SACW | 16 Sept. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  16 September,  2003

[ New @ the South Asia Citizens Web :  URL: www.mnet.fr/aiindex/new/index.html
- Call for contributions to the 
LARZISH-International film festival of sexuality 
and gender pluralities. Bombay, 2003
- Documents -- Movement Against Uranium Project in Andhra Pradesh Sept, 2003
- Karachi Declaration -- South Asia Labour 
Conference for Peace - September 2, 2003 ]

o o o

[1] Pakistan:
- Time for paradigm shift in Pakistan (M. B. Naqvi)
- Textbooks that brainwash (Omar R. Quraishi)
- Poverty Reduction: Two Views (S Akbar Zaidi)
[2] Teesta Setalvad and I.A. Rehman given the 
Nuremberg International Human Rights Award 2003
on September 14, 2003
[3] Information on Dialogue for Peace Initiatives: Kashmir
[4] India: Conviction of Dara Singh in Staines murder welcomed
Delay in justice has helped growth of communal cults (AICC)
[5] India - Gujarat: Heart of darkness (Luke Harding)
[6] India: Tackling Terrorism (Ram Puniyani)
[7] India: Appeal for Donations (Centre for the 
study of  society and secularism)


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

[1.]


Post on South Asians Against Nukes Mailing List
15 September 2003

Time for paradigm shift in Pakistan
by M.B Naqvi
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/message/626

