SACW | 17 June, 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   | 17 June,  2003

#1.  Sri Lanka: The Murder of T. Subathiran : Sri Lanka's End Game (UTHR(J))
#2. Romanticizing the bullet  (Iftikhar H. Malik )
#3. Pakistan: Musharraf's silent revolution: Undone by democracy (S 
Akbar Zaidi)
#4. India: Gandhians Receive A Challenge From Sangh Parivar (Sandeep Pande)
#5. India: Partying in the dark  (Amulya Ganguli)

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

#1.


A press statement:

University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna)
Sri Lanka
UTHR(J)*

Date of Release: 15th June 2003

The Murder of T. Subathiran : Sri Lanka's End Game

The murder of Thambirajah Subathiran (Robert) may
signal the end of Sri Lanka's peace process, yet many
in Colombo and the wider world will not even recognize
his name. The papers would carry short notices
describing him as the deputy leader of the
Varatharajaperumal wing of the EPRLF, an insignificant
political force by conventional assessments. But the
LTTE scrutinizes its enemies very minutely, and
undoubtedly came to a very different conclusion.

Subathiran was among the few remaining bold and
assertive members of the beleaguered democratic scene
in the North-East of Sri Lanka.  Always under
pressure, the democratic hope, which that movement
represented, has been driven to near suffocation by
LTTE repression, compounded by Norwegian arrogance and
the myopic opportunism of the UNP. Though cruelly
deprived of the opportunity to do greater things for
his people, Subathiran's courage and his services to
the Jaffna Municipal Council as a firm and clear
democratic voice will be remembered. He advocated
constructive cooperation with the TULF dominated
Council.

During his period as councillor, two mayors, Sarojini
Yogeswaran and Sivapalan, were murdered by the LTTE.
Subathiran played a key role in defying the LTTE's
threats and giving his fellow councillors the heart to
carry on. Those who knew Subathiran were deeply struck
by his large humanity and readiness to cast aside
narrow loyalties for the greater welfare of the
people. This was part of the Marxist inspiration the
group's pioneers had imbibed. Subathiran was a pillar
of strength to the last mayor, Mr. Sellan Kandaiyan,
in standing up to the LTTE's intimidation and attempts
to take over the functions of the Council. This
brought him into direct confrontation with the LTTE
and its agents, where he was firm and assured, but
always a polite voice of reason. Every society in
crisis produces individuals, who will, to the last,
stand up for truth and justice against hopeless odds.
Subathiran will surely not be the last of them in the
Tamil community.

In the run-up to the recent donor meeting in Tokyo,
which the Tigers decided to boycott, LTTE attacks on
Tamil opponents reached alarming proportions. The
Tigers have targeted not only active members of
opposing groups, but also hundreds of individuals who
had left these groups long ago, had young families and
were leading civilian lives.  Subathiran himself was
struggling to help the community cope as the pressure
intensified.

On 12th June, two days before Subathiran was killed,
the LTTE attacked former EPRLF member Nagamuttu
Nagendran (35) in Chunnakam, Jaffna, with swords and
knives. Nagendran, a father of five, screamed, and the
assailants ran away leaving the victim with one hand
severed and the other hanging limp.

On 6th June the LTTE cut with a sword and badly
injured reserve police constable Sathasivam
Sarvananda (31), a father of two, in Thimilativu,
Batticaloa.

In the night of the same day, 6th June, the LTTE threw
a grenade at two former TELO members in Kallady,
Batticaloa, returning from a temple festival. One of
them, Velusamy Samuel (30) was killed with his
one-year-old daughter Naveena.

The following morning (7th) Ramasamy Vijayanathan
(33), a former EPDP member who was watering plants at
a restaurant in Thirugnanasambandar Street,
Trincomalee, where he was working, was shot dead by
LTTE gun men.

On 10th June, the LTTE shot dead Subramaniam (32),
father of a child, at Maharambaikulam, Vavuniya.


On 12th June, the LTTE threw a grenade into a Muslim
restaurant in Valaichenai, which was open during an
LTTE-ordered hartal injuring six persons. Haniffa (60)
and Meerasaibo were admitted to Batticaloa Hospital
with severe injuries.

On 12th June, the LTTE shot and injured Sivasegaram
Vijayasegaram (Arasan), a former member of the EPRLF,
now employed as a UC driver, in Chelvanayakapuram,
Trincomalee.

During this period, it fell to Subathiran to go around
the North-East and visit party offices, in which local
members lived under siege, to keep up their spirits.
At dawn, on 14th June, Subathiran was killed by sniper
fire from the direction of Vembadi Girls' School while
exercising on the flat above the EPRLF(V) office. One
bullet struck his shoulder and the other bullet had
caused internal bleeding in the chest.

Shortly afterwards party members went to the school
with the Police and examined a three story building
from the upper floor of which it is possible to have a
view of the flat on the EPRLF(V) office 200 yards
away. The classrooms were locked. In one classroom,
which the watcher opened for them at their request,
they found the window netting cut to make space for
the barrel of a rifle, a table placed near the window
with the sand bag on it to keep the rifle steady, and
some biscuit packets and an empty 1.5 litre bottle of
soda. The Police have arrested the watcher. Party
members had seen Easwaran, the LTTE's area leader for
Nallur, in the Vembadi Girl's School grounds the
previous afternoon. This had been denied by a school
watcher with whom they checked immediately.

