SACW | 3 June 2004
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Wed Jun 2 21:27:53 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 3 June, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Lessons from the Indian elections - Policy
agendas and alliance politics (Rehman Sobhan)
[2] India: There aren't any happy endings (J Sri Raman)
[3] India: Sonia Gandhi and the Hypocrisy of the Saffron NRIs ( Vijay Prashad)
[4] India: 20 years after Golden Temple killings,
Sikhs pray new PM will bring justice (Randeep
Ramesh)
[5] Resources & Events:
(i) New Publication: "Eqbal Ahmad -- Between Past
and Future: Selected Essays on South Asia"
(Edited by Dohra Ahmad, Iftikhar Ahmad and Zia
Mian )
(ii) Film Screening: Documentary on surviving
women freedom fighters who fought for
Independence from the British (Kuala Lumpur, June
8)
[iii] Publications : "Indian Perspectives on
Inter-Faith Relations Etc Booklets by Yogi Sikand"
[iv] Film on Anti - Sikh Riots of 1984
--------------
[1]
The Daily Star [Bangladesh]
June 03, 2004
LESSONS FROM THE INDIAN ELECTIONS
POLICY AGENDAS AND ALLIANCE POLITICS
by Rehman Sobhan
(This is the second of the author's two-part
series on the Indian polls. The first part was
published on June 1, 2004.)
After much negotiation a new government is now in
office in Delhi with Dr. Manmohan Singh as Prime
Minister. It is a coalition government built
around the Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance (UPA), which contested the recent Lok
Sabha elections. However a number of collateral
allies of the UPA have stayed out of the Cabinet,
but will extend voting support in the Parliament.
In UP the two principal allies of the alliance,
the SP and BSP, are both outside the government.
The Left Front, after much soul researching, has
also opted to stay out, but has permitted the
leader of the CPI-M Parliamentary Party, Somnath
Chatterjee, to be nominated for the important
post of Speaker of the Lok Sabha. India is
therefore going to be exposed to another phase of
coalition politics which initially sustained the
Janata government's of Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral
from 1996-98, and then the BJP led NDA from 1998
to 2004. It is evident that alliance politics has
now become a permanent feature of India's
political landscape and the strong one party
regime associated with the Congress Party is now
a part of history. So how sustainable is the
present coalition led by Manmohan Singh?
Apart from the Left Front, none of the current
allies of the Congress have strong ideological or
policy-oriented concerns. All other members of
the alliance are regional parties with state
specific agendas and concerns who have at some
point been in contestation with the Congress for
State-level power. Whilst none of these regional
parties will contend with the Congress on major
national policy issues they will have
issue-specific concerns, including contests over
positions of office and patronage. This has
already became apparent in the arguments over the
distribution of portfolios amongst the coalition
partners. However, the main concern of the
regional parties will be over State-Centre
relations where acts of omission or commission by
the Centre during the tenure of the current
regime are likely to generate friction, tensions,
and even disruption in the alliance.
To reconcile these heterogenous political
interests will demand extraordinary political
skill from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which
could take up his time as well as constrain his
authority to move decisively in areas of both
domestic and foreign policy. His policy
initiatives will therefore have to take into
account that adverse reactions from any of his
coalition partners could end up in defection.
Indeed some of his allies may, at any moment,
calculate that they can negotiate a better deal
with the BJP. For example, during the 1999
election, the DMK was, in Tamil Nadu, a direct
ally of the BJP, whilst the AIDMK sided with the
Congress. It is arguable that the RJD, led by
Laloo Prasad Yadav, has been quite consistent in
its opposition to the BJP due to its exclusive
power base among the Dalit or Untouchable classes
and the Muslims of Bihar who have great faith in
Laloo's non-communal record. But Laloo is a
mercurial person whose political loyalties can
never be taken for granted. However, Dr. Singh
will retain the power to play-off one partner
against the other as well as hold out the threat
to replace any of them in the coalition by
bringing in the Left Front, the SP, or even the
BSP. This game of manipulating alliance partners
is not likely to be Manmohan Singh's strong
suite. He is a straightforward person who is more
likely to be interested in governance and
policymaking than in deal making.
The only member of the Congress-led alliance
whose opposition to the BJP remains implacable,
because it derives from ideological issues, is
the Left Front. In the final analysis the only
firm guarantee for the Congress to complete its
full tenure in office is to ensue that the Left
Front remains an integral part of the government
by joining the Cabinet led by Manmohan Singh.
This may still not assure a complete majority for
the Congress if all its other allies were to
defect. However, with the secure ballast of the
Left Front's support it could ensure that the RJD
and NCP and a few smaller allies would assure it
a safe majority in the Lok Sabha throughout its 5
year tenure of office.
