SACW | 10-11 May 2004
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon May 10 21:10:39 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 10-11 May, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Bangladesh Government Guns for Country's Largest NGO (Sharier Khan)
[2] Bangladesh: Panic grips Ahmadiyyas in Barisal, Patuakhali
[3] Pakistan and the Indian Muslim (Bulleh Shah)
[4] India: Press Statement Sangh Parivar Insults 1857 Martyrs: SAHMAT
[5] India/USA: Bhopal's Legacy (Mark Hertsgaard)
[6] India: Gujarat - Two-Nation Theory...
[7] India: Peace activists Planning 'Anti-War Assembly'
--------------
[1]
OneWorld South Asia
07 May 2004
BANGLADESH GOVERNMENT GUNS FOR COUNTRY'S LARGEST NGO
by Sharier Khan
DHAKA, May 7 (OneWorld) - Amid growing political
and business unrest, the Bangladesh government
has launched a concerted campaign against the
country's largest nongovernmental organization
(NGO) Proshika, raiding its offices and arresting
over 50 employees on specious charges of
corruption and sedition.
The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)
alleges the Proshika Manobik Unnoyon Kendro,
better known as Proshika, was trying to
mobilizing 600,000 men to help the main
opposition party Awami League in its
self-declared campaign to topple the government
by April 30.
Proshika, which was established in 1976, runs a
host of programs for Bangladesh's impoverished,
including education, housing, health and
environment protection initiatives.
The onslaught began on April 20 but authorities
are yet to find evidence to substantiate their
charges. Undeterred by the lack of proof, the BNP
plans to continue raiding Proshika's 200 area
development centers in 60 districts across the
country.
Defending the government action, Minister for
Social Welfare Al Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid charges,
"A handful of NGOs are involved with politics and
corruption. We are investigating their misdeeds.
The government is not trying to control NGOs. But
Proshika is a corrupt organization and hence we
suspended its funds two years ago."
Mujahid, who is part of the rightwing ruling
coalition partner Jamaat-e-Islami, warns that if
authorities find any evidence of Proshika's
involvement in "subversive activities," they will
be forced to cancel its registration.
If the government implements its threats, over
10,000 employees and 12.5 million beneficiaries
will be affected, with efforts in education and
poverty alleviation suffering a serious setback.
Already, Proshika officials reveal it is
struggling to fund its programs due to a cash
crunch. The NGO currently runs 28 initiatives
through its assets of US $100 million.
Leaders of other NGOs in the country have slammed the government action.
Elucidates the chairperson of a leading NGO BRAC,
Fazle Hasan Abed, "If there is evidence of
wrongdoing against Proshika or any of its staff
or any other NGO, then the government should
initiate specific legal action rather than
resorting to methods and actions that can be
construed as political victimization."
He emphasizes that interference in Proshika's
working will hinder programs reaching out to
hundreds of thousands of people.
Agrees the managing director of the NGO
Association of Social Advancement, Shafiqul Haq
Chowdury. "If Qazi Faruque Ahmed (Proshika head)
did something wrong, the government may take
action against him. But why hamper the NGO's
activities?" he asks.
Proshika sources say most of the NGO's employees
across the country are living in fear of arrest
or attacks. But significantly, only one-sixth of
the 600-strong staff at the organization's
headquarters have stopped attending work
following the raids on its offices, arrests of
employees and sealing of the cultural wing. The
government also filed sedition charges against
two Proshika officials last month but the High
Court acquitted them.
Among those arrested was Abdur Rab, deputy
director of Proshika's cultural wing. He
testified in court that he was tortured into
giving a statement incriminating Proshika
officials as anti-state conspirators.
On Sunday, the NGO Affairs Bureau filed a case
against 12 Proshika staff members, including its
president Qazi Faruque Ahmed, accusing them of
financial irregularities totaling US $13 million.
Director general of the NGO Affairs Bureau,
Mizanur Rahman, alleges Proshika misused funds
allotted for a project.
On the same day, the police raided a local office
of Proshika in Mirpur, close to its headquarters,
and scanned its computers for incriminating
documents. They alleged employees were
circulating notices with anti-government messages.
Complains Proshika director (administration) Syed
Giasuddin Ahmed, "The police said they had a
search warrant, but they did not show it to us.
And then they found nothing wrong in our office."
Alleges the officer in charge of the Pallabi
police station in the area, Nurul Amin, "Proshika
designed a blueprint to accelerate an
anti-government campaign that included sticking
posters, writing songs and distributing leaflets
with anti-government slogans." When queried
further, he admits that the police have found no
proof of such a document.
Proshika officials say the BNP and
Jamaat-e-Islami have targeted members of the
organization from the early 1990s for their
anti-fundamentalist stance and proactive role in
the country's liberation war of 1971. Hardliners
within these two ruling parties are also opposed
to Proshika's attempts to empower women, educate
voters and promote cultural activities.