EPRLF-LTTE Relations - A Tragic Story of a Struggle
Destroyed from Within

The LTTE had been killing members for the EPRLF by
stealth and deceit from 1985, reaching epic
proportions upon the departure of the IPKF in 1990.
Those who survived were refugees in India for a time,
where in June 1990 the LTTE gunned down several of its
leaders, including the charismatic Padmanabha.

Like Subathiran, many in the group were committed
democrats. Having suffered severely at the LTTE's
hands, they attempted to do political work behind the
cover provided by the Indian Army. In the fight to
prevent the LTTE from wrecking any political process
under the Indo-Lanka Accord, democratic ideals were
compromised.  There was an orgy of killing and
counter-killing.  Subathiran's father Thambirajah too
was arrested and killed by the LTTE during this
period.

Several of the group's survivors painfully evaluated
their experience and decided to return to Sri Lanka
and do political work avoiding any operational links
to the state forces. They started publishing their
paper 'Puthiyakannottam'(New Vision). This was a
difficult period. The massive killing of Tamil
civilians by the Sri Lankan Army in 1990/91 gave the
LTTE a new legitimacy in the eyes of the world. As the
Army got bogged down, the Tamil Press in Colombo, and
even many former militants from groups decimated by
LTTE terror, and politicians like Kumar Ponnambalam
who had been very critical of the LTTE, gravitated
towards the LTTE's ultra-nationalist slogans. For many
of them, resisting the LTTE's terror appeared futile
and unrewarding.

The EPRLF reestablished its Jaffna office in 1997 and
obtained 15% of the vote in the 1998 municipal
elections, a creditable performance for a party that
could not go out and canvass. The party found itself
in deep crisis in 1999 when its General Secretary
Suresh Premachandran made a deal with the LTTE and
walked out with nearly all party's money and property
held by him in trust. At this time the LTTE's terror
too became more intense. But most members of the group
stayed with Subathiran.

It is misleading to judge the significance of a party
by counting votes in a skewed environment crushed by
terror. Anyone familiar with the scene knows that the
people long for a way out of the death trap set by the
LTTE, but cannot, for the fear to express it
concretely. Privately, at least, there is tremendous
appreciation of people who stand up to the terror and
give hope of an alternative. On the contrary, those
who have joined the TNA have not done so out of any
faith in the LTTE's politics, and their role is to
ensure that the Tamil people are crushed. Not
surprisingly, they were the cheerleaders of the
UNP-Norway peace process.

No one with any passing knowledge of the LTTE can call
the fate to which the Norway-sponsored cease-fire MoU
subjected the non-LTTE groups, an innocent
misjudgment. It was sheer cynicism. The arms these
groups had for their protection were removed and the
LTTE was allowed into the government-controlled areas
with practically no checks. To say that the LTTE was
unarmed was convenient fiction; the public knew
otherwise. The SLMM and the UNP remained silent as
abductions and killings of persons opposed to the LTTE
accelerated. The Government even helpfully distracted
the public from the LTTE's killing of Tamil members of
the Sri Lankan Army, by surreptitiously pinning on the
victims the label 'Tamil informants'.

Amidst murder and the abduction of children for use as
combatants, the Government and Norway got the rest of
the world to praise the peace process. When confronted
with violations by the LTTE, they simply said that
there was no evidence - evidence for which they never
looked. Members of non-LTTE groups who tried to draw
the attention of Norwegian or SLMM officials to their
plight, found themselves effectively rebuffed,
sometimes the annoyance of the officials reaching the
point of rudeness. To the Norwegians, those insisting
on building and preserving democratic norms were a
nuisance.

Conclusion

The peace carnival is now all but over.  It  bought
the LTTE a nearly 18 month free run to conscript
children, draw up hit lists, spy and carry out its
fatal missions, before returning to war. For its
trouble, the Government seems to be satisfied with
post-dated cheques from donors supposedly worth four
and a half billion dollars.

Peace groups in Colombo, who under prodding from their
overseas 'partners' praised appeasement of the LTTE in
the name of peace a grand idea,  have had some much
belated afterthoughts about democracy and human rights
in the North-East. With active encouragement from the
LTTE, its agents and the TNA, they pushed for third
party mediation and international involvement. The
reason: neither the Tamils nor the LTTE can trust a
Sinhalese government!

Now, suddenly, the LTTE does not want to talk to its
Norwegian and Japanese interlocutors who were paying
regular pilgrimages to the Vanni and begging it to go
to the Tokyo Conference. Even the bizarre sideshow of
the LTTE's well publicised binge murdering democratic
opponents, and civilians, did not appear to dampen
their enthusiasm or the strength of their entreaties.
All this pleading did not help to allay the LTTE's
fears that someone, at the Tokyo Conference, might
extract from it a pledge, even a merely formal one, to
respect democracy and human rights. Against that risk,
even the prospect of Tokyo's multi-million dollar
cheques turned sour.

The signs are that the carnival is coming to a close
and the country faces, barring a miraculous reprieve,
the terrible cruelties of war. Tolerating  human
rights abuses by the LTTE in various forms during the
process has not yielded any opening for the people.
It only reinforced total control for them to drag the
people again in the direction of war. The question is
whether at least at this last stage the international
community prepared to make people central to the
process? Has the Government, which created a nightmare
in the name of peace, learnt enough to deal with what
is coming without inflicting further horrors on the
Tamil people? Does the Opposition command the
statesmanship to be restrained in its quest for power,
and to guide the Government through the initial crisis
while ensuring that the ordinary Tamil citizen is
treated with fraternal concern?

