SACW | 30 June, 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   |  30 June,  2003

#1. Pakistan: Fighting an Army's Empire (John Lancaster)
#2. India: 'Gandhian Institute of Studies being denied funds'
#3. India: Menace of Moditva (Amulya Ganguli)
#4. India: Gujarat
- Speedy Injustice (Editorial -The Times of India)
- Most Wanted: Justice (Editorial -The Indian Express)
- Experiments with untruth - True lies by J. Acharya (Letters to 
Editor, The Telegraph)
#5. India: RSS and Fascism (Shyam Chand)
#6. India: Request for help on Gujarat Film Subtitling / Editing in Bombay..=
=2E


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


#1.

The Washington Post
Sunday, June 29, 2003; Page A19

=46ighting an Army's Empire
Pakistani Farmers' Land Battle Underscores Tension Over Military's 
Economic Power


Bashir Ahmed, 65, says he was shot in the leg by paramilitary troops 
during a protest last year over a contractual change which has 
transformed sharecroppers into renters. (John Lancaster -- The 
Washington Post)

  By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service

VILLAGE 5/4-L, Pakistan -- "Ownership or death" is the slogan that 
farmers here have adopted in their fight for the title to land their 
forefathers first tilled nearly a century ago. But the farmers have a 
formidable foe: Their landlord is the Pakistani army.

A contractual change instituted three years ago transformed the 
farmers from sharecroppers to renters. Many tenants are angered by 
the change, which they say is intended to drive them off the land at 
Okara Military Farms -- a 17,000-acre grain and dairy operation that 
is one of numerous Pakistani businesses run by the military. The 
tenants are refusing to pay their rent, and have staged a number of 
protests, several of which have turned violent.

The army has responded by cutting off water to the fields of 
rebellious tenants, sending troops to surround their villages and 
arresting hundreds of protesting farmers, some of whom say they or 
their relatives have been tortured to force them to pay rent. Seven 
villagers have died in clashes with police or paramilitary forces 
since the protest erupted in 2000, leaders of the tenant movement say.

As tensions between the army and the tenants have escalated in recent 
months, the standoff in this fertile region of Punjab province has 
become a focal point for growing public anger over the military's 
control of prized economic assets in Pakistan, from farmland and 
profit-making universities to major industries such as cement 
production and trucking.

Land is a potent symbol of the privileged status enjoyed by the 
military, which has ruled Pakistan for most of its 56-year history. 
The army chief of staff, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is also the president.

Rapid population growth, insufficient water and a legacy of feudalism 
have made productive farmland increasingly scarce in Pakistan, where 
agriculture still provides the largest source of employment. Yet the 
military continues to dominate -- and occasionally add to -- a real 
estate empire that includes horse farms, tracts of irrigated 
croplands and prime residential property in major cities, much of 
which is allotted to senior officers as part of their retirement 
packages.

In that light, the Okara Farms dispute is "a symbol of the resentment 
people feel about the army's monopolization of power and resources," 
said Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, a Yale-educated economist and coordinator 
of the People's Rights Movement, a non-profit group that has taken up 
the tenants' cause. "They've become such a huge corporate empire in 
this country, and the land-grabbing is just one part of it."

Army officials accuse groups such as Akhtar's of exploiting the Okara 
=46arms tenants to further a leftist political agenda that has nothing 
to do with the facts of the dispute. They say they are charging the 
farmers below-market rents and deny efforts to drive them off the 
land. The contractual change, they say, is intended to improve the 
efficiency of a farming operation originally set up by the British in 
1913 to feed their colonial Indian army troops and horses -- similar 
to the purpose it now serves for Pakistan's military.

"This is not an issue of human rights," said Maj. Gen. Mahmud Shah, 
director general of the Remount, Veterinary and Farms Corps, which 
oversees Okara and 23 other military farms. "This is a law-and-order 
situation."

The courts have supported that claim. In 2001, the high court in the 
provincial capital of Lahore ruled that in refusing to pay rent to 
the army, the farmers were "in possession of the property without any 
lawful basis."

"Legally they can't succeed," Hasan Rizvi, a former visiting 
professor at Columbia University in New York who has written several 
books on civil-military relations in Pakistan, said of the tenants' 
campaign. "To me, the villagers are being used."

But the army's assertion of ultimate authority over the land is also 
open to question, military experts say, because the actual owner of 
the land is the Punjab provincial government. The army pays a token 
fee to use the land, and two years ago the province refused an army 
request to transfer title to the property free of cost, according to 
a copy of an April 2001 letter from the Punjab Board of Revenue.

"The issue is there are two parties fighting over land which doesn't 
even belong to them," said Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha, an Islamabad-based 
military analyst for Jane's Information Group. Siddiqa-Agha worked in 
the late 1990s as deputy director of defense auditing under 
Pakistan's auditor general, the government's chief spending watchdog.

Army officials say Okara Farms provides the military with milk 
products as well as fodder for pack mules -- used to haul army 
supplies over rugged mountain passes -- and thoroughbred race horses 
and polo ponies that the army raises for sporting use.

Under the old sharecropping system, which dates to the farm's 
inception in 1913, the army supplied seed and fertilizer to the 
tenants, who then gave the army half of their crop. But three years 
ago, after concluding that corrupt civilian managers were stealing 
some of the army's share, military officials instituted a rent 
system, Shah said.

Because Pakistan's legal code provides fewer protections for renters 
than sharecroppers, the move sparked a rebellion from villagers, many 
of whose families had worked the same land for generations and saw 
the change as a first step toward transferring ownership to military 
officers and private corporations.