o o o

Dawn [Pakistan] September 14, 2003

Textbooks that brainwash
By Omar R. Quraishi

There are some books that teach and there are 
some that brainwash students into become 
submissive receptors of the dominant 
national/religious ideology of the state and of 
its authority. Unfortunately, many books included 
in our national curriculum do the latter and go 
against the vision of a progressive, moderate and 
modern Islamic state that our president wants the 
country to have.
Riddled with references to religion and 
patriotism (and this includes even books that 
purport to teach English or Social Studies), they 
glorify war and teach students to take almost 
militaristic pride in their faith and national 
identity. This feeling of superiority that the 
textbooks try to instill in the students comes at 
the expense of people of other faiths and 
national identities who are consequently looked 
down upon. Instead of containing topics that 
relate to the growing inter-dependence between 
nations in today's world especially in the fields 
of, say, economics, culture or travel, these 
texts have references to military battles, 
martyrdom, and the deficiencies of other 
cultures/nations.
What is even more worrying, no one seems to be 
bothered about this situation, notwithstanding 
the ministry of education's professed attempt to 
revise syllabuses (if they are being revised then 
it would be a good idea to publicize them). 
Possibly, those troubled by this have their 
children studying in O and A level schools so the 
hatred and division preached by the textbooks 
doesn't directly affect them. As for those whose 
children are exposed to this kind of propaganda, 
they perhaps don't know any better, don't care 
or, worse still, prefer to have their kids taught 
in such a system.
This is not to say that products of the matric 
and intermediate system are all intellectually 
challenged morons with mediocre IQs and marginal 
analytical skills. But, if you were part of this 
system, then chances are that you would have been 
exposed to the worst kind of subtle - and 
sometimes not-so-subtle - propaganda which would 
have made even Goebbels proud. Perhaps, those who 
came out of this system unscathed became 
intellectually stronger than those who studied 
through the O/A level system. A colleague, a 
well-known cartoonist and a graduate of the NCA, 
proudly says that he ran away from school and did 
matric on his own. After that he directly entered 
arts college, because in that time, 1973, you 
didn't need to have an intermediate certificate 
to get enrolled in higher education. And he says 
that he is probably better off because this way 
at least he avoided having to study all these 
texts.
Detractors who think that too much is being made 
of a trivial matter here should think again. 
Thanks to some excellent work done by A. H. 
Nayyar and Ahmed Salim there is now a detailed 
study available of textbooks in Pakistan's 
schooling system. It analyzes in detail the 
content of many of the texts most-used by 
students and the conclusion reached is evident in 
the study's title: The State of Curricula and 
Textbooks in Pakistan: The Subtle Subversion 
(Sustainable Development Policy Institute - 
partially supported by the Eqbal Ahmed 
Foundation).
The summary to the study says: "A close analysis 
by a group of independent scholars shows that for 
over two decades the curricula and the officially 
mandated textbooks in these subjects [Urdu, 
English, Social Studies and Civics] have 
contained material that is directly contrary to 
the goals and values of a progressive, moderate 
and democratic Pakistan."
It goes on further to say that the revision of 
curricula in March last year by the curriculum 
wing of the ministry of education was cosmetic, 
"did not address the problems that existed in 
earlier curriculum documents and in some cases, 
these problems are now even worse".
The survey found that the curricula and 
textbooks: (1) are riddled with factual 
inaccuracies, and omit historical events and/or 
facts that "serve to substantially distort the 
nature and significance of actual events in our 
history; (2) are "insensitive" to the country's 
religious diversity; (3) incite students to 
militancy and violence, including encouragement 
of jihad and shahadat; (4) introduce perspectives 
that "encourage prejudice, bigotry and 
discrimination towards fellow citizens, 
especially women and religious minorities and 
other nations; (5) glorify war and the use of 
force; (6) omit "concepts, events and material 
that could encourage critical self-awareness 
among students"; and (7) place a premium on the 
use of "outdated and incoherent" methods of 
teaching which serve to act as substantial 
barriers in the development of "interest and 
insight" among students.
One chapter of the study is devoted to historical 
distortions and inaccuracies in Pakistani 
textbooks. Ahmed Salim quotes from a research 
paper, Language Teaching and Worldview in Urdu 
Medium Schools, by well-known linguist and 
scholar Dr Tariq Rahman on this: "The state's 
major objectives - creating nationalism and 
support for the military - are attained by 
repeating a few basic messages in all the books. 
First, the non-Muslim part of Pakistan is 
ignored. Second, borrowing from Hindu culture is 
either ignored or condemned. Third, the Pakistan 
movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the 
perfidy of Hindus and the British and the 
righteousness of the Muslims. After partition, 
Hindus are reported to have massacred Muslims 
while Muslims are not shown to have treated the 
Hindus in the same manner. India is portrayed as 
the enemy, waiting to dismember Pakistan. The 
separation of Bangladesh in 1971 is portrayed as 
proof of this Indian policy rather than the 
result of the domination by West Pakistan over 
East Bengal. The armed forces are not only 
glorified but treated as if they were sacrosanct 
and above criticism. All eminent personalities 
associated with the Pakistan movement are 
presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of 
their thoughts and behaviour which does not 
conform to this image is suppressed. Indeed the 
overall effect of the ideological lessons is to 
make Islam reinforce and legitimize both 
Pakistani nationalism and militarization."
The study says that before the 1971 war Pakistani 
textbooks did contain substantial material on 
ancient non-Muslim history and culture. The 
starting point was the ancient civilizations of 
Moenjodaro, Harappa and Taxila (as opposed to 712 
AD now, the time when Mohammad Bin Qasim invaded 
Sindh). Textbooks like Model Tareekh-e-Hindustan 
for High Classes (Mian Abdul Hakim, Lahore, 
1947), Mufeed Tareekh-e-Pak-o-Hind (Choudhry 
Rehmat Khan, Lahore, 1952) or 
Tareekh-e-Pakistan-o-Hind Part II (Ghulam Rasul 
Mehr, Lahore, 1951) were fair to Indian leaders, 
especially Gandhi and acknowledged the role he 
played during Partition in saving the lives of 
many Muslims in Hindu-majority areas.
The study says that the change began to happen 
not when Gen Zia came into power but before him 
during the time of Bhutto. The change however was 
not sudden, the study points out, because as 
early as 1947 a national education conference was 
convened to recommend and formulate guidelines 
for future educational policies. The arrival of 
Ziaul Haque brought in the element of 
Islamization, which served the interests of those 
who wanted the textbooks to be changed.
Detailed chapters on Moenjodaro, Harappa, Taxila 
and content on India's leaders or the region's 
pre-Islamic or Hindu past were deleted and 
replaced with "distorted stories of pre-Islamic 
India, falsified accounts of Muslim kings, ... , 
Muslim heroes and discussions of the superiority 
of Islamic principles". Perhaps forgetting the 
fact that at least one province in Pakistan had 
always had a substantial Hindu minority, the 
revised textbooks portrayed them as backward, 
superstitious and ridden by caste concerns. They 
were shown as inherently cruel (and this shows up 
time and again even in many Pakistani dramas - 
with Hindus being shown normally when the topic 
of the show relates to Kashmir) people who burnt 
their widows.
Students were told of concepts which do not even 
really exist. For example, the social studies 
book for Class VII (Punjab Textbook Board, 
Lahore) contains the ubiquitous term 'Muslim 
world'. It has chapters titled 'Mountains of the 
Muslim World, 'Seas of the Muslim World' and so 
on. However, such terminology is not used by 
geographers anywhere in the world so one wonders 
what is the point of inventing it and employing 
it for use (read indoctrination) by Pakistani 
students. The same thing happens in these 
textbooks in the case of Islamic society. The 
books talk about 'Islamic society' as if there 
were a single such monolithic society existing in 
the world. Clearly that is not the case, and many 
divisions and differences exist within the 
Islamic world and these differences have more to 
do with socio-economic factors than faith. So, by 
telling students that there are no points of 
divergence or disagreement within the Islamic 
world, the textbooks (a) do not tell them what is 
quite obvious to a sensible follower of current 
affairs and (b) more importantly, deprive them of 
an opportunity to debate such differences in an 
academic setting.
Mohammed Bin Qasim, the study notes (perhaps with 
a hint of sarcasm), is the first Pakistani 
citizen. The social studies textbook for class VI 
(Sindh Textbook Board, 1997) says that "the 
Muslims knew that the people of South Asia were 
infidels and they kept thousands of idols in 
their temples". Is this something that should be 
of any concern to an eleven year-old-child, and 
should school textbooks be discussing such 
contentious matters?
The following quote is from the civics textbook 
for use in classes IX and X (Punjab Textbook 
Board, Lahore, 2001). "The conquest of Sindh 
opened a new chapter in the history of South 
Asia. Muslims have everlasting effects of their 
existence in the region [sic]... For the first 
time the people of Sindh were introduced to 
Islam, its political system and way of 
government. The people had seen only the 
atrocities of the Hindu Rajas... The people of 
Sindh were so much impressed [sic] by the 
benevolence of Muslims that they regarded 
Mohammad Bin Qasim as their saviour... Mohammad 
Bin Qasim stayed in Sindh for over three years."
Quite incredibly, the study managed to get hold 
of a textbook that is being used in government 
schools (A Textbook of Pakistan Studies, by M. D. 
Zafar, Lahore) which said the following: "... as 
a matter of fact, Pakistan came to be established 
for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad 
Bin Qasim occupied Sindh and Multan in the early 
years of the eighth century, and established 
Muslim rule in this part of the South Asian 
subcontinent."
As for more recent events, especially those 
preceding the Pakistan's birth, today's textbooks 
contain insidious distortions of the truth. The 
study quotes Rubina Saigol's work on this (from 
her book Civics of Pakistan) to suggest that the 
difference between the All-India Muslim League 
and Congress is always presented as one based on 
religion. The result is that the creation of 
Pakistan is justified on religious grounds alone 
and the obvious social, economic and political 
factors for its coming into being are 
conveniently ignored. Gandhi is presented as a 
fundamentalist and extremist which would hardly 
explain why a follower of the RSS would have 
assassinated him for being too tolerant of the 
Muslims.
The massive killings and displacement that 
happened during partition are presented only from 
the Muslim point of view. As Khurshid Hasnain and 
A H Nayyar point out (Conflict and Violence in 
the Educational Process in Makings Enemies, 
Creating Conflict): "The partition story has also 
been described with self-serving half-truths. The 
authors of Mutala-i-Pakistan (for Classes IX and 
X, NWFP Textbook Board) state that after the 
establishment of Pakistan the Hindus and Sikhs 
created a day of doom for the Muslims in East 
Punjab. Didn't the Muslims create a similar day 
of doom for the Hindus and the Sikhs in West 
Punjab and Sindh? Communal killing on a large 
scale took place in Rawalpindi in February-March 
1947.
As for Pakistan's own development after achieving 
independence, the textbooks present important 
changes as events not worthy of any debate or 
examination. A case in point, according to the 
study, is the Objectives Resolution of 1949 which 
is "presented unproblematically even though it 
took sovereignty away from the people and, quite 
contrary to Jinnah's views expressed during his 
life, made a move toward a theocratic state. This 
should be taught critically and not as 'the 
truth'. Similarly the formation of One Unit is 
not discussed as an encroachment upon provincial 
or regional rights; there should be a critical 
analysis of One Unit (homogenization, 
centralization) and how it was against provincial 
rights and how such centralization cannot be 
imposed on a diverse and plural polity. The 
unification of West Pakistan is wrongly termed as 
unity of the nation" (in Civics of Pakistan for 
Intermediate Classes, by Mazharul Haq, Lahore, 
2000).
Even the tragedy of 1971, where Pakistan lost its 
eastern wing is glossed over, and the blame is 
again passed on to the Hindus. No acknowledgement 
is made of the injustices committed by West 
Pakistan-centred establishment against East 
Pakistan and no attempt is made to understand the 
actual reasons for the country's dismemberment. 
This deliberate distortion borders on the 
criminal because it hides from people what they 
must know about their past, especially the 
mistakes made by policymakers so that at least 
some lessons may be learnt.
The social studies textbook (in Urdu) in the NWFP 
(Muashrati Ulum) says this about the creation of 
Bangladesh: "After the 1965 war, India, with the 
help of Hindus living in East Pakistan, 
instigated the people living there against the 
people of West Pakistan, and at last in December 
1971 herself invaded East Pakistan. The 
conspiracy resulted in the separation of East 
Pakistan from us. All of us should receive 
military training and be prepared to fight the 
enemy."
And this, by the way, is a textbook for students of class V.
Writer's email: omarq at cyber.net.pk