______


#2.

DAWN, 15 June 2003

Romanticizing the bullet
By Dr Iftikhar H. Malik

  The relegation of Islam to a mere dogma is both a
Muslim and non-Muslim preoccupation in which its
reformative, mundane and egalitarian portents have
been side-tracked by dismissive obscurants as well as
abrasive modernists.

When Leonard Binder, the American academic, finished
his research on Pakistani politics immediately after
Independence, he felt skeptical of an uneasy
intermingling of religion and politics. Half-a-century
later, the combined religio-political parties govern
two provinces, and have a sizeable representation in
the federal parliament. More than the mainstream
politicians, they are the ones now confronting the
military ruler on domestic and foreign issues.

Their ascendance, despite the Legal Framework Order,
is no less astounding to those analysts who, while
aware of their street power, simply underrated their
electoral potentials. The entire generation of
Pakistani political observers, who had essentialized a
peripheral performance of these elements, is now
interpreting the MMA's salience as just one-off.

This misperception is no different from that of their
Indian counterparts who, in the early 1990s, took the
BJP and Ayodhya issue merely as an aberration with
polity soon settling back to its secular moorings. One
may differ with the dictum of the religio-political
parties, but to write them off merely as the
beneficiaries of anti-Americanism or the rehash of a
military-mullah axis is fallacious.

Religion, as witnessed in the former Eastern Europe,
the United States, Israel, North Africa, Iran,
Afghanistan, Turkey and now Iraq has refused to
coexist as nationalism's junior partner. It is now in
the driving seat.

The American Neo-Conservatives, Likud Zionists, Kar
Sevaks and Jihadis are all imbued with a reinvigorated
energy and newfound power vacuum in their respective
societies where 'liberals' and modernists are deemed
incorrigibly corrupt and hopelessly incompetent.

The rise of religio-political constellations is a
global phenomenon and not essentially confined to the
Muslim world, as the Neo-Orientalists may like to
suggest. Of course, the world of Islam has its
enduring politico-economic problems besides the
hackneyed views of a static Sharia - formulated many
centuries ago, and several years after the Prophet -
yet Islam is the rallying cry both for the societal
and statist forces.

The recourse to Islam - away from the East or West -
is as much a retort to external highhandedness as it
is an abysmal despondency. For instance, the dogmatic
adherence to a rather stultified Kemalism maintained
by an overpowering military synchronized with a
greater sense of humiliation felt by all the Turks
(and Kurds!) from scornful European pundits.

Northern Cyprus and former Eastern European countries
have all joined the EU, whereas Turkey, the largest
contributor to NATO, has been endlessly sidelined.
"Turkey's values are different from ours," many
Europeans, including the former French president,
unhesitatingly propound. In the meantime, the Turkish
economy and nationhood remain tarnished thanks to
uneven policies where non-development sector and a
unilateral Turkification have aggravated the despair.

Like the Pakistani Supreme Court, the Turkish senior
judges outlawed the Rifaah Party under the pretext of
Kemalism, which has rebounded with more public support
for religio-political elements. They balloted these
elements into power, which espoused a long overdue
ideological consensus and autonomous foreign policies.

In their single-minded pursuit to invade Iraq without
any legal or moral justification, the Anglo-American
leadership, by default and also to their deep
consternation, offered the religio-political elements
a comeback. If Washington and London turn irreverent
to the Shias, Iraq may become another Algeria where
military and France joined hands together to thwart
the elected religio-political parties. More than one
hundred thousand dead and the country in a shambles,
that is the result of resisting the people's verdict.

Instead of welcoming an electoral strategy adopted by
such forces, their marginalization and suppression
only militarizes them further. These are the populist
forces of have-nots - a massive underclass of highly
politicized and enraged people - and the best way to
handle them is through a constructive engagement.

In the post-Second World War decades of optimism and
polarized realism, religion was considered to be less
of a unifying force and more of a nuisance in
nation-building. Nationalism, despite its racist and
fascist undertones in Europe, was perceived by
scholars such as Eli Kedourie and Hans Kohn to be a
liberationist ideology with secular elite homogenizing
the emerging post-colonial states.

"Modernization", not just to these Jewish liberals,
but also to the sociologists such as Ernest Gellner,
Carl Deutsch and Clifford Geertz, after all, was a
mundane project where its Western prototypes could
hold truth for all. [Gellner was an exception in a
sense, as he saw no clash between Islamic civil
society and democracy.]

Jinnah, Nehru, Kenyatta, Fannon, Mao, Gandhi, Soekarno
and Nkrumah were all modernists in their own ways
though this generation was soon to give way - in
several cases - to the "men on the horse-back" being
welcomed as the new, post-national modernizers.

Simultaneously, the embryonic mediatory discourse on
Islam and modernity as spearheaded by Al-Afghani,
Abduh, Syed Ahmed, Muhamamd Iqbal, Maulana Azad,
Fazlur Rahman and Allama Shariati was left asunder.
The shining armour, inflated chests full of jingling
medals and their associations with the Sandhurst and
West Point, were sufficient credentials of these
generals - adored by Samuel Huntington and the others
of his Harvard clan.