Last year, the army called in the Ranger paramilitary force to quell 
the protests and force the villagers to adhere to the new system. But 
the situation has only grown more tense. While some tenants have 
begun paying rent, many still refuse. As a result, Rangers are 
preventing movement in and out of several villages, including this 
one, to pressure protesters.

Last week, a foreigner paid a visit to Village 5/4-L -- the numerical 
designation is a legacy of British rule -- avoiding military 
roadblocks by means of a dirt track that bounced through dry fields. 
Situated on a flat plain crisscrossed with irrigation canals about 
100 miles southwest of Lahore, the mud-brick village is home to about 
4,000 people, many of whom appeared fully engaged with the protest.

Among them was Bashir Ahmed, 65, who hobbled over on crutches to 
display the scar from a leg wound he said he suffered when Rangers 
opened fire on protesters in a neighboring village last summer. "I'm 
a poor man, and I can't pay the contract fee," said Ahmed, gaunt with 
a graying mustache. "They shot us because we were protesting for our 
rights."

As he lay in his hospital bed after he was wounded, Ahmed said, 
Rangers "forcibly" inked his thumb and made an impression on a rental 
agreement, which he has subsequently refused to honor.

Ghulam Nabi Chaudhry, 22, said he was arrested on May 9 as a means of 
putting pressure on several of his brothers, who work as tenant 
farmers and had refused to pay rent. Chaudhry, a locksmith who says 
he suffers from a heart condition, said he was beaten on the buttocks 
with leather shoes and a piece of a tire, and at one point was made 
to stoop over for 10 minutes while a heavy load of bricks was piled 
on his back.

"They told me, 'Your brothers are not paying us contract money and 
that is why you are behind bars,' " he said. After three days, he 
said, he was released when one of his brothers forked over 15,000 
rupees -- about $260 -- in back rent.

Army officials say the Rangers have acted with restraint, and that in 
several cases villagers have been killed by gunfire from protesters' 
weapons. They deny the stories of coercion and torture. "This is all 
fabrication," Shah said.


____


#2.


The Hindu
June 30, 2003
  
'Gandhian Institute of Studies being denied funds'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 29. Eminent academics have expressed concern over the 
manner in which the Union Human Resource Development Ministry (MHRD) 
and the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) were 
"denying funds" for the Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi, and 
trying to "take over" this autonomous institution.

In a statement here today, they urged the ICSSR to respect the 
"tradition of intellectual freedom", and its own rules which require 
"non-interference in the internal functioning of autonomous 
institutions that it aids".

According to the statement, the Institute had been facing a series of 
arbitrary administrative actions in the last four years. Its 
grant-in-aid was stopped by the ICSSR in 1999 "under directions from 
the MHRD" and had since remained suspended though all audit 
objections were cleared and the Institute's registration renewed.

Also, attempts were made to deregister or dissolve the Institute's 
parent Society, but the move was stayed by the court. And, recently, 
the ICSSR Member-Secretary is said to have written to the State Chief 
Secretary claiming that the Institute was located on Central 
Government land and that all its assets, including the building, had 
been created out of Government grants.

Billing these developments as a "bid to take over" an autonomous 
institution by the ICSSR, the signatories to the statement 
categorically stated that there was no truth in the ICSSR 
Member-Secretary's contention as the land on which the Institute 
stood was gifted by the Sarva Seva Sangh and the building belonged to 
the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi.

Of the view that such interference in the affairs of the Institute 
did not augur well for independent social science and autonomous 
research institutions in the country, they likened it to Emergency 
days.

Their contention was that since the registration of the Society had 
been renewed, the ICSSR should stop interfering in its internal 
affairs, and restore the annual grant because no administrative 
justification existed for withholding it.

The signatories to the statement are the Director of the Centre for 
Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, Partha Chatterjee; the former 
Chairman of ICSSR, Rajni Kothari; the former Member-Secretary of 
ICSSR, T. N. Madan; the former directors of the Centre for the Study 
of Developing Societies, Delhi, Ashis Nandy and D. L. Sheth; the 
former director of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, A. 
Vaidyanathan; and Andre Beteille, a national fellow of the ICSSR.


_____


#3.

The Hindustan Times
Monday, June 30, 2003  
 	 
Menace of Moditva
Amulya Ganguli
  The smiling pictures of Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar 
Joshi and Sushma Swaraj on the sidelines of the BJP's recent chintan 
baithak gave the impression of a contented parivar. There may have 
been reason enough. Modi was probably telling the other three how 
well his brand of fascism was doing in Gujarat.

Modi's first success has been to convince the National Commission for 
Minorities that no survey of Christians is being conducted in the 
state. While the NCM has naively accepted the official denial, there 
have been renewed reports of how inquiries are being made at various 
Christian institutions about their sources of funds.

The sinister nature of such surveys cannot be overstated. They are 
reminiscent of the way Jewish houses and establishments were 
identified in Nazi Germany. It is necessary to remember a chilling 
passage in the Srikrishna Commission's report on the Mumbai riots. It 
said: "The attacks on Muslims by the Shiv Sainiks were mounted with 
military precision with a list of establishments and voters' list in 
hand." Details about individuals and institutions belonging to the 
minority communities are not safe, therefore, in the hands of a 
government with a questionable reputation for impartial behaviour.

Modi's second success has been virtually to hobble the inquiry into 
the riots. His first attempt at scuttling it was by appointing K.G. 
Shah to conduct the investigations. As a TADA judge in 1985, Shah had 
sentenced five Muslims to death. Responding to an appeal in this 
case, the Supreme Court acquitted all the accused in 1990, stating 
that Shah's "findings were not based on appreciation of evidence but 
on imagination".

