SACW | 2 June 2004
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Tue Jun 1 21:02:39 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 2 June, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Pakistan: What step(s) will the President
take in Karachi? (edit, The Daily Times)
[2] India: Can the Congress deliver? (M B Naqvi)
[3] India: A Kind Of Normalcy: Visit To Kashmir (Rakesh Shukla)
[4] India: Educational Reforms: What Is Not To Be Done (Shahid Amin)
[5] India / Gujarat: Citizens Charter of Demands
to the UPA Government (Citizens Groups and
Intellectuals)
+ related news report
[6] India / Gujarat: A letter to India's Prime
Minister by activists from Gujarat
[7] India / Gujarat: An infamous Judge from
Gujarat awarded with a new job (Rohit Prajapati,
Trupti Shah)
--------------
[1]
The Daily Times
June 02, 2004
Editorial
WHAT STEP(S) WILL THE PRESIDENT TAKE IN KARACHI?
The federal information minister, Sheikh Rashid
Ahmad, announced Monday that President Pervez
Musharraf had decided to take 'an important step'
for the restoration of law and order and the
protection of life and property in Karachi. This
statement came immediately after the killing
spree at Imam Bargah Ali Raza on MA Jinnah road
during which 18 were killed and 35 badly wounded.
The massacre was part of a serial bloodshed that
began earlier in the month at Haideri Masjid,
followed by the murder of the country's leading
religious leader, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, on
Sunday. The Karachi administration failed
completely to grasp the nature and enormity of
the incidents. As a result, angry citizens of the
city turned against the law enforcing agencies,
and the police had to shoot and kill some of them.
What can President Musharraf do? What is that
'one important step' the information minister
says the president is going to take to set things
right in Karachi? If the past is any indicator,
General Musharraf could change the Governor,
suspend the provincial assembly, install
Governor's Rule and send in the Rangers. But if
he did that it would be an admission that the
system that now prevails in Karachi (and is the
result of his own political engineering after the
2002 elections) has collapsed. The biggest
vote-getter in the province, the PPP, is in the
opposition boycotting virtually everything the
government does. The government itself is a
patchwork of the MQM and political elements now
united as the big Muslim League, each patch
fighting the other behind the scenes. The MQM -
in return for its crucial support in parliament -
has got its man chosen by the president as
governor of the province; the chief minister has
been gouged out of the PPP and is hardly a potent
factor in the provincial administration. And on
top of that the local government has been handed
over to the Jamaat i Islami as part of the larger
framework of alliance with the Muttahidas Majlis
Amal.
The abject failure of the Sindh government to
come to grips with the outbreak of violence this
month definitely points to the inertia caused by
political deadlock. The MQM is dominant in the
cities but is not in control of the local
government because it boycotted the local polls
in 2001. Since the Karachi city has a mayor that
belongs to the religious part of the big divide,
the entire province is now hostage to the power
struggle between the MQM and the
Jama'at-e-Islami. Instead of running the city,
which is like running a small state, the rulers
are squaring off to decide through violence who
is the real ruler. In the recent by-elections for
parliament and assembly the two sides fell upon
each other and killed and maimed freely to
demonstrate their muscle power. The local
governments are in deep freeze while the governor
and the chief minister are busy denying charges
that they are puppets without power in the hands
of their respective political masters, not
necessarily including President Musharraf.
Violence is what the political set-up in Sindh is
doing to the state. It can hardly qualify as a
government devoted to the security and well-being
of the Karachi citizens. Will President Musharraf
do anything to change all that?
The administration in Karachi has now thought of
stationing 15,000 troops to guard the Shia
mosques. There couldn't be more than a couple of
hundred Shia mosques in the city where there is a
total of 2,200 mosques, as revealed by the Sindh
governor himself. Why guard the Shia mosques
while the Sunni mosques remain unprotected, if
the trouble is sectarian? The answer is that the
administration knows the modus operandi in this
sectarian war. One side kills indiscriminately
while the other does target-killing, picking off
individuals. Why wasn't this wisdom applied after
the murder of Mufti Shamzai when the city was
tense with the expectation of another massacre
foretold? The reason was that the political
set-up in Sindh was busy doing other things and
contenting itself with obfuscation. The
well-wishers of society who don't want to talk of
sectarianism can be excused but not the
administration and its various intelligence
agencies. Why should the administration be
deceived by vested statements that allege the
massacres to be staged collectively or severally
by India, Israel and the United States? Or that
sectarian violence has come in the wake of
Pakistan's pro-America policy? The fact is that
Karachi tilted into its worst sectarian phase and
killed its Shia doctors before 9/11 when
Pakistan's policy was pro-Taliban rather than
pro-USA.
