddenly vapourised out of existence? How would thousands of families 
react under the emotional trauma of being able to freely visit their 
families and birth places across the borders? With the going away of 
visa restrictions and the absence of long queues in front of their 
offices. how will the bureaucrats and baboos cope with their newly 
acquired unimportance?

What would be the psychological impact on issues of ideology, 
culture, and traditions when we open our TV, radio, newspapers and 
other platforms of mass media to each other? How would trade and 
industry respond to the easy and cost-effective availability of 
goods, grains and technology? What would replace the newspaper 
headings in absence of the standard hate accusations and statements 
released every day by the officials of the two governments? How would 
the governments respond to persistent demands from the military to 
drastically cut down the defense budgets?

Used to left-over crumbs, how would the health, education and social 
sectors cope with absorbing a ten-fold increase in their funding? 
What will be the new occupational pastime of thousands of 'out of 
job' Jihadi volunteers? How would the religious zealots on both sides 
come to terms with replacing their well-established doctrine of hate 
by new compulsions of peaceful co-existence?

These and many other such serious concerns must be urgently addressed 
if India and Pakistan are to be better prepared to handle the totally 
alien and unusual eventuality of peace breaking out in the Sub 
Continent. These concerns may be so deep and powerful that they may 
have by themselves become the biggest obstacle for peace. Peace may 
have become hostage to the frozen mindset of the civil and military 
elite of the two countries, who are threatened by a phenomenon that 
will challenge and hurt their cushy lifestyles.

The two countries are thus unprepared to handle the far-reaching 
fallout of peace. Only when they seriously reflect and understand the 
nature of transformation it could bring to the lives of their teeming 
millions, that they may begin to slowly take the first small step 
towards the uncharted path of peace.


______


#7.

Daily Star
http://www.dailystarnews.com/200306/03/n3060301.htm#BODY11

Locals unite against OC's alleged attempt at communal unrest

UNB, Jhenidah
It was an alleged conspiracy of the officer of Tamaltala police 
outpost. He is charged of instigating villagers against the minority 
community on Sunday night, saying they had sacrileged the holy Quran.

Residents said Tofazzal Hossain, in-charge of the outpost, led a 
procession at the dead of night that ransacked two Asrams, a temple 
of Goddess Kali, three houses at Gopalpur when seven to eight people 
were injured in mass beating.

But the angry people this morning could realise that they were misled 
when some Hindu community leaders narrated 'the game of the police 
officer for extorting bribe'.

At about 9:00am several thousand Muslims and Hindus of the area 
rallied together and attacked the Tamaltala police outpost seeking 
punishment to Tofazzal. Soon they were engaged in a fistfight with 
constables that left 15 people injured including a policeman. Finding 
it difficult to control the angry villagers, police fired several 
gunshots in the air to disperse them.

Police superintendent Abdullah Al Mahmud said he is aware of the 
incident and ordered suspension of Tofazzal.

Describing what he termed the police officer's conspiracy, Biwamvar 
Das Maharaj, caretaker of Nitai-Goura Seba Asram, said he and 
neighbours Bibendra Nath Saha, 55, Kartik Chandra Saha, 42, and Anil 
Saha, 50, were picked up from their houses at midnight, taken to the 
outpost and beaten up mercilessly.

He further alleged that the police officer demanded Tk 50,000 as 
bribe with a threat of implicating them in false arms case. On 
refusal, the police officer organised some villagers and incited them 
to attack the minority community.

Local UP chairman Shariful Islam Masum said it was shrouded in 
mystery why the Asrams and some houses of the minority community were 
ransacked and the inmates beaten. He took the injured -- Kallayni 
Rani, Eiti Rani, Chandan Kumar and Arabind Saha -- to hospital.

Tofazzal dismisses the charges, saying the four were taken into 
custody from the Asram on suspicion. He pleaded ignorance and said he 
did not know why the villagers attacked the minority community.



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