Once this unflattering reference to Shah's judicial acumen was 
unearthed and reported in the media, the Centre appointed G.T. 
Nanavati to head the commission while Shah remained on the panel. 
Unfortunately, however, following Nanavati's comment that he hadn't 
yet found any evidence of the involvement of the VHP or Bajrang Dal 
in the riots or of police inaction, there have been any number of 
reports of how the witnesses are being intimidated.

So much so that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had to be 
assured by Gujarat's director-general of police that adequate 
protection would be provided to the victims of the riots so that they 
can depose 'freely and fearlessly' before the commission. The 
assurance was in the context of 'good conduct' certificates given to 
the police by several witnesses after they had reportedly been told 
to assemble at the police headquarters where they were apparently 
tutored what to say.

Now that these hamhanded efforts to peddle untruth before the 
commission have come to light, it is possible that at least some 
witnesses will summon enough courage to speak their minds. But since 
it is quite clear that serious attempts were being made to subvert 
the investigations, the nature of the Modi government has been 
exposed.

Moreover, this wasn't its first attempt at the subversion of a legal 
process. There had been persistent reports during the riots, which 
lasted for nearly two-and-a-half months, that the police had been 
told to lie low by the state's political leadership. Even after the 
riots ended, there were reports about how political bias was 
undermining law and order in the state.

=46or instance, a former chairman of the NHRC, JS Verma, told a TV 
interviewer that he wrote to the prime minister to complain about the 
Centre's failure "to make things better" in Gujarat. Verma had 
evidently lost faith in the Modi government's ability or willingness 
to improve conditions in the state. At about the same time, Poornima 
Advani, chairperson of the National Commission for Women, noted that 
"not many FIRs have been registered" against suspected rioters while 
there had been no convictions till then in the rape cases.

Similarly, the Human Rights Watch expressed surprise that "no 
convictions" had taken place even months after the riots had ended 
and little was provided by way of relief to the victims. It 
complained that "although the Indian government initially boasted of 
thousands of arrests following the attacks, most of those arrested 
have since been released on bail, acquitted or simply let off".

After noting that Muslims had been charged under POTA, the 
organisation said that this law had not been used against Hindus. It 
said that "the POTA charges show the extent of the bias in the legal 
system in Gujarat. The rule of law cannot be draconian for some and 
non-existent for others".

Even if any comment on police inaction during the riots can await the 
Nanavati Commission's verdict, it is clear that, first, the Modi 
government hadn't been too active in nabbing the guilty and, 
secondly, it sought to influence the witnesses into being economical 
with the truth. As an upholder of rajdharma, therefore, the doctrine 
of impartiality which the prime minister had wanted Modi to follow, 
the state government has been a dismal failure.

What is important is that it wasn't a failure of ability. It was a 
deliberate dereliction of duty based, essentially, on the BJP's 
perception of minorities as second-class citizens. As a model of what 
can be expected in a state where the BJP is in a majority, Gujarat is 
a prime example. And it is a matter of concern that the chief 
exponent of this deadly model is none other than a person whom the 
BJP regards as a hero.

Since neither fairness nor impartiality can be expected from the Modi 
government, it is of the utmost importance that the Nanavati 
Commission devotes itself with an even greater sense of urgency than 
before to unearth the truth. It must have become aware by now that 
there are powerful forces at work whose aim is to frustrate its 
efforts. Had there been no NHRC or a free press, these forces would 
have undoubtedly succeeded in presenting a distorted picture of what 
happened during the riots.

After all, the commission would have finished its work in a few 
months' time and its members would have been off to attend to other 
duties. But any of the witnesses, who dared to depose against the 
police or identify their attackers, would have had to stay on in 
Gujarat and face harassment or worse. But now that there is a 
countrywide awareness of the nefarious efforts that were being made 
behind the scenes, one can expect that at least some of the witnesses 
will be brave enough to tell the truth. The commission, too, should 
go out of its way to assure them of their safety.

The NGOs have an important role to play in this context. Instead of 
boycotting the commission, as some of them are doing, they should 
forsake such a defeatist attitude and try all the harder to help it 
discover the truth by standing by the scared witnesses. The civil 
administration may have failed to do its duty in Gujarat - or was 
made to fail by its political masters. But the legal system should 
succeed. Otherwise, fascism would continue to flourish in the hapless 
state.


_____


#4.

The Times of India
June 30, 2003
Editorial

Speedy Injustice

A democracy, text books will tell you, is characterised by the rule 
of law. This means that whenever a crime takes place, a case under 
the relevant law is registered, which is then investigated by the 
police.
 
This is followed by a trial in which the court pronounces on the 
guilt or otherwise of the accused. India is evidently a democracy. 
Indeed, it is, going by numbers, the world's greatest. As such, it's 
a reasonable expectation that this simple routine "the so-called due 
process of law " will be carried out here in all criminal  cases. On 
the face of it, this is exactly what happened in the infamous Best 
Bakery case in Vadodara in which 14 people were burnt alive in 
post-Godhra mob violence.
 
At the end of the fast-court trial, however, the case has been 
summarily thrown out and all 21 accused released because 'there was 
not an iota of evidence' against them. Worse, the judge has accused 
the police of fabricating evidence to frame 'innocents'. The verdict 
implies that the police failed "quite deliberately" to apprehend 
those actually involved in carrying out the horrific outrage.
 
Best Bakery was among the worst cases of violence in the aftermath of 
Godhra. It was also the first to come up for hearing. Long before the 
44-day trial ended, it was  apparent that the case was something of a 
sham: Of the 120 witnesses listed by the prosecution, more than a 
third never made it to the box.
 