We cannot say what President Musharraf will do
apart from putting the province under Governor's
rule and sending in the troops. But our
prediction is that such a measure will not yield
good long term results, given President
Musharraf's inclination to do things by halves
and for short term policy goals. An irresolute
policy - like the one on the madrassahs and the
Wana Operation - will flounder because of
incomplete ownership by the state. No one in
Pakistan has forgotten that Karachi was once "set
right" with resolute action only with the help of
the police and two army chiefs. That is why
Islamabad must first 'deconstruct' the Karachi
situation, own up to the trouble its own past
policies have created, and then take resolute
steps to set things to rights.
One lesson that it has to take well to heart is
that the abandonment of the pro-Taliban policy
deeply affects the policy of jihad itself,
notwithstanding what the new religion minister Mr
Ijaz ul Haq thinks. In fact there are many old
policy options that stand closed after Pakistan's
decision to withdraw from the 'unofficial' jihad
on its western border. The 'unofficial' jihad is
over as an option for Pakistan and it is time to
pick up the pieces of the old policy and
construct a new one. After that the trouble in
Karachi has to be tackled with decisive action.
The same police that now seems helpless will then
become an effective tool of administration. *
_____
[2]
The News International
June 02, 2004
Can the Congress deliver?
M B Naqvi
PLAIN WORDS
The answer depends on how one assesses the
factors that led to the downfall of BJP. In many
ways the recent Indian election was
extraordinarily significant. Erstwhile ruling
party, BJP, was virtually an antithesis of
Congress, the party that and was led by leaders
of freedom struggle for long. Where Congress
stood for a secular and democratic nationalism of
a composite nature, based on what was the
Indo-Persian Civilization, BJP called this Indian
Nationalism bogus. It, too, spoke of a 'genuine
Indian nationalism', one that is suffused with
the ethos of Hindutva, or Hinduness. Although it
dared not say that Hindus were the only real or
authentic Indians, its crude advocacy of Hindus
greatness came close to doing it. Anyhow, the
rejection of the composite and secular Indian
nationalism - totally ignoring the Indo-Persian
Civilisation - and exclusivist emphasis on
empowering the Hindu makes it a non-secular or
communalist party. Indian voters have not renewed
its mandate and have preferred a more secular
Congress instead. The largely Hindu electorate,
over 80 percent, has preferred secular politics
to that of Hindutva.
The second major significance deals with the
nitty-gritty of politics. BJP was claiming,
perhaps too loudly, that its 5-year rule has made
India shine. It talked of a 'feel-good' factor -
a variant of 'you never had it so good' slogan.
The international media was rooting for BJP
because under its leadership Indian economy grew
fast thanks supposedly to its steadfast
implementation of 'reforms'. India's is the
second fastest growing economy after China, its
rate now approaching 8 per cent. The secret of
the massive western press' hosannas lay in
Vajpayee government's pro-US and Israel foreign
policy with its faithfulness to true economic
faith: That which was originally called the
Washington Consensus and later as structural
adjustments and now simply called the 'reforms'.
Well, the neo-liberal economists have to note
that Indian voters have turned their thumbs down.
It is a resounding rebuff to neo-liberal nostrums
from a truly developing nation.
BJP ran a lavish 'India Shining', if also
raucous, campaign. There is certainly a thin
crust of upper and upper middle class Indians may
be up to 200-250 million strong, who have been
substantially enriched. As against that a good
half of all Indians stay poor, especially those
in the countryside. Poor peasants had been
committing suicides due to poverty and
indebtedness. To them 'India Shining' was a cruel
joke and they reacted angrily. Remember the
visits of Mr George W Bush and Mr Tony Blair to
India's Cyber City, Hyderabad, not to mention
those of many George Soroses and Bill Gateses.
India's successes - real enough but confined to a
narrow urban elite - were hyped massively. Well,
the Indian voters have shown how off the mark
their own government and its foreign admirers
were.
Of course, that the common Indian voter, often
poor and illiterate, did not first debate
profound philosophical issues about secular
canons versus Hindutva or finer points of
economic theory and its possible relation to
distributive justice. He merely looked around and
found no evidence of progress and prosperity; he
saw no shine. The talk of a cleaner or responsive
(to his needs) government sounded hollow. As for
Hindutva, he was, other things being equal, more
likely to be a Hindu. And being a Hindu in an 80
per cent Hindu country cannot be a big deal;
nearly everyone else being a Hindu robs the
concept of Hindutva of any profound relevance or
immediacy. What is more relevant is who gets what
- and similar mundane considerations.
That translates into, first of all, Congress not
copying or implementing BJP's economic programme.
