SACW | 10 June, 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   | 10 June,  2003


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

#1. Under the Shariat axe
At stake is not just women's rights, but Pakistan's future (Sherry Rehman)
#2. Pakistan: Law of the land (Tim Mcgirk)
[Related Material: Pakistan's frontier passes Islamic law, rankling 
Islamabad (Owais Tohid)
#3. Textbook Troubles India's Hindu Nationalists Rewrite Their Country's
Past-Conveniently (Siddhartha Deb)
#4. India: Justice Eludes Families of the "Disappeared" in Punjab 
(Human Rights Watch)
#5. USA/ India: Letter to American President Released re visit of 
Hindutva bigwig LK Advani
#6. [Communal riots in Hyderabad, India] Nothing trivial about 
violence (editorial, The Hindu)
#7. India: Workshop discusses threats to democracy
#8. UK: Picket Advani Visit (15 June, London)


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

#1.

The Indian Express
June 09, 2003

Under the Shariat axe
At stake is not just women's rights, but Pakistan's future
Sherry Rehman

Every time the spectre of a Shariat act is raised in Pakistan, women 
are the first to shudder. Despite the rush of burqa humour clogging 
the Net, these jokes conceal a fear as visceral as it is real. 
Irrespective of its content, there are widespread fears that the 
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government's adoption of a 
Shariat bill could result in serious curbs on women's mobility and 
freedom. The first worry is that many radical clauses kept off this 
bill's agenda will still be pursued by self-appointed vigilantes in 
the streets. A bigger fear is that once legislation such as the Hisba 
act goes through in the Frontier, the whole apparatus of vice and 
virtue policing may leak into the public culture of other provinces 
as well.

Such fears are not unfounded. Our own history, as well as the 
experience of other Islamicised states, holds up a largely 
anti-women, deeply orthodox mirror to the societies they reflect. 
This picture threatens a large mainstream of Pakistani women today. 
Unlike the stereotype of the veiled, faceless woman the media likes 
to sensationalise, a majority of Pakistani women work unveiled inside 
and outside the home but remain unaccounted for, and hence 
unempowered, by the strictly fiscal nature of the modern economy. As 
in the wider South Asian context, in Pakistan too a woman's identity 
is a fragile social construct, subject to almost daily negotiation 
with powerful economic, political and cultural forces. What so-called 
Islamic laws will do is introduce a new slew of legal limits and 
cultural constraints to restrict even more the public space that most 
women can operate within.

I am not alone in dismissing the old right-wing bromide, in currency 
again, that such laws seek to protect women. Anyone who has witnessed 
the corrosive effects of General Zia's Islamisation process that 
saddled Pakistan with laws such as the Hudood and Zina ordinances 
knows what they mean for women.

If to privileged, postmodern apologists such laws don't define the 
quotidian experience of the average woman, I'd urge a quick, sobering 
look at police records of the last few years. The Hudood ordinance 
remains the single most commonly applied law to hold women in 
indefinite lock-up. According to this law, in present-day usage, when 
a woman petitions against her rape she invariably becomes an 
accomplice instead of a victim. Needless to say, the law's axe falls 
mostly on poor, resource-starved women.

But my issue with this bill is not just about the misogynist content 
and scope of these laws that seek to Talibanise the country. Without 
a doubt, women's freedoms and hard-earned rights are the first to go 
in any such project. Many others in Pakistan also feel these laws 
don't just threaten the power and mobility of women to attempt to 
live as equal members of the federation. They strike at the very 
heart of the project that is Pakistan. I say this because the 
legislation is about a fundamental re-ordering of the state in the 
image not of its founding father's dream, but in the muddled vision 
of its first opponents, our friends in the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah would find most of the 71 points that the Council 
of Islamic Ideology has recommended in this Shariat bill repugnant to 
the spirit of tolerance and liberalism he espoused in his vision of 
Pakistan. Conceived as a home for Muslims to live in peace and 
prosperity, Jinnah had made it amply clear that Pakistan was never to 
be a theocracy.