o o o

Dawn [Pakistan] 15 September, 2003 |   op-ed

Poverty Reduction: Two Views
by S Akbar Zaidi

For the last few years, as poverty has continued to persist with about a
third of the population living below the poverty line, the Government of
Pakistan has become an active proponent of findings ways of alleviating or
reducing poverty in the country. In this regard, two official documents –
one fully owned by the Ministry of Finance, and the other by the Planning
Commission – have been made public, yet reveal two very contrasting and
indeed, conflicting analyses, opinions and strategies, for poverty
reduction in Pakistan.

The Ministry of Finance document is, of course, the Poverty Reduction
Strategy Paper (PRSP) still in its draft form, which should be finalised
before the end of this year. The PRSP document lays out the poverty
alleviation strategy of the government which has been followed since
October 1999 and formalises key elements of that strategy.

The key elements of the PRSP focus on accelerating growth with
macroeconomic stability, investing in human capital, expanding social
safety nets and emphasise better governance. Private sector growth is seen
as one of the most critical elements of Pakistan's poverty reduction
strategy, as is the generation of productive employment at a time when the
PRSP document acknowledges that the rate of unemployment exceeds 10 percent
in the country. Since the rise in unemployment has been seen largely as a
consequence of lower growth, an increase in growth is said to have an
employment enhancing effect.

The PRSP document acknowledges that nearly two-thirds of Pakistan's poor
live in rural areas and that more than fifty percent of the rural
population is landless. Since poverty in Pakistan has a largely rural
dimension, rural development will be needed to help reduce poverty, for
which agricultural infrastructure and programmes will be required. There is
also a passing reference to the distribution of  state owned land to small
farmers, though oddly, not to the fifty percent landless rural population.

While the PRSP claims that it is 'home grown', as do all government
policies no matter where they originate from, the other document, the
Pakistan Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA), is in many ways just that,
and is a rather different document compared to most other official
publications. The PPA is based on in-depth surveys in 51 sites in very poor
areas across the country and has had the active involvement and support
from the Planning and Development Division of the Federal Government, as
well as in each of the provinces and in the Northern Areas and FATA.