That is sure to be the main consideration.
Negligible share in the new prosperity was the
main consideration of the common Indian voter. If
Congress were to adhere to the 'reforms' - and Dr
Manmohan Singh was the first politician to
introduce them in India - the net results to be
achieved by sustaining the current economic
policies, possibly with only minor changes, are
sure to be similar to what BJP achieved. India is
not unique. Wherever these formulas have been
tried, the results have largely been the same:
more poverty creation, strong concentration of
wealth in ever fewer hands, more unemployment,
greater neglect of social sector spending, meaner
governments that are less caring. This is the
trend even in the developed countries, though
their social security arrangements manage to make
1930s - like mass hunger marches unnecessary.
The first challenge to the Congress government is
thus in the economic sphere - which is not its
strongest suit. If this Congress government were
to fail to provide substantial relief to the
rural and urban poor, it might never again win
the voter's trust; as it happens, the Congress
had lost its hold in northern Hindi belt. Its old
redoubts in the south are now wobbly; most are
still with it but they can go elsewhere too. It
has got this opportunity by the Indian voter's
rejection of the BJP's inadequacies. Much rides
on the successes of the duo of Dr Manmohan Singh
and P Chidambram.
But they are committed free marketeers and
faithful believers in the neo-liberal doctrines,
quite like BJP men. How far will their nominal
alterations in the 'reforms' will go is anyone's
guess. If they went deeper and affected the main
scheme of 'reforms', they shall bring on their
heads the wrath of the Bombay Sonsex, the big
money in general and to a large extent, western
friends. This is an unlikely team to make any
revolutionary changes, now being demanded by the
Communists. But the latter have indicated that
even if the Congress does not listen to them,
they will continue supporting it. So whatever it
does, it is likely to be able to live out its
five years. But then there will be a democratic
day of judgment: next election. Although
secularism versus Hindutva was not central to the
common voters' consciousness, hopes of doing
better was the reason why the Congress and its
allies commanded as much support as they did.
This vote is not so much for Congress or allies,
as for a new economic experiment: can the
'reforms' be reoriented to promote distributive
justice and yet keep up the growth momentum? It
is a big question and P Chidambram is required to
square this apparent circle.
As noted, the main result of BJP defeat is the
renewal of hope that India can resuscitate its
secular character and give democracy a little
more depth by providing the poor with some
relief. The Congress record of over 40 years of
ruling India is on the whole creditable despite
the many lapses, some serious. But its
politicians have grown morally and intellectually
flabby and some were corrupted. The normal kind
of financial corruption is not what one has in
mind. Bribery is a way of life in the
Subcontinent. True, Congress set high standards
to begin with. But the society's traditions and
attitudes brought back the corruption that has
reigned in public dealings. Corruption and
mis-governance are expected throughout South
Asia, except perhaps in Sri Lanka.
But unfortunately corruption has to be treated as
an undesirable constant that afflicts BJP, as
much as Congress or regional parties. One finds
no point in discussing it because no one approves
it and yet it is pervasive throughout South Asia.
This is not to sanction or justify corruption and
mis-governance but merely to take note of a fact.
As noted, the primary attraction of Congress lay
in BJP's failure to address the problem of
poverty. But the changeover has larger
significance: while the Congress is required to
do better in the economic sphere, its overall
significance is in civilizational terms: The
Congress is more modern, democratic and believer
in secular concepts - or at least most of its
leaders still so profess.
The biggest challenge before the Congress is how
far and how strongly does it succeed in
implementing its secular agenda. The BJP's nearly
five years have made deep inroads into various
institutions, particularly in the textbooks for
schools and in media. The extent to which the
media had become Saffronised is a great challenge
in itself. The Congress, doubtless, would be
under compulsion to restore history books and
other curricula in accordance with academic
objectivity and secular tenets. But care has to
be taken that this does not become a party
politics issue where one side will try to
secularise education and the other will try to
make it instinct with Hindutva. Nothing is more
important than this.
In one respect the Congress is hobbled: large
numbers of its activists have been partially or
weekly infected with the anti-secular viruses
released by the Sangh Parivar. While
internationally there are many examples in Europe
and America of honest secular politics, there is
also a third world country that has set an
example: it is South Africa which has struggled
hard against Apartheid and various other
prejudices and has become a beacon of light for
secular democrats and believers in human and
racial equality. Doubtless India has to go a long
way before it can be free from worries on the
score of secular democracy being secure.
Let us hope India makes the grade and Congress rises to its challenges.