Of the 73 who did, more than half turned hostile. The prosecution's 
prime witness and main complainant, who was 'escorted' to the trial 
by the local BJP legislator, told the court that she'd neither seen 
nor heard anything about the incident... Cynics will argue that the 
verdict is no surprise. From the anti-Sikh carnage in Delhi in 1984 
to the Bombay riots in 1992, 'riot' cases in India have long since 
ceased to result in convictions.
 
Since most episodes of communal violence are politically engineered, 
shielding the guilty is very much an accepted part of the post-riot 
'healing' process. For all that, the Gujarat case cannot be ignored. 
In the wake of post-Godhra violence, the National Human Rights 
Commission had pointedly asked the state government to hand over the 
investigation in five select cases, including Best Bakery, to the CBI.
 
At the time, the Modi government had rejected the request on the 
ground that cast needless aspersions on the integrity and competence 
of the state police. After what the court said on Friday, Mr Modi 
will hopefully  transfer the remaining cases to the Central agency. 
But this, given his record, is hoping for a lot.


o o o

The Indian Express
June 30, 2003

Editorial
Most Wanted: Justice
Gujarat's Best Bakery case shows the criminal justice system at its worst

Only one fact survived the 44-day trial in a fast track court. The 
fact of the carnage. Fourteen innocent people were burnt alive for 
sure, that day at the Best Bakery near Vadodara, in a Gujarat 
convulsed by riots. The rest is a phantom mob. At the end of a case 
in which it often seemed that the defence counsels' job was being 
done better by the prosecution, in which the prime witness was 
escorted in and out of court proceedings by a 'benefactor' MLA before 
she turned hostile and untraceable, and in which other hostile 
witnesses identified the accused as their 'saviours' when they didn't 
refuse to identify them at all, justice has been reduced to a ghost 
of itself. It will return to haunt the nation.

The Best Bakery massacre is one of the best documented of all the 
cases filed after the post-Godhra killings in Gujarat. Survivors 
publicly named those who attacked them. They petitioned the National 
Human Rights Commission, filed affidavits before the commission of 
inquiry, deposed before the Concerned Citizens Tribunal and travelled 
to Delhi to speak to the national media. It was the one case in which 
almost all the accused were in jail, the one moving ahead with 
lightning speed. The verdict was awaited not merely for the justice 
it would bring for the victims of the crime at Best Bakery. It was 
also going to send a message, and hold out hope, to survivors and 
victims' relatives of the other crimes that were also committed in 
Gujarat, at Naroda Patiya, Gulberg Society or at Sardarpura. It was 
to be the first step towards closure for a nation that has had to 
live with the memories of these events since.

The tidy acquittal of the accused in this case is a betrayal of 
faith. It must sound a nation-wide alarm. There wasn't even "an iota 
of evidence", lamented the judge, to convict the 21 accused. It must 
be asked whether it was because the witnesses were silenced by fear 
and coercion. Or due to the deliberately botched investigation that, 
as trial judge H.U. Mahida pointed out in his bitter 24-page 
judgement, is a common feature of all riot cases. What can be done to 
make sure justice is not miscarried again? Perhaps we need to look 
again at the suggestions made by the Justice V.S. Malimath committee 
that assigned a more pro-active role to the court "to search for the 
truth". We need to turn the searchlight on a process of justice that 
winds up in a blind alley when it doesn't drag on endlessly. Gujarat 
2002 must be rescued from ending up like Delhi 1984 or Bombay 1993. 
Because the burden of unrequited justice is becoming too heavy for 
the nation.


o o o

The Telegraph
June 30, 2003

Letters to Editor

Experiments with untruth

True lies

Sir - With Narendra Modi ruling the roost in Gujarat, could the Best 
Bakery case have taken any other turn ("Gujarat riot case charred" 
(June 28)? Since the riots sparked off in early March a year back, 
there has never been any doubt about the collusion of the state 
machinery in the pogrom. During the riots which saw thousands killed, 
raped and maimed, independent investigations have severally found 
that the police not only sometimes actively led the rioters, withdrew 
protection from vulnerable groups, but also made sure that the 
assailants got away through the distortion of first information 
reports. The Best Bakery case was the only one that reached the 
corridors of law because of the persistent efforts of its chief 
witness. But the long arm of the Modi government reached there also. 
Quite expectedly, Zahira Sheikh has turned hostile and several others 
have made a U-turn under pressure from the killers of their families. 
These people know they are losing their only chance to avenge the 
bloodbath, but they also want to live. And they will be allowed that 
chance only if they assist Modi to make his Gujarat "experiment" a 
success.

Yours faithfully,
J. Acharya, Calcutta


_____


#5.

http://www.mainstreamweekly.com/issue21jun/content/general3.asp
MAINSTREAM /Volume No. XLI No. 27 New Delhi, June 21, 2003

