SACW | 8 Oct. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE  |  8 October,  2003

Announcements:
a)  The SACW web site is currently down, users 
are invited to use Google cache till further 
notice.
b) 'South Asia Counter Information Project' a 
back-up, archive area and sister site of SACW can 
be accessed at: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sacw/
c) All  SACW and associated list members in India 
wanting to consult web sites at  groups.yahoo.com 
(that are still being blocked) should browse via: 
http://anon.free.anonymizer.com/http://groups.yahoo.com

+++++

[1] Sri Lanka: Rewarding Tyranny: Undermining the 
Democratic Potential for Peace (UTHR)
[2] Myth of People's Power: Relations between India and Pakistan (Mubarak Ali)
[3] Pakistan: Mental illness on the rise
[4] Pakistan riots after assassination of fascist  (edits + reports)
[5] India, Pak In Roguish Duel - Pull back from the brink now! (Praful Bidwai)
[6] A boat for peace - and more (Feroze Ahmed)
[7] India: Gujarat - ... requires remorse and 
justice to be vibrant again (B.G. Verghese)
by B. G. Verghese
[8] India: Jhatka vs halal: Sikh body raises meaty issue (Manpreet Randhawa)
[9] India: Upcoming event: Reaching the Real India  -  student exposure program
[10] India: Upcoming Event: ANHAD Workshop Schedule - 3 day event in Udaipur
[10] Net Censorship continues in India:
A Letter to India's Minister for Info. Tech and 
to the Minister for Communications (MJ Jowher)


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

[1.]

University Teachers for Human Rights
Special Report No: 17  

Date of release: 7th October 2003

REWARDING TYRANNY: UNDERMINING THE DEMOCRATIC POTENTIAL FOR PEACE

                                                     Summary

This latest report by UTHR(J) examines grave 
contradictions between the rhetoric of 
peacemaking in Sri Lanka over the past 21 months 
and its reality.  UTHR(J) contends that while the 
LTTE leaders were honing their diplomatic skills 
abroad, their cadres were carrying out their 
orders for military and political expansion, 
terrorising opponents and sowing communal discord 
at home.   

Special Report 17, Rewarding Tyranny: Undermining 
the Democratic Potential for Peace, provides 
documentary evidence of the LTTE's continued 
abuse of civilians: killing of political 
opponents, violence against Muslims and 
conscription of children, and shows the 
destabilizing effect of these activities on Sri 
Lankan society.  Communal violence is on the 
rise, and party and inter-party squabbles at the 
parliamentary level are growing increasingly 
bitter.  The report warns that the LTTE's 
concurrent military build up and strategic 
deployment threatens not only Sri Lankan 
security, but the security of the region.

UTHR(J) remains critical of the continued 
"appeasement" policy towards the Tigers, 
practiced most strenuously by the UNP and Norway 
but also embraced by other international and 
local institutions.  The strategy, no doubt 
intended to persuade the LTTE to continue to 
engage in talks, has also encouraged its utter 
disregard for international norms.

As the new report notes: "the course of the 
'peace process' tells its own story very 
clearly:" 

*	In December 2002 in Oslo, LTTE spokesman 
Anton Balasingam claimed that the LTTE had 
embraced human rights norms as a basis for talks, 
and pledged to "allow other political parties and 
groups to participate in the democratic 
politics."  Meanwhile in the east, murder and 
abduction of LTTE's opponents and child 
conscription intensified.


*	In Hakone talks in March both the LTTE 
and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) subverted 
Mr. Ian Martin's proposals for independent 
international human rights monitoring - the only 
way to effectively ensure that the rights under 
discussion would actually be protected.


*	Having boycotted the aid pledging 
conference in Tokyo, the LTTE also rejected the 
Tokyo Declaration of 10th June 2003 that tied 
support for the peace process to human rights, 
democracy and pluralism.


*	Four days later, as though to signal its 
contempt for the Declaration, the LTTE 
assassinated its most potent political opponent, 
T. Subathiran who was an embodiment of the 
principles outlined in the Declaration. By this 
time, members of the international community were 
in a quandary. They had almost stopped talking 
about democracy and human rights, so intent had 
they been on encouraging the peace process.


*	By mid-July2003 the LTTE had successfully 
changed the terms of debate.  It renewed its 
early demand for an Interim Administration for 
the North-East on terms that would in effect 
confer on it unchecked power in exchange for 
continued participation in negotiations. It 
demanded control over not only economic matters, 
as proposed by the Sri Lankan government, but 
also policing and judicial services.  The LTTE is 
not waiting for any constitutional settlement 
involving the whole of Sri Lanka. Its blueprint 
for a hierarchy of councils reaching down to the 
villages, and having the leader at the apex, is 
already in circulation.


  Child Soldiers:

Contrary to all expectations of the agreement 
signed with the UNICEF to oversee the 
demobilization of child soldiers, the LTTE has 
once again intensified its conscription 
programme, renewing its demand for one child per 
family in several eastern districts, while making 
aggressive intrusions upon school children in the 
North.  In Batticaloa the SLMM received on 
average 5 complaints of child conscription every 
week during the first three weeks of September 
from parents brave enough to come forward. 
Reports on the ground suggest further 
intensification subsequently.

  Political Opponents:

Democratic opponents and their families, (and 
others long out of politics) continue to be 
targets of LTTE violence. The report documents 
the cases of at least twelve murders and seven 
unresolved "disappearances" of persons abducted 
by the LTTE in August and September.  Several 
serious assaults resulting in injuries serious 
enough to require hospitalization were also 
reported.