_____
[3]
28 May 2004
A KIND OF NORMALCY: VISIT TO KASHMIR
The recent mine blast on the Jammu-Srinagar
highway killling BSF men and their families has
temporarily shattered the veneer of normalcy. To
all intents and purposes, elections have taken
place. A 'popular' government is in power in the
State. Peace talks are underway. Compared to
people scurrying home with the onset of evening
three years back, there is the hustle-bustle of
given and take at Lal Chowk, the hub of Srinagar.
Tourists are flocking, houseboats are filling up,
taxis buzzing to Gulmarg.
Despite choosing to turn a blind eye to the
fortified bunker right at Lal Chowk, the machine
gun mounted armoured vehicles, the battle ready
soldiers on picturesque bunds and bridges across
the Jhelum, the fragility of the 'normalcy' is
palpable.
On any random day, the local papers carry
reports of grieving relatives of youth "picked
up" by the dreaded Special Operations Group, 5
killed in Baramulla or protests over custodial
deaths. One doesn't come on a holiday to read
newspapers! However, it is difficult to ignore
the texture of the interaction between local
Kashmiris and the Security Forces. Whether it is
the docile subservient expression of an old man
selling fruits and a BSF jawan or the heavy
handed checking of identity cards of passing
youth.
At Lal Chowk, we go to see off a friend into a
Sumo for Jammu. The driver turns, a passenger
waves and as the driver stops a jawan comes and
breaks the rear-view mirror of the vehicle.
Sajaad, the driver threatens to complain to the
Commandant. The jawan, regardless of a hundred
witnesses watching, punches just above the eye
and tries to pull a bleeding Sajaad out of the
window.
The Kashmiris present know better than to
intervene. We intervene and fortunately the
beating stops! The drivers say no action will be
initiated unless we come along. We toodle along
to the Police Station. A police constable gets in
and we go towards the Government Hospital. The
Constable pleads with us to come along as the BSF
may have already reached and may prevent them
from entering the Hospital! As non-Kashmiris and
Indians, we carry more clout than a J & K
policeman!
At the hospital the driver is nervous that the
BSF may plant something and then "recover"
explosives from his vehicle. Others are
apprehensive that the BSF may pick them up from
their homes at night. Obviously, a routine
modus-operandi. MLC done, we are again
importuned to go back to the police station. As
in the ensuing negotiations between the S. P. and
the Commandant our presence as witnesses would
help. The police informally advise the drivers to
organize a demonstration if they want a complaint
registered!
Unlike many countries, the Indian Constitution
has no provision for martial law. Security forces
are always to supplement civil power not supplant
it. Yet so tilted is the balance in favour of the
security forces that the police cannot even lodge
a FIR, leave aside prosecution of army personnel
involved in acts of violence.
Human rights groups can keep asserting gross
human rights abuses and the Government can keep
denying the killings and rapes. However, it is
the almost invisible, intangible humiliation
suffered in everyday life which in a major way
contributes to the alienation of a people.
Rakesh Shukla
_____
[4]
The Times of India
June 2, 2004
EDUCATIONAL REFORMS: WHAT IS NOT TO BE DONE
by Shahid Amin
With an erstwhile professor of economics now as
our prime minister, there is great expectation
among teachers at all levels of the educational
pyramid. All those who dirty their hands with
chalk-and-duster, whether in manicured management
institutes, or the stable-like lecture-rooms in
most universities across the land, are visibly
relieved. The dark phase of thought control, the
arrogation of educational wisdom to a handpicked
coterie of under-qualified academic bureau-crats,
the systematic slandering of our tallest scholars
as inadequately Bharatiya, the throwing of muck,
often quite literally, at some of the most
distinguished foreign scholars of India's
cultural and religious past " all this is
mercifully over, for five years at least. So we
hope.
The common minimum programme, while promising to
take up universal elementary education seriously,
goes on to assure autonomy for university and
professional institutions. There is talk already
of an urgent need for " detoxification" of school
and college curricula. This is understandable. No
doubt there is a need to undo the " wrongs" done
to our institutions, to our children, to our
teachers. But let us press ahead only after due
deliberation; let the urgency of the task not
become an excuse for the darning of frayed ideas
and the regurgitation of old mantras, unmindful
of their past efficacy and present suitability.
Those in charge of the education ministry " a far
better term than the fluffy acronym HRD " must
learn to get over the control-centralise itch
that seems almost to go with the job. We'd also
do well to remember that some of the most odious
diktats emerging from the HRD over the past five
years, were very often the redeployment of
weapons of surveillance developed in the early
and mid-1970s. The mindless control over the
grant of visas to foreign or foreign-based Indian
scholars on grounds of " sensitivity " and the
totalitarian control that the HRD sought to
exercise over international scholars wishing to
speak in India , were not necessarily the
creation of the last government. They date back
to an earlier and different, though by no means
intellectually less debilitating, consensus on
what was properly national.