=46or over three decades, Shariat-law adventurism has been a favourite 
ploy of rightist political forces who have been allies with the 
military in dominating the national agenda through the appropriation 
of the state's ideological discourse. Although critics of such 
policies blame the insertion of the Objectives Resolution in the 
Constitution as the original concession on this slippery slope, the 
real Islamisation of the state began seriously only under Zia. His 
formula of harnessing Islamist parties as a substitute for the 
legitimacy conferred by real democracy continues even today.

General Musharraf's intransigence on refusing the elected parliament 
the right to indemnify his constitutional amendments has led him up 
the same dangerous road. For a self-proclaimed secularist, his 
obsession with marginalising moderate, mainstream parties at the 
expense of the stability of the new democratic set-up has exposed his 
weakness and willingness to barter anything for his political 
survival. Faced with a revolt in the National Assembly and Senate, 
where his potential for an alliance with the MMA is crumbling in the 
wake of his refusal to give up his COAS uniform while remaining 
president, he is locked on the horns of a nasty dilemma.

The good news is that as surely as night follows day, the NWFP's 
Shariat bill will be challenged as unconstitutional by the bar 
councils, in the Supreme Court. Women's groups, minorities and trade 
unions will back the PPP a hundred per cent on reversing this bill on 
the grounds of it being a "Taliban bill". It is also not a foregone 
conclusion that the federal government will let this bill be signed 
by the governor of that province, although this tactic too will only 
buy its opponents a little more time, given that the bill will 
eventually have to be returned to the assembly.

At his own peril, Musharraf feels he can ignore this. His gameplan is 
clear. To break the single-issue agenda of the opposition on the 
Legal Framework Order crisis, he is dangling the carrot of this bill 
in front of the MMA. The stick is the pressure from his non-party 
local body councillors to resign their offices in confrontation with 
the MMA assembly. What he can't manage forever is the game he is 
playing with his real constituents, the terrorist-panicked US.

At the end of the day, nobody wants to back a dictator who is losing 
control of the game. Or who has lost his utility as a bulwark against 
religious militancy. The NWFP's Shariat bill is not a pawn in the 
MMA's chess game with the general. It is their final solution. It is 
high time the Jamali government alerted him to the reality that there 
is no such thing as limited Islamisation. At stake is not just his 
own survival. It is the survival of Pakistan as we know it.

(The writer is a member of the National Assembly in Pakistan, and 
former editor of the newsmagazine 'The Herald')

______


#2.

http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501030616-457398,00.h=
tml
Time
June 16, 2003 / Vol. 161 No. 23
Notebook

Pakistan: Law of the land
A drive to enforce Islamic law threatens to unravel Musharraf's 
coalition government
BY TIM MCGIRK

Once again, Pakistan's mullahs are on a collision course with 
President Pervez Musharraf. In the latest clash, on June 2, religious 
groups that control Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province declared 
that Shari'a law would be enforced in their territory-superceding the 
British-style legal system that is Pakistan's law of the land. 
Shari'a is the strict religious code that governs Islam. From now on, 
Arabic, the language of the Koran, will be obligatory in schools; 
girls 12 years and older will have to wear the head-to-toe veil known 
as the burqa, and women will not be allowed to leave home 
unaccompanied by a husband or male relative.

A challenge to Pakistan's shaky, secular government is the last thing 
Musharraf needs, but the mullahs are pushing a showdown. The 
Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a political bloc of six religious 
groups, intends to set up a morality police to enforce Islamic 
virtue, raising cries among human-rights activists against the 
"Talibanization" of the province. But popular support for the change 
is evident: even before the law imposing Shari'a was passed, Islamic 
youths roamed the town of Peshawar tearing down billboards featuring 
images of unburqa'd women. The religious parties warned Musharraf not 
to interfere. "We will resist all threats," said the MMA's Secretary 
General, Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

In retaliation, Musharraf could dissolve the provincial assembly. But 
the MMA is making threats of its own, warning that 68 of its members 
serving in parliament may resign if Islamabad tries to overturn the 
local law. That poses no direct peril to Musharraf, who took power in 
a bloodless coup in 1999. But the flimsy coalition Musharraf stitched 
together after last October's elections could come unraveled if there 
are mass resignations. And if the elected government falls, 
Musharraf's popularity could plummet, as could his standing with his 
main international ally: the U.S.