As an ally of the Jamaat-e-Islami that opposed
the 1971 war, the BNP is opposed to Proshika
members' stance on the issue.
Hostility against Proshika re-surfaced soon after
the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami came to power in
October 2001. The government immediately
suspended funds totaling US $61.70 million to
five of the country's large NGOs that were
accused of financing the BNP's arch rival, the
Awami League. Proshika had a stake of over $50
million in the amount.
When an anti-government stir, initiated by
political as well as business interests who were
frustrated at the rising levels of lawlessness
and corruption in the country, intensified last
month, the BNP decided to crack down on Proshika.
Party secretary general and Minister for Local
Government and Rural Development Abdul Mannan
Bhuiyan alleges, "We have evidence that they (the
Awami League) hired killers from around the
country and tried to lure micro-credit
beneficiaries into the capital in collusion with
Proshika with promises of further loans to create
anarchy."
But Proshika president Ahmed challenges Bhuiyan
to prove the varying charges leveled against his
organization. He fumes, "The government is
cooking up stories of Proshika aiding the Awami
League. They cannot prove anything. The
allegations are part of a move to justify the
recent illegal mass arrests that violated
citizens' basic rights."
Between April 18 and 28, the government arrested
about 18,000 people, including protesting NGO
workers, businessmen and academics. Subsequently,
the High Court asked the government to explain
why such arrests should not be declared illegal.
Ahmed believes "Proshika's success in spreading
the spirit of the Liberation War and secular
ideals, in poverty alleviation, and in women's
empowerment has irked anti-people and
anti-independence leaders."
He points out that progressive journalists,
litterateurs, lawyers and freedom fighters are
also targets of government attacks because of
their progressive secular stance and opposition
to corruption within the ruling party.
_____
[2]
The Daily Star [Bangladesh]
May 11, 2004
PANIC GRIPS AHMADIYYAS IN BARISAL, PATUAKHALI
Khatme Nabuat holds 'grand rally' at Patuakhali today, eviction drive tomorrow
Akter Faruk in Barisal and Sohrab Hossain in Patuakhali
About 27,000 people of the Ahmadiyya Muslim
Jamaat in Barisal and Patuakhali districts are in
panic following the eviction threat given by the
Khatme Nobuat Committee.
They have applied to the distinct administrations for protection and security.
When contacted, sources in Barisal and Patuakhali
district administrations said all steps will be
taken to protect the Ahmadiyyas and maintain law
and order.
The Barisal unit of International Khatme Nabuat
Movement (IKNM) brought out a procession in
Barisal city in support of the eviction
programme, announced in Dhaka on May 6.
The Khatme Nobuat at a press conference in Dhaka
on May 6 declared that Ahmadiyyas in Patuakhali
will be evicted from their astanas
(establishments) on May 12 and those in
Chittagong on May 28.
At the press conference, Hafiz Mahmudul Hassan
Momtazi, Amir of the Khatme Nobuat and Khatib of
Rahim Metal Jame Mosque of Tejgaon, Dhaka
detailed the eviction programme.
As per the schedule, Khatme Nobuat men will lay a
siege to Ahmadiyya astanas (establishments) in
Patuakhali town tomorrow and in Chittagong on May
28 and evict the members.
The Islamic Shashantantra Andolon (ISA),
political party headed by the Chormiani Pir, has
also extended its support to the move, it was
told at the press conference.
The IKNM and ISA will jointly hold a Sirat Mahfil
at Patuakhali Launch Ghat Jame Masjid field today
after Asr prayers.
Mawlana Mahbubur Rahman, President of Patuakhali
district ISA, will preside over the meeting.
Mufti Nur Hossain Nurani will address it as chief
guest.
Tomorrow, they will hold a grand meeting at
Patukhali Shahid Alauddin Shishu Park and then
proceed towards Ahmadiyya astanas to evict them.
They have already circulated leaflets in Barisal
and Patuakhali detailing the programme and
calling upon Muslims to join the move. The
leaflets also called for declaring Ahmadiyyas
non-Muslims.
Meanwhile, Delwar Hossain Dilip, chief of the
Patuakhali district Ahmadiyya community, has said
that about 20,000 people of his community live
peacefully in Aliapur, Town Kalikapur, Baderpur,
Lohalia in Patuakhali town and in some other
areas of the district.
The Ahmadiyyas central mosque in Patuakhali town
is at Mithapukur in Puran Bazaar area.
There are also Ahmadiyyas in Kalapara upazila
Sadar and Kalagachhia in Galachipa upazila in
Patuakhali district.
There are about 7,000 Ahmadiyyas in Barisal,
Bakerganj and Barguna districts. They are in
Patharghata upazila Sadar and Kukua in Amtali
upazila; Krishnanagor, Khakhdon and Kawnia in
Betagi upazila in Barguna district; Bamnikati in
Bakerganj; and in Agailjhara and Gournadi in
Barisal.