Unlike the PRSP, the Participatory Poverty Assessment is based on
interviews and opinions of the poor as to why they are poor and how they
see their way out of poverty. Hence, unlike the findings of the PRSP, those
of the PPA differ markedly.

For a start, one of the main findings of the PPA was regarding the lack of
access to land by the poor. The poor want far greater access to land and
water and protection of the natural resource base. The concentration of
landholdings is found to be impoverishing not just because it means that
the poor have few assets on which to depend on, but ultra-exploitation and
abuse, a familiar feature of inequitable land distribution in rural
Pakistan, is also rampant. Land was seen by the poor as an important source
of power, much of it being misused.

The poor, as a consequence, demand access to land as an income earning
asset, and access to justice and protection and security so that they can
live relatively free lives. Clearly, only with active and extensive land
reforms, where land is distributed not just to small farmers but to the
landless, and where the power of landlords is broken down, can one hope to
see poverty reduced amongst the two-thirds of the poor.

Other findings which show government failure relate to the demand for basic
services, especially health care. The poor identified health care related
institutions as the most important to them. The poor are far more
vulnerable to disease, yet do not have access to government facilities.
Moreover, there is a wide gap between what the government is supposed to
provide and what poor communities actually receive. The highly inadequate
level in investment in basic services was cited as a key reason for the
failure of health and education facilities. A crucial requirement to get
people out of poverty is to substantially raise public expenditure on
services and infrastructure. However, with public expenditure on
development falling or not rising in line with need, the condition of the
poor regarding access to health, education, water and infrastructure, will
probably deteriorate.

The need for jobs was another key need identified by the poor as
unemployment is a major cause of poverty. Unfortunately, with lower growth,
increased privatisation, and an inhospitable economic environment,
opportunities for employment continue to stagnate while the number of
people looking for jobs grows each year.

The documents reveal very contrasting approaches to the poverty issue in
Pakistan. The PRSP strategy of the Ministry of Finance, which is the actual
current economic policy of the government, is based primarily on
macroeconomic stabilisation which does not directly help reduce poverty.
Moreover, stabilisation has occurred without sufficient growth, a key
requirement for poverty reduction. Clearly, the government's current
strategy, reflected in the PRSP, is highly insufficient to make a
significant dent in the level of poverty in Pakistan.

The PPA document, on the other hand, focuses very sharply on the issue of
the access and ownership of land in rural areas where poverty is
particularly acute. With the Prime Minister having declared that there will
be no more land reforms, poverty in Pakistan is here to stay, and all other
attempts at poverty reduction or alleviation, are likely to remain far from
adequate. If there is any sincerity in the government's desire to reduce
poverty, it will have to push land reforms to the top of its poverty
reduction strategy. There is no other alternative.

______


[2.]

http://www.menschenrechte.nuernberg.de/e_index.html

Teesta Setalvad and I.A. Rehman given the 
Nuremberg International Human Rights Award 2003
on September 14, 2003

The Jury for the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award

Prof. Dr. Theo van Boven, Netherlands
Professor of international Law at the University of Maastricht
UN Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture
former Director of the UN-Division for Human Rights
former Acting Registrar of the "International 
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia"
Prof. Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi, India
Professor of History and Political Science
former leader of the Indian Delegation at the UN 
Human Rights Commission in Geneva
Prof. Dr. Maurice Glèlè-Ahanhanzo, Benin
Professor of Law
Member of the UN Human Rights Committee
Member of the Constitutional Court of Benin and 
President of the Institute for Human Rights and 
Promotion of Democracy
he contributed as an expert to the draft of the 
African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights
Václav Havel, Czech Republic
Former President of the Czech Republic
Co-founder of the Civil Rights Movement
Charta 77
Prof. Dr. Roman Herzog, Germany
former President of the Federal Republic of Germany
Chairman of the Working Committee for a European Charter of Fundamental Rights
former President of the Federal German Constitutional Court
Maître Daniel Jacoby, France
Lawyer
Honorary President of the »Fédération 
Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme« 
(F.I.D.H.)
Dr. Asma Jahangir, Pakistan
Lawyer
UN-Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions
Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
Dani Karavan, Israel
internationally highly reputed artist who created 
the "Way of Human Rights" in Nuremberg in 1993
Koichiro Matsuura, Japan
Director-General of the UNESCO
former Japanese Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs
former Ambassador
Prof. Dr. José Míguez Bonino, Argentina
President of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights in Argentina
former President of the World Council of Churches
Dr. Ulrich Maly, Germany
Lord Mayor of the City of Nuremberg

______


[3.]


Information on Dialogue for Peace Initiatives: Kashmir is now available
online at http://dpi.swarthmore.edu

DPI:Kashmir conference will be held at Swarthmore College from  the
19th to the 21st of September, 2003. Please forward the webpage to all
interested people and request them to register and participate at the
conference.

______


[4.]


ALL INDIA CHRISTIAN COUNCIL
President: Dr Joseph D’ Souza Secretary General: Dr. John Dayal

Please correspond with Secretary General at:
Phone (91 11) 22722262 Fax 22726582 Mobile 09811021072
Email: <mailto:johndayal at vsnl.com>johndayal at vsnl.com

Conviction of Dara Singh in Staines murder welcomed
Delay in justice has helped growth of communal cults

PRESS STATEMENT
NEW DELHI, 15 September 2003

[The following is the text of the Press statement 
issued by Dr John Dayal, Secretary general of the 
All India Christian Council and National Vice 
President of the All India catholic Union after 
the conviction today by a Bhuvaneswar, Orissa, 
court of Dara Singh and his accomplices for the 
murder of Australian leprosy worker Graham Stuart 
Staines and his young sons Timothy and Phillip in 
January 1999]

The Khurda district and sessions judge in Orissa 
has at last convicted Dara Singh and his 12 
accomplices of the well planned and horrendous 
murder of Graham Stuart Stains and his young sons 
Timothy and Philips who were brunt alive as they 
slept in their jeep in the Manohurpur forest 
village on 22nd January 1999. A 13 year old boy, 
Chenchu has already been convicted and sentenced 
by a juvenile court in the same conspiracy.