RSS and Fascism

Shyam Chand

At the beginning of the last century, there were many reformation 
movements to cleanse the Hindu society and free it from the 
ritualistic tyranny of Brahmanism. The Brahmo Samaj, the Arya Samaj 
and the reform movement of Ranade were aimed at freeing the Hindu 
society from superstition, idol-worship and other social ills.
The non-Brahmin movement in the Madras Presidency culminated in the 
formation of the Jusice Party to fight for the political rights of 
non-Brahmins. The Brahmin population in the Madras Presidency was 
only three per cent. They took maximum advantage of Christian 
educational institutions and health facilities. They entered these 
institutions, services and professions and formed cliques from where 
non-Brahmins were excluded.
Out of sixteen successful ICS candidates between 1892 and 1904, 
fifteen were Brahmins. In 1913, out of 128 district munsifs 93 were 
Brahmins. In 1914, out of 650 graduates of Madras University 452 were 
Brahmins. The same was the case in the Bombay Presidency. (Society 
and Politics in India by Prof Andre Beteille) Dr Murli Manohar Joshi 
still curses Macaulay!
The Justice Party sent a delegation to London to present its case 
before the Joint Parliamentary Committee of the British House of 
Parliament, set up in connection with the Government of India Bill 
and got separate reservation.
Veer Savarkar and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya had revived the defunct 
Hindu Mahasabha at Banaras in 1923 to fight for the political rights 
of Hindus and assimilate Dalits in the Hindu fold by opening schools, 
wells and temples for them. Sikhs in Punjab were fighting for the 
liberation of their Gurudwaras from the clutches of the Mahants.
It was in 1925 when Brahmanism was under attack from all sides that 
Dr Hedgewar, still basking in the reflected glory of the Peshwas, 
joined hands with three other Brhamins=97B.S. Munje, Baharao Savarkar 
(brother of Veer Savarkar) and B.B. Thalkar=97to stage a 
counter-revolution. Number 4 is not considered a good number by the 
Hindus. They recruited young Brahmin graduates for the service of 
their community and when the number reached ninetynine they assembled 
in a forest(!) to take some esoteric oath, which is their =91hidden 
agenda'. (Ninetynine is a multiple of 9 which is considered 
auspicious but 99, one short of a century, keeps a man in Chakra. The 
Vajpayee Government lost the vote of confidence by one vote in '99.)
At that time Hitler was a rising star in Germany. He was influenced 
by Nietzsche who had written an anti-Christ treatise after reading 
Manusmriti translated into German, in which he condemned Christianity 
and eulogised Manu. Hitler was impressed by Manu's superman, the 
Brahmin, imposing his will on the weak. Standing before the bust of 
Nietzsche, Hitler would read passages from Manusmriti. Its extracts 
were read at Nazi functions. Nietzsche's sister and cousin had 
praised Hitler for immortalising their sibling. But Hitler did not 
know that one day Manusmriti and superman would tear Germany apart 
before India. Hitler was mad and his madness was equally matched by 
the madness of the German people.
The RSS sent Munje to Italy and Germany. In Italy (let Modi know), he 
met Mussolini for aid and advice. In Germany he studied Hitler's 
methods of recruitment and training of his terrorist Storm Troopers, 
their use of arms, pyrotechnics, subversive activities and art of 
Goebbelsian propaganda. Many skeletons of Hitler's Nazi era are lying 
in the cupboard of the RSS at Nagpur. Tagore described fascism as "an 
exact counterpart" of Brahmanism. (Rabindranath Tagore by Krishna 
Dutta and Andrew Robinson)
Hitler's party, National (Rashtriya) Socialists and his Schutz Staffe 
(Guard detachment) or SS for short, =91stand for Swayamsevak Sangh'. 
Hitler's stiff-hand salute and Swastika are the RSS symbols. Swastika 
had been the symbol of the Teutonic Knights and Free Corps Units. 
Writes John Toland, Hitler's biographer:
=46or centuries it had represented not only for Europeans but also for 
certain North American Indian tribes the wheel of the Sun or cycle of 
life. From now on, and perhaps forevermore, the Swastika would have a 
sinister connotation.