Not that tax-paying bona fide Indian scholars
were necessarily given more leeway, if the
myrmidons of state-funded bodies thought, in
their fawning wisdom, that they had somehow
crossed the academic Lakshman-rekha. As we move
to free education from the fist of smug,
sectarian certitude, let us not hurry over the
fact that there once was a well-placed
intellectual component of the now-discredited
licence permit raj.
Some 30 years separate 1974 from 2004. During
this period, the world, India included, has
hurtled through calendrical time at an
astonishing pace. Were we to limit ourselves to
picking some high points and potholes from the
field of education: There has been a phenomenal
increase in the international market worth of
IIMs and IITs, combined with a hyper-inflation of
indifferent regional universities; while most
metro universities have held their own under the
pressure of a rush of student intake, many
premier universities of yesteryears have sunk
into second-rate teaching shops; tuition,
coaching, tutoring, entrance tests, all these
have usurped the place of class room pedagogy:
the Great Education Bazaar is now flooded with
all manner of indifferent and inferior goods,
some of these attractively packaged by branch
outlets of overseas institutes and colleges. And
then there is the great rush to study in the US .
The new educational dispensation will no doubt
address these and several other pressing problems
" there is talk of a new education commission. It
is not my aim to prepare a laundry list for such
a commission. Suffice it to say that this
government would do well to involve many more
actual teachers, irrespective of rank and age,
rather than fall back, as a matter of habit, on
academic bureaucrats and retired pedagogues.
The other area of immediate concern would be the
issue of middle and secondary school text-books,
especially history text-books, which were
hurriedly re-scripted in the last regime, so the
argument went, to correct the " leftist" bias of
the 1970s history primers. Here again greater
deliberation is called for, and a new consensus,
which takes into account the developments in the
discipline of history more generally and Indian
history writing specifically, arrived at.
Educationists have recently drawn attention to
the fact that an obsessive Arjun-like
concentration on the eye of the targeted-bird "
in this case the Indian nation-state " in school
books is to rob both the child and the discipline
of history of an informative, yet critical
perspective on the relationship between our past
and our present.
History text-book writers need to take all this
into account. They might also like to mull over
the forthright enunciation in December 1947 by
professor Mohammad Habib, one of the doyens of
Indian history: " The writing of histories should
not, as a rule, be directly subsidised by the
state... Under the old regime we wrote in a
spirit of constraint... Our national leaders
should now be willing to pass on to us a fraction
of the freedom they have obtained. A
state-dominated interpretation of history is one
of the most effective means of sabotaging
democracy" Strong words indeed, given that they
were uttered on the eve of the Nehruvian
consensus, and doubly salutary for a fractured
polity that is India today.
(The author teaches at the University of Delhi .)
_____
[5]
1 June 2004
CITIZENS CHARTER OF DEMANDS
TO THE UPA GOVERNMENT
The paramount duty of the newly elected
Government of India is to take all measures
possible to reclaim and defend the secular and
democratic foundations of India. These were under
unprecedented threat during the last NDA
government in the centre as well as the BJP
government in the state of Gujarat. Indeed,
Gujarat was the crucible of Hindutva politics and
continues to be wounded by the genocide and
wanton refusal of the state government to ensure
justice and healing. Therefore, the test case of
the secular resolve of the new UPA government
will be its ability to take resolute and often
difficult decisions to restore justice and hope
to the people of Gujarat.
A group of concerned citizens and organizations
from both within and outside Gujarat gathered on
1st June 2004 at Prashant, Ahmedabad to draw up a
charter of demands for the Government of India
for justice and healing in Gujarat.
A summary of our demands to the UPA government is as under:
Legal Justice
1. The UPA government should support the
recommendations of the Amicus Curiae in the
Supreme Court [Writ Petition (Cri)No.109 of 2003]
which proposes that, a retired judge of the
Supreme Court and a retired police officer of
impeccable credentials should be empowered to
(a) re-examine all cases of closure, acquittal
and bail related to cases registered in relation
to the post-Godhra carnage; (b) if they find
prima-facie miscarriage of justice at the stages
of FIR, investigation, prosecution and trial,
they should be empowered to order and supervise
reinvestigation and / or retrial; and (c) monitor
all ongoing investigation, prosecution and trial.
2. Repeal of POTA with retrospective effect,
and cancellation of all POTA charges in Gujarat,
in recognition of the painful fact that the state
government openly misused this draconian Act to
victimize exclusively members of the minority
community, with very little genuine evidence.