_____
[3]
Mid Day [India]
May 9, 2004
PAKISTAN AND THE INDIAN MUSLIM
By: Bulleh Shah
Karachi: India's deputy prime minister L K Advani
is a Sindhi from the now Pakistani city of
Hyderabad. From what I know of him - which is not
much given that I last met the man in 1991 when
the BJP was still a minority party in the
Parliament - he is well read and knowledgeable.
One would expect him to know a bit about history
and the integration of cultures, which was a
reality in the subcontinent long before
Christopher Columbus discovered the 'land of
free'.
As such, those who were in attendance at his
campaign rally in Humnabad on March 16 must have
been left somewhat vexed at what Advani had to
say about Indian Muslims.
By making peace with Pakistan, he declared, Prime
Minister Vajpayee had helped ease Hindu-Muslim
tensions in India.
Every time I come across a statement of this
nature from an Indian politician, I cannot help
but recall a cartoon I saw in the Economist
immediately after the assassination of Rajiv
Gandhi some 13 years ago.
In that brilliant visual comment, there is a yogi
sitting under a banyan tree looking up at a
firangi who says, "Tell us, wise one, where do we
go for wisdom now?"
Some 13 years down the road, the question still
begs an answer and if anything, has only gained
in currency. India may be shining these days but
only a few microns below that sheen and glitter
lie the scars from Gujarat that are turning
uglier by the day.
Statements such as the one from Advani only serve
to scrape off the scabs and turn these scars into
festering sores all over again. And in saying so,
one speaks from experience, having seen the same
happen to Pakistan in less than a lifetime.
It doesn't take long for hate to find a home.
Allow me to share with my Indian friends a few
anecdotes from Pakistan that may help illuminate
the dangers that litter the path chosen by Advani
and his BJP.
At the height of the post-Agra military stand-off
between Pakistan and India, Pakistani editors
were summoned by General Musharraf for a briefing
on security issues.
At the bottom rung of the media hierarchy, I was
too low a hack to be included in such an august
gathering. But from what my friends amongst the
editors told me later, it seems that we too are
not averse to finding enemies from amongst our
friends.
After the meeting had been briefed by the
director general of military intelligence on the
border situation, a gentleman who is less a
journalist and more a racketeer, asked General
Musharraf about the internal security situation,
"especially in Sindh, which is an area more prone
to Indian infiltration than any other in
Pakistan".
Without even thinking about the question, General
Musharraf replied that yes, both he and his
government were cognisant of the threat from
Sindh. This infuriated the Sindhi editors who
wanted to know if Sindhis were any less Pakistani
than the Punjabis, the Baloch or the Pathans.
Flustered, the General brushed aside the question
but the damage had been done. Had Advani decided
not to migrate from Sindh, one wonders what he
would have thought of the General's statement.
Another friend of mine, a big-shot editor who is
friends with several senior spooks in the
Pakistani intelligence apparatus, once told me
not too long ago that the establishment had a
similar view of Shias.
"They are convinced that all Shias are Shias
before they are Pakistanis," he said. I trust
him. And those who may be sceptical of such
claims only need to examine the growing intensity
in the Shia-Sunni conflict in Pakistan: On May 7,
a suicide bomber exploded inside a Shia mosque in
Karachi - located inside Madrassah-tul-Islam, the
alma mater of Mohammad Ali Jinnah - killing at
least 15 and wounding over 100.
The bombing was being discussed at the cigarette
shop I visited the next morning and one of the
lot suggested that such a dastardly act could not
have been perpetrated by a musalmaan.
I wanted to tell him that he was wrong because
being a Muslim in today's Pakistan was only half
as important as being a Shia or a Sunni. But I
didn't because I knew I would be wasting my time.
Whether the Shias like it or not, whether it is
true or not, they are lesser Pakistanis, as are
the Sindhis. To some extent, this is perhaps why
we continue to define ourselves in terms of what
we are not: indeed, we are Pakistanis because we
are not Indians.
Take away the India factor and we would perhaps
not even be able to define ourselves.
Does Advani really want the same to happen in
India? Should being an Indian be the same as
being a Hindu?
Or does he really not know how surprised the
Pakistanis are at those Indian Muslims who raise
slogans of Allah-o-Akbar, as a mark of their
devotion to their motherland, every time
Tendulkar hits a boundary?
I have myself seen an Indian Muslim prostrating
before Allah in gratitude when Sehwag hit his
epic 300 in Multan recently.
Prakash, my ever-dependable Hindu bootlegger,
lost a case of beer to me when India won the Test
series. He was devastated at Pakistan's loss.
What about me? I am a devout Muslim wedded to the
philosophy of sulhe kul (oneness of humanity),
much like my prophet Mohammad, and I am madly in
love with a Mangalorean-Christian based in Mumbai.
At the start of the cricket series, she told me
that the Indian team will smash us. I am sad that
it did, but I do not grudge her happiness at this
outcome. Is that too complicated to understand?