It is pertinent to note here that the RSS was born in 1925. Why 
didn't Dr Hedgewar and his friends join the Hindu Mahasabha, which 
was revived in 1923? The answer is simple. The RSS is not a Hindu but 
a Brahmanical organisation and it doesn't want to reform the Hindu 
society but wants to Revive Social Supermacy (RSS) of the Brahmins.
The RSS has nothing to do with nationalism or Hinduism. It had 
betrayed both. The RSS had played a traitorous role during the 
freedom struggle. It did not take part in the freedom struggle and 
many RSS volunteers like K.B. Limaye, the chief of the Bombay RSS 
unit, left it. Golwalkar asked the RSS volunteers to "preserve your 
energy". He was afraid of a ban on the RSS. It betrayed the Hindus 
during the civil disobedience movement (1938-39) against the Nizam of 
Hyderabad where the Hindus were under attack. Dr Hedgewar refused to 
land his volunteers saying that the RSS was a cultural organisation. 
Savarkar was constrained to say:
The epitaph of the RSS volunteer will be that he was born, he joined 
the RSS and died without accomplishing anything.
Short of calling the RSS a Brahmanical outfit as it would have 
adverse impact on the Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar asked its members not 
to attend RSS shakhas which was a normal practice.
The RSS did not participate in the protests organised by the Congress 
party, Muslim League, Communists and Forward Bloc in Calcutta in 1946 
when Rashid Ali was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for taking 
part in the Naval mutiny. Two persons were then killed and fifty 
injured in police firing. When Nehru and Bhulabhai Desai were 
pleading the INA case in Lal Quilla, no RSS volunteer was seen near 
its wall. Now L.K. Advani wants to change the name of Lal Quilla. 
What about Lal Krishna Quilla? It did not oppose the partition of 
India whereas an equally communal Jamait-e-Islami, under Maulana 
Maududi and his softas, opposed tooth and nail Savarkar's =91Two-Nation 
Theory' adopted by Jinnah and the partition of India. Golwalkar by 
his utterances facilitated the partition knowing that in an undivided 
India, an RSS activist like Atal Behari Vajpayee would never become 
the Prime Minister and the RSS' desire of imposing its will on the 
nation would remain a dream.
The prime objective of fascism is to grab power at any cost=97Nation, 
Humanity and Peace. For that it misappropriates, uses, misuses and 
disuses national and cultural symbols without any moral compunction.
The cultural symbol of the RSS had been Aurobindo Ghosh for many 
decades. The day L.K. Advani started his rath yatra from Somnath to 
Ayodhya he dumped Aurobindo Ghosh on the way as the latter did not 
recognise Rama as a historical figure. Now the RSS has adopted Swami 
Vivekananda as its cultural symbol. His concept of the nation having 
a Hindu mind and a Muslim body, the declaration of Ramakrishna 
Pramhans that Christ was an incarnation and the registration of the 
Ramakrishna Mission as a minority institution are against the 
philosophy of the RSS.
Golwalkar does not recognise Rama and Krishna as national ideals. For 
him Bhagwa Dhwaj is at once "universal and all absorbing in its 
appeal". (Bunch of Thoughts, p. 395) Now the RSS and its outfits have 
made Ayodhya a bargaining counter for vote-bank politics.
As a matter of fact the priestly class refused to perform the 
coronation ceremony of Rama saying that the "humbler of Parsurama" 
and "slayer of Ravana" did not deserve such a ceremony. Priests who 
performed that ceremony were socially boycotted by other Brahmins and 
they were forced to settle down across the river, Saryu. They are 
still known as Saryupari Brahmins. A Saryupari Brahmin, at the time 
of his daughter's marrage, touches the feet of his son-in-law that he 
has been kind enough to accept the hand of a socially boycotted 
father's daughter! Brahmins worship Rama in the temple and Parsurama 
at home!
Krishna is the most celebrated and popular deity in the Hindu 
pantheon whom the priestly class did not accept as a Kshatriya. That 
is why Golwalkar does not recognise Krishna as a national ideal. He 
defeated Indra and asked his folks not to worship him. He also 
defeated Shiva and wounded his son, Skanda, the god of war. Krishna 
also tortured Kasi, the seat of Shiva. Parsurama did his best to see 
that Krishna was not married in any royal family. But he checkmated 
him and eloped with Rukmani. Shishupal, whom Krishna killed, did not 
accuse him of "loose morals". When Duryodhan called Krishna of "low 
origin" and "loose morals", gods in heaven came down to listen to 
Duryodhan and showered flowers on him! In the Gita Krishna was made 
to say that he was the originator of the caste system. Thus Manu was 
exonerated from the sin of dividing the Hindu society.
Golwalkar reluctantly accepts Shiva and not his trishul-wielding 
"flock of demons surrounding him". Was Golwalkar referring to the 
"flock of demons" who destroyed Rishi Daksha's sacrifice or was he 
visualising the trishul-wielding =91flock of demons' dancing and 
destroying Babri Masjid? Now, political stunts-turned-VHP "saints" 
are blackmailing the Hindus by arousing their basest emotions!

Now the RSS, through Vinay Katiyar, President of the UP unit of the 
BJP and a former chief of the "flock of demons" (courtesy Golwalkar), 
is trying to misappro-priate Dr Ambedkar by misrepresenting him. 
Perhaps Vinay Katiyar does not know three things. In Riddles in 
Hinduism, Dr Ambedkar has termed Manu's social system as "Satanic 
dispensation" and his law book an "outlawry". He also burnt the copy 
of Manusmriti. Secondly, perhaps Vinay Katiyar does not know that 
Advani and Co had spent millions of rupees' on Worshipping False Gods 
to denigrate Dr Ambedkar and its writer, Arun Shourie, has been 
suitably rewarded with membership of the Rajya Sabha and a Cabinet 
berth.
Thirdly, the RSS holds Hitler's Mein Kampf in one hand for Mayawati 
and her peers in and around NDA=97kill your allies like your enemies 
one by one=97and Manusmriti in the other for Vinay Katiyar and his 
tribe=97"women, Vaishyas and Shudras are born of the womb of sin". But 
Vaishyas should be used to keep the common men, Shudras, under leash. 
What for are there Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj 
Kishore and Vinay Katiyar? But they know that Paramhans Ramchander 
Das refused to offer shiladaan to the Faizabad Commissioner who 
happened to be a 'Baniya'.
The RSS has misappropriated Guru Govind Singh whose five Deliverances 
are an anti-thesis of the RSS philosophy. "Dharam Nash or freedom 
from previous social and religious practices and customs"; "Karam 
Nash or the obliteration of the past bad deeds"; "Janam Nash or 
giving up the family influence and caste effects"; "Sharam Nash or 
the disapparance of hereditary professional distinction"; and "Braham 
Nash or discarding the rituals prescribed by previous practices". 
Guru Govind Singh said: "Temples and mosques are the same." For him 
"man's caste is one" =97History of Sikh Gurus by Prof Hari Ram Gupta, 
former Head of History Department, Punjab University.
Now Sardar Patel is being misappropriated. Modi has styled himself as 
Chhota Sardar. Can there be any comparison between a swan and a 
cunning crow? The =91Iron Man' stands alone like Prince Chandra's Iron 
Pillar at Mehrauli, which cannot be compared with any other iron 
manufactured from the scrap in the RSS foundry.
Now Savarkar has been adopted as a hero of the freedom struggle. In 
fact, the RSS never fought for the freedom of the country and hides 
its past behind the badge of pseudo-nationalism. Savarkar tendered 
apology and came out of the Andaman-Nicobar jail. Now, its airport 
has been named after him. His portrait is in the Central Hall of 
Parliament. If the BJP comes to power on its own at the Centre, 
Godse's statue will replace Gandhiji's. Both Godse and Savarkar faced 
trial for the assassination of Gandhiji.
=46ascism takes roots when democracy is weak and the middle class 
become panicky. With the rise of the RSS there is a corresponding 
increase in social crimes and corruption. Atrocities on minorities, 
weaker sections of the society and women present a horrifying 
picture. This NDA Government is neck-deep in corruption=97security 
scams to IT scams and even trading in coffins. They make the middle 
class panicky. The conglomeration of about two dozen parties, with 
diverse and conflicting ideologies, where allies make private deals 
to remain in power, has rendered democracy weak. The allies have been 
reduced to the position of BJP employees.
=46ascism flourishes when there is conflict within and without. From 
Ayodhya to Gujarat there is a concerted effort to create conflict and 
terror. The Kargil conflict (not because of intelligence failure but 
the leadership's act of omission and commission to win the Lok Sabha 
elections), the IC-814 Airline hijack fiasco (not to detain hijackers 
at the Amritsar airport for forty minutes) which brought national 
humiliation at the dawn of the new millennium, the Agra summit when 
Mian Musharraf deralied the Chanakya from its height, the ceasefire 
but no talk allowing terrorists to spread their network from Kashmir 
to Kolkata, the attack on Parliament when the government had prior 
information but did not beef up security=97all these present a sequence 
of events along Hitler's method of subversive activities. The 
conflict within and without had given ample opportunity to Dr Murli 
Manohar Joshi to tamper with history and saffronise secular 
institutions. Now security has been made a poll plank. "Manu, 
Chanakya and the lot would outdo Machiavelli any day," opined 
unsaffronised Arun Shourie in Hinduism!
Never allow people to cool off, never admit a fault, blame your enemy 
for everything wrong, never make compromise and people will accept a 
bigger lie sooner than the smaller one if repeated again and again, 
keep fascism alive and flourishing.