Meanwhile, a nationwide alliance of mullahs has launched a direct 
attack on Musharraf, demanding that he no longer serve as both the 
country's President and army chief. They say they are willing to drop 
that demand-if Musharraf agrees to apply Shari'a law throughout the 
country, a step the President, a religious moderate, is loathe to 
make. If he wants to save his fa=E7ade of civilian government and 
retain international support, he may have to swallow hard and make 
peace with two exiled former Prime Ministers, Benazir Bhutto and 
Nawaz Sharif, whose parties together are strong enough to foil the 
clerics.

-With reporting by Ghulam Hasnain/Islamabad and Rahimullah Yusufzai/Peshawar

o o o

[Related material]

The Christian Science Monitor
June 10, 2003

Pakistan's frontier passes Islamic law, rankling Islamabad
By Owais Tohid
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0610/p07s02-wosc.html

______

#3.

The Boston Globe
June 1, 2003

Textbook Troubles India's Hindu Nationalists Rewrite Their Country's
Past-Conveniently

Siddhartha Deb

EVERY NATION IMPARTS self-serving myths and legends to its young, but in
recent years few countries have done so quite as avidly as India. In
classrooms from Kashmir to Karnataka, a new history is being produced by a
resurgent right-wing Hindu movement. One finds a number of curious stories
being peddled to schoolchildren: Aryans sallying out from India to settle
Iran, Homer adapting ''The Iliad'' from the Ramayana, Christ roaming the
Himalayas in search of Hindu wisdom.    These claims will sound unlikely
even to the hardened Indophile, but they are being promoted in
government-sponsored textbooks, columns by right-wing journalists, and
paintings commissioned to adorn public spaces. The Hindu fundamentalist
vision of history presumes that the Indian subcontinent is an exclusive
Aryan-Hindu preserve. Hindu ideologues dismiss strong historical evidence
that the area once contained a mix of peoples, and that the Aryan people
migrated there from central Asia.  Their purist idea!
  of India has become visible even in America. On March 25, a vocal group of
well-dressed Indian nationalists disrupted a Columbia University panel on
India and Pakistan, forcing the moderator to abruptly halt the discussion.
In April, some 2000 signatures appeared on an online petition protesting the
appointment of Romila Thapar, a secular scholar of ancient India, to a
research chair at the Library of Congress.
  Such incidents are old news in India, where liberal, secular, and left-win=
g
historians have been under attack since the early 1990s, when the right-wing
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) began its rise to power. The BJP originally
focused its complaints on a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya, a symbol to them
of the long history of Muslim conquest and plunder. The BJP, along with its
allied organizations the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishva
Hindu Parishad (VHP) (known collectively as the ''Sangh family''), claimed
the mosque had been built on the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama.
Historical evidence was hard to come by, but the BJP leader L.K. Advani (who
has since become deputy prime minister) gave public appearances as Rama
riding his chariot. Subsequently, the mosque was demolished by Sangh cadres.
  In 1998, the BJP won national elections and began taking control of the
country's leading scholarly bodies. A national curriculum for schools run by
the central government was proposed the same year, with the objective of
replacing history textbooks by the country's most reputed scholars, many of
whom have a secular or left-wing orientation.
  In May 2002, the education ministers of 16 states walked out of a
conference to protest the right-wing bias of the new curriculum, while three
leading scholar-activists filed a petition with the Supreme Court
challenging the publication of new textbooks. The petition was turned down,
however, and ''India and the World'' and ''Contemporary India'' made their
appearance last year.
  At first sight, the new textbooks seemed notable only for their bad
photographs, cluttered maps, occasional typos, and the insouciance of
introductory statements like ''The twentieth century world witnessed umpteen
developments of far reaching consequences.'' Once the liberal press had
subjected the textbooks to close readings, however, a pattern emerged from
the ''umpteen developments'' left out.
  The anti-left bias, as in the offhand description of Lenin as the leader o=
f
a ''coup,'' was expected. But some other distortions were less so. The
Holocaust, for example, is significantly absent from the discussion of Nazi