Muslims:

LTTE violence against Muslims and constraints 
imposed by the Tigers on Muslim economic 
activities are creating a dangerous situation in 
eastern Sri Lanka. Muslim anger erupted in April 
and August in Mutur in the face of provocations 
by the LTTE that left 9 Muslims and 4 Tamils dead 
and substantial property destroyed in both 
communities with Muslims suffering 
disproportionately. In related incidents 2 
Muslims were killed in Sammanthurai and 2 
disappeared in Valaichchenai.  In the wake of the 
violence, the LTTE increased the pressure by 
banning Tamils in Mutur and the surrounding 
villages from trading with the Muslims for a time 
and constricting their economic life in general. 
In August, Muslim leaders demanded government 
protection after at least 28 deaths and the 
disappearances of Muslims since the beginning of 
the peace process. 

The September press indicated that some Muslim 
youths were gravitating towards militancy, and 
had sought to procure arms to protect their 
communities.  Clearly vigilante activity in Mutur 
showed that the violence was more organized than 
it had been previously and this is troubling. But 
one fact stands out: from the start of the 
cease-fire up to May 2003, guns had only been 
used by Tamils. The agents who used them were 
members of the LTTE, either regulars or 
vigilantes, and they did so with LTTE backing. 
The first time Muslim vigilantes used a gun 
against a Tamil was when Gunam Subaraj was shot 
on 4th August 2003 in apparent retaliation for 
the murder the previous day of a police officer 
who had served in intelligence.    Prior to that 
Muslim militant activity in Mutur was largely 
that of street fighters and market thugs 
responding to LTTE provocation.

Abuse of vulnerable groups in the North-East by 
the LTTE continues unabated. It is time for 
Norway and others who wish to bring peace to the 
island to rethink their superficial notion of 
peacemaking. Ignoring the democratic potential 
within the community, and preserving a temporary 
absence of war while enthroning exclusive 
ideological movements or ignoring systematic 
violations will in the end undermine the process. 
Experience has shown again and again that 
accountability for the past and present should be 
instilled in some way as a norm of any process to 
achieve lasting peace

[THE FULL TEXT IS AVAILABLE AT:
http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport17.htm

____


[2.]

SACW
October 7, 2003

MYTH OF PEOPLE'S POWER:
RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

by Mubarak Ali

Believing that the ruling classes of India and 
Pakistan are not interested to improve relations, 
some individuals and organizations have made 
attempts to initiate people to people's dialogue 
with the hope to pressurize their respective 
governments to improve relations and end the 
tension. The question is that how powerful are 
people in both countries to change policies of 
their governments and force them to reframe their 
agenda based on good neighbourly relations. We 
all know that people can play important and 
useful role in democratic societies and only when 
there are deep rooted and strong democratic 
institutions in their political structure. Even 
in such societies, state media manufactures 
public opinion. Recently we have seen that how 
using lies and falsehood people in Europe and 
America are misled by their leaders. Those who 
were aware of this falsehood and organized big 
rallies to express their displeasure failed to 
prevent invasion and occupation of Iraq.

In case of India and  Pakistan the situation is 
quite different. Pakistani people, mostly in 
absence of democracy, have no role to play in 
politics. In the corridor of power their voice is 
not heard. Pakistani ruling elite behaves, like 
the colonial masters, as the mai bap of people 
and protect them by undertaking all decisions in 
the national interest. In return they are 
expected to obey and be ready to sacrifice their 
lives for the sake of their country. In India 
where there is democracy, people have right of 
vote. After exercising this right, their role 
comes to an end. On both sides, ruling classes 
mobilize people's emotion against each other in 
the name of patriotism and use them for their 
political and personal interests.

How people are treated when they visit each 
other's country? Those who are in the category of 
people, they know it well. Once they approach to 
the High Commission building for visa, they are 
welcomed by host of intelligence agencies whose 
agents ask all types of questions just to harass 
them. If they get a visa, there is specific 
condition either to travel by train, by bus, or 
by air. Once mode of travel is written on the 
form, it is very difficult to change it. Further, 
they are permitted to visit only limited number 
of cities. Rest of the country is banned for 
them. If somebody tries to violate it, he is 
immediately imprisoned as a spy. Then, there is 
police reporting, because every Indian or 
Pakistani is treated as a potential threat to 
both countries, therefore, their agencies regard 
it their national duty to observe his/her 
movements.
There is a personal experience of police 
reporting. In 1997, I visited along with my 
family. We are told that we were exempted from 
police reporting, a great privilege if somebody 
gets it. However, on our way back, the 
immigration officer detected that we were all 
exempted from police reporting except my wife. 
The officer asked her to stay back and complete 
police reporting procedure. In spite of our 
request to reconsider his decision, he refused. 
There is no space for understanding in such 
cases. My wife had to stay back and returned 
after a week. We were lucky that we had friends 
who looked after her. If this happened to 
somebody coming from south India or some other 
far off city, how could he/she face this problem?

Personally, I have more experiences of police 
reporting. Once I was invited by Teesta Setelvad, 
the editor of Communalism Combat to Mumbai to 
attend a conference on South Asian history. She 
applied to the concerned ministries for clearance 
and telephoned them nearly 50 times. I was lucky 
to get visa just on time for 4 days with police 
reporting. I was lucky that Teesta had connection 
in the city and completed police reporting on my 
behalf. Otherwise, I had to spend half of my time 
to police reporting and half in participating 
seminar Another personal experience, not of 
police reporting but security clearance: in 2001, 
Nehru Museum and Library selected me for a senior 
fellowship and sent my case for clearance to 
Interior, Foreign, and Cultural ministries. So 
far, there is now news about clearance.
On the other side if an Indian visits Pakistan, 
how he and his host face problems, is not 
interesting but irritating. First of all, the 
Indians (and the Pakistanis in India, it is tit 
for tat policy) cannot stay in cantonment areas. 
A clear indication that they are treated as enemy 
and not allowed to visit sensitive places. Then 
different agencies watch his movements and 
inquire about his activities. Again, I have some 
experience inviting Indian scholars for lectures. 
These lectures were always open and announcement 
was made in the newspapers. It was usual custom 
that after every lecture came men belonging to 
different agencies and asked about the speaker 
and content of his speech. Once I got three 
history books from India. Next day came people 
from Special Branch asking me that who sent me 
these books and why? Sometime, it is difficult to 
satisfy their queries. They inquired about my 
date of birth, about my education, employment, 
and about my family. And this exercise was 
repeated several times. On one occasion when I 
told the persons that all such questions have 
already been asked and you must have in your 
file. His reply was simple that what other had 
asked was their duty and he was doing his. At one 
time I became so popular in the Special Branch 
that whenever Indian scholars visited Lahore, 
they rang me and inquired about them. Not 
bothering whether I knew them or not.