Whilst a Congress-Left Alliance may provide the
only secure basis for stable governance in India
to build such an alliance between the Congress
and the Left Front will pose a complex set of
dilemmas for the Congress. The Left Front has a
definite political perspective. Popular rhetoric,
originating from the business-owned media in
India and a Western media which maintains a quite
superficial view about policies and politics in
India, projects the Left Front as some sort of
Stalinist political force. However, in practice,
the Left Front of today after long exposure to
state level power in both West Bengal and Kerala,
has become a much more pragmatic organization
with few hardline positions. Its list of demands
submitted to the Congress for incorporation in
the Common Minimum Programme is distinguished by
its moderation. Such issues as the pro-poor
orientation of the policies and expenditures of
the Congress-led government are indistinguishable
from the position of the World Bank or most
European governments who also emphasise
"pro-poor" policies. The Left Front's position on
privatization is not ideological but pragmatic
arguing that profit making state owned
enterprises (SOEs) should not be divested. Indeed
it was the BJP, under the inspiration of its
Minister for Privatization, Arun Shourie, who
took the ideological position advocated by the
World Bank-IMF, that all SOEs, profitable or not,
should be put on the auction bloc.
Just as the Left Front is likely to be flexible
in its thinking, Manmohan Singh is likely to be
responsive to the changed circumstances in which
he has assumed office. It should be recognized
that the reforms initiated by Manmohan Singh as
Finance Minister under the Congress government of
Narashima Rao were a product of the thinking of
the 1980s. At that time, market-oriented
structural adjustment reforms were still the
dominant fashion in global development thinking.
Most developing countries, including Bangladesh,
had already initiated a process of reforms under
World Bank/IMF direction. India, had initiated
its own reforms after 1984 during the Congress
regime of Rajiv Gandhi. At that time Manmohan
Singh was Deputy Chairman of the Indian Planning
Commission. When Singh assumed office in 1991 as
Finance Minister, India's macro-economic
situation was particularly adverse. Singh used
this opportunity to accelerate the pace of
reforms through a macro-economic stabilization
programme and accelerated the process of
deregulation initiated in the 1980s. The economic
reforms in India were thus not initiated by Singh
but accelerated and broadened by him. But to hear
the world media discuss the subject one could
assume that India was being run as some sort of
command economy where Manmohan Singh had emerged
out of nowhere in 1991 as a Milton Friedman-like
economic liberaliser.
In actual practice, Singh as a veteran senior
bureaucrat, had since the late 1960s been
associated with a policy regime associated with
the Congress Party which ascribed an important
but far from exclusive role to the state. During
this time Manmohan Singh had, under successive
Congress administrations, held the position of
Advisor to the Commerce and then the Finance
Ministry, Secretary, Ministry of Finance,
Governor, Reserve Bank of India, Member-Secretary
and eventually Deputy Chairman of the Indian
Planning Commission. He had also for 3 years
served as Secretary General of the South
Commission, chaired by the late Julius Nyerere,
no patron of the Washington Consensus, which
produced a strong report challenging the
orthodoxies of the development discourse of the
1980s as well as the existing Northern hegemony
of the global economic order. Singh therefore
came to office in 1991 with a much more nuanced
view on economic reforms and was no ideological
liberaliser. Towards the end of his tenure as
Finance Minister Singh was already facing some
challenge to his reform programmes from his own
Cabinet colleagues who apprehended that some of
the outcomes of the reforms could be electorally
damaging to the party in the forthcoming
elections. This apprehension was not without
foundation since the Congress was voted out of
office in the 1996 elections.
The BJP regime continued the reforms accelerated
by Singh during his tenure. In some areas, such
as privatisation, they became more pro-active
which generated its own backlash within the BJP.
Arun Shourie's initiative to sell off shares in
the profitable energy sector SOEs came under
strong opposition from some of his more
nationalist-oriented cabinet colleagues known as
the Swadeshis. The green signal to go ahead with
the sale of the energy SOEs was only given in the
last days of the BJP regime.
The current hype that Manmohan Singh, was the
avatar of economic reforms (World Bank style) in
India is thus as fanciful as the belief shared by
the media and the Mumbai Stock Exchange that the
presence of the Left Front in the alliance will
resurrect the ghost of P.C. Mahalanobis and the
closed economy of the 1950s. There is however a
more substantive consideration for Manmohan to
consider where he may find that his alliance with
the Left Front is more relevant to his fortunes
as Prime Minister of India than the speculations
of the Western media or the gyrations of the
stock market.