_____
[4]
SAHMAT
8, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg, New Delhi-110001 [India]
Telephone- 3711276/ 3351424
e-mail-sahmat@ vsnl.com,sahmat8 at yahoo.com
10. 5 .2004
PRESS STATEMENT
SANGH PARIVAR INSULTS 1857 MARTYRS: SAHMAT
ON May 9, several of the newspapers and TV channels
carried a surrogate advertisement (on behalf of the
BJP), in an appeal to the voters who were to cast
their votes the next day, in the fourth and last round
of polling. The ad said: It was on the 10th of May in
1857 that Mangal Pandey raised the banner of revolt
and ìfired the first shot against the foreignersî
(meaning the British); now the voters will have to
think whether (impliedly on the same date in 2004)
they would like to ìhand the country over to a
foreigner.î The appeal to the voters was: ìDonít
insult the sacrifices made by lakhs of our martyrs,
and honour the sacred day of May 10.î
That the ad was issued in utter violation of the
Election Commission of Indiaís clear-cut directive
against surrogate ads, is itself an indication of how
much the BJP and its hangers-on care for the sanctity
of our constitutional bodies.
In the said ad, the insinuation against Mrs Sonia
Gandhi could not be clearer.
Then, there also remains the question whether the BJP
and its cohorts have ever deemed it necessary to
remember the sacred day of May 10. It is clear that it
was their electoral compulsion that made them remember
this sacred day this year only.
Apart from the poor taste in which the said ad
referred to Mrs Sonia Gandhi, it also involves a more
weighty consideration. And it is that the RSS-BJP
brand of history has never been truthful to the facts
of history.
For, the fact is that martyr Mangal Pandey raised the
banner of revolt against the British not on May 10,
1857, but in February that year at Barrackpore in
Bengal, and for his patriotism he was put to death in
March 1857. It was the sepoys of Meerut who raised the
banner of revolt on May 10, 1857, came to Delhi the
next day, and proclaimed Bahadur Shah Zafar the
emperor of India.
No freedom loving Indian would ever think of denying
the role of martyr Mangal Pandey and his supreme
sacrifice for the cause of the countryís independence.
We all have greatest regard for the heroism displayed
by Mangal Pandey and his comrades and also by the
lakhs of sepoys, the common peasants and their leaders
like Nana Saheb, Tatya Tope, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Bakht
Khan, Maulvi Ahmadullah, Aminullah, Prince Birjis Qadr
and, not the least, by Rani Lakshmi Bai, who all
fought valiantly against the British. But the Sangh
Parivar has gravely insulted the sacred memory of
these sepoys, peasants and their leaders by trying to
make electoral capital in their name. The fact is that
in its mad drive to somehow garner votes, the Sangh
Parivar did not even think it necessary to put the
facts right.
But, then, who could expect a regard for historical
facts from an outfit that did nor participate in our
momentous freedom struggle and, moreover, does not
even care a fig for studying the history of that
momentous struggle?
The latest surrogate ad is not only an insult to the
patriotic sense of we the Indians but even indicates
how the RSS and its outfits have been trying to teach
history to our younger generations.
Rajen Prasad
SAHMAT
______
[5]
The Nation [USA]
comment | Posted May 6, 2004
BHOPAL'S LEGACY
by Mark Hertsgaard
Every December for the past nineteen years,
marchers in Bhopal, India, have paraded an effigy
of Warren Anderson through town and burned it.
Anderson is despised because he was the CEO of
Union Carbide on December 3, 1984, when an
explosion at the company's Bhopal factory leaked
deadly methyl isocyanate gas over the city's
shantytowns in the worst industrial disaster in
history. The exact death toll will never be
known--many corpses were disposed of in emergency
mass burials or cremations without adequate
documentation--but the Indian government now puts
the total at more than 22,000 and climbing.
As the disaster's twentieth anniversary
approaches, Bhopal is back in the news. On April
19 two advocates for the survivors won the most
prestigious environmental award given in the
United States. In her acceptance speech at the
annual Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony in
San Francisco, Rashida Bee confessed that she and
colleague Champa Devi Shukla initially assumed
they had been selected by mistake. "We knew a few
individuals who had won awards," she explained,
"[but] they were all educated people, spoke
English and had e-mail accounts."
One a Muslim and the other a Hindu, Bee and
Shukla are leading the fight to hold Union
Carbide and its new owner, Dow Chemical,
accountable for the Bhopal disaster, which the
two women assert is still killing and injuring
thousands of people a year through poisoned
groundwater. "The gas disaster was sudden, one
night, but the last twenty years have also been
miserable," Shukla said in an interview. "People
still have pain and breathlessness, and now we
are seeing cancers, too. There is mental and
physical retardation among children. Many women
are sterile or never begin menstruating, so men
don't want to marry them." A 1999 study
commissioned by Greenpeace International but
conducted by independent scientists concluded
that Bhopal's groundwater contains heavy metals,
volatile chemicals and levels of mercury millions
of times higher than is considered safe.