Instead of scholar-activists and intellectuals
interfacing across diverse traditions, Muslims were
bequeathed to the simplistic and autocratic whims of
uniformed harbingers of modernization and the
development. The role of feudal intermediaries of the
colonial days were now taken over by these khaki
bureaucrats, submissive to their patrons yet
regressive to their own peoples.

However, by the 1980s and especially after the end of
the Cold War, these modernizers were found seriously
lacking in proper representative, professional and
accountable wherewithal. They were devoid of
competence and conviction to run these plural
societies and in the process invariably turned out to
be unpopular tin-pot dictators, who proved to be a
liability to their Western backers.

Despite their serious shortcomings, the Western
powers, for their own partisan interests, had steadily
used them as surrogates - Ayub, Yahya, Pincohet,
Numeiri, Saddam, Zia, Suharto, Ershad, and the list
goes on. But the current mantra resounds with the
desirability of empowerment of civil society,
pre-eminence of democratic universalism and the
reconstruction of a non-hegemonic modernity.

Thus, the khaki leaders, like their other monarchical
counterparts, largely stay exposed of their inherent
weaknesses and inadequacies and if they are still in
power it is largely due to external backing and
internal divisions.

While the post-colonial world has reasons to be
cynical of being used as guinea pigs for all the
run-away ideologies and neo-colonial facades, it is
equally bewildered by the pre-eminence of
'traditional' conglomerates.

By using religion both as a vehicle and a legitimiser
in their ultimate quest for capturing polities, these
religio-political outfits are preaching simplistic,
divinely ordained utopias based on universal equality
and distributive justice.

Bullet and ballot are their two vehicles though their
greatest asset is the pervasive dissatisfaction and
sense of humiliation in these societies, themselves
yearning for new Messiahs and Mehdis. However, the
redeeming factor is their willingness to operate
within the available parametres and structures of the
nation-state.

It is still no less astounding given their apparent
penchant for trans-regionalism, such as one Ummah, a
larger-than-life Hindu Rashtra, an ascendant Zionism
or a global Messianic order.

While scholars such as Asghar Ali Engineer and Ishtiaq
Ahmed are mindful of the impossibility of an Islamic
state to the viability of a Muslim state (espousing
redefined secular characteristics), the Ikhawan,
Jamaat, Jamiats, Nadwas, the Khomeinities and other
Salafiaya groups fervently hope and aspire for a
theocracy, reflective of the former. This kind of
intellectual debate urgently needs to reach some
consensus as otherwise Muslim peoples, while getting
out of a simmering pan may simply fall into a raging
fire.

Replacing one kind of unilateral oppression with
another type of dictatorship, however koshered it may
be, is totally unacceptable. These differing
intellectual groups need to focus on the areas of
agreement as well as divergences, but in a tolerant
and civic manner without dishing out rancour and
fatwas.

While the Muslim states are seriously lacking in many
areas their substitutions must offer something
tangible and all-encompassing, rather than adding on
to anarchy and violence. A simplistic view of Muslim
past - both for idealization or even for dismissal -
is not a healthy way forward. It is a complex world
and requires complex, well-thought-out strategies, but
it is equally a rational world seeking logical
solutions and not the emotive outbursts.

This is not to suggest that the contemporary rise of
religio-political outfits - using mish-mash ideologies
such as Hindutva(Ram Raj) or Hukumat-i-Ilahiyya
(Allah's kingdom) - are just the temporary outbursts
against the corruption and inability of the
modernists. They have been there for sometime, but
have only recently graduated from cultural paradigms
into full-fledged political movements.

The studies of Islam in South Asia - cognizant of
'High Islam' and 'Folk Islam' - have traditionally
confined themselves to two well-familiar but
self-limiting channels of Deobandis (literalists) and
Brelvis (syncretists) though most of the time the
focus has been on parties such as the
Jamiat-i-Ulama-i-Hind (its future branches in
Pakistan) and Jamaat-i-Islami.

A few studies did cover the Mashaikh and Sajjada
Nashin, but only in reference to occasional
politicization. A feeble tradition of intellectual
history pioneered by Aziz Ahmed, Rafiudddin Ahmed and
Farzana Shaikh has attempted to seek the historical
interface between Islam and politics of identity among
the South Asian Muslims.

Concurrently, most of the analyses centre on high
history of a few individuals - the modernists -
arrayed against the losing side of traditionalists.
Pakistan, for instance, was portrayed as an incident
of history, masterminded by the Whitehall and a few
London-returned, seasoned lawyers. Thanks heavens,
some of these analysts - without naming the names -
are coming back to ascertain multiple factors,
including ideologies and traditions.

The relegation of Islam to a mere dogma is both a
Muslim and non-Muslim preoccupation where its
reformative, mundane and egalitarian portents have
been side-tracked by dismissive obscurants as well as
abrasive modernists. Both of them fell into the trap
of Orientalists, who saw the East mainly inhabited by
emotional and half-cultured mobs, whose Westernization
was a fait accompli and equally a White Man's burden.

The leading contemporary proponent of such a premise
is Bernard Lewis, to whose Eurocentric outlook Islam
is still lost in a mediaeval time gap earnestly
awaiting a renaissance. To Lewis, Islam's
resuscitation has to come from the West; otherwise its
centuries-old crisis intermeshed with a severe
inferiority complex remains unbridgeable and prone to
terrorist outbursts.