=A8
Both the RSS and fascism have disturbing similarities. Both are 
devoid of conscience and morality; both have inherent cannibalistic 
instincts; and both practise apartheid=97racial and social 
discrimination, intole-rance, intimidation and murder. The Beer Hall 
Putsch, Crystal Night and genocide in Hitler's Germany had been 
replicated at Ayodhya, mayhem in Bombay and the genocide in Gujarat. 
Both indulge in subversive activities behind the facade of 
nationalism. Imagine Indian and Pakistani armies arrayed against each 
other last year and shilaniyas at Ayodhya and genocide in Gujarat. 
Only Modi knows the =91Why', =91How' and =91Who' of Godhra. Nehru described 
the RSS, as =91anti-national, communal, violent and subversive'. He has 
been vindicated. He saw no threat to India's unity and integrity from 
communism but from Hindu fundamentalism, which the RSS represents, in 
the form of Hindutva which is the substitute of Hitler's Aryans to 
blackmail the Hindus.
Both are anti-reformation, anti-intellectualism and draw on mythology 
for propaganda purposes =91to arouse the basest instincs of men and 
cloak them with nobility'.
Both are against women's empowerment. Hitler replaced girls with boys 
at the workplace and prescribed a dress code for them. Golwalkar does 
not want one more "ism", sexism, for equal rights of women. The 
Women's Reservation Bill has been pending in the Lok Sabha for a long 
time which can be passed with the support of Congress party, CPI and 
CPM.
Both are anti-secular and anti-democracy. They destroy democracy and 
democratic institutions from within.
Both suffer from the Messiah complex. Hitler imagined himself to be 
the Christ to free the Church from money-changers (Jews). Dr Hedgewer 
had been declared as an incarnation by Golwalkar.
Both are terrorist mafias and preach violence and war. Both control 
the media. Any opposition invites retaliation. Two journalists of 
Delhi, Iftikhar Gilani and Kumar Badal of tehelka, had to face the 
fury of undeclared Emergency behind the bars.
Both start with small-time shopkeepers and trade unionists and end up 
supping with the corporate sector to finish them the way they kill 
their allies like their enemies.
Both enforce state-sponsored religion and state-sponsored books and 
literature for teaching in the educational institutions. RSS chief 
K.S. Sudarshan wants Christians and Muslims to worship Hindu gods. He 
is trying to expand the clientage for the recognised parasites Dr 
Murl Manohar Joshi is producing as Prohitiyas. He himself is so 
ungrateful not to worship his own creator.
In the post-Mauryan period Patanjali and his hirelings under the 
patronage of Pushyamitra tempered with all the ancient texts. All 
interpolations, manipulated mutilations, stuffings and subtractions 
were effected with concatenation in retrospect. Ashoka, who is 
considered the greatest monarch the world has ever produced, was 
buried under the debris of Buddhist monasteries. Two hundred years 
ago India did not know anything about Ashoka. It was Cunnigham who 
retrieved Ashoka from there and foreign historians brought him in the 
history books. That is why Dr Joshi does not like foreign historians. 
Historians who attribute India's slavery to the caste system and hold 
the priestly class responsible; for that they are termed by him as 
Leftists. The Leftists have conscience. Fascists are devoid of both 
conscience and morality. Now Dr Murli Manohar Joshi and some 
historians with dubious credentials whose names are kept secret, are 
tampering with history. L.K. Advani has objected to the Ashoka Wheel 
in the tricolour, which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly 
unanimously when Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was the Minister in 
Nehru's Cabinet.
Both advocate one-party and one-man rule in the name of the nation to 
destroy it in the name of Pan-nationalism=97Pan-German and Akhand 
Bharat, from Iran to Malaysia and from Tibet to Sri Lanka to befool 
the gullibles.