3. The UPA government should institute a
Special Judicial Commission to enquire into the
Godhra incident, because the people of India have
the right to know the exact facts behind the fire
in the S6 compartment of the ill-fated Sabarmati
Express on 27th February, 2002
Compensation & Rehabilitation
4. UPA should announce a compensation
package based on the most progressive features of
the compensation packages that were announced for
the survivors of the Kaveri riots, 1984 riots and
others. Supervision of fair and timely
implementation of this revised package should be
entrusted to a Commissioner appointed by the
Central Government.
5. A generous package of soft loans for
housing and livelihoods should be given to all
affected families.
6. For rehabilitation colonies that have
been established through non-government
initiatives (because of the total inaction by the
State Government) recognition and regularization
in order to make them eligible for land title,
electricity, water supply, approach roads,
primary schools, etc. For families still
unwilling to return to their original homes
because of fear, government should establish new
settlements at suitable locations consented to by
the affected families, and ensure basic
facilities.
Accountability & Preventive Measures
7. UPA government should establish a
machinery to ensure prosecution of all civil and
police officers, who failed in their duties to
prevent and control the violence, to protect the
victims, and to extend relief and rehabilitation.
8. Similarly it should institute legal
measures for the prosecution of the Chief
Minister and other cabinet colleagues, for
planning, instigating and abetting the carnage,
and refusing to perform duties for relief and
rehabilitation.
9. Enquiry by a sitting judge of the Supreme
Court into the allegations of deliberate
partisanship in the appointment of public
prosecutors and judges in the post Godhra trial
cases.
10. A special group should be set up to
monitor and take appropriate action against all
individuals and organizations that preach or
provoke hatred amongst people of different faiths.
11. The UPA should enquire into the
systematic manufacture of hatred against
minorities through textbooks and ensure their
immediate replacement with liberal and secular
educational material.
12. There has always been a precedent adopted
by most governments in independent India to
rebuild places of religious and cultural
importance when these have been destroyed in
communal violence. This healing precedent should
be applied to the nearly 700 places of worship
and cultural importance destroyed in the
post-Godhra carnage. Particularly important is
the rebuilding of the symbols of Gujarat
syncretic culture like the Mazar of Wali Gujarati
[Shahibaug, Ahmedabad]
13. In order to prevent recurrence of open
state abetment of communal violence, abdication
of responsibilities for relief and
rehabilitation, and subversion of the justice
system, the UPA government should undertake
codification and passage of a national law. This
law should delineate the statutory duties and
accountability of the Government to prevent
communal violence, protect victims and organize
relief, compensation and rehabilitation, and lay
down strong penalties for failure to perform
these duties.
Amar Jyot [Action Aid]
Batuk Vora
Digant Oza [Satyajit Trust]
Fr.Cedric Prakash [Prashant]
Gagan Sethi [Centre for Social Justice]
Harinesh [Janpath]
Harsh Mander [Anhad]
Hiren Gandhi [Samvedan]
Mallika Sarabhai [Darpana Academy]
Mukul Sinha [Jan Sangarsh Manch]
Parthiv Shah [CMAC]
Prasad Chacko [Behavioral Science Centre]
Rafi Mallik [Centre for Development]
Saumya Joshi [Fade-in Theatre]
Shabnam Hashmi [Anhad]
Stalin K. [Drishti Media Collective]
Swarup Dhruv [Samvedan]
Wilfred D’souza [INSAF]
Zakia Jowher [Aman Samuday]
......... and others
[See News Report on Above]
o o o
Deccan Herald
June 02, 2004
Godhra: NGOs to submit charter of demands
The Gujarat assembly witnessed noisy scenes as
Chief Minister Narendra Modi was attacked by the
Opposition over the Godhra train carnage and
statewide communal violence in its aftermath.
AHMEDABAD, DHNS:
Inspired by the change of guard at the Centre and
hoping for justice for the riot victims in
Gujarat, leading human rights activists and NGOs
on Tuesday charted out demands to be put up
before the UPA Government led by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh.
Repealing POTA with retrospective effect,
cancelling all POTA charges in Gujarat, a special
judicial commission to inquire into the Godhra
carnage, instituting legal measures to prosecute
the Gujarat chief minister, ministers and other
officials for allegedly abetting the carnage and
action against all officers who failed to perform
their duty are some of the demands in the charter.
Among the signatories include noted danseuse
Mallika Sarabhai, former bureaucrat Harsh Mander,
Shabnam Hashmi, Father Cedrick Prakash and
advocate Mukul Sinha. The 13-point demands were
finalised at the end of a brainstorming session
that lasted for more than two hours. The charter
of demands will be presented to the UPA in a
couple of days after a signature campaign all
over the country.