This hypothesis has been greatly energized in the West
after 9/11, though scholars such as Edward Said, the
late Albert Hourani, Fred Halliday, John Esposito and
Karen Armstrong have been wary of it. While one may
find several problems with the Neo-Orientalists like
Lewis or Daniel Pipes, Fouad Ajami, Frank Graham, Pat
Roberston and Oriana Fallaci, it is still fair to
suggest that Political Islam has yet to mature into a
workable and just order.

So far, as forcefully posited by Khalid B. Sayeed, the
models of Political Islam varying from Saudi Arabia to
Ziaist Pakistan, Khomeinite Iran to the Talebanized
Afghanistan, severely lack accommodation for
pluralism, a universal empowerment, an egalitarian
economic order and a dynamic self-confidence. To their
civil societies, they have been atrociously
repressive.

In all the above cases, it has been a familiar story
of repression, unilateralism and intolerance. Millions
were mobilized in the name of Islam, Sharia and
Nizam-i-Mustafawi soon to abysmally fall victims to
the unnecessary and unworthy causes, whereas the
problems kept on compounding.

No wonder, Muslim masses are not only the victims of
violence from the 'outside', they are also the
sufferers from within. Just using West-and-the-Rest as
an alibi for the entire Muslim predicament may be a
convenient strategy for the Muslim dictators, but for
how long?

The pervasive Muslim disempowerment is mainly owed to
their own leaders, and likewise their internal schisms
are due to the vicious clericalization of this
otherwise holistic civilization, which, in its
pristine form, had broken loose from such a bondage.

This sad situation is not to undervalue the role of
Islam as a mobilizer, aggregator and de-hegemonizer.
Both the literalists and syncretists have been
steadfast actors in the Afro-Asian decolonization, but
this tradition of resistance and sacrifice predictably
falls victim to waywardness and schisms. Thus, like
the modernists, if Islamists of today are unable to
radically improve the quality of life and fail to
enthuse and lead their societies to a better, peaceful
and prosperous future, their fate will not be
different from the others.

They must realize that the contemporary problems are
too complex to be resolved through mere emotional
rhetoric and plain dismissal. In a plural and highly
interdependent world, the way forward is through
innovative cooperation and coexistence rather than a
permanent state of antagonism or introversion. After
all, undisputedly this is the world of knowledge,
science, universal human rights and sustained
democratic institutions.

The denial of science, democracy, gender rights, lack
of clarity on economic issues and sheer muzzling of
ijtihaad (innovation) and tanqid (critique) have to be
shunned for a fresh start. Obscurantism has to give
way to forward-looking dynamism and the
romanticization of the bullet has to give way to
ballot where civic forces celebrating the best in
humanity rule the roost.

Ritualistic and selective implementation of rather
coercive measures in the name of an uncritiqued Sharia
are only going to further divide the House of Islam.
After all, these societies have already suffered for
centuries and do not deserve any more collective
punishment even if it is in a divine name.

The proponents of Political Islam need to trust,
protect and celebrate their masses, and a radical
redirection of energy and resources on the eradication
of poverty away from militarization and violence
deserves prioritization. It is only through the
people's power and prosperity that Political Islam may
become a balm, instead of a taxing and perplexing
ideology.

______


#3.

Musharraf's silent revolution: Undone by democracy

By S Akbar Zaidi

The News on Sunday, Karachi, June 15, 2003.

For the last few months, the front pages of all newspapers in the 
country have been preoccupied with stories related, primarily, to 
Iraq and to the LFO and the tussle between the opposition and General 
Musharraf's new Constitutional Order. Yet, almost every day, there 
has been another story running parallel to these grander happenings, 
that of the Devolution Plan and its relationship to the (democratic) 
political order since the elections.

The fact that General Musharraf loses no opportunity to insist that 
the local government system initiated by him is 'here to stay' as he 
emphasised once again very recently, only suggests that something is 
seriously amiss. General Musharraf's silent revolution, the 
Devolution Plan and the local government system, has found its 
nemesis in democracy.

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that, it is not just the elected 
opposition which is causing cracks in the local government system, 
but in this case, they are united with the elected members of the 
ruling parties in each province, where both have serious opposition 
and objection to the local government system, and are collectively 
working for its demise. In many cases, ministers and Chief Ministers 
too, have been working actively to undermine the local government 
system in their provinces.

The local government system, which came into effect in 2001, precedes 
the elected provincial and national assemblies by more than a year. 
It was established on the principle that power should be devolved to 
governments, which were physically closer to the people and where 
elected representatives at the local level, could deliver services to 
their constituents. Clearly, the logic made sense and there was the 
need to reform the system of delivery of services at the first level 
of contact. While there are numerous serious anomalies and weaknesses 
in the conception and construction of the Devolution Plan itself, 
perhaps the greatest problems have arisen on account of 
contradictions between the Devolution Plan and the subsequent 
elections in the country.

In the first sixteen months following the implementation of the new 
district government system, the nazims were in control of their 
districts and despite teething problems, the new political order 
seemed to be functioning. Although most nazims and district 
governments were severely handicapped by a lack of financial 
resources, a lack of technical expertise at the district level and 
perhaps even by their inexperience enveloped in zeal, the district 
government showed some promise. Despite numerous limitations, one 
thing was clear: the nazim and his (or in some cases, her) team, were 
in charge and accountable, and were responsible for what went on in 
their districts. Provincial elections changed all that.