Germany in ''India and the World,'' and Gandhi's assassination by a
right-wing Hindu isn't mentioned in ''Contemporary India.'' The books
criticize German nationalism not for genocide, war, pogroms, and
book-burning, but merely for a false superiority complex premised on
''so-called Aryan blood.'' The real Aryans, or Hindus, omnipresent in all
aspects of the Indian subcontinent, are a different matter altogether.
  It doesn't take a reader of runes to trace the lineage of these omissions
and distortions. The Hindu right-wing vision of India was in large part
imported from the West: Under British rule, the history books emphasized
irreconcilable differences between Hindus and Muslims, largely as a
justification for the British presence. These versions of history trickled
down to the colonial-era figureheads of the Hindu right. The BJP, for
instance, owes a great deal of its historical vision to Veer Savarkar, an
Indian nationalist imprisoned by the British in the early 20th century.
Although Savarkar turned informer in prison, the BJP recently installed his
portrait in the Indian parliament.    It was a loyal gesture, because
Savarkar had articulated the view closest to the revised history being
shaped by the Sangh family, even coining the word they use to express their
idea of Indian identity: ''Hindutva,'' or Hindu-ness. As Savarkar explained,
''Hindutva is not a word but a history. !
Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole
being of our Hindu race.''
  Savarkar defined the Hindu race as those for whom the Indian subcontinent
was their original ''fatherland,'' while M.S. Golwalkar, an early guiding
light of the RSS, had written admiringly of the ''race pride'' of Nazi
Germany. Taken together, they provide the perfect framework for a
constructed ''Aryan'' history whose key points fly in the face of mainstream
historical consensus.
  According to this revisionist history, the people commonly referred to as
Aryans were native to the Indian subcontinent, not tribes who arrived from
Central Asia around 1500 BC. The Harappan civilization that flourished in
Western India and Eastern Pakistan from 3000 to 1500 BC were horse-riding
Aryans, not the advanced urban population most historians say they were. The
period of Muslim Moghul role from the 11th to the 18th centuries AD was one
of total religious persecution of the Hindu majority, not a time when Hindus
played active roles in sustaining and challenging the Mughal empire. And
finally, the BJP claim that independence from British rule was won by
right-wing Hindus, when in fact such organizations had a shameful record of
collaboration with the British.    In today's India, only 30 percent of
school children attend primary school, and far fewer reach the state-run
secondary schools where the most controversial textbooks are likely to be
used. It's significant !
that the new textbooks are aimed, most of all, at the children of India's
middle class, which embraces both the idea of a global economy and
retrograde fantasies of ethnic purity. The Hindu nationalist middle class
participated avidly in the looting that accompanied the massacre of an
estimated 2,000 Muslims in the western state of Gujarat last year.    What
all this history effort produces, of course, is the worldview held by
Praveen Togadia, the VHP's general secretary, who proclaimed Gujarat a
''laboratory'' for Hindutva in the wake of the killings. Togadia has
demanded that Indian Muslims take blood tests to prove they are not of Arab
descent. He was probably characterizing Islam as an Arab and foreign
religion, and his message was clear: Non-Hindus are second-class citizens,
and anyone who knows India's history should know as much. To defeat
Togadia's way of thinking will require Indians to remember precisely those
pluralistic and tolerant aspects of their history that !
the new government-sponsored curriculums so eagerly erase.


Siddhartha Deb is an Indian writer whose reviews and articles have
appeared in New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, and Legal Affairs.
His novel ''The Point of Return'' was published recently by Ecco.Copyright
(c) 2003 Globe Newspaper Company


______


#4.

Human Rights Watch
India: Justice Eludes Families of the "Disappeared" in Punjab
National Human Rights Commission Should Investigate
(New York, June 10, 2003) India's National Human Rights Commission 
must fulfill its mandate to investigate forced disappearances in 
Punjab, Human Rights Watch said today.

	 Six years ago, the Indian Supreme Court directed the 
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to investigate 2,097 cases of 
illegal cremation in Punjab's Amritsar district. The NHRC has yet to 
hear testimony in a single case.