Neither Union Carbide nor Dow has ever faced
trial for Bhopal--inconceivable, activists
charge, had the disaster occurred in the United
States or Europe. Union Carbide instead reached a
$470 million settlement with the Indian
government in 1989, based on now-discredited
estimates that only 3,000 people died and only
100,000 were "affected." Upon review of the
settlement, an Indian court reinstated criminal
charges against Union Carbide and Warren Anderson
in 1991. When neither the corporation nor
Anderson showed up for trial, they were declared
fugitives from justice. The Indian government is
now seeking their extradition, but Washington has
not honored the request. Meanwhile, Dow, which
purchased all outstanding shares of Union Carbide
in 1999, refuses to accept the company's alleged
Bhopal liabilities. "Dow remains firm in its
position that in acquiring the shares of Union
Carbide it acquired no new liability," John
Musser, a Dow spokesman, wrote in an e-mail
interview.
So Bee and Shukla are touring the United States,
using the prestige of the Goldman prize to press
their case. On May 13 they'll confront Dow
officials at a shareholders meeting in Midland,
Michigan. They demand that Union Carbide/Dow
appear at trial in India, pay for survivors'
healthcare and economic rehabilitation and help
restore Bhopal's environment. They reject the
suggestion that the $470 million settlement
discharged the company's obligations. "Union
Carbide made that settlement with the government,
not with the people affected," says Rashida Bee.
"Not a single victim was consulted."
Battling the world's biggest chemical corporation
is a far cry from the humble beginnings of the
two activists. Bee was illiterate and knew
nothing of the outside world when, at age 28, she
experienced the disaster. It killed seven members
of her extended family and left her husband too
ill to continue his work as a tailor. Shukla lost
her husband and two sons. A daughter later
suffered three miscarriages, a grandson died and
a granddaughter was born with a cleft lip and a
missing palate.
Bee and Shukla consistently refer to what
happened in Bhopal as a crime rather than an
accident. "It was Warren Anderson's criminal
negligence and insistence on cost-cutting that
caused this disaster," says Bee. Internal Union
Carbide documents, released in 2002 during the
discovery phase of a civil lawsuit against the
company, seem to support her contention. A 1973
document, signed by Anderson himself, notes that
the technology to be used in the Bhopal factory
was "unproven." A safety review conducted by
Union Carbide experts in 1982 warned of a
"serious potential for sizable releases of toxic
materials" at the factory.
Dow spokesman John Musser confirmed the existence
of the 1982 study but asserted, "None of the
issues [it] raised would have had an impact on
the fatal gas leak and all of the issues had been
addressed by the plant well before the December
1984 disaster." The real culprit, the company
insists, was sabotage. Musser further notes that
it was the Indian government that declared itself
the sole representative of Bhopal's victims
before the 1989 settlement. Nor are allegations
of groundwater contamination true, he said,
citing studies in the late 1990s by local and
federal government agencies in India.
"They have their studies, we have ours, so let's
go to court and let a judge decide who's right,"
said Gary Cohen, director of the Environmental
Health Fund in Boston. Cohen has little hope that
the Bush Administration will extradite Anderson
or current Union Carbide/Dow officials. But, he
says, "Dow wants to expand in India, and we're
going to make that very difficult" by raising
questions about the trustworthiness of a
corporation that refuses to heed a court summons.
Nityanand Jayaraman of the International Campaign
for Justice in Bhopal says activists plan to
press the Indian government to include Dow, not
just Union Carbide, in the current criminal case;
the government could then attach Dow's assets if
it refuses to appear in court.
For their part, Rashida Bee and Champa Devi
Shukla hope to pursue justice face-to-face by
tracking down Warren Anderson during their US
tour. Shukla says that "if we see him, we will
ask, If you are innocent, why are you hiding and
not answering questions about what happened in
Bhopal?"
______
[6]
outlookindia.com [India]
17 May 2004
GUJARAT
Two-Nation Theory...
...and practice. New boundaries segregate the Muslim community
now. Some are subtle, others more stark.
SHEELA REDDY
For Muslims living in Gujarat, this election is different from
the last 13. Like everything else-jobs, colleges, hospitals,
banks and police stations-elections have become something that
happens across the border. Muner Sayed, a tall man with a
gentle humour about his eyes and mouth that not even the worst
Hindu-Muslim riots have quite been able to wipe off, is showing
me one of the scores of borders that have sprung up in Vadodara
in the last two years. As elsewhere, the border here is a road
that separates-imprisons, rather-the Muslim population from its
Hindu neighbours. On one side of the road, where we are
standing, is a row of shops with the desultory look of a small
railway station where trains no longer stop: shuttered shops,
men dozing in the emptiness of the open market square.