The new members of the provincial assemblies, many of whom had been 
elected before, found that this time round, they had no real power at 
the constituency, local and grass roots level. Their power and 
authority had been usurped by a new creation, that of district 
governments. With many provincial functions supposedly devolved to 
the district government, the role of the provincial government and of 
elected members, had been redefined in a manner that did not suit 
them. District governments and their nazims, perhaps for the first 
time ever, were in a position to challenge, at least theoretically, 
the hold of power by the provinces. Clearly, the new provincial 
governments and members were not going to give up what they perceived 
to be their right, so easily.

While at the National Assembly level, the larger issue of the LFO has 
preoccupied members, at the provincial level, it has been the balance 
of powers between district and provincial governments. Importantly, 
this has happened in every province, which suggests that there is 
more than just a specific problem and that the problem is more 
generic. Many MPAs and MNAs have complained, in all provinces, that 
'their' nazims are not co-operating with them, while nazims complain 
of interference in the running of government in their districts, with 
MPAs and MNAs determining transfers and postings of district officers 
and influencing other decisions. With provincial governments 
controlling the finances of the district governments, the level of 
control can be fatal.

Numerous newspaper reports reveal, that in Balochistan, for example, 
there is supposed to be a free-for-all, with all elected 
representatives at all levels making the most of any opportunity to 
show their hold over power, with the Chief Minister effectively 
running local government. In Sindh, the MQM which is part of the 
government has serious political and ideological differences with the 
City Government in Karachi, and has been accused of putting 
hindrances in its way, while in the rural areas, those nazims who 
belong to parties other than of the Sindh Government (noticeably, the 
PPPP), have been made totally ineffective. The same situation exists 
in the NWFP, where the ruling MMA is unwilling to allow district 
governments the power and authority, which they had previously before 
the provincial assembly elections. The resignation of the nazims in 
the NWFP, is perhaps the best indication of the scale of differences 
between the two systems of government. In the Punjab, one hears of 
the return to power of civil servants backed by the Chief Minister, 
interfering in the running of local government. The fact that MNAs 
and MPAs are all to get development funds worth Rs5m, is perhaps the 
death knell of the district government system.

What needs to be remembered, however, is that this tussle between 
district/local government and provincial government, is nothing new. 
It is repeating the pattern of the past, which suggests that there is 
something seriously out of sync between the two. For example, while a 
Basic Democracies system existed under military rule under Ayub Khan, 
the democratically elected ZA Bhutto government refused to hold local 
elections. It was another military general who revived local bodies 
elections in 1979 (albeit for his own particular designs), which 
continued until the return of democracy in 1988 with the advent of 
the provincial and national governments, after which local bodies 
became redundant. General Musharraf's Devolution Plan has faced 
exactly the same problems as have the earlier devolution/local 
government plans, but since the gap between local government 
elections and general elections was so short, his efforts have 
unravelled much sooner. Clearly, there is a more generic, systemic, 
problem at work here, which does not allow these systems of 
government to coexist.

With History repeating itself not once but twice, there are some 
inferences to be drawn. It should be clear that any system devised by 
technocrats and especially by the military, is bound to come into 
conflict when political activity resumes. Local government worked 
well when there were no elected governments at the higher tiers, but 
as soon as democracy returned, it became ineffective. Our experience 
also suggests that ad hoc, rather than holistic, solutions have been 
implemented which continue to fail. For example, if local government 
reform, which was necessary, had taken place under the provincial 
government and as part of broader political reforms, by the people 
who were to actually assume controlling power at the provinces, then 
perhaps the two could have gelled together. If local government is a 
provincial subject, there is need to have links and co-ordination 
between both tiers of government, not conflict, as we do at present.

It is improbable that the technocratic, supposedly non-political, 
Silent Revolution of General Musharraf will survive as an effective 
and meaningful tier of government, unless the Devolution Plan is 
brought into the mainstream of democratic politics. With seven months 
already spent on addressing issues around the LFO, one wonders if 
that will ever happen.

______


#4.

GANDHIANS RECEIVE A CHALLENGE FROM SANGH PARIVAR

Sandeep Pande

13th June, 2003

The Sangh Parivar through the HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi has 
presented a challenge to the Gandhians. The Sangh Parivar wants to 
either take possession of or shut down the Gandhian Institute of 
Studies which is located within the campus of Sarva Sewa Sangh in 
Varanasi. To succeed in their ill designs, they are using a former 
researcher of this institute Kusum Lata Kedia who is still residing 
on campus in an unauthorized manner and dominates over the matters of 
the institute with support from a friend from outside the campus. The 
Board of Management of the Gandhian Institute of Studies, chaired by 
Acharya Ramamurti, had to conduct it's last official meeting in 
mid-April in the verandah of the main building of the Institute and 
later on the adjoining campus of Sarva Sewa Sangh, because the 
Institute infrastructure is totally in Kedia's control and 
inaccessible to anybody else. Kedia also brought the pressure of 
local administration to bear on the Board members. A local police 
official arrived while the meeting was in progress in the verandah 
and threatened the Board members not to violate the law and order 
situation by breaking open the lock on the main gate. It is a 
extremely disgraceful situation for the Board in particular and the 
Gandhians in general. Now it is not merely a matter of saving an 
Institute established by Jayaprakash Narayan in 1960. The shameless 
manner in which
the Sangh Parivar has interfered with the functioning of this 
institute and almost brought it to a closure, is a serious issue 
indeed. But for those who believe in the philosophy of 
Gandhi-Vinoba-JP it is now a matter of rescuing the  Sarvodaya from 
the devastating assault of fascism. In the context of this 
ideological conflict, the fight to save the Gandhian Institute of 
Studies will not be limited to bureaucratic and legal ways, rather 
the struggle will have to move out in the open public domain.