While there is a sense of satisfaction that 
Justice has at last been done, the Christian 
community agrees with Graham’s widow Gladys 
Staines, that `neither vengeance nor vindication 
matter any more.’ Gladys had, at the funeral of 
her husband and her sons, publicly forgiven the 
killers as she vowed to continue the work with 
victims of leprosy and tribals that her husband 
had launched decades ago in Orissa’s forest areas 
which are still unreached by modern medicine.

The judge is yet to pronounce sentence. The law 
of the land is clear. This is the rarest of the 
rare cases which calls for the ultimate penalty. 
However, it is not for us to demand the ultimate 
penalty. I myself, as a pro-life activist, am 
opposed to the death penalty for any crime, even 
murder as horrific as this.

The delay in bringing the criminals to justice 
and the protracted case, the manner of the 
enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigations, 
and the attitude of the State and Central 
government over the years have however had their 
impact reaching far beyond the state of Orissa.

First of all, the almost four years since the 
crime have allowed the extreme Hindutva 
fundamentalist forces to create a Dara Singh 
cult, a `Dara Army’ and generally deify the 
murderer. Dara in fact bid bold to try to contest 
the last Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly 
elections from jail, and it was public outrage 
which made the authorities reject his nomination. 
This cult has since then unleashed a reign of 
terror against Christians in the rural and forest 
areas of Orissa, which together with Gujarat 
today tops in crimes against religious minorities.

The authorities have themselves exploited this 
situation to further sharpen the draconian anti 
conversion laws which make the police force and 
district authorities the final arbiters of an 
individual’s freedom of choice in matters of his 
faith and his choice of religion. In turn, other 
states including Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have 
copied the Orissa laws and there are indications 
that the Central government may soon bring about 
similar nation wide legislation.

The full official machinery had been used to give 
a clean chit to the murderous Bajrang Dal with 
the CBI gratuitously claiming, following the 
statement in 1999 by Home Minister Lal Krishna 
Advani, that there was no link between the Sangh 
Parivar and Dara Singh, a professed and well 
known activist, who had been a major political 
campaigner for these same groups in the past. 
This has successfully shifted focus from the 
gravity of the hate crimes of the Sangh Parivar, 
which had, to begin with, poisoned the mid of 
people like Dara Singh and turned them into 
murderers. The Parivar and its doctrine of hate 
against religious minorities is the ultimate 
criminal, and it remains un-indicted, and 
un-punished.


______


[5.]

The Guardian [UK] September 15, 2003

Heart of darkness

As a young backpacker Luke Harding found India 
charming and eccentric. Fifteen years later he 
returned as the Guardian's correspondent. Now, 
after finishing his time there, he recalls how 
one terrible incident of secular violence in 
Gujarat brought his love affair with the country 
to an end

by Luke Harding

  I can identify the moment I fell out of love 
with India quite precisely. It happened at the 
end of last February. Riots had just broken out 
in the western state of Gujarat, after a group of 
Muslims attacked a train full of Hindu pilgrims, 
killing 59 of them. In Gujarat's main city, 
Ahmedabad, trouble was brewing. Hindu mobs had 
begun taking revenge on their Muslim neighbours - 
there were stories of murder, looting and arson. 
Arriving in Ahmedabad from Delhi, I found it 
impossible to hire a car or driver: nobody wanted 
to drive into the riots.

But the trouble was not difficult to find: smoke 
billowed from above Ahmedabad's old city; and I 
set off towards it on foot. There were rumours 
that a mob had hacked to death Ahsan Jafri - a 
distinguished Indian former MP, and a Muslim - 
whose Muslim housing estate was surrounded by a 
sea of Hindu houses. A team from Reuters gave me 
a lift. Driving through streets full of 
burned-out shops and broken glass we arrived half 
an hour later outside his compound, surrounded by 
thousands of people. Jafri had been dead for 
several hours, it emerged. A Hindu mob had tipped 
kerosene through his front door; a few hours 
later they had dragged him out into the street, 
chopped off his fingers, and set him on fire. 
They also set light to several other members of 
his family, including two small boys. There 
wasn't much left of Jafri's Gulbarg Housing 
Society by the time we got there: at the bottom 
of his stairs I discovered a pyre of human 
remains - hair and the tiny blackened arm of a 
child, its fist clenched.

Two police officers in khaki told us the 
situation was dangerous, and that we should 
leave; they seemed resigned or indifferent to the 
horror around them, an emotion I had encountered 
before during what would turn out to be more than 
three years of reporting on India for the 
Guardian. Later that afternoon, in the suburb of 
Naroda Patiya, we watched as a Hindu crowd armed 
with machetes and iron bars attacked their Muslim 
neighbours on the other side of the street. All 
of the shops on the Muslim side of the road were 
ablaze; smoke blotted out the sky; gas cylinders 
exploded and boomed; we were, it seemed, in some 
part of hell. "We are being killed. Please get us 
out," one Muslim resident, Dishu Banashek, told 
me. "They are firing at us. Several of our women 
have been raped. You must help."