Recently an Indian journalist from the 'Asian 
Age' came to see me. I surprised that next day 
there were two gentlemen from Special Branch 
asking me about the journalist. Surprisingly, 
they are very efficient in this respect. So, the 
question is that keeping this, how somebody can 
keep friendship with the Indians? If my telephone 
is tapped; if my post is censored; and if my 
movement is observed because I have friendly 
relation with the Indians. How could we, the 
people, change the attitude of our ruling classes?


______


[3.]

[Probably a higher rise in India ....]

o o o

Dawn, October 6, 2003 | Editorial

MENTAL ILLNESS ON THE RISE

The abnormally high rise in the number of suicide 
cases in the country is alarming. In 1996, there 
were 153 suicides reported. This figure jumped to 
3,100 in 2002. According to the World Health 
Organization, approximately one million people 
commit suicide across the globe annually, of 
which 10 per cent of suicides take place in South 
Asia. A recent seminar on mental health was told 
that suicide is a complex issue for which no 
single cause or rationale could be cited. In 
Pakistan, one of the main reasons for suicides is 
the despair and depression caused by lack of 
employment. Statistics indicate that most victims 
in this category are men under the age of 35. But 
more worrisome is the revelation that on the 
whole, most suicide victims in Pakistan are 
women. While some of these women put an end to 
their lives on account of domestic disputes, a 
large portion resorts to suicide because of 
mental illness.
Mental health in Pakistan is an area that has 
been long neglected. Experts also say that the 
social fabric of Pakistani society itself is 
changing and this cannot be ignored as a factor 
in the rise of suicide cases. In the past 
decades, the great cushion against depression was 
the institution of family support. Owing to a 
number of reasons, this is not that readily and 
widely available any longer. In the West, where 
the lack of family support is more evident, help 
is at hand in other forms. In the absence of a 
professionally run system in Pakistan to cope 
with the demands for this form of specialized 
care, a number of people fall victim to their own 
circumstances. More attention obviously needs to 
be paid to a support system for people suffering 
from mental or psychological problems.



______


[4.]

[Editorials + News Reports ]

DAWN. October 7, 2003  | Editorial

Azam Tariq's murder

The killing of Maulana Azam Tariq and his four 
associates in Islamabad in broad daylight 
yesterday comes as a stark reminder of the 
violence that strains the fabric of society and 
poses a formidable threat to Pakistan's internal 
security.
In 1997 also, Maulana Tariq was targeted in an 
attack in Lahore which had killed 23 people but 
he had escaped with injuries. He led the 
Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, which was among the 
extremist and sectarian organizations banned last 
year.
Maulana Tariq was himself in jail at the time of 
the general election, but was elected to the 
National Assembly from Jhang as an independent 
candidate. He then sought to mend fences with the 
government by offering his support to the PML-Q, 
and was released on bail.
Regardless of the identity of the killers, the 
condemnable attack in the heart of the capital's 
high-security environment should serve as a 
wake-up call for the law enforcement agencies, 
who now need to be on alert to tackle any 
repercussions that it may have in the form of 
more violence.
The assassination has come on the heels of the 
killing of six people in Karachi last week in 
what the police described as a sectarian 
incident, and the need for vigilance is great all 
over the country. It must be emphasized that 
sectarianism does not have popular roots in 
Pakistan and the violence associated with it is 
confined to small groups of misguided and 
motivated zealots, who must not be allowed to 
hold public order hostage to their criminal 
designs aimed at creating disruption in the 
country.