The voters of India, mostly the more numerically
large deprived classes, have indicated that they
are far from satisfied with the outcome of
India's reform process. This is without prejudice
to the outcome of the unending debate amongst
India's economists as to whether poverty has
significantly been reduced or not. The electorate
in India, over the last quarter' of a century,
have cast their vote with reasonable consistency,
against the incumbent government, whatever be its
political complexion. In 1989 the Congress was
voted out of office and replaced by the Janata
Dal led by V.P. Singh. In 1991 the Janata Dal was
voted out of office and the Congress replaced it.
In 1996 the Congress was again replaced by the
Janata Dal. In 1998 and more so in 1999 the BJP
replaced the Janata Dal only to be voted out of
office in 2004. This suggests that 6 sitting
governments in India have been voted out of
National office in 15 years, during a period when
economic reforms were moving ahead with some
celerity and economic growth was quite robust. At
the State level incumbent governments have been
regularly voted out of office over the last 15
years. Most recently we have seen the defeat of
Congress led governments in Madhya Pradesh and
Rajhastan, led by Chief Ministers who were
believed to be role models. More recently we have
seen the defeat of the globally applauded Chief
Ministers of Tamil Nadu (TDP) and Karnataka
(Congress). The only government which has
remained immune to the anti-incumbency vote has
been the Left Front which was elected to office
in West Bengal in 1977 and has remained in office
for 27 years whilst around 10 Prime Ministers
have come and gone in New Delhi.
Is there a message to be found in the voting
behaviour of the Indian electorate? I would argue
that the voters were giving a clear message to
the political parties of India, with the
exception of the Left Front in West Bengal. The
voters message states: We do not believe that you
care for the concerns of ordinary people. You
have pursued policies which have been good for a
certain class of people which has left us where
we were while social disparities have widened. We
do not understand GDP growth figures, we only
know that the benefits of this growth are
inequitably distributed. This arrangement is
unacceptable in a democracy. I want water to
drink and for my parched lands. I want a decent
quality of education for my children. I want to
be treated like a human being when I go to a
State hospital. I do not want to be oppressed by
police but to be protected by them from
politically patronized criminals.
This message of perceived neglect and injustice
is not just being proclaimed by voters in India.
In every part of the world where public opinion
has been consulted within a reasonable degree of
freedom the same message is conveyed by the
voters. In Argentina, the show case for economic
reforms in Latin America, a virtual revolution
has thrown out a series of governments. In Peru,
Ecuador and Bolivia, reformist regimes have been
voted out of office and occasionally, as in
Venezuela, replaced by a quite radical regime.
The political life of the current regime in
Mexico hangs by a thread. In the most populous
country of Latin America, Brazil, a regime, led
by a labour leader known to the world as Lula,
who spent his political life challenging the
Washington Consensus style economic reforms, has
been voted into office after 3 unsuccessful
attempts in Presidential elections. Across
Eastern Europe, successive regimes of
ex-communists and anti-communists, all associated
with reforms, have been periodically voted out of
office.
Over the last decade in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and
Nepal incumbent regimes, with strong commitment
to reforms, have been evicted from office as a
result of elections. In Indonesia, once the
success story of reform, the patron of reforms,
President Soeharto, was unceremoniously evicted
from office by the people. In South Korea and
Thailand incumbent regimes have been voted out of
office after the 1997 financial crisis. The only
regime which has survived reform has been Russia,
an oligarchic dictatorship, under President's
Yeltsin and Putin, who have both frustrated free
elections in order to ensure that their corrupt
regimes and highly unjust policies, can never be
taken to account by their voters.
The lessons to be learnt from this manifestation
of public will across the developing and former
Socialist world is that economic reforms of the
sort put in place across the world over the last
2 decades, whether under the diktat of the World
Bank-IMF or by more indigenously motivated
reformers such as Manmohan Singh or the BJP, have
yet to secure the mandate of the less privileged
members of their society. Much more can be
written on the intrinsic limitations of the
traditional reform process or why they do not
excite the voters. Here let me conclude by saying
that if Manmohan Singh wishes to both continue in
office for the next 5 years and more to the
point, be remembered by the people of India
rather than the Indian Stock Market or the London
Economist, long after he leaves office, then he
may have to rethink his entire approach to
economic reforms. Such a reform process, will
have to take cognizance of the message of the
voters. They will have to incorporate the
concerns of farmers, workers, the day labourers,
the small businesspersons, the salaried middle
class, the unemployed youth, the destitute, the
disabled and above all the women in each of these
categories, all of whom have felt excluded from
the benefits of the reform process.