Few people venture beyond the ghettos, and least of all for the
drama of elections.
"It's Sunday," Munerbhai reminds me, "otherwise
this market is packed with shoppers. Things here are now selling
so much cheaper than in other bazaars that people don't mind
paying the extra autorickshaw fare to get here." The border
is still permeable.
Schoolchildren, for instance, cross the border every day to
attend the Muslim Education Society High School, where nearly
half the children are Hindu.
But the "interior" is another matter. The narrow
alleyways are lined with sturdy iron-grilled doors, fronting one-
roomed tenements that now rise perilously skyward to cope with
the new influx of riot victims. There are people here, spilling
out in the heat of midday from the overcrowded tenements, but
everything about them-listless, limp bodies spread out under
the shade of walls-proclaims that they belong here in the
ghetto. In the interior, they talk of the elections as
"theirs". The last time a Hindu ventured into these
lanes, to attend a dinner party thrown by a college mate during
Moharram this year, he got caught between the police and a mob
protesting the gunning down of a resident youth and was killed.
Few women and children venture out of the ghetto. For instance,
when Ghulam Badshahbhai, well-known in these parts as a
contractor and second-hand car salesman (and now for the number
of times he's been hauled off to the police station), had to
send his daughter for her board exam last year, the whole
family quaked. "Her exam centre was in an area where even a
grown man would not have survived had there been a toofan."
Toofan-the word used here for the communal riots that stir up
here as unpredictably and devastatingly as a typhoon. She
failed the exam, but the family doesn't blame her; venturing
out of the border was trauma enough. People do go across the
border everyday for various reasons, but elections is not one
of them-the whole business of rallies, assessing candidates,
chasing up election cards that usually happens in this season.
"This time," says Badshahbhai, casting a defiant look at
his mentor, Munerbhai, "we are thinking of boycotting the
election." It was perhaps the first time someone in the
ghetto had ever said it aloud, but no one demurred.
Most of Vadodara's new borders have a police checkpoint to
mark them out. But this one with its two flags at either end,
sooty white on our side, blazing red with a gold border on the
other, has a whole police station, its trademark pwd-yellow
wall gazing in windowless menace from the other side of the
border. A man with a pushcart loaded with bananas is trying to
get across from our end. "He'll get it if he's caught
by a policeman," Munerbhai says in a detached, humorous way.
Munerbhai is a railway "loco inspector" but for the last
two years he has spent most of his day and much of the night
trying to keep a fragile peace in the ghettos and scotching
rumours that spread there like forest fires. As part of a
voluntary group, Qaumi Ekta Samiti, he is in charge of the
ghettos in the eastern part of Vadodara.
According to him, the pushcart vendor has no option but to
brave the border and the policemen lying in wait at the other
end. Because that's where his customers are.
There are others who venture beyond the borders. Nasir
Ahmedbhai, owner of a modest bakery employing 15 people, is one
of those who decided to reopen his shop in the same place where
it was burnt down two years ago in the post-Godhra riots. His
rebuilt-from-scratch National Bakery supplies fresh bread and
buns to the people who razed it down. Four months after his
family fled from the Hindu-dominated locality of Baranpur,
where his family has lived for generations, Ahmedbhai returned.
All he found was rubble and a sooty gap between the wall-to-
wall Hindu homes. When he tried to fix an iron grid around his
devastated bakery, his Hindu neighbours turned again into an
angry mob. In less than half an hour, he found himself in
police custody. But with the famous Gujarati mettle-and a few
judicious bribes to the police-Ahmedbhai wore down his
neighbours' resistance. His bakery is now humming with
workers and customers, but facing it is his former three-
storeyed home: a gaping hole in the fortress line of Hindu
apartments. "I would like to sell the plot and buy a house
in a safer locality," says Ahmedbhai. But like most Muslim
property on sale now in Vadodara, there are simply no takers.
On the other hand, Hindu house-owners who found themselves on
the wrong side of the new borders had little problem disposing
of their property and moving to other, less uncomfortable parts
of the city. In Tandalja, for instance. Till two years ago, the
sprawling locality near Basil school was popular among those
who wanted to build homes away from the congestion of the old
city but couldn't afford the prices in neighbouring
Alkapuri. The post-Godhra riots and the influx of Muslims
fleeing the terror of the inner city changed all that. An
invisible border-and a communal crossover-sprung up here too.
Not all borders, though, are invisible. In Godhra, with its
long history of communal riots, the borders have had time to
grow into something resembling the one at Wagah: a gigantic 12-
foot-tall, 30-foot-wide iron gate guards the boundary near the
Jahurpura wholesale fruit and vegetable market. On the
gateposts, aggressively facing the Muslim quarter, are tiles
with colourful images of Siva and Ganesha. The gates
themselves, with their black paint still fresh, are unadorned,
except for a board advertising a medical store near the border.