Human Rights Watch commended the Committee for Coordination of 
Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP), a Punjab-based human rights 
organization, for its 634-page report documenting 672 of the 
"disappearance" cases currently pending before the NHRC. The first 
volume of the report, titled Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and 
Human Rights in Punjab, is based on six years of research and was 
released in the United States on Wednesday.

"Ending state impunity for abuses in Punjab must become a priority," 
said Smita Narula, senior researcher for South Asia at Human Rights 
Watch. "The National Human Rights Commission has shown great courage 
and leadership with its work on the 2002 massacres in Gujarat. We 
hope it will do the same in Punjab."

The CCDP's report builds on the work of Jaswant Singh Khalra, a 
lawyer and human rights activist who was abducted and "disappeared" 
in September 1995. Mr. Khalra filed the initial public interest 
petition that eventually led the Indian Supreme Court to order an 
NHRC investigation of the 2,097 illegal cremations.

"Thousands of family members still await justice," said Narula. "The 
CCDP report demonstrates that investigations into the abuses is 
possible, if the political will exists to hold the perpetrators 
responsible."

Between 1984 and 1994, thousands of persons "disappeared" and were 
believed illegally cremated in Punjab as part of a brutal police 
crackdown to quash insurgency in the state. Police counter-insurgency 
efforts included torture, forced disappearances, and a bounty system 
of cash rewards for the summary execution of suspected Sikh 
militants. The campaign succeeded in eliminating most of the major 
militant groups, and by early 1993, the government claimed that 
normalcy had returned to the state. Police abuses continued, however, 
and there was no effort to account for hundreds of forced 
disappearances and summary killings. Even though the identity of the 
perpetrators is well documented, no one has been successfully 
prosecuted by the state.

The CCDP report can be found at www.punjabjustice.org


______


#5.

Coalition to Support Democracy and Pluralism in India
C/O 110 Maryland Ave, NE Suite 510
Washington DC 20002
Phone: 202 547 4700 Fax: 202 547 6228

June 9, 2003

TO:  The President, The Vice President, The Secretary of State, The 
Secretary of Defense, The Secretary of Homeland Security, The 
Attorney General, The National Security Advisor and the Congressional 
Leaders

=46OR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION

We, the undersigned belonging to various organizations, including 
those representing Americans of Indian origin are writing to you 
about your possible meeting with the visiting Deputy Prime Minister 
of India Mr. L.K. Advani, today.

Mr. Advani has indicated that he intends to discuss, how India and 
the United States can co-operate to fight global terrorism. We 
welcome such cooperation. Terrorism has become a global menace, 
necessitating coordination across countries.

We also believe India and the U.S. should come together to promote 
trade and strategic partnership.

However, we are not comfortable with the fact that such discussions 
should take place with people like Mr. Advani.  His actions in the 
past and currently undermine the American interests and values: 

=A7         He has been held directly responsible for criminal 
activities against religious minorities and gross violations of human 
rights.  India's lead intelligence agency, the Central Bureau of 
Investigations (CBI) has filed criminal charges against Mr. Advani as 
recently as last week for masterminding the religious riots.

=A7         His actions have undermined the global war on terror by 
encouraging religious extremism in India which in turn fuels the 
religious extremism in Pakistan.  His positions and rhetoric are 
causing more damage in South Asia.

=A7         His religious politics is causing uncertainties and unrest 
in India which is bad for business.  It also damages economic 
stability besides causing strains in U.S.-India trade.

Criminal Activities and Human Rights Violations

Since late 1980s, Mr. Advani has succeeded in spreading hatred 
against India's religious minority communities, particularly 
Christian and Muslim populations. He has organized numerous rallies 
across India that have led to violent riots, thousands of deaths, and 
the illegal destruction of private, commercial and religious 
property. The most flagrant instance occurred in December 1992, when 
the 16th century Babri mosque was demolished in Ayodhya, India by 
several thousand extremist Hindu 'volunteers' belonging to the BJP 
and its sister organizations, under the guidance of Mr. Advani.  The 
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), filed several charges against 
Mr. Advani in connection with this incident.  These activities have 
also been highlighted by the United States Commission on 
International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The May 2003 USCIRF report 
refers to BJP capitalizing on the religious intolerance and hatred 
against minorities for electoral gains.