So far it was assumed that the only people who
need to be motivated through reforms were large
business houses and foreign investors
particularly the speculators whose volatile
behaviour excites so much media comment and the
anxiety of the IMF for "correct" behaviour by
Finance Ministers. But this elite class is only
part of the growth equation in any society. The
majority of people who drive the economy and who
determine the outcome of elections come from more
modest backgrounds. A meaningful reform agenda
therefore needs to be designed which gives this
underclass a direct stake in the growth process,
whether by ownership of assets or through
enhancement of market opportunities, access to
credit, quality education, or simply a regular
source of employment. This refocusing of
priorities will graduate the reform process from
promoting growth which may but rarely does
benefit the poor into a process where the
deprived remain both an integral part of the
growth process as well as its beneficiaries. Such
reforms will be more economically as well as
politically sustainable.
When the voters of India and across South Asia,
living in its villages and bustees, can identify
a regime which prioritises their concerns through
a genuinely democratic policy regime, they will
re-elect them to office. Until more just regimes
ascend to electoral power in South Asia holding
political office is likely to remain an insecure
business. That is likely to remain so unless a
regime can "manage" the outcome of the electoral
process as was the practice in some countries in
South Asia up to the 1990s and remains so in
others even today.
Rehman Sobhan in Chairman, Centre for Policy Dialogue.
_____
[2]
The Daily Times [Pakistan]
June 03, 2004
THERE AREN'T ANY HAPPY ENDINGS
by J Sri Raman
There is no word from Mr Vajpayee or Mr Advani to
explicitly recant on their recent rhetoric over
the "India-Pakistan peace moves". These moves
were no more convincing to many, including this
columnist, than an Adolf Hitler announcement
abjuring war may have been
There are no fairy tale endings in real life -
especially in the political life of a country.
Parties can come together to form a ruling
coalition, after much strife and struggle, but
seldom do they live happily ever after. The
problems of the new alliance in New Delhi are,
thus, nothing new. What is less realised is that
witches and other vile creatures, vanquished at
the end of the fairy tale, don't stay put in the
netherworld forever. Nor are those dislodged from
power through democratic means going to accept
defeat and walk into the sunset without further
ado.
In less than three weeks since the declaration of
election results of the Lok Sabha (Lower House of
India's Parliament), there have been a series of
notices served by the rejected Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) and associates that they are not
going to accept and abide by the electoral
mandate, in any but a technical sense. The BJP,
of course, is going to sit in the opposition in
parliament. It, however, has left no doubt about
its determination to demonstrate that the
peoples' mandate makes no difference.
It has made this point in the most shocking and
sordid manner through its response to the
inevitable outcome of the mandate - the
appointment of Sonia Gandhi as the country's
prime minister. No sooner had President A P J
Abdul Kalam summoned Mrs Gandhi, as the head of
the single largest party in the Lok Sabha, to
discuss the formation of a new government than
the BJP raised a banner of rebellion against the
verdict. Three of the stranger specimens from the
BJP menagerie were unleashed, and they launched a
wild assault on parliamentary democracy as India
has known it.
Govindacharya, former BJP ideologue, exiled a
couple of years ago from the party for candidly
describing outgoing Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee as a 'mask', surfaced from nowhere to
announce a 'self-respect movement'. This was to
oppose the ascent to the highest office of a
'foreigner', as Italian-born Sonia Gandhi was
called despite her full Indian citizenship and
her record as the leader of the opposition in the
outgoing Lok Sabha.
A wilder attack was mounted by former
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who
ought to have been more aware of the norms of the
Westminster-model democracy of Indian adoption.
She threatened to cut off her tresses, wear
white, sleep on the floor and survive on green
gram until Mrs Gandhi withdrew from the race. The
attempt to rouse obscurantist passions was
obvious. Uma Bharati, saffron-clad chief minister
of Madhya Pradesh joined in and spoke of
resigning on the day of a 'foreign' takeover. The
media, not embarrassed at all about its exit
polls proving so fake, claimed that the
development had deeply distressed Mr Vajpayee. As
I write, however, we hear that he has broken his
silence on the issue to say that he, too, was of
the same opinion as the infamous three.
Mrs Gandhi, according to the same media, has
silenced the three and the rest of her critics by
her 'stunning sacrifice', rejecting the
premiership offered to her on a platter. This may
be true, for the time being. The more important
point, however, is that the Swarajs and Bharatis
of Indian politics, the fascists who had become
more than a fringe over the past few years, have
tasted blood. They have seen and shown that they
have a power beyond parliamentary mandates.
Mr Vajpayee was switching over to a less
saintly-looking role after a session of the BJP
policymakers and parliamentarians, where not he,
but former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani was
chosen as the leader of the opposition in the Lok
Sabha. The BJP has not let anyone miss the
significance of the choice. Party spokespersons
and media mouthpieces have been at pains to point
out that Mr Advani was the man who led the party
from a two-seat nadir to the status of the main
opposition in parliament in the early 90s - and
that he had achieved this through his Ayodhya
movement that culminated in the demolition of the
Babri Masjid and the edifice of secularism.