But since the gate closes at 5 pm, people on the other side of
the border, Muslims, have to wait till morning for their
medicines. Beyond the gates, a mere 50 metres across the border
is also Nutan High School, a five-storeyed lego-block building
where most of the children on both sides of the border go for
their schooling. Four months after the torching of Sabarmati
Express, when children were writing their final exams, a riot
erupted, leaving the Muslim children stranded on the wrong side
of the border. The principal, Amin Khatura, had to call the
police to rescue them. But the children have learnt their
lesson now: at the first hint of an imminent 'toofan', the
children leave their benches and bolt, a 50 metre-dash into the
arms of their anxious parents on the other side of the border.
Godhra's busiest bank, Kewal Cooperative Bank, is also just
beyond the border gates. Pre-2002, nearly all wholesale dealers
on both sides of Jahurpura came here. But after the watershed
riots of February 2002, even this has changed. Muslim traders
have withdrawn their money from Kewal bank and put it into the
new 'Muslim' banks that have opened on their side.
Gaffer Memon, whose Naaz Footwear store sits on the main
intersection of the Jahurpura market, explains just how
different the 2002 riots were."In 1998, when there was a
toofan, the windshield of my Maruti was shattered." In 2002,
his shop, famed all over Godhra and its outskirts for its
reasonable prices and variety, was looted and burnt down. So
was his brother-in-law's shoe shop facing his. His brother-in-
law fled to Bombay but Memon, who himself came to Godhra from
Bombay six years ago, decided to rebuild and run both the
shops. His reasons are practical: "No one's willing to buy
the property, even if we sell it for Rs 50,000 less than what
we bought it at." Besides, he says, "what guarantee is
there that we'll be safer in Bombay?" The only precaution
Memon has now taken is something many Muslim shopkeepers and
traders in Gujarat are learning to do: insurance cover. "The
payments are very hefty," Memon says, "but what can we do
other than that?" Voting, according to Memon, won't help.
"Sab seat mein baith ke apni roti sekte hain (everyone seeks
power for their own ends)," he says. Memon's cynicism is
shared by everyone in the ghetto-even the young boys for whom
words like 'combing', 'incident', 'boundary'
and 'control room' are no longer foreign.
Across the road from what is now derisively called Mini
Karachi, the border is expanding-shops belonging to Hindus
sprinkled with a few "Muslim shops" spilling over from
the congestion on the other side.The shoe shop owned by
Memon's brother-in-law is one of them. When the Memons
bought this property several years ago, they did not mind paying
more. A "mixed border" is safer because of the practical
difficulties of targeting a Muslim shop without damaging the
adjoining Hindu shops. But less than 24 hours after his own
shop was razed to the ground, the rioters burnt down his brother-
in-law's as well. The mixed bazaar is now in mortal decline,
with those who can afford it moving out. "This road is the
starting point of all incidents in Godhra," explains Memon,
"so even the rickshaw wallahs scare away customers by saying
there will be trouble there." But for the Memons, as for
other Muslim traders and shopkeepers, there is nowhere left to
go.
In Mora, 46 km from Godhra, where Iqbal Gurgi's family has
been running the largest store in the village, there is no
border. Only a mosque, behind whose high walls Gurgi and 300
other Muslims hid when their Hindu neighbours came to get them.
The walls kept the mob at bay but not the flaming tyres that
came flying at them from outside. Gurgi, rescued by the army,
assumed their shop would escape the mob fury because it was
next to a bank. In fact, when his Hindu neighbours burnt down
his shop, others came and helped to put out the fire. The next
day he realised why: they wanted to ensure the bank was safe.
Gurgi's parents never returned to Mora, preferring to set up
shop in their one-roomed home in Godhra's outskirts. But
catering to a few dozen impoverished Muslim refugee families
was not Gurgi's idea of business. He went back to rebuild and
run their shop in Mora, overcoming his parents'-and his
own-fear. "Ab himmat badh gayi hai (now I have more
courage)". It's this desperate courage, the kind that
comes from knowing there's nothing more to lose, that's
forcing thousands of Gujarati Muslims to cross the new borders.