The RSS is an organised hypocrisy, criminalised communalism, 
institutionalised terrorism and mytho-logised falsehood. It pretends 
to be a cultural organi-sation but it is a criminal mafia of the 
anti-national fascist forces. It represents those old dark forces and 
"relics of the past" "with their frozen articles of faith" who 
brought shame and slavery of centuries for India resulting in the 
division of the country. Social union is the most important 
ingredient of a nation which the RSS wants to destroy.
When the RSS floated its political outfit, the Bharatiya Jan Sangh 
(now the BJP), Nehru described it as =91an illegal child of the RSS'. 
Since then the RSS has given birth to so many illegal children who 
after attaining puberty have not only become a headache to their 
parent but a nuisance and threat to society.
Till now, intra-Sangh Parivar relations and occasional tantrums were 
termed as naumachy to confuse people. The VHP has now attacked the 
Prime Minister after his Goa musings. First, a Prime Minister, as a 
national symbol, belongs to the entire nation and a poet to the 
entire humanity. But when a poet-Prime Minister indulges in petty 
partisan politics, the last mask tears itself off the facade and the 
true Swayamsevak appears before the nation.
Secondly, the popular belief is that no sin is attached when a man 
says what he does not mean by crossing his middle and index fingers. 
How people are shocked to see our worthy Prime Minister indulging in 
emotional rhetorics by crossing and uncrossing both the fingers with 
magic-movements. Hindutva is neither Hinduism, nor culture nor 
nationalism, but Hitler's Aryan with all its sinister connotations! 
This Hindutva has nothing noble. It is the hidden agenda of 
ninetynine Brahmins who took oath in the forest to destroy the social 
union of India for their self-aggrandisement.
The word Hindutva was coined by Savarkar who also propounded the 
"Two-Nation Theory" which had divided India. Hindutva has a sinister 
connotation to balkanise the rest of India.
After few days of his Goa musings Vajpayee congratulated and 
supported Dr Murli Manohar Joshi for saffronising history and not 
greening it. The green colour is in the tricolour. It is also the 
colour of his ally's turban (the Chief Minister of Haryana O.P. 
Chautala) who was present in the meeting. The green colour also 
symbolises prosperity in Islam. Reference to the green colour 
betrayed his Hindutva mindset. The Hindutva anti-national forces term 
the genocide in Gujarat as cultural renaissance.
Vajpayee's soul is the RSS and not India. His dharma is like 
Kaurava's, Bhishma's dharma (when Draupadi was being disrobed)=97very 
subtle. It varies from person to person, from place to place and from 
time to time. His dharma would have enjoined on him to sack the 
butcher of Gujarat. He buckled under RSS pressure that threatened to 
plunge India through the flashing loop of civil war if Modi was 
sacked. This is the pseudo-nationalism of the RSS.
Some of the blame lies with the members of the Opposition parties who 
described Vajpayee as a gentleman in a wrong party. Can a gentleman 
keep the company of those who are not so gentle for fifty long years 
without wearing the mask over his mantle?
The RSS was born on Dussehra Day in 1925. When Ravan was killed, it 
seems, his soul had entered into the RSS that day!
=46undamentalism supports and nurtures funda-mentalism. Dr Joshi has 
given thousands of computers to Madrasas which the RSS paints in 
black colour. The RSS' terrorism=97the demolition of the Babri Masjid 
and mayhem in Bombay=97have given birth to Muslim fundamentalism. The 
day the RSS closes its shop, Muslim fundamentalism would be buried 
deep in its own grave.
Abrogation of Article 370 and Common Civil Code are on the agenda of 
the RSS and BJP. Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was a Minister in Nehru's 
Cabinet when Article 370 was incorporated in the Constitution. The 
Common Civil Code is applicable to the civil society. Can we claim to 
be a civil society when there are female infanticides, female 
foeticides, dowry, bride-burning, glorification of sati, 
untouchability, caste system and temple prostitution in the name of 
the Devdasi system? And what are the custodians of culture or vendors 
of Hindutva doing?
These people draw on mythology and the so-called Dharamgranths that 
Gandhiji refused to accept and called them the creations of poets and 
nothing else. He also urged upon the Hindus to purge from these texts 
those prose portions that are abhorrent to human dignity. For that he 
paid the price of his life. According to Manusmriti, women, Vaishyas 
and Shudras are born of sin. Manu does not differentiate between 
women. Can a Hindu whose mother is born of the womb of sin say with 
pride that he is a Hindu? Gowalkar says that Hinduism is not a 
religion but a way of life. How can then these texts be called 
Dharamgranths? Dharamgurus who preach these texts are worst than 
fagins!
If the people of this country do not challenge and confront the 
anti-national fascist forces, the four founding Brahmin members of 
the RSS would prove to be the pallbearers of this nation!

_____


#6.

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 11:49:33 -0700 (PDT)
=46rom: Aarthi Ramachandran <homer_nodded@yahoo.com>
Subject: Editing in Bombay...

Hi,

=46our of us from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai  have made a 
short film ( 25 mins.) on the status of rehabilitation work in 
Ahmedabad one year post the riots.

Though the film was part of our course requirement, the stories of 
those affected by the riots demand a larger audience. We're hoping to 
show the film in Bombay.

=46or this we'll need to subtitle ( it's mostly in Hindi ) and we're 
looking for an inexpensive place in Bombay where we can get the work 
done... can anyone help ?

Do let us know asap.

Aarthi Ramachandran
Deepa Krishnan
Priti Patnaik
Vibha Iyer

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