There is no word from Mr Vajpayee or Mr Advani to
explicitly recant on their recent rhetoric over
the 'India-Pakistan peace moves'. These moves
were no more convincing to many, including this
columnist, than an Adolf Hitler announcement
abjuring war may have been. The coming months,
however, may see the BJP and its camp returning
to the militarism and jingoism with renewed
vigour. What makes it all a matter of graver
concern is the absence of hope for an effective
response from the Congress and its coalition to
the BJP counter-offensive.
The writer is a journalist and peace activist based in Chennai, India
_____
[3]
Little India
June 3, 2004
SONIA GANDHI AND THE HYPOCRISY OF THE SAFFRON NRIS
By Vijay Prashad
It is a disgrace on the BJP that its leaders
revile the Constitution openly and use every
racist and cruelly cultural nationalist argument
against Sonia Gandhi.
I must admit I have never had anything but
contempt for the post-1967 Congress Party. It had
begun to betray the Freedom Movement before then.
But in the 1970s, the Congress had jettisoned all
the values of the anti-colonial struggle and
become the party of the establishment. All the
"Garibi Hataos" (Remove Poverty) slogans could
not conceal the fact that Indira Gandhi's party
had become enveloped in corruption and nepotism.
It shifted polices only for power and profit,
rather than the public interest.
When Mrs. Gandhi was killed in 1984, I did not
feel any happiness. Such assassinations do not
solve the broader social problems within the
institutions of India and within the Congress
Party. Indeed, the Congress then unleashed its
cadre to kill three thousand Sikhs in the matter
of three days. The 20th anniversary of this
carnage is this November.
Two of the leaders who have been publicly accused
of having a hand in this pogrom are back as
members of the Lok Sabha. The son of another thug
is also going to take a seat on the treasury
benches. It is fitting that we shall have a Sikh
Prime Minister; India remembers the Sikhs killed
by his own party two decades ago.
I heard the news of the Tamil Tigers'
assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in Chicago
bookstore. The news made me ill, and it was hard
to explain to my friends why I had to rush home
and call friends in India.
They knew that I had nothing but contempt for
Rajiv. He had been a disaster for India, heading
the words of his advisors Buta Singh and Arun
Nehru to reopen the wounds of Ayodhya, and
bankrupting the exchequer with his Bofors
adventure and his infatuation with NRI Sam
Pitroda. Rajiv Gandhi's legacy to India was the
rise of the BJP (who had hijacked his Ayodhya
antics, and almost took away Buta Singh and Arun
Nehru from him as well), and the entry of the
Indian government into a relationship with the
IMF.
Remember that in July 1991,the Indian government
had to air-lift 47 tons of gold to the Bank of
London as security against a short-term hard
currency loan of $400 million. Manmohan Singh
then said, "Negotiations with the IMF were
difficult because the world has changed. India is
not immune. India has to survive and flourish in
a world we cannot change in our own image.
Economic relations are power relations. We are
not living in a morality play." Actually, all
this was nonsense, because India had to survive
not a changed world, but it had to survive the
hefty import bill left behind after Rajiv Gandhi
had left us for his next life.
Yet, there was sorrow at the death of a man who
had, whatever his own motives, given himself to a
profession that he detested. He had seen the
turmoil of office with his grandfather, mother
and brother, and he quite openly spoke out
against his own involvement. Circumstances and a
false sense of family destiny, as well as the
Congress' pathological inability to cultivate
national leaders contributed to his entry. He
should have been voted out of office and he
should have moved to a quiet place to raise his
family. The suicide bomber did not let this
happen. She took him with her.
Rajiv and Sonia's daughter Priyanka Vadra is the
smartest of the lot. She has young children and
has an intimate knowledge of what "leadership"
means to family life. She campaigned for the
party and will advise it, but she will not, in
the present, be an active parliamentarian or
anything further. Her brother, Rahul, is a
novice, perhaps more so than Rajiv who had begun
to assist his mother and work for the Congress
long before he entered parliament to claim what
has become the birthright of the Gandhi family.
Sonia Gandhi's own refusal to become the PM has
to be seen in this lineage. Why would she want to
put herself in the line of fire when the
opposition to the Congress seems prone to want to
kill its leaders rather than tackle the party at
the hustings?
It is a disgrace on the BJP that its leaders
revile the Constitution openly and use every
racist and cruelly cultural nationalist argument
against Sonia Gandhi's right as an Indian
citizen, member of parliament and leader of the
Congress Parliamentary Committee to hold the
highest elected office in the land.