o o o

The Daily Times, October 8, 2003

EDITORIAL: Maulana Azam Tariq 1962-2003
Maulana Azam Tariq, chief of the defunct Sipah 
Sahaba (renamed Millat Islamiya), has been shot 
down on the road to Islamabad. This was a death 
most foretold in the history of Pakistan. He had 
been attacked about 20 times in the past, 
narrowly escaping death in the 1997 bombing at 
the Lahore courts, which killed the then Sipah 
Sahaba chief Ziaur Rehman Farooqi. A number of 
cities have responded with fury to his death and 
there is a great fear of the cycle of sectarian 
revenge killings to resume. The death of Azam 
Tariq has come in the wake of the murder of five 
Shia employees of SUPARCO in Karachi on Saturday 
and two earlier Shia carnages in Quetta two 
months ago. The government seemed to ignore the 
real source of these evil deeds while declaring 
that the killings in Quetta could be the work of 
RAW. No one else thought so, including the Shia 
community of Quetta which actually named Sipah 
Sahaba and its aligned jihadi organisations as 
the killers.
Sectarian violence was not unknown in Pakistan 
but it was given its gory aspect by one Maulana 
Haq Nawaz of Jhang who cropped up in the early 
1980s as a great ideological opponent of the 
Iranian Revolution. Helped by the proximity of 
his seminaries to the Arab hunting parties in 
Rahimyar Khan, he began what can be termed the 
most blatant campaign of abuse against Imam 
Khomeini. He was killed in 1990, after which his 
pupils struck down the Iranian consul in Lahore. 
The secret spread of the sectarian creed of Haq 
Nawaz Jhangvi can be fathomed from the deaths 
that followed: one more Iranian consul killed in 
Multan followed by a group of Iranian military 
trainees on deputation to Pakistan in Rawalpindi. 
Azam Tariq who was a young firebrand from a 
Karachi seminary had been chosen by Jhangvi to 
organise his overtly sectarian party demanding 
that the Shia community in Pakistan be declared 
non-Muslims.
After the murder of Iranian diplomats, Sipah 
Sahaba got its killers to form another group 
named Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and began publicly 
dissociating itself from it. No one really 
believed it, least of all the Shia victims of 
Quetta who clearly named Sipah Sahaba, 
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Muhammad as the 
culprits. Maulana Azam Tariq always declared that 
his party was not linked to the Lashkar, but when 
the killer of the Iranian diplomat Sadiq Ganji 
was to be hanged he initiated an international 
campaign to get him pardoned. The Jaish 
connection was also never in doubt considering 
that the Jaish chief Masood Azhar too was a 
devotee of Maulana Jhangvi and served the master 
together with Azam Tariq. That the jihad in 
Kashmir and the second jihad in Afghanistan were 
planned and fought in partnership with Sipah 
Sahaba was proved when Masood Azhar, just out of 
the Indian jail, wanted to form a new militia 
with the name of Lashkar-e-Muhammad and was 
dissuaded from doing so by his 'handlers' because 
it sounded too much like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. 
Finally, as Jaish-e-Muhammad, it emerged as a 
major fighting outfit in Held Kashmir with clear 
financial links to Osama bin Laden who sent Umar 
Sheikh down to help Jaish out after Masood 
Azhar's movement in the country was restricted by 
the government in the wake of a spate of killing 
of Shia doctors in Karachi in 1997. Umar Sheikh 
is under death sentence for killing an American 
journalist, Daniel Pearl.
The people of Pakistan are not sectarian. 
Sectarianism exists among the clergy who write 
the most scurrilous books against each other, 
inciting their followers to resort to violence. 
Money from abroad has also played a part in what 
can be called a proxy war that has savaged 
Pakistan's civil society. Politicians are to 
blame too, because they did not ban or at least 
disqualify from politics such an overtly 
sectarian organisation. Maulana Azam Tariq was 
elected twice to the National Assembly while his 
party was a partner in the not-too-reputable 
Wattoo government in 1993. That was the year of 
unprecedented violence against the Shias, which 
caused the formation of similar violent 
organisations from the other side of the 
sectarian divide. After all this, Azam Tariq was 
again elected to the Punjab Assembly in 1997. In 
the 2002 elections, while in jail, he was allowed 
to take part by the Election Commission 'by 
mistake' and the government is now in court 
against his election because his party had been 
'declared terrorist and banned' by the UN 
Security Council. It developed that after his 
disputed election he distanced himself from his 
natural habitat, the MMA, and decided to support 
the Jamali government in the National Assembly. 
Had he been disqualified, his life could have 
been saved.
Maulana Azam Tariq fought his 2002 election from 
jail and won it. It is said that he did not join 
the MMA because the Shia leader Sajid Naqvi, his 
party also banned, was a member of it. Most 
probably the next leader will be Maulana Ali Sher 
Haideri as the last remaining pupil of the great 
sectarian cleric, Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Will 
sectarian violence end now that its most powerful 
proponent has been done to death? Most observers 
who know the sectarian network in Pakistan will 
say no. A new cycle of murder and mayhem may in 
fact have begun now. A glimpse of it was seen on 
TV channels when thousands of Sipah followers 
expressed their grief and anger at his death. 
Following his funeral in Islamabad on Tuesday, 
mobs went on the rampage setting fire to a 
mosque, cinema and petrol pumps.

o o o

Pakistan riots after militant killed (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3170052.stm

Sectarian riots grip Jhang city (PakTribune.com)
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=40698


______


[5]

The Praful Bidwai Column
October 6, 2003
--
INDIA, PAK IN ROGUISH DUEL:
PULL BACK FROM THE BRINK NOW!

By Praful Bidwai

Less than six months after Prime Minister Atal 
Behari Vajpayee held out "the hand of friendship" 
to Pakistan from Srinagar, the rather hesitant 
and wobbly bilateral "peace process" all but lies 
in tatters. The two South Asian rivals are back 
to sabre-rattling. Three recent developments 
underscore the heightened danger that 
India-Pakistan hostility could take on malign 
forms: the exchange of venomous rhetoric at the 
United Nations General Assembly; accelerated 
preparations in both countries towards the actual 
deployment of nuclear weapons; and intensified 
skirmishes, including ambushes and killing of 
soldiers, in the Rajouri sector of the Jammu and 
Kashmir border.

This last has a particularly grisly character. 
According to The Hindustan Times, Pakistani 
troops "walked across" the border last month. 
"They ambushed a Jat Regiment patrol and killed 
four troopsŠThey chopped off the head" of a dead 
Indian soldier and carried it back as a trophy. 
In ghastly, ferocious retaliation, the Jat 
Regiment "shot dead nine Pakistani soldiers. And 
for gruesome impact [they] brought back the heads 
of two Pakistani soldiers."

I find the episode utterly repulsive and 
nauseating. Killing enemy soldiers is legally 
permitted only when war is declared. In no other 
circumstances do soldiers enjoy immunity under 
international law for using force. Killing 
casually is illegal and unacceptable.  And 
mutilating bodies or chopping off parts of them 
is downright barbaric. Such medieval practices 
are impermissible in a minimally civilised 
society--no matter how grave the provocation and 
how disgusting the adversary's conduct. Lt-Gen 
Satish Nambiar, who commanded UN troops in the 
Balkans, says: "Even in Yugoslavia, I did not 
hear [of] such things."