            Gandhi has always been a big obstacle to the Sangh Parivar 
ideology. Had the environment in this country remained conducive to 
Gandhian thought, it would have been virtually impossible for the 
Sangh Parivar to take roots. For this reason only, after 
independence, the people who believed in Sangh Parivar's ideology 
orchestrated the murder of Gandhi. After the death of Gandhi, Sangh 
Parivar started a campaign to malign the image of Gandhi and spread 
many baseless rumours about him. For example misconceptions like 
'Gandhiji was responsible for the partition of our country', 
'Gandhiji was responsible for creation of Pakistan', 'after our 
independence, Gandhiji exerted pressure on Indian Government to give 
Rs.55 crores to Pakistan' or 'Gandhiji was appeasing the Muslims'. 
But the booklet written by Chunibhai Vaidya, 'Gandhi ki hatya : kya 
sach, kya jhooth' (The killing of Gandhi : facts and myths), 
nullifies all the above accusations on Gandhi and brings forth the 
facts which exposes the ill motives of Sangh Parivar to malign 
Gandhi. It is important to realize that in order to gain a foothold 
for the Sangh Parivar ideology, it was necessary to bring Gandhi to 
ill-repute. Therefore Sangh Parivar has indulged in relentless 
campaign against Gandhi, and has brought the situation to a point 
today that many people feel proud in abusing Gandhi.

            But Sangh Parivar is scared of Gandhi even today. They 
might have been successful in killing  the physical Gandhi but they 
haven't been successful in deleting the Gandhian thought from 
people's minds. The seeds of Gandhian ideology are dispersed far and 
wide and we can still see them in the form of numerous creative 
experiments of Gandhians all over the country and several people's 
movements which still follow his style of satyagrah keeping the basic 
principles of 'satya' and 'ahimsa' at the core. These seeds of 
Gandhi, are also evident in the campaign against communalism and in 
the anti-war campaign worldwide. As a matter of fact, Gandhian 
philosophy with the basic values of 'satya' and 'ahimsa' at the core, 
no matter what name we give to it is eternal. Till the time human 
beings will inhabitate this earth these values will remain alive 
within us. And this is also beyond any doubt, that if ever we are 
able to establish a humane and just social order on this earth, truth 
and non-violence will form its basis.

            Now the ideology of Sangh Parivar, which stands exactly 
contrary to the Gandhian philosophy, is very superficial in nature. 
They did steal the concept of 'swadeshi' from Gandhi, but failed to 
live upto it. Swadeshi remained a mere rhetoric for the Sangh 
Parivar.  When its political organ BJP came to power they succumbed 
to the pressures of international financial organizations and have 
started selling off various sectors of economy and precious natural 
resources of this country to the MNCs. The manner in which the BJP 
led government has compromised on this count, it is not only shameful 
but also unprecedented since independence if we compare this with 
other earlier governments.They have essentially compromised the 
sovereignty of this country. This BJP led government has adopted a 
set of  economic policies which benefit a handful of wealthy citizens 
of this country and completely ignores the  interests of vast 
majority of impoverished population including labourers, farmers and 
artisans. The ascendancy of Sangh Parivar has also seen increased 
western influences and distortion of our traditional  values.

Wonder what happened to their slogan of 'bhartiya sanskriti'? The 
regime of the same BJP which tirelessly proclaims itself as the most 
patriotic political party in the country also witnessed its national 
president accepting bribe in a defence deal. The promise of clean 
administration remained hollow and corruption got a chance to flower 
even further. On one hand the BJP exploited our emotions in the name 
of religious faith and orchestrated a communal carnage, which was 
necessary to polarize Hindu votes for its benefit resulting in huge 
damage to the secular fabric of our country, and on the other hand 
their government initiated an arms race in the sub continent with 
Pakistan in the name of 'security', making our International borders 
extremely insecure in the process. Overall the Sangh Parivar and all 
its outfits have inflicted irreparable damage to our country, society 
and culture. This implies that there is some basic flaw in the 
ideology of the Sangh Parivar. They have not been honest even to a 
single claim of theirs. Whenever the Sangh Parivar has attempted to 
implement any of it's beliefs, the results have been exactly contrary 
to the expectations.