Having lost the election fair and square, Sushma
Swaraj threatened to shave her hair and Narendra
Modi once again began his nonsense about "Italy
ki beti." The Constitution says that anyone who
is a citizen can be prime minister, and it makes
no distinction in the manner of the US government
between a naturalized citizen and a citizen by
birth. There is no such distinction in India,
where there is only one kind of citizen.
Meanwhile, in the land of Indian America, the
response from the supporters of the BJP has been
as atrocious, but more hypocritical. Here we
champion pluralism and demand the rights of
Hindus to worship as they must and fight to get
Indian (sorry, Hindu) Americans elected to
political office. We want our rights here as
human beings, and indeed are incensed when we are
discriminated against. All this is as it should
be. Why should we not demand pluralism,
tolerance, rationality and dialogue?
But these same people look back to India with a
perverted kind of nostalgia, tempered by guilt
for having left in the first place, and want to
see Bharatmata given over only to Hindus and to
have only Hindus in power.
Govindacharaya is their hero because he went to
see the president and demanded that a woman born
in Italy not be allowed (he is charitable, for he
says that for now he will not raise the issue
about the foreignness of the children).
These same Yankee Hindutvawadis want to see India
as a theocracy and a racially defined state, one
that says Hindus first, Hindus second, Hindus
forever. Others are not welcome, or if they are,
they must live under the sufferance of the Hindus.
When Sonia Gandhi almost became prime minister,
the web bristled with the vitriol of our Yankee
Hindutva writers, many of whom piled on abuses
that are not fit to be printed in this magazine.
They wrote malevolently and violently with no
sense of the Hindu tolerance that they often
mouth. The anti-Christian tendency was so strong
that I was reminded of the anger at Bobby
Jindal's conversion to Christianity. Actually, by
the logic of these Yankee Hindutva writers, Bobby
did the right thing: when in America, become
Christian, because why should Hindus be allowed
to attain office here when they can do so in
Mother India?
The Congress is in power. The saffron NRIs cannot
bear it. Their emergence in the US had coincided
with the rise of the BJP in India. They got B.K.
Agnihotri as ambassador at large, they got the
relationship between India and Israel going, to
open doors for their relationship with the
Israeli lobby in Washington, D.C., they got some
India newspapers to open their columns to their
intellectuals.
Suddenly Hindutva had become the in-thing, whose
fashion might fade with the election results. The
anger on the Internet, and elsewhere, against
Sonia Gandhi is as much a result of their
frustration at being turned away by the people.
They had no economic agenda to deal with
IMFundamentalism, and nothing to offer the
unemployed and hungry. All they wanted to feed
the people for votes is the gloss of "India
Shining" and the sheen of Hindutva. The Indian
electorate spurned them.
Good for them. Good for Sonia Gandhi for
listening to her "inner voice." Some of these
fascists are crazy and one of them might well
have assassinated her. That was a provocation of
little worth. Her family has shed enough blood
for its own dynastic delusions. We don't need
more Gandhian martyrs.
In the darkest of nights, the stars are seen
clearest. The rule of Hindutva was a dark night,
and the struggles of India's people had the
luster of stars. Let us hope that these stars
will rule their leaders, egg them to justice and
refuse to entertain intolerance and cruelty again.
_____
[4]
The Guardian [UK]
June 3, 2004
20 YEARS AFTER GOLDEN TEMPLE KILLINGS, SIKHS PRAY NEW PM WILL BRING JUSTICE
Randeep Ramesh in Amritsar
Sitting in the front yard of a low-slung grey
concrete house in Punjab's Panjwar village,
Kashmir Singh says he wants his son Paramjit to
return home before he dies, and he thinks that
India's new prime minister can help.
Paramjit has not been seen near the village paddy fields for two decades.
The 75-year-old farmer says that because India's
leader, Manmohan Singh, is a Sikh, he would
understand. "Manmohan is an educated man, but
most important, he is a Sikh. After so much
wrong, I know he would see how much good there
can be if these boys can come back home."
Paramjit left to join a violent campaign for an
independent country called Khalistan, essentially
a Sikh homeland to be carved from India's Punjab.
Like many Sikh youths at the time, he fell under
the spell of a charismatic preacher turned
militant, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
His family paid a high price for his dissent:
Kashmir Singh's home was levelled by the Indian
army in 1992 and a few years later his wife and
youngest son disappeared after being detained by
police.
Months of bomb blasts and shootings culminated in
Operation Bluestar, when, 20 years ago this week,
the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple in
Amritsar, the holiest Sikh shrine, to capture
Bhindranwale's armed band of separatists. Much of
the temple's spiritual centre, the Akal Takht,
was reduced to rubble.