Contrary to the trivial and rather silly adage, 
everything is NOT fair in (love or) war. There 
are clearly defined rules of warfare, about whom 
you can legitimately attack and what methods you 
can use.  Non-combatant civilians must not be 
targeted. The use of force must not be 
indiscriminate or disproportionate. Inhuman or 
cruel methods are banned. Even prisoners of war 
have to be treated humanely. The rules, embodied 
in international humanitarian law and the Geneva 
Conventions, are legally enforceable. Their 
violations can invite severe penalties--as 
happened to Nazi war-criminals and is likely to 
happen to the perpetrators of the Rwanda and 
Bosnia genocides. India and Pakistan have both 
disgraced themselves by resorting to such 
ghoulish practices. This shakes one's faith in 
their leaders' maturity and ability to control 
their subordinates in the battlefield. It also 
lends credibility to hair-raising scenarios of 
devastating nuclear exchanges between India and 
Pakistan, whether accidental, unauthorised, or 
deliberate. The very least the two armies can do 
is to court-martial the culprits--and demonstrate 
that some acts are utterly unacceptable and 
un-doable.

Less ghastly but much more politically damaging 
was the free flow of abuse and recrimination 
between Mr Vajpayee and President Pervez 
Musharraf in New York. On September 25, Gen 
Musharraf launched a broadside against India for 
its "brutal suppression of the Kashmiris' demand 
for self-determination and freedom from Indian 
occupation". In a tit-for-tat reply, Mr Vajpayee 
assailed him for using "cross-border terrorism" 
as "a tool of blackmail". He also accused Gen 
Musharraf of having made "a public admission that 
Pakistan is sponsoring terrorism Š After claiming 
that there is an indigenous struggle in Kashmir, 
he has offered to encourage a general cessation 
of violence Š in return for 'reciprocal 
obligations and restraints'." Both leaders 
questioned each other's credentials to hold 
responsible positions in international 
organisations. Pakistan placed India among 
"states which occupy and suppress other peoples, 
and defy the resolutions of the [Security] 
Council". And Indian leaders dismissed these 
remarks as "rubbish" and the result of Pakistan's 
"annual itch" on Kashmir. Each accuses the other 
of being the "fountainhead" or "mother" of 
terrorism and of being "bloody-minded".

Evidently, Gen Musharraf miscalculated the mood 
of the international community by harping on 
Kashmir's "liberation struggle" without 
condemning indiscriminate violence by separatist 
militants, themselves aided and abetted by 
Islamabad. Pakistan is today under America's 
critical scrutiny. As The New York Times put it, 
"Pakistan's behaviour has fallen well short of 
what Americans are entitled to expect from an 
ally in the war on terrorism". If Gen Musharraf 
doesn't behave,  "America must look for ways to 
reduce its dependence" on him. But Mr Vajpayee 
conducted himself with no maturity or dignity by 
descending to abysmally bellicose rhetoric to 
match the General. Indian officials have tried to 
rationalise Mr Vajpayee's fusillade by pointing 
out that Gen Musharraf fired the first shot. This 
is as unconvincing as it is irrational. What 
matters is that India has tarnished its own 
global image.

The venomous India-Pakistan exchange has left a 
bitter taste and inflicted serious damage upon 
the fragile and uncertain half-truce between the 
two states. The most productive features of this 
half-truce were growing and exuberant 
people-to-people or civil society contacts. Ever 
since the Lahore-Delhi bus service was resumed, 
there have been any number of friendly visits of 
citizens' delegations, businessmen, 
schoolchildren, journalists and parliamentarians. 
The most dramatic of these visits was little 
Noor's trip to Bangalore for a heart surgery and 
the explosion of goodwill it generated from a 
wide cross-section of society. These contrasted 
sharply with the reluctant and extremely guarded 
official-level exchanges. Indeed, the two 
governments have shown they are out of sync with 
their own peoples' sentiments which strongly 
favour peace and reconciliation. They, especially 
Pakistan, are clamping down on citizens' visits 
through the simple expedient of holding up visas. 
The worst cases of such denial are the 
cancellations of the visits of a jurists' and 
lawyers' delegation and a high-powered Indian 
businessmen's group.

Secondly, while Mr Vajpayee must be complimented 
for his "hand-of-friendship" speech, he never 
discussed his larger plans with his Cabinet or 
party or prepared the government for peace. Nor 
has taken the initiative further imaginatively. 
The people negotiating normalisation have 
remained deeply suspicious of one another. They 
have for months quibbled over the sequence of 
steps to be taken. Ambassador-level contacts were 
restored and the bus service restarted. But there 
has been no agreement on the resumption of air 
and rail links or trade. India made restoration 
of rail links conditional upon the resumption of 
flights as well as free passage through airspace. 
Pakistan, in turn, insisted that air links could 
not be resumed unless India assures it that it 
would not unilaterally suspend overflights, as it 
did last year, and earlier, in the 1971 
Bangladesh war. The talks collapsed.

New Delhi has gradually hardened its insistence 
that there can be no dialogue with Pakistan until 
"cross-border terrorism" is fully ended. 
Islamabad has questioned India's willingness to 
discuss Kashmir. Underlying the failure to 
negotiate normalisation is deep-seated resentment 
and suspicion on both sides, compounded by 
domestic political considerations. It is as if 
both states had become slaves to a compelling 
degenerative logic, which militates against 
reasonable behaviour. Both refuse to take 
unconditional steps even although these won't 
compromise their positions. It's as if both had 
vowed to ensure that the existing half-truce 
would collapse--by making self-fulfilling 
prophesies of doom, and helping to realise them.

India and Pakistan are now perilously close to 
the brink of yet another military confrontation 
in their unrelenting half-century-long 
hot-and-cold-war. Both are making furious 
preparations to build new missiles and stockpile 
fissile material and to deploy missiles. On 
September 1, India's newly formed Nuclear Control 
Authority held its first-ever meeting and took "a 
number of decisions" on the further development 
of the "strategic (nuclear) forces programme". 
These decisions will "consolidate India's nuclear 
deterrence". Reactively, just two days later, 
Pakistan too held a meeting of its National 
Control Authority. This decided to make 
"qualitative upgrades" in its nuclear programme.