Under Mr. Advani's leadership, the Ministry of Home Affairs has 
consistently refused to take action against Hindu extremists who have 
been responsible for destroying Christian churches, schools and 
hospitals, and for killing pastors and raping nuns.  He has similarly 
protected the perpetrators of organized large scale violence against 
the Muslim community.

Mr. Advani has used the influence of his office to scuttle many 
official inquiries into these acts of violence, and has even made 
public statements declaring the accused as innocent. The Government 
is now dragging its feet in investigating the riots against the 
Muslim minority in Gujarat in February-March 2002 which resulted in 
over 2000 Muslim deaths.

It is shocking to note that Mr. Advani and other BJP members have 
publicly lauded Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has been 
indicted by a range of Indian and international human rights groups 
of conniving with and supporting the mobs who attacked the religious 
minorities in Gujarat.

Creating Instability and Undermining War on Terror

We urge you to seriously consider whether Mr. Advani and the BJP are 
trustworthy allies in the war on terrorism.  Mr. Advani's actions 
have directly made the Indian subcontinent more unstable.  He has 
polarized religious communities within India, leading to religious 
violence among different religious communities.  Hindu fundamentalism 
promoted by his party has encouraged greater Islamic militancy in 
South Asia, further destabilizing the Indian subcontinent undermining 
the war on terrorism globally.  This should be of utmost concern for 
the U.S., particularly given Pakistan's past history and its 
direct/indirect involvement in Kashmir.

The US support to BJP leaders and its government would be considered 
very short sighted and has the potential to cause long term damage to 
the progress and partnerships.  We urge the United States to 
reconsider its support to a religious fundamentalist party such as 
BJP which will cause permanent damage to the civil society in India.

Hurting Business and U.S. - India Trade

Mr. Advani's religious politics is not creating a suitable 
environment for growth in business. As India has become a vital hub 
in industries such as software and outsourcing, increasing 
instability and unrest in the society could undermine the ability of 
US companies for doing business there.

We would respectfully ask the US Government to strongly address with 
Mr. Advani the abovementioned areas of concern. We request that Mr. 
Advani be asked:

         1. To take full cognizance of the USCIRF report of May 1, 2003.

         2. What the Government of India, and the office of the Deputy 
Prime Minister in particular, is doing to counteract the prevailing 
climate of hostility against religious minorities in many parts of 
India.

         3. What specific steps have been taken and how many people 
have been prosecuted for the carnage against minorities in Gujarat, 
and what steps have been taken to protect these minorities from 
continuing attacks by BJP's political affiliates.

         4. Whether US-based contributions to Hindu fundamentalist 
groups in India are being monitored as closely as overseas funds 
received by Christian and Muslim institutions. It is well documented 
that funds raised by some groups in the US are being used to 
strengthen Hindu extremist groups in India that have committed 
violence against religious minorities. 

It is our belief that the friendship, generous support and goodwill 
being extended to India by our Government and the people of the 
United States should not be allowed to be misused by the extremist 
Hindus among the leadership in the Indian Government.  Your attention 
and understanding of this matter is greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

Partial list of signatory organizations and offices:

Ambedkar Memorial Trust
Association for India's Development (AID)
Association of Indian Muslims of America, The (AIM)
Ahsan Jafri Foundation
Bharatiya Educational Foundation,
California Institute of Integral Studies,
Educational Subscription Service,
Ethics and Public Policy Center, South Asia Studies (EPPC)
=46ederation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North 
America (FIAOCONA),
=46ederation of Indian Christians (Chicago)
India Development Society,
India Foundation,
India Unity Group,
Indian American Catholic Association (IACA)
Indian Christian Forum, New York ICF(NY),
Indian Muslim Council (IMC),
Institute for Religion and Public Policy (IRPP)
International Service Society,
M.K.Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence, Memphis, TN
SE Ministries International, Inc.
Seva International,
South Asia Forum (Washington DC),
Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, MI.

_____

#6.