______
[7]
Subject: Fw: meeting on 15th May 2004 in Mumbai
Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 15:31:27 +0530
Dear Friends,
It is now over one year since the aggressors
declared the formal closure of the Iraq war. Yet
the illegal occupation of the country by the
US-led alliance forces continues in brazen
defiance of the world opinion. Over this period
the resistance of the various segments of the
Iraqi people has grown from strength to strength
- both the intensity and the spread having been
continually on the upswing. Iraqi resistance,
largely in the form of small and invisible
suicide squads blowing themselves up, has now
been further reinforced with the prospect of mass
insurgency, already having raised its head in
Falluja and Najaf, obliterating the
conventionally assumed religious and ethnic
barriers. But then the viciousness of the
occupying forces is also crossing all limits. The
aerial bombing of a prayer assembly in a mosque
at Falluja causing death of more than 600 in
retaliation of the killing of four American
mercenaries and sexual humiliation and abuse of
the Iraqi prisoners by their captors, apparently
at the behest of the CIA, are only two glaring
instances. It is against this background an
initiative at the all-India level has been taken
by the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and
Peace (CNDP) to launch a national level 'Anti-War
Assembly' by pooling together all the concerned
organisations, and also individuals. A
preparatory meeting in Delhi on 5-6 June has been
proposed. To ensure proper participation and
contribution of various concerned groups and
individuals in Mumbai in this national effort a
meeting has been called on the coming 15th (May),
Saturday at Shramik (first floor), Royal Crest,
Lokmanya Tilak Vasahat, Road No. 3 Dadar (E) –
LANDMAR on the second lane behind the Swami
Narayan temple. The meeting will commence at 4-00
in the afternoon. All are earnestly requested to
join. A detailed concept note as issued by the
National Coordination Committee of the CNDP is
appended below.
In solidarity,
Meena Menon, Jaya Velankar, Arvind Krishnaswamy, Perin Chandra, Sukla Sen
for CNDP
Mumbai Contact Address:
I. FOCUS ON THE GLOBAL SOUTH
INDIA PROGRAMME B-4, SHRI KUMAR C.H.S.L., OPP. P
& T COLONY, NEHRU ROAD, SANTACRUZ EAST, MUMBAI -
400 055. INDIA TEL: +91-22-2665 1292 / 5675
1896-7 EM: focusind at vsnl.net
II. suklasen at indiatimes.com
Dear Friends,
As you know the situation in Iraq, which today
is the crucible of world politics, is dire. The
US and its allies are carrying out the most
brutal forms of repression including massive
aerial bombing of ordinary Iraqis because the
resistance to occupation is growing and
spreading. The Iraqi people today need the widest
possible solidarity from progressive people
throughout the world. Indeed, such are the stakes
that the US is playing for, that it is knows a
defeat in Iraq and a military-political
withdrawal from the country will signal a
decisive defeat of its empire-building project in
the region. The heroic struggle of the
Palestinian people will then receive a tremendous
boost just as Israel and a host of US-dependent
Arab regimes will be shaken to their roots. All
the more reason, therefore, why the US's imperial
designs must be opposed and thwarted.
Furthermore, the Indian government and dominant
elites are being called upon by Washington to
lend their practical and moral-political support
to the US efforts to maintain control over Iraq.
Thus there has been talk of requesting an Indian
government after these coming elections to send
troops and other material help under the guise of
restoring UN influence and control. These efforts
at disguising the reality of American domination
and ambitions must also be opposed. Indeed, it
should be clear that the US military-political
presence in South Asia (which is growing
steadily) will itself create obstacles to
promoting genuine peace between India and
Pakistan as the US seeks to manipulate the elites
and governments of both countries. It has already
been doing this with some considerable success.
The need for a national level 'Anti-War Assembly'
to bring about a massive show of resistance to US
designs in Iraq and West Asia and also in South
Asia, has never been greater. Anti-War Assemblies
have already been set up in other countries and
regions and have been a vital part of the
collective effort at globalising resistance to US
imperial behaviour in Iraq and elsewhere. The
CNDP in conjunction with as many other
organisations as possible would like to
facilitate in the setting up and holding of just
such a large-scale Anti-War Assembly in India
sometime later this year, possibly around early
October. To this end the CNDP is suggesting that
a National Consultation Meeting/Committee could
be set up attended by, and comprising,
representatives of as many organisations as
possible to collectively work out the modalities
of setting up such an Assembly. The focus of this
Assembly would of course be Iraq/Palestine while
the need for peace between India and Pakistan and
opposition to the US in our own part of the world
must naturally feature prominently as well. It is
a given that all organisations involved in this
effort and participating in the National
Consultation Meeting/Committee and Anti-War
Assembly would of course be strongly and
unequivocally opposed to the US occupation of
Iraq, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, to US
imperial ambitions and designs generally, while
also being committed to a lasting and just peace
between India and Pakistan. It has also been
suggested that for convenience sake, the first
two-day meeting of this National Consultation
Committee for setting up an Anti-War Assembly
could be held in New Delhi on June 5th and 6th
(Saturday and Sunday). The exact venue can be
confirmed later. Once a large number of
organisations are agreed upon the holding of such
a National Consultation Meeting then a collective
formal invitation signed by as many organisations
as possible (and open to further additional
signatures) could be sent as widely as possible
so as to ensure the success of this meeting.
Indeed, the more widespread the representation,
and the more organisations participating in this
proposed meeting, the greater the guarantee that
the Anti-War Assembly will be the huge success it
deserves to be. We urge all friends to help in
taking this collective project forwards.
------
On Behalf of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, (CNDP)
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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.sacw.net/
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bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
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archive for SACW: snipurl.com/sacip
See also associated site: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
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