Since then, the Indian Defence Ministry has 
confirmed that it will "operationalise" the 
nuclear-capable intermediate-range Agni missile. 
It has sanctioned the raising of two new missile 
groups. Pakistan is believed to be more advanced 
than India in the deployment-readiness of 
missiles and is about to test-fly the Ghazanavi. 
Both countries now have a variety of missiles 
capable of carrying nuclear warheads and reaching 
each other's cities in less than 10 minutes. 
There are no worthwhile crisis-prevention and 
-diffusion, or confidence-building measures in 
place between India and Pakistan. They are 
suspicious of each other's nuclear doctrines and 
repeatedly resorted to nuclear blackmail both 
during the Kargil war and last year's 10 
months-long eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation 
involving one million troops.  Amidst all this, 
India is reportedly building two special bunkers 
to protect the Union Cabinet in the event of a 
nuclear strike which could decimate its political 
leadership. One bunker is being built right 
within South Block, in the heart of Delhi, which 
houses the Prime Minister's Office and the 
Defence and External Affairs Ministries.

This doesn't highlight security for the Cabinet, 
but the total lack of security for the 15 million 
ordinary citizens who live in the Capital. They 
could become victims of a nuclear holocaust 
within minutes of a decision made across the 
border--a decision they cannot influence, leave 
alone control. An ugly truth stares us all in the 
face. The threat of Nuclear Armageddon is not 
imaginary; it looms large over South Asia.-end-


______


[6]

The Hindu, Oct 08, 2003

A boat for peace - and more
By Feroze Ahmed

The Peace Boat activists disembark to a warm 
welcome at the Chennai port on Tuesday. - Photo: 
T.A. Hafeez


CHENNAI OCT. 7. Discussing Kashmir on ground has 
been a rather pointless exercise. A Japanese 
non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Peace 
Boat, on its 43rd world voyage this year, has 
roped in three activists, two of them from India 
and one from Pakistan, to talk Kashmir on board 
the ship. Listening to them were over 600 people, 
mostly Japanese students.

The activists were all here today, addressing a 
press conference on-board when the boat berthed 
at the Chennai port en route to Colombo.

The first activist from India, Admiral Ramu 
Ramdas, is a former Chief of the Naval Staff. "We 
have no result from the three-and-a-half wars so 
far," he said. His solution? To start with, 
"convert the Line of Control into a line of 
peace".

From Pakistan, it is Syed Jaffar Ahmed, a 
political science scholar with the Pakistan 
Studies Centre, Karachi University. He has a 
10-point solution to the Kashmir issue. This 
includes getting civil societies, including the 
Kashmiri one, to interact among themselves and 
address their respective governments, and keeping 
the issue a strictly South Asian one that 
requires a South Asian solution.

The third activist is Muhammad Altaf Khan of 
Srinagar. In as sober a tone as possible, he 
said: "For God's sake, declare a ceasefire." Over 
60,000 people have been killed in Kashmir in the 
past two years, over 7,000 have disappeared while 
in the custody of the security forces, and over 
three lakh Kashmiri Pandits are living as 
refugees in their own land, he said. "If this 
continues, India, Pakistan and Kashmir will still 
be there, but there will be no Kashmiris. A 
solution will come someday, but the killings 
cannot go on till then."

Will their opinions make a difference? They do 
not know. But their voices, floating on board 
this peace mission, will carry far.

The Peace Boat was launched in the early 1980s by 
a group of Japanese students when Japan tried to 
censor the country's Wartime aggression from its 
schoolbooks. About 150 students chartered a ship 
and visited those places that had faced the 
onslaught of the Japanese Imperial Army. In the 
20 years since then, Peace Boat has participated 
in various high-profile peace summits. It now has 
a consultative status with the United Nations 
Economic and Social Council. On its 44th mission, 
the boat will bring participants to the World 
Social Forum to be held in Mumbai in January.

The boat (www.peaceboat.org) , almost a luxury 
liner, is managed by people on the "right" side 
of 30. They have a whale of a time at sea playing 
soccer, learning salsa, new languages, visiting 
exotic countries, and every once in a while, 
listening to and lecturing on peace.

______


[7]

Indian Express, October 08, 2003

GUJARAT'S GAURAV
THE STATE REQUIRES REMORSE AND JUSTICE TO BE VIBRANT AGAIN
by B. G. Verghese

Gujaratis are a vibrant people. Everybody favours 
a Vibrant Gujarat as part of a Vibrant India. But 
it does little service either to Gujaratis or 
Indians generally to describe the 2002 holocaust 
in Gujarat as a passing "aberration".

According to Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani 
the "riots" were admittedly "sad and 
unfortunate", even shameful. But "sustained 
propaganda" about what had happened was hurting 
the image of the state and the country.

Quite clearly, what the deputy prime minister and 
home minister is again saying is that the 
portrayal of the Gujarat episode has been grossly 
exaggerated. (By whom? By the traumatised victims 
still seeking justice? By the media, the 
Opposition, the NHRC, the Minorities Commission, 
the Supreme Court?) His lament is that a passing 
lapse at worst is not being allowed to rest. Set 
against the enormity of the tragedy, such a 
suggestion is incomprehensible. Coming from the 
home minister it is gravely disturbing. The 
unintended pun is apt. Some 800 innocent persons 
by official count and around 2000 by the more 
probable unofficial count - or their severed 
limbs and incinerated bones - were interred in 
graves or cremated.

India's image is neither protected nor enhanced 
by covering up for Narendra Modi, Pravin Togadia 
and their ilk. All of them justified and 
virtually glorified the horrors enacted while 
continuing to spread venom and hatred in defiance 
of the law. Modi, broadcasting over AIR on (was 
it) Day Three, told the terrified victims that if 
they wanted peace they should not seek justice.

Nothing could be more brazen. Other Hindutva 
champions labelled the Gujarat happenings a 
"successful experiment" even as the pre-election 
Gaurav Yatra communicated a message of 
triumphalism.