The Hindu
June 09, 2003
Opinion - Editorials    

Nothing trivial about violence

THAT A TRIVIAL dispute over a soiled currency note could take such 
menacing proportions and end in murder and arson is indicative of the 
deep communal divide in Hyderabad which has a long history of 
politics based on religious polarisation. The Old City area in 
Hyderabad is known to be prone to communal violence, but, despite the 
early warnings and slow beginnings of the trouble, the police were 
found wanting in their response to a volatile situation. Indeed, the 
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, who visited the 
affected area, admitted that the police were unable to assess the 
situation properly. Apparently, after a period of peace and calm, the 
police were unprepared for the quick spread of violence. The judicial 
probe ordered by the State Government into the incidents should cover 
all aspects of the violence, including the complaints against some 
police personnel. The charges against the police made by the local 
residents are serious, ranging from indifference to instigation. 
While Mr. Naidu has already announced the transfer of the Habeebnagar 
inspector, Madhu, who was named by the family of Mohammed Ghouse, the 
person killed in Thursday's violence, the Government must ensure that 
the actions of the police force are not vulnerable to charges of 
communalism. Even if the surprise element explains the failure to 
prevent a petty issue from developing into a major flare-up on 
Thursday, the State law and order machinery would still have to 
answer for the inability to control the arson on Friday during the 
funeral procession of Ghouse. Despite heavy police deployment, stone 
pelting and vehicle burning marked the funeral procession. Violence 
continued unchecked for the second day showing the police in a poor 
light.

The sequence of events, beginning with the quarrel over a soiled 
currency note in a restaurant, and ending in communal violence, 
points to the ever-present possibility of ordinary incidents gaining 
a communal colour in sensitive areas. Whatever the origins of 
disputes between Hindus and Muslims, however trivial the issues, 
these quickly assume threatening proportions in places with a history 
of communal violence. Moreover, organisations based on religious 
identity tend to exploit petty issues for political ends. Actually, 
apprehensions have been voiced over the possible link between the 
communal violence and the impending by-election for the Karwan 
Assembly seat that is vacant following the recent death of a 
Majlis-e-Ittahadul Muslimeen legislator, Syed Sajjad. Karwan, 
especially, is an area of religious polarisation where the MIM and 
the BJP are evenly matched. Without doubt, communal parties stand to 
benefit from violence of this kind. In the present instance, the MIM 
was quick to intervene, as Ghouse was a local leader of the 
organisation. MLAs belonging to the MIM also managed to secure the 
release of youths arrested for stone-throwing, despite the objection 
from a senior police officer. Obviously, the police were susceptible 
to political pressure.

Although Mr. Naidu might seek to attribute the violence to 
"anti-social elements" and treat it as a law and order problem, his 
Government would have to face the problem of the communal divide, and 
the distrust of the police force before restoring lasting peace in 
Hyderabad. Otherwise, personal squabbles would take the form of 
communal violence without any warning. The immediate cause of the 
violence might be trivial, but not the end-results. It is never easy 
to keep sparks away from inflammable material. Rather than try and 
eliminate sources of provocation, the Government must make efforts to 
defuse the volatility of the overall situation.

_____


#7.

The Indian Express
June 08, 2003

Workshop discusses threats to democracy
Express News Service
New Delhi, June 6: ''Stop the hatred'' is the message painted across 
all the banners that hang at a four-day political training workshop 
in the city.

Organised by Act now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), the NGO 
formed earlier this year seeks to build a secular cadre all over the 
country and sensitise the activists to issues related to communalism.

Anhad's workshop, with 85 participants from various political parties 
and non-governmental organisations, was conceived as an intensive 
programme of workshops where topics surrounding communalism are being 
discussed.

Documentary films like Zakhm by Mahesh Bhatt, Naseem by Saeed Mirza, 
Zulmaton Ke Daur Main by Gauhar Raza were screened along with 
informal sessions of poetry reading, music, and performances.

Every day, two hours would be devoted to learning of movement songs. 
Discussions around forms of active, non-violent resistance besides 
future plan of action, were also held.

Topics to be discussed included nationalism, fascism, terrorism, 
state and civil society, gender issues, movement and relation with 
communal politics, communalisation of history, education and media, 
legacy of the freedom movement, formation of the Indian identity, 
history of the RSS, growth of the fascist forces and the threat to 
democracy, present global context and communalism, nationalist 
chauvinism and Indo-Pak hostility.