The group has demanded that the UPA should
support the recommendations of the Amicus Curiae
in the Supreme Court. The Amicus Curiae has
proposed that a retired Supreme Court judge or a
retired police officer should be empowered to
re-examine all the cases of closure, acquittal
and bail related to post-Godhra cases and if
prima facie miscarriage of justice is found then
he be authorised to supervise reinvestigation or
retrial.
The group has also demanded a fair compensation
for the victims on the lines announced after the
Cauvery and 1984 riots. Soft loans should also be
given for housing and livelihood, they observed.
Further, they also demanded an enquiry by a
sitting judge of the Supreme Court into the
allegations of deliberate partisanship in the
appointment of public prosecutors and judges in
the post-Godhra trial cases.
They felt that the UPA should enquire into the
alleged systematic build up of hatred against
minorities through textbooks and ensure their
immediate replacement with liberal and secular
educational material. One of the demands is also
of restoring over 700 places of worship and
cultural importance destroyed during the
post-Godhra carnage.
A couple of NGOs from Gujarat have already
forwarded their charter of demands to the UPA.
Noisy scenes in assembly
Meanwhile, the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha witnessed
noisy scenes after the leader of Opposition
Amarsinh Chaudhary attacked Chief Minister
Narendra Modi in connection with the Godhra train
carnage and statewide communal violence in its
aftermath, PTI adds from Gandhinagar.
During a discussion on budgetary demands in the
Home Department, Mr Chaudhary alleged that
several political parties across the country are
holding Mr Modi responsible for the post-Godhra
riots and for inciting communal hatred. He also
alleged that on February 28, 2002 and after, Mr
Modi and other top BJP leaders "allowed the
people to express their anger" over the Godhra
incident.
______
[6]
Date: June 1, 2004
To
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India
'PMO',
South Block, Raisina Hill,
New Delhi, -110 011.
Telephone: 91-11-23012312.
Fax: 91-11-23019545 / 91-11-23016857
Respected Dr. Manmohan Singh,
As concerned citizens of a secular, plurastic and
democratic country, we feel greatly relieved by
the common people's mandate against communal
forces represented by the National Democratic
Alliance under the domination of the Sangh
Parivar in the election to the Parliament in
2004. By and large we welcome the Common Minimum
Program agreed upon by the United Progressive
Alliance, supported by the Left Front and hope
that the CMP will be worked out in more specific
terms and with time bound action - plans and
continuous monitoring agency. We believe that we
have won the battle, but also have to win the way
and we urge upon the UPA and all others to be
vigilant against the communal forces and to
launch a long-term united struggle against them
and not to fritter away the energies, time and
resources in internal bickering and struggle for
power and miss the unique opportunity offered to
us by the non-shining common people of India. We
feel strongly and hope also that if UPA
Government will complete its full term without
much hindrance and implement its program to make
people realize and feel that they too can shine
and they will.
Having seen the barbaric face of a fascist rule
under Narendra Modi in Gujarat during the spate
of anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 during which over
2000 people were butchered, thousands maimed,
scores of women raped, thousands of people
rendered homeless and many more deprived of their
sources of livelihood, we look upon the UPA
government to initiate steps to instill a sense
of security and faith among the people in secular
democratic system. And to restore the
constitutional system, rule of law, independence
of judiciary, right to equality before the law
and equal protection of the laws, right to life
and liberty and right to justice. We expect the
UPA government to give out a clear message that
no one responsible for genocide and gross
violation of human rights remains unpunished and
that no one is above law and only the law of the
land is supreme. We believe that the Union
Government has constitutional obligation under
Article 355 to protect the state (not merely the
Government) against external aggression and
internal disturbances and to ensure that the
Government of each State is carried on in
accordance with the provisions of the
constitution and it has both powers and duty to
give directions to the state for this purpose and
each state is bound to comply with such
directions.
We have witnessed how the BJP government in
Gujarat has grossly misused the draconian law of
POTA against the minorities and dissenters to
terrorize them into submission. We want the UPA
government to:
1. Set up a high-level committee to inquire
into the role of the state government including
the chief minister and his ministerial
colleagues, bureaucrats and police officials in
gross abuse of law, flagrant violation of the
Constitution, large scale violence, open
violation of constitutional rights of the people
and particularly the minorities. The committee
should also inquire each the loss of lives and
properties, assess the damages, evolve scheme of
fair, full and just compensation as complete
rehabilitation of all victim of riots.
2. Sign the international convention against torture.
3. Repeal with retrospective effect the draconian POTA.
4. Appoint independent Central review
committee and special courts to review and
conduct all POTA cases till the draconian law is
not repealed.