Anger boiled over in the Sikh community. India's
prime minister, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated
by her Sikh bodyguards. This was followed by
organised attacks against the kinsmen of her
killers. The army was shaken by mutinies by Sikh
soldiers. Sikhs were viewed with suspicion and
tarred as terrorists, and democracy was suspended
for nearly a decade in Punjab. The period of
violence claimed nearly 40,000 lives.
Given how relatively recently these events took
place and the amount of blood shed, many
commentators have said that having a Sikh as
prime minister from a party that crushed Sikh
militancy is a triumph for democracy.
"Can you imagine a Muslim becoming president of
the US in the next decade? The very idea seems
ridiculous. That is a measure of what India has
achieved," wrote Swaminathan Aiyar, a columnist
for the Sunday Times. In Punjab's villages,
people have lower expectations.
"It is good that we have a Sikh PM. But I am
afraid the only thing that will change for us is
that people will no longer confuse Sikhs with
Osama bin Laden, " said Jagbir Singh, the headman
of Panjwar village.
The scars of the conflict are still visible here
in northern India. Sikh leaders say there are
three main issues for the new government to
tackle. First, an amnesty for rebel fighters.
Second, a package of economic measures to stem
the growing unemployment. Third, justice for the
victims of anti-Sikh pogroms.
"Manmohan Singh should take the initiative to
heal the wound created by his own party, the
Congress, in Punjab," said Joginder Singh
Vendanti, the head priest of the Golden Temple.
Allowing separatists to return home to live a
normal life is not as unlikely as it appears. In
2001 the names of more than 100 Sikhs living
abroad were removed from an official blacklist.
Several came back to live in Punjab.
Paramjit Singh, who now lives in Pakistan, heads
an armed Khalistani insurgent group which this
year was blamed for the bombing of a busy railway
line. His name figures, along with four other
Sikhs, on a list of 20 suspected terrorists whom
India wants extradited.
More urgent are the dimming job prospects in
Punjab, which have seen young people become
disenchanted with politics, an uncomfortable echo
of the past. "A package is needed to raise the
morale of the people. Give Punjab what it has
always needed: better prices for its wheat crop,
better water and power supply and improve
small-scale industries. If nothing is done there
could be trouble," said Patwant Singh, a
historian.
Hoping to capitalise on this discontent is Dal
Khalsa, the political wing of armed Sikh rebels,
which was banned until 2000.
"We stand for a sovereign Sikh state through
democratic means," said Kanwarpal Singh, Dal
Khalsa's general secretary, who spent two years
in prison under India's terrorism laws. "The
Muslims got Pakistan, the Hindus got Hindustan
[India]. The Sikhs missed the bus."
But what rankles most is the state's failure to
prosecute those responsible for the riots of
1984. The army was brought in to quell a national
wave of lynchings and arson after Indira Gandhi's
assassination. The worst violence was in Delhi,
where more than 2,500 Sikhs were murdered in a
few days.
Yet only half a dozen people have been convicted
of the killings. Some of the accused have even
gone on to become prominent Congress politicians.
Eight commissions have investigated the failings
of the police and the judiciary, but little has
resulted from their recommendations. Another
commission is due to announce its findings in
November.
Dalbir Kaur's husband, Surat Singh, was clubbed
to death in November 1984 by a mob. She was
forced to leave her Delhi home and live with her
four children in a tent until a welfare
organisation rehoused her.
"If they could find and hang the killers of
Indira Gandhi in a few weeks, why have my
husband's murderers never been brought to
justice?" she said.
The Congress party won the last elections by
promising to end intra-religious violence, and
bring justice to its victims. HS Phoolkar, a
lawyer acting for the families of the dead, said:
"The Congress party used the issue of the Gujarat
riots to attack its political opponents. But they
have done nothing for those who suffered in the
anti-Sikh riots.
"Let us see whether Manmohan Singh can take on his own party over the issue."
Operation Bluestar
Operation Bluestar, depending on which book you
read, began either on June 4 1984 or June 5. It
marked the beginning of a period that was to
prove the greatest test of India's national unity
since independence in 1947.
More than 1,000 people were killed in the army's
attack to dislodge militant Sikhs, led by fiery
preacher Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who had
barricaded themselves into the religion's holiest
shrine, the Golden Temple of Amritsar.
The army's actions inflamed moderate Sikhs, who
were affronted by the desecration of the Golden
Temple, and led to support for a separate Sikh
state of Khalistan, which was to be carved out of
India's Punjab.
Later that year Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards.
Bloody reprisals followed and innocent people
were targeted in violent anti-Sikh riots, which
shook the country's cities and claimed the lives
of thousands. Today in India some compare the
killings to Nazi Germany's Kristallnacht.
The unrest lasted more than 10 years. Democracy
was suspended as the state was occupied by the
Indian army. The security forces eventually
crushed the Khalistani movement by adopting a
"bullet-for-bullet" policy of extra-judicial
killings. More than 40,000 people died.