The experts conducting the sessions included Mukul Dube, Irfan Habib, 
Nivedita Menon and Praful Bidwai.

The organisation has plans to hold similar programmes all over the 
country at least for the next three years.

______


#8.

LK ADVANI IS VISITING BRITAIN

Make your voice heard against India's fascist government!

GUJARAT GENOCIDE - NEVER AGAIN!
NO US BASES IN INDIA!
NO INDIAN TROOPS IN IRAQ!

PICKET OF RECEPTION
at
QE2 Centre, Parliament Square,
(next to Methodist Central Hall),
London WC1

Sunday 15th June [2003]
5.30pm - 7.00pm

India's powerful Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister-in-waiting, 
L.K. Advani, is visiting George Bush and Tony Blair this week. The 
purpose of this tour is to finalise arrangements for Indian troops to 
participate in the US=92 ongoing imperialist occupation of Iraq; to 
arrange US military bases in India; and to promote his government's 
idea of a 'core alliance' between the US, Israel and India.

REMEMBER AYODHYA

While he has been away, Advani=92s role in the 1992 demolition of the 
Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which led to communal riots across the 
country, has once again been highlighted. Five of the accused in the 
demolition case have named Advani as the chief instigator of the 
demolition, and at the same time, fresh charges have been brought 
against him by India's Central Bureau of Investigations. There have 
been widespread calls for his immediate resignation.


REMEMBER GUJARAT

Meanwhile, Advani and his party the BJP continue to defend the 
genocidal state- sponsored attacks on the minority Muslim community 
in the state of Gujarat which took place in March 2002. At least 
2,000 people - the majority women and children =96 were  killed in the 
most brutal ways imaginable. Many thousands more saw their families, 
homes and livelihoods destroyed. Today, those survivors who have 
tried to return to their homes are being economically boycotted  and 
terrorised into silence as the perpetrators of the attacks on them 
continue to roam freely. Advani describes Gujarat Chief Minister 
Narendra Modi, who played a key role in planning the attacks, as 
'India's best Chief Minister'. The BJP's sister organisation the VHP 
has called for the Gujarat 'experiment' to be repeated elsewhere in 
India.

WHO IS L.K. ADVANI?

1        The ruling party he represents, the BJP, is a far right 
Hindu supremacist party with a fascist ideology. The BJP used state 
power to  pre-plan and orchestrate the Gujarat carnage along with its 
allies such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and the Bajrang Dal, which 
has also carried out systematic murderous attacks on the Christian 
minority community in India.

2        LK Advani has fully supported Gujarat Chief Minister 
Narendra Modi who has been personally indicted by human rights 
organisations for his role in planning and facilitating the attacks.

3        L.K. Advani joined the RSS, a militant Hindu supremacist 
group who proclaimed their admiration for Hitler, in the 1940s in his 
teens, and today represents their interests while in government.

4        In 1990, as President of the BJP, Advani he took out the 
Somnath-Ayodhya 'rathyatra' cross-country procession demanding 
construction of a Ram temple on the site of the historic Babri 
Masjid,  thereby initiating the worst religious violence since 
Partition in 1947

5        On December 6, 1992 he personally presided over the 
demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya - charges have been 
repeatedly brought against him but he has never been prosecuted

6        As Home Minister he has led the way in pursuing a 
belligerent policy of war-mongering against Pakistan. Several times 
he has brought the country to the brink of nuclear war.

7        He is the most important ideologue of Hindu fascism, and the 
crucial bridge between the militant and openly fascist Rashtriya 
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS - active in Britain as the Hindu Swayamsevak 
Sangh) and the ruling Bharitiya Janata Party


STAND TOGETHER AGAINST COMMUNALISM AND WAR IN SOUTH ASIA!
Organised by South Asia Solidarity Group
=46or more information contact 020 7267 0923 email southasia@hotmail.com


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SACW is an informal, independent & non-profit citizens wire service run by
South Asia Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex).
The complete SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.insaf.net

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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