5. Immediately repeal the provision that
allows admission before the court confession made
before the police.
6. Make use of Article 355 of the
Constitution of India and direct the Gujarat
government to follow its 'Raj Dharma' and act
according to the Constitution. Using the powers
vested in the Central government under the same
Article, the government should implement the
recommendations of the National Human Rights
Commission, particularly the one recommending
reopening of all riot-related cases in Gujarat
and handing over their reinvestigation to the
Central Bureau of Investigation. Under Modi's
rule, the police had filed 'A' summary in over
2000 of the total 4000 cases related to rioting,
murder and rape.
7. Ensure effective legal representation of
the central government and its agencies like the
CBI in all riot-related cases put up before the
Supreme Court.
8. Immediately remove the Governor of
Gujarat for his failure to prevent the Modi
government from violating the law of the land.
9. To take steps to streamline the judicial
institutions at all levels to ensure free, fair
and impartial administration of justice to all
sections of society.
10. Appoint new central government counsel in the state.
11. The Government of India should consider
recommending to RBI and to other different
concerned agencies to write off repayment of
debts of riot victims who have no means left to
repay the amount of Loans taken by them.
12. To take steps to desaffronise all
institutions and aspects of society by the ideals
of secularism and democracy.
We, the concerned citizens of Gujarat are sending
you this letter with immense faith and hope. We
will be thankful if you would respond to our
letter.
Shri Chunibhai Vaidya Justice A. P. Ravani (Retired)
Achyutbhai Yagnik SHRI GIRISHBHAI PATEL
Prof. Abid Shamsi Indubhai Jani
Ms. Sheba George Mahesh Bhatt
Ms. Sofia Khan Manishi Jani
Hanif Lakdawala Anand Yagnik
Contact Address:
C/o. Sanchetana Community Health and Research Centre
Institute For Initiatives in Education
O-45/46, New York Trade Centre, Nr. Thaltej Cross Roads
Ahmedabad - 380054.
______
[7]
Press Release
Date: 31st May 2004
Let us hope that the appointment of Retired
Justice Mr. H. U. Mahida - who was the judge of
the fast track court which delivered the
judgement on the Best Bakery case - is not a
political statement of the Gujarat Electricity
Board. The GEB official says that out of all of
the candidates who applied for the post, Retired
Justice Mr. H. U. Mahida was the most eligible.
It is time to read the number of irrelevant,
unwanted, and up to a certain extent, the
unconstitutional remarks in the Best Bakery
Judgement of the Fast Track Court of Vadodara. We
would like to quote a few such paragraphs, which
raise fundamental questions about the judgement’s
poor understanding of crucial aspects of the
constitution.
The Judgement says that "(59) In the Constitution
of India, the provision of only ten percent
reservation had been provided only for ten years.
[
] But because of the unjust (iniquitous)
reservation system brain drain (occurs) -- and
intellectual capital gets drawn to foreign
countries. [
] In a good government, one should
get opportunities according to
competence/qualifications. So that there be no
atrocity on, and harassment of, the exploited
(Dalit) and the oppressed, they must for their
safety and security get tight protection. [
] It
is the duty of the State to ensure that (persons
of such) competence/merit does not experience
obstacles due to reasons of shallow goals. It is
against human rights to have a situation where
the meritorious and competent do not get
opportunities, and those who inspite of not
having competence and qualifications are given
benefits because of reservations. [
]".
We fail to understand the link between a case of
massacre in which innocent people were burnt
alive with anti-reservation arguments. This is
not only irrelevant to the case but also against
the constitutional provision of reservation, a
policy based on the principle of positive
discrimination for the deprived sections of
society.
The judgement further states "(67) As a result of
the rage and fury of a mob, four children and
three ladies were consumed in the flames, and it
was a Hindu mob that murdered three Hindus under
the mistaken impression that they were Muslims."
We fail to understand what message the judgement
wants to convey by saying: "mistaken impression
that they were Muslims." Instead of going into
the role of the police and the public prosecutor
regarding the investigation and handling of the
case, a sizeable part of the judgement is devoted
to establishing a context and rationale for the
violence. Despite the fact that this judgement
released the accused of murder, rioting, and
arsenal, the judge provided only a vague
treatment of the facts at hand and spent the
final 8 of 24 pages justifying the egregious
actions of the defendants. This section of the
judgement contains such gratuitous statements and
speculations with little immediate relevance to
the facts of the case.
We may ignore such statements when made by
ordinary persons, but when it becomes part of a
judgement in the trial of gruesome murders like
Best Bakery, we must worry about the attitude
underlying them.
Rohit Prajapati
Trupti Shah
Human Rights Activists, Vadodara.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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
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bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
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