When we asked a senior policeman to intervene he 
merely smirked. "Don't worry, madam. Everything 
will be done," he told a colleague from the Times 
mendaciously. We left. It was too dangerous to 
stay.

The causes of the rioting - India's worst 
communal violence for a decade - became clearer 
the next morning, when I returned to Naroda 
Patiya - now a ruin of abandoned homes and 
smouldering rickshaws. Virtually all of the 
Muslims had fled: I found only a solitary 
survivor, Narinder Bhai, standing by the charred 
interior of his home. "Everything is finished," 
he said, showing off his ruined fridge. "Many 
people have been killed here. My wife and 
children have disappeared."

Just round the corner, down an alley, I spotted a 
neat bungalow that had apparently escaped the 
chaos. It was only on closer inspection that I 
saw its owner: the charred and mutilated remains 
of a Muslim woman had been laid out in the front 
garden and framed by a charpoy. Round the back I 
found an address book - which identified the 
woman as Mrs Rochomal; next to it, the Nokia 
phone she had used in a doomed attempt to summon 
help. Her son's washing was hanging on the line, 
in the morning sunshine; inside there was a neat 
kitchen and black-and-white family photos. Mrs 
Rochomal's flip-flops were still by the front 
door, next to a swing-seat.

Five minutes later, her mobile phone rang. I 
didn't answer it. Her body was less than 60 
metres away from the local police station. The 
police had not, it was obvious, bothered to 
rescue her: they had, I was forced to conclude, 
been complicit in her death.

Fifteen years earlier I had visited India for the 
first time as a backpacker, only dimly aware of 
the country's inflammable religious politics. I 
knew that India was a Hindu-dominated, though 
officially secular country. I also knew it had a 
large Muslim minority, which had failed to 
migrate to Pakistan at the time of partition. But 
the charming aid workers I spent four months with 
in the cool hills of Tamil Nadu, Madam Preetha 
and Babu Isaac Daniel, were eccentric and devout 
Christians; while the family friends I visited in 
Bombay were wealthy Parsis. It seemed also that 
India's Congress party - led by the secular Rajiv 
Gandhi - was destined to stay in power for a long 
time; the party had, after all, governed India 
for most of the period since Britain left the 
subcontinent.

Two years later, however, an arms corruption 
scandal forced Gandhi out of office and a new 
ideological movement began to dominate the 
political landscape - the Hindu nationalist 
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or India People's 
Party. The BJP rejected the idea that India 
should be secular; its more extreme supporters 
wanted to turn the country into a Hindu state, a 
sort of Indian version of Pakistan, an 
India-stan. By the time I arrived in New Delhi 
for the Guardian, the BJP was firmly established 
in power; and the multi-faith India of Mahatma 
Gandhi and Jarwarharlal Nehru, India's first 
prime minister, was, it seemed, in big trouble.

Mahatma Gandhi still appeared on India's 
banknotes, of course. But nobody seemed to talk 
about him any more, and his vision of an 
inclusive India was under threat from something 
darker and arguably fascist. Driving last year 
around Ahmedabad, in Gandhi's home state, I found 
a group of Hindu men standing jubilantly around 
the ruins of a small brick tomb. They had just 
demolished it. The tomb had belonged to Vali 
Gujarati - Muslim India's answer to Geoffrey 
Chaucer, and the grandfather of Urdu poetry. In 
its place, the Hindu youths had erected a tiny 
petal-strewn shrine to the Hindu monkey god, 
Hanuman. "We have broken the mosque and made a 
temple," one of them, Mahesh Patel, told me. What 
should be done with India's Muslims, I wondered? 
"They should not live in India. They should go 
and live in Pakistan," he told me. This is 
clearly a tricky proposition: India has 140 
million Muslims, out of a population of more than 
a billion. It is, paradoxically, the world's 
second-largest Muslim country after Indonesia. 
The Muslims I talked to during the Gujarat riots 
pointed out that they were Indian. They said that 
they didn't want to go anywhere.

Returning to Delhi after a harrowing week in dry 
Gujarat, where it is almost impossible to get a 
drink, I found dozens of emails from incensed BJP 
supporters in Britain and elsewhere. Like most 
commentators I had heaped blame for the riots on 
Gujarat's BJP government, and its chief minister, 
Narendra Modi. I wrote that Modi had condoned and 
encouraged what was in effect an anti-Muslim 
pogrom by instructing his Hindu police force to 
do nothing. The hate mail came flooding in. One 
email accused me of "anti-Hindu sentiment", and 
announced that dozens of demonstrators would 
gather outside my flat in the leafy Delhi colony 
of Nizamuddin the following day.

They didn't show up. Another pointed out, 
correctly, that Britain had chopped the 
subcontinent in half and looted "trillions of 
dollars in goodies from India" - including the 
Kohinoor diamond. He signed off: "I piss on your 
dead whore Queen Mother." More ominously, though, 
I was summoned to meet Mr Kulkarni, a special 
adviser to India's ostensibly moderate BJP prime 
minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. As dusk fell, we 
sat on wicker chairs in the garden of Kulkarni's 
government flat, just opposite the prime 
minister's bungalow in Race Course Road. I had 
failed to understand the nature of Hindu society, 
he politely suggested over a cup of tea.

It would, perhaps, be an exaggeration to say that 
the worsening Hindu-Muslim divide in India 
threatens to tear the country apart, but 
certainly relations between the country's two 
major communities are as bad as they have ever 
been. Indian Muslims are now in the unenviable 
position of being cast as fifth columnists for 
Pakistan, India's Muslim neighbour and - for most 
of the time - its enemy. Nehru's India appears to 
be dead. Islamic extremists inside India, 
meanwhile, are taking their own form of bloody 
revenge - killing more than 50 people, for 
example, last month in two gruesome car bombings 
in Bombay.

The origins of the violence ultimately go back to 
Ayodhya, a small, sleepy temple town in north 
India, where cannabis grows in the ditches, and 
sadhus, or Hindu holy men, mingle with large 
gangs of monkeys. It was here in 1992 that Hindu 
zealots tore down a mosque on a site they claimed 
was the birthplace of Lord Ram, Hinduism's most 
important deity. The episode propelled the BJP to 
power, provoked widespread communal riots and 
severely damaged India's secular credentials.

The issue of whether a temple should be built on 
the disputed site - and India's hostile 
relationship with Pakistan - continue to dominate 
Indian public life. In the meantime, little 
attention is paid to the plight of the country's 
400 million poor. Late last year I travelled to 
Baran, an impoverished district in Rajasthan, 
where dozens of low-caste tribal people had 
reportedly starved to death. I found plenty of 
villagers who were still eating grass; the 
rumours of starvation were true. There was, it 
transpired, plenty of food in government 
warehouses - it was merely that corrupt local 
officials had taken it for themselves.

In his latest book, India in Slow Motion, Mark 
Tully blames India's problems on the "neta-babu 
raj" - the alliance between politicians and 
bureaucrats to hang on to power. Tully is 
probably right. But it is not just in rural India 
that the pace of change has been slow. Faced with 
bankruptcy in the early 90s, India embarked on a 
programme of economic liberalisation. Delhi now 
boasts Marks & Spencer and Pizza Express. The 
biggest change in Delhi during my tenure in India 
has been the arrival of the coffee bar, and the 
admirable coffee chain Barista. It is now 
possible to buy a latte or espresso in India's 
big metros - in a country famous for its tea. But 
in general, India's infrastructure is as creaking 
and run-down as ever. During the monsoon, the 
phone lines crack up; and in the infernal summer 
months, the power fails. Maintaining electrical 
appliances - fax machine, water purifier, back-up 
power supply - is a full-time job. In the quiet 
periods after last year's Gujarat riots I thought 
often of Mrs Rochomal, lying burned and mutilated 
in her neat front garden, and of the horror of 
her last few minutes. Did her children stumble on 
her body? Did the people who killed her feel any 
remorse? I shall return to India, but not for a while.


______


[6.]

Milligazette [India] Sept 15, 2003

Tackling Terrorism

Ram Puniyani

The massive bomb blast in Mumbai on 25th August(2003)has
not only shaken the explosion prone Mumbai community
but the Nation as a whole. The Two bombs planted in
the taxis took fifty two lives and resulted in massive
financial loss. The biggest damage it inflicted is of
course on the battered Muslim community, who more than
before will be branded as the terrorists.

In the wake of this tragedy while Sangh Parivar blamed
it on Islamic terrorism, Mr. Advani blamed it on
Pakistan. Pakistan Foreign minister condemned the
attack and said Pakistan has no role in these blasts.
At the same time local Sangh Parivar ally, Hindu
Hridaya Samrat (Emperor of Hindu Hearts), Bal
Thackeray said that his party Shiv Sena is prepared to
retaliate. It was interesting that the Deputy Chief
Minister of Maharashtra Mr. Chagan Bhujabal on a
different note saw the link between the massive
Gujarat carnage and these blasts.

One recalls that in Mumbai riots of 92-93 the major
victims were from the Muslim community. These riots,
which were attributed to the inflammatory 'hate
writing' of Mr. Thackeray, were followed by the bomb
blasts. Is it a mere coincidence that even this time
the massive anti-Muslim pogrom (Gujarat) is again
being followed by the blasts, as hinted by Mr.
Bhujbal? By now the 'social common sense' has come to
believe that it is Muslims who are terrorists, that
Islam is an intolerant religion and so on. Also this
common sense subtly points a finger at Indian Muslims
when Pakistan is blamed. The worst expression of this
was witnessed during Gujarat riots when the brusque
Modi equated Indian Muslims with Miyan Musharraf.

As such the social common sense, which prevails, has
been carefully nurtured by the vested interests.
Terrorism has been resorted to by frustrated
disgruntled groups, who feel that justice is
beyond their reach and who think such acts are a way
to take revenge or are gripped by the mistaken notion
that such acts will discourage the perpetrators of
such crimes in future. It is not that the terrorism
has been indulged only in the name of Islam We have
witnessed Khalistani terrorism not too long ago, the
insurgency in North East though attributed to rise of
Christainity, is worst in the Hindu majority Manipur.
LTTE remains one of the largest and most well nit
terrorist outfit, it is another matter that some of
these terrorists are presented as martyrs for ethnic
and other aspirations or being the 'revolutionaries'
of a particular nationality.

Islam does not permit the killing of innocents on any
ground. Terrorism is a political and not a religious
phenomenon. It is another matter that sometimes it is
presented as being indulged in for the sake of a
particular religious community. The latter argument is
ambiguous, as terrorists are not elected by any
community. For that matter most of the outfits
operating in the name of religion are also self
proclaimed representatives, not the elected one's.
Whatever goes today in the name of Islamic terrorism
has multiple political discontents, which acted as the
fertile ground for this cancerous phenomenon. The
global and local reasons merge into each other because
of the commonality of followers of Islam being the
victims at both the levels.