Sikhs make up only 2% of India's population. But
members of the religion, founded in the 16th
century as an alternative to Hinduism and Islam,
are among the most prosperous in India.
Not only does the country have a Sikh prime
minister, many of the religion's adherents are
prominent in the army, business and civil
service. For now, Khalistan is an idea whose time
appears to have passed.
_____
[5]
=======================
RESOURCES AND EVENTS:
=======================
(i)
Eqbal Ahmad -- Between Past and Future: Selected Essays on South Asia
Edited by Dohra Ahmad, Iftikhar Ahmad and Zia Mian (Oxford University
Pakistan, 2004)
To order see http://www.connect2mall.com/oup/index.asp
Selected from more than thirty years of writing, "Between Past and
Future" brings together for the first time some of Eqbal Ahmad's most
important essays, magazine articles, newspaper columns and interviews on
South Asia, focusing in particular on Pakistan.
In these writings, Eqbal Ahmad illustrates how history, identity, power
and privilege have made Pakistan what it is today, and points the way to
understanding how the nature of Pakistan's state, its society, radical
Islam and nuclear weapons are shaping a perhaps fatal path for the
country's future. He assesses the contemporary crisis of the Third
World, reflects on Pakistan's independence, the troubled relationship
between Pakistan and India, the struggle over Kashmir, the tragedy of
Afghanistan, and what he saw as the growing dangers to Pakistan.
"Between Past and Future" includes a very personal and powerful foreword
by Pervez Hoodbhoy to Eqbal Ahmad, his life and work.
_____
[ii]
FREEDOM FIGHTERS
Sagari Chhabra (India) is a national and
international award-winning filmmaker. She is
also a poet and author of 'The Professional
Woman's Dreams'. She holds post-graduate degrees
in Communication, from Washington State
University, U.S.A and the University of Delhi.
She is also an activist with human rights, women
and environment groups. She is the honorary
director of SOCH - Social Organisation for Change.
Sagari is the writer, producer and director of
'Asli Azaadi' (True Freedom) which documents the
surviving women freedom fighters who fought for
Independence from the British. This film includes
a segment of the Indian National Army, which
included people of Indian origin from Malaysia,
Thailand, Singapore & Burma. 'True Freedom' has
been screened to applause and rave reviews at the
Norwegian Film Festival and the Golden Gate
Festival, San Francisco. It was also broadcasted
on National Network, at prime time in India.
International Women's Association [IWA] is proud
to screen this must see film. The film seems
simple enough at first glance, but the lingering
feeling of pride that you will share with the
"Freedom Fighters" takes you by surprise and
leaves with you a sense of achievement. In
addition to that Ms. Sagari Chhabra , director
will be with us for a discussion session after
the screening.
Date : 8th June 2004, Tuesday
Venue : Auditorium, National Art Gallery ( Balai Seni Lukis Negara)
2, Jalan Temerloh, off Jalan Tun Razak
Kuala Lumpur
Time : Registration 10.30 am
Start at 11.00 am Cost : RM 15 (Members)
RM 20 (Non members)
Booking : Nasrin Tel : 2094 9746 H/P : 012 917 4302
Maria Tel : 7957 0516
______
[iii]
PUBLICATIONS: INDIAN PERSPECTIVES ON INTER-FAITH RELATIONS ETC.
Dear Friend,
I thought you might be interested in some of our
publications, details of which are given below.
The Shirdi Sai Baba and His Message of Communal
Harmony: This booklet provides a glimpse into the
life and teachings of the renowned Sufi, the Sai
Baba of Shirdi, focusing in particular on his
message of communal harmony. It also looks at how
the Sai Baba tradition has been undergoing a
process of deliberate Brahminisation in the
decades after the Babaís death.
Inter-Religious Dialogue and Liberation Theology:
This booklet consists of interviews with Sundar
Raj Lourduswamy (Catholics Bishops Conference of
India, New Delhi), A.Suresh (Catholics Bishops
Conference of India, New Delhi) Madhu Prasad
(SAHMAT, New Delhi), Satianathan Clarke (United
Theological College, Bangalore), and Rai Mohan
Pal (former editor of Radical Humanist).
Religion, Dialogue and Justice: This booklet
consists of interviews with T.K.Oommen, Eleanor
Zelliot, Pradeep Sequeira, D.R.Goyal, Mohan Raju,
Shah Qadri Syed Mustafa Rifai Jilani, S.Lazar,
Urvashi Butalia, Wahiduddin Khan and Anthony Raj
Thumma.
Hindu-Muslim Syncretic Shrines in Karnataka
[pp.60]: This booklet examines the history of
seventeen saints and religious figures in the
south