All this while, the Centre was silent and supine 
while the home minister of India congratulated 
Modi for his unparalleled achievement in more or 
less restoring "normalcy" within 72 hours. What 
happened within those 72 hours? Murder, mayhem, 
arson, rape. Judges were attacked.

Ranking Muslim police officers were compelled to 
tear off their ID badges as they were unsafe, 
while others who stood their ground and did their 
duty were summarily transferred - on "promotion"! 
Two government offices in the Old Secretariat, 
the Gujarat State Wakf Board and the Gujarat 
Minorities Finance and Development Corporation, 
were attacked and set on fire.

Muslim shops and establishments were selectively 
targeted and a social and economic boycott of the 
community enjoined. A large number of Muslim 
shrines, graves and revered symbols of cultural 
fusion and communal harmony were systematically 
destroyed or desecrated.

The state government did not open a single relief 
camp - and later forced their premature closure - 
while senior ministers openly campaigned against 
establishing camps in their neighbourhoods as it 
might endanger their safety.

An aberration or calculated policy? There was a 
clear breakdown of governance. Rajdharma was 
preached only to be scorned and forgotten. The 
Centre was finally pushed into promising to issue 
directives to the state government under Article 
355. It is not apparent that anything happened. 
The fire was left to burn out, though the embers 
of hate were kept alive. What else was the "Mian 
Musharraf" campaign of calumny against the 
Muslims? General Musharraf returned the 
compliment by referring to Gujarat in his address 
to the UN General Assembly. Every sensitive, 
decent, democratic Indian was filled with shame. 
Who has destroyed India's image and who is trying 
to pass the buck?

The argument that the Gujarat killings were a 
response to Godhra is specious and abhorrent. Do 
innocents bear a vicarious liability for the 
alleged crimes of their co-religionists? And, in 
any event, what happened in Godhra awaits 
confirmation.

The Supreme Court's stinging observations on the 
Best Bakery case serve as a clear reminder that 
things are still rotten in Gujarat. Were it that 
that was the sole case of investigative failure 
and mistrial. Not so.

FIRs have not been properly registered. Named 
criminals remain at large or are "absconding" 
even as they intimidate witnesses. POTA has been 
selectively used. The payment of compensation for 
loss of life, property and livelihood has been 
totally unsatisfactory in a large number of 
cases. There has been no recent accounting of 
what happened to the Rs 150 crore special 
compensation fund instituted by the prime 
minister. What has happened?

The commission of inquiry into the Godhra-Gujarat 
events continues to labour under Justice Nanavati 
who has incidentally been unable to complete his 
inquiry into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, so long 
awaited. Meanwhile some, like the former IAS 
officer Harsh Mander, who continue to work 
dedicatedly to bring succour to the distressed in 
Gujarat and are striving to restore confidence, 
trust and harmony, are beginning to feel hounded. 
This is an ill omen.

Advani was discharged by a Rae Bareli court in 
the Ayodhya case early in September. On September 
28 he delivered his homily on Gujarat in 
Ahmedabad. Three days earlier, it was reported 
that an IAF MI-8 helicopter made an emergency 
landing in a village field while on a sortie from 
Jamnagar to Somnath.

On board were eight media persons said to be 
accompanying the deputy prime minister and home 
minister on what the reporter described as 
Advani's annual tryst with the Somnath Temple. 
This is where he launched his Rath Yatra in 1990, 
the progenitor of much ensuing grief. Are IAF 
aircraft to be commandeered for media witness of 
personal piety and/or party political 
commemorations?

The symbolism of the Somnath "tryst" will not be 
missed. Gujarat surely needs a healing touch to 
become whole and truly vibrant. This calls for 
remorse, justice and reconciliation, not 
exculpatory rhetoric or reluctant compliance with 
the law that betrays grudging regard for common 
humanity.


______


[8]

The Hindustan Times, October 7, 2003

Jhatka vs halal: Sikh body raises meaty issue
Manpreet Randhawa
Jalandhar, October 7

If the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee 
(SGPC) has its way, all hotels, restaurants and 
fast-food chains will soon have to carry displays 
specifying the kind of meat they serve: halal or 
jhatka.

SGPC honorary secretary Manjit Singh Calcutta has 
said he would write to the Union government to 
issue a notification in this regard because the 
consumption of halal meat is strictly prohibited 
for Sikhs.

"It is, in fact, one of the cardinal sins for a 
Sikh to consume halal meat," said Calcutta. "In 
case a Sikh does so, he has to be re-baptised. 
Hence, it's important for eating joints to 
display what meat is served".

Akal Takht Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti has 
also taken note of the matter and called upon all 
Sikhs to avoid consuming halal meat.

Arun, an official representing McDonald's here, 
said the fast-food chain had been using halal 
meat all over India. "We never knew its 
consumption was prohibited for Sikhs," he said. 
"Since the matter has come to our notice now, we 
have decided to inform our headquarters in the 
US. Once we receive a direction from them on 
displaying the kind of meat we serve, it will be 
done."

J.S. Grover of Nirula's, Delhi, said that most of 
the non-vegetarian items at their outlets were 
cut and processed with the help of machines. 
"Hence, it's difficult to ascertain whether it's 
halal or jhatka meat," he said. Grover added if 
the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant 
Association of India (FHRAI) issued guidelines in 
this regard, he would abide by it.

FHRAI secretary general Sham Suri said since the 
SGPC had decided to knock on the Centre's door, 
the association would await an official 
notification on the issue. So far, hotels, 
restaurants and fast-food joints are governed by 
the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, said 
Suri.

Meanwhile, the SGPC's stand has already found 
sympathisers. "In Europe and other countries one 
gets certified halal and jhatka meat so that 
nobody's religious sentiments are hurt," says 
G.S. Lamba, editor, Sant Sipahi magazine. "It is 
shocking how the industry can be indifferent to 
the sentiments of Sikhs."