The first and most visible expression of this
terrorism came when US and other imperialist powers
formed Israel. US in particular stood by to back all
the violations of International norms and decency by
Israel. Formation of Israel resulted in displacement
of close to a million refugees, majority of them being
Muslims. Their frustration against the hegemony of
US-Israel axis led to the terrorism at large scale and
Liala Khalid symbolized the anguish of displaced
Palestinians. The second major factor came with the
training imparted to young Muslims in the name of
Jihad to displace the Russian forces from Afghanistan.
This was cleverly coordinated by US again. The
services of client state, Pakistan came in handy in
this agenda of Imperialism.

The unresolved Kashmir issue added its own bit to the
problem. The local discontent and browbeating of
democratic process led to the youth responding to the
call to take up arms and disrupt the civic life in
Kashmir. These three factors and US's promotion of
despots and dictators in the oil rich area aided and
abetted the overall process. In India an additional
factor has been provided by the regular eruption of
communal violence in which overall the 11.6 percent
population of Muslims helplessly watches that the
overwhelming proportion of those dying are Muslims and
major loss of property is again of the same community.
Also the social and economic indices point out the
deprivations suffered by Muslim minority as a whole.
Gopal Singh commission, which studied the plight of
Muslims and recommended educational and economic
uplift is stay put in the cold storage. The condition
of Muslims remains on the lowest rungs of socio
economic development. This provides fertile ground for
taking to crime by the most deprived groups at the
slightest pretext. It is not very difficult to locate
an odd youth form the victim community to take up this
insane path.

The reasons behind the preponderance of Muslim youth
in these activities are not far to seek. To any
observer who can go deeper than the propaganda dished
out by the ilk of Togadia and Modis one can realize
that the lot of Muslims is going even lower than the
dalits, another deprived section of Indian society. No
doubt for the employment in Gulf Muslims were given
preference, but when one sees that Indian Muslims are
over 116 Million such opportunities necessarily cannot
uplift the society as a whole, though it did have a
substantial uplifting effect on the section of the
community.

Today the community is in a bind. The external attacks
do reinforce the regressive tendencies inside. The
global impact of Osama bin Laden does add to the
already miserable situation. In this context when
Thackerays of the World threaten to retaliate, what do
they mean. Against whom they will retaliate? The
Muslims in general? Will they attack Pakistan to teach
Pakistan a lesson? One recalls a similar exercise
undertaken by George Bush in the wake of 9/11 attacks
on WTC. On the ground that Osam is hiding in
Afghanistan and they wanted Osama at any cost, Mr.
Bush ravaged Afghanistan. The language of retaliation
hides the deeper motives. The guilty have to be
punished as per the norms. If Osama was responsible
the evidence should have been given and even Talibans
were willing to hand him over. If Mr. Thackeray is
serious he can undertake the role of Alfred Hitchkok
and identify the criminal and the law of the land
should haul them to the coals. But that's not the goal
of Thackerays and Advanis. They support the carnage,
which results in such a frustrated reaction, and then
they first try to hide the connection of these with
their own misdeeds. Taking advantage of the feeling of
insecurity the people they further drill hatred
against the minority community and look forward to
reap the electoral benefits in due course.

The way out is very difficult more so due to the
ascendance of Hindutva politics, the social domination
of RSS and its progeny-BJP,VHP Bajarang Dal etc., for
whom this is the Ram sent opportunity to increase
their power. For those who have faith and belief in
Indian constitution the way is to work for promotion
of peace and amity. The deeper truth of the propaganda
of communal forces at home and imperialist forces at
global level is to be fought against. The enlightened
Muslim elements are already gearing up to strengthen
the democratic path by emphasizing on the role of
education and social development to be the key for
survival in democracy. Also the realization is growing
that it is not just a battle of Muslims to protect
themselves but that it is a struggle of all weaker
sections of society that can protect the democratic
ethos at home. The realization at global level has to
be for the Global movement for a just world, worldwide
efforts to oppose the imperialist lust.

______


[7.]

CENTRE FOR STUDY OF SOCIETY AND SECULARISM
REGD, TRUST No. F18744 (MUMBAI)
Correspondence Address: 9/B, Himalay Apartment, 1st Floor, 6th Road,
Santacruz (East), Mumbai - 400 055.
Ph : (O) 6149668 / 56987135 / (R)  6630086 Fax: 
0091-022-56987134 E-Mail: csss at vsnl.com

Asghar Ali Engineer 
			DATE : 15/09/2003
CHAIRMAN

Appeal for Donations

Dear Sir/Madam,

	As we are all aware Mumbai City faced few 
horrendous bomb blasts on 25th August 2003 
resulting in death of not less than 60 people, 
the Executive Committee Board of the Centre has 
therefore decided to extend some help and support 
to the victims of these bomb lasts.  This is a 
kind request from the Centre's side to you to 
please donate generously for the kind cause.

The Checks may be drawn by the name of Centre for 
Study of Society and Secularism

Thanking in anticipation of yours help and support.

Yours sincerely

Pooja Mohanty
(Admn. officer)

Regd. Address: Irene Cottage, 2nd Floor, 4th 
Road, Santacruz (E), Mumbai - 400 55


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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
matters of peace and democratisation in South 
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit 
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South 
Asia Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex).
The complete SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.insaf.net

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

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