            Because there is no substance in the ideology of Sangh 
Parivar, it has always resorted to wrong means to sustain itself. 
When people did not naturally trust them, the Sangh Parivar incited 
religious sentiments of the people to serve it's purpose. And this 
grew to an extent that inciting religious sentiments is their main 
instrument of action today has become synonymous with their working 
style.  Last year the various fronts of Sangh Parivar justified the 
brutal violence and massacre in Gujarat. They have even publicly 
talked about repeating the 'experiment' of Gujarat elsewhere. Is this 
not an indication enough of ideological bankruptcy of Sangh Parivar? 
To increase its power and influence and sustain its existence, Sangh 
Parivar had to resort to things like the killing of Gandhi, the 
demolition of Babri mosque, testing of nuclear weapons, massacre and 
gang rape of women and their murder during Gujarat carnage. The 
society at large will have to pay for these misdeeds for years to 
come. Moreover, all these are the events of violence. Sangh Parivar 
has thus used violence as an instrument for its furtherance. Only 
those have to resort to violence who have no faith in their beliefs. 
When instead of ideology you have false imagery masquerading as 
faith, then from where will the nascent belief sprout?Under direct 
patronage of Murli Manohar Joshi, Kusum Lata Kedia along with her 
friend from outside, Rameshwar Prasad Mishra 'Pankaj', has taken 
possession in an unauthorized manner, of the entire Institute 
including Director's residence, Guest Houses and the house where 
Kedia herself resides (she is not authorized to stay on campus as she 
has been dismissed from the Institute by its Board of Management long 
back). In this dirty game of politics and power, Bhaskar Chatterjee, 
a senior IAS, Director General and Member Secretary of Indian Council 
for Social Sciences Research (ICSSR), is also being used shamelessly. 
Bhaskar Chatterjee has written in a letter to the District Magistrate 
of Varanasi indicating that the Gandhian Institute of Studies stands 
on Central Government land and even the construction was carried out 
with funds from State and Central governments. The truth, however, is 
that the land belongs to Sarva Sewa Sangh, which it had purchased 
from Indian Railways when Lal Bahadur Shastri was the Railways 
Minister.

It was Jayaprakash Narayan who got a resolution approved in a Sarva 
Sewa Sangh meeting in 1960 for the creation of this Institute. Land 
was then leased out to Gandhi Smarak Nidhi by Sarva Sewa Sangha for 
getting the construction done. The money for construction came from 
Gandhi Smarak Nidhi and from donations collected by JP himself.  The 
Institute functioned from 1960 to 1977 from funds which were raised 
by JP's individual efforts. In 1977 the ICSSR agreed to provide the 
running expenses for this Institute and UP government decided to 
provide matching grant. Since then only a small amount of Rs. 3.5 
lakhs was accepted from the government for extension of Library and 
construction of one small room. In the above mentioned letter, 
Bhaskar Chatterjee has also mentioned Kusum Lata Kedia, as 'our' 
acting Director of the Institute, complicating the matter. In another 
letter to Chief Secretary of UP D.S. Bagga, Bhaskar Chatterjee has 
written that because of the dispute in the Institute there is a 
'strong possibility' of the Court deciding to dissolve the Institute, 
hence the UP Government should prepare to take possession of the 
Institute.

Did Bhaskar Chatterjee write a letter without even finding out the 
basic facts about the Institute's land and  how the construction was 
done? Will Bhaskar Chatterjee tell us in what capacity he has 
appointed an expelled researcher of the Institute as 'his' acting 
director? When the matter is sub-judice from where did Bhaskar 
Chatterjee get the information
that there is a 'strong probability' of the Institute being 
dissolved? Does Bhaskar Chatterjee have the right to interfere in the 
functioning of an autonomous institution? And why has Bhaskar 
Chatterjee accepted to be a part of this dirty nexus of politics?

Emboldened by the patronage of Murli Manohar Joshi, Rameshwar Prasad 
Mishra 'Pankaj', who is a complete outsider to the Institute, has 
declared himself as an 'Officer on Special Duty'. His wife and 
children stay in Delhi but he has been living with Kusum Lata Kedia 
since past several years on the campus of this Institute in Varanasi. 
Gradually he is becoming more daring and has recently taken 
possession of the Director's residence. He has assigned himself an 
office too in the main building of the Institute. He has been issuing 
notices. After all, who is Rameshwar Prasad Mishra Pankaj'? And on 
whose orders has he left his family in Delhi and stationed himself in 
Varanasi? Rameshwar Prasad Mishra 'Pankaj' has played a critical role 
in capturing the Gandhian Instiute of Studies for the Sangh Parivar.

            Incidentally this is also the birth centenary year of JP. 
Because Sangh parivar, could take roots in Indian politics 
piggybacking on JP movement, there is an official Government 
committee headed by Bhairon Singh Shekhawat to celebrate this 
centenary year. Before JP gave recognition to Sangh Parivar, it was 
considered an untouchable in Indian politics. Instead of being ever 
so grateful to JP, Sangh Parivar has decided to damage and destroy a 
creation of JP himself. This is not at all surprising because this is 
the real character of Sangh Parivar. The functioning profile of Sangh 
Parivar based on spreading hatred, aggressiveness, rowdiness and 
violence, has possibly finished off it's creative tendencies. Whether 
it was masterminding the killing of Gandhiji, or the demolition of 
Babri Masjid, or the nuclear tests or be it the unprecedented 
bloodbath in Gujarat, Sangh Parivar has built its image based on acts 
of gory violence. Then how can we expect them to do anything even 
remotely constructive in nature? The people in Sangh Parivar don't 
have the vision and ability to create a Gandhian Institute of Studies 
like JP did. They can only destroy it.

______


#5.

The Hindu, June 16, 2003  
Partying in the dark
Amulya Ganguli
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/printedition/160603/detIDE01.shtml


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