Interestingly, the issue is not a new one. It is 
learnt that on October 9, 1938, then MLA 
Sampooran Singh, who was also a member of the 
SGPC, had moved a resolution in the Punjab 
assembly that all SGPC members must support the 
Jhatka Bill.

Ninety-six SGPC members in the House had unanimously supported the resolution.

______


[9]   [ Reaching the Real India  -  student exposure program ]

Dear

Initiative is a newly formed team of social 
activists, based in Mumbai. Our main objectives 
are 1. to extend support to social movements in 
their campaigns, publications, research and 
documentation, and 2. to facilitate exposure 
programs for college students and youths to 
different social movements and places of 
alternative experiments. 

We would like to write to you on the student 
exposure program (Reaching the Real India). This 
will be held during this Deepawali vacations 
(October 18 - November 2). Since this is our 
first attempt and because of paucity of time and 
resources, we are planning this only for 6 
students from Mumbai and Thane.

The idea is to expose students to social 
realities and build an organic link between the 
students and the social movements in the country. 
By this interaction we hope that both the 
students and the movement will benefit.  The 
three social movements where the students will be 
sent are:

1. Narmada Bachao Andolan
2. Anti coca cola struggle and anti-sand mining struggle in Kerala
3. Co-operative movement by Tawa dam affected people, MP

The program is for 15 days with a prior 
orientation on the issues and social movements, 
led by senior activists and academicians. Each 
student will be given a token honorarium and 
actual travel expenses. The honorarium will be 
Rs.800/- for the first exposure program. The 
total budget for one student is Rs.3000/-. This 
will involve expenses for orientation program, 
documents / materials to be provided to the 
students etc. We intend to raise the funds for 
this exposure programs from sources within the 
country.

As a friend we would like to appeal to you to 
kindly help us in this endeavor, by supporting at 
least one student. Or/and if you know any other 
source where we can make this request kindly let 
us know. Once the program is over, we would get 
back to you with the report and the accounts of 
the program.

With warm regards,

Joe Athialy / Maju Varghese

Initiative
C/o 202, Thakkur Prasad
V.N. Purav Marg
Sion- Chunabatti
Mumbai - 22 [India]
Phone: (022) 25292448


______


[9.]

ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony) WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

10, 11, 12 OCTOBER, 2003

Venue: Aastha , Udaipur [India]

10th Oct

9.30-11.0 Introduction-Apoorvanand
11.00-11.30-Tea
11.30-1.00-Formation of Identities, Identity 
Politics and Rise of Communalsim-Dr. Purushottam 
Agarwal
1.00-2.00pm -Lunch
2.00-3.30-Session continues
3.30-4.00 Tea
4.00-5.30-Different forms of Fascism-Apoorvanand
5.30-6.00 Tea
6.00-7.30 —FEEDBACK
7.30 Documentaries  Zulmaton ke daur Main, Junoon 
ke Badhte Qadam by Gauhar Raza


11th Oct

9.30 onwards till 5.30 pm with lunch and tea breaks
Session I-IV Reality Unveiled—Dr. Ram Puniyani

Facts Vs Myths on:
·          Appeasement of Minorities
·          Anti Nationalism of Minorities
·          Demography of the nation [population of the minorities]
·          Conversion and Christian Missionaries
·          Godhra – the facts and falsities
·          Kashmir – the facts and falsities
5.30-6.00—Tea
6.00-7.30—FEEDBACK
7.00 onwards film Naseem by Saeed Mirza


12th Oct

9.30-10.30 Communal Cultural Politics-Dr. Nand Chaturvedi
10.30-11.00-Tea
11.00-1.00-Communalisation of Education, Gender Bias-Dr. Nandini Manjrekar
1.00-2.00pm -Lunch
2.00-3.30-Question of Civil Liberties, People’s 
Issues versus Communal Politics-Dr.Trupti Shah
3.30-4.00 Tea
4.00-5.30-Interactive session with Dr. Nandini Manjrekar and Dr. Trupti Shah
5.30-6.00 Tea
6.00-7.30 —FEEDBACK and Discussion on Strategies 
to Combat Communal and Fascist Politics
7.30 Film Zakhm by Mahesh Bhatt

______


[10]

ITS BUSINESS AS USUAL - INTERNET CENSORSHIP CONTINUES IN INDIA

[A Letter to India's Minister for Info. Tech and 
to the Minister for Communications]

Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:00:21 +0530

Dear Sir,

This relates to the reported ban on the domain 
<http://www.yahoo.com>www.yahoo.com [read 
groups.yahoo.com]

Who are we hurting by blocking this web domain? 
None but ourselves. If only you care to know how 
a great number of Indian citizens and NGOs are 
seriously affected by blocking this domain. And 
fundamentally this kind of net-censoring is not 
only undesirable but is completely 
counter-prodcutive. There is no way effective 
censoring of this kind is possible, there being 
dozens of ways to circumvent it. The offensive 
web-pages would be circulated via email much more 
than would normally be visited.

We sincerely request you to rethink your policy 
and remove this patently mindless ban. We care 
for our nation no less than you do. In our wisdom 
we find this action very damaging to our larger 
national interests.

Yours sincerely,

M Hasan Jowher
SPRAT
[Society for the Promotion of Rational Thinking]

SF-8, Rajnagar Complex, Narayan Nagar Road,
Paldi, AHMEDABAD 380 007

Tel: +79-663 46 55 /66 /77 [1000-1800 Hrs - Office]
Tel: +79-661 40 95 / 20 45 [2000-2100 Hrs - Res]
Fax: +79-661 20 49
Web: <http://www.mysprat.org/>www.mysprat.org
e-mail: mhj at mysprat.org


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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). [Please 
note the SACW web site has gone down, you will 
have to for the time being search google cache 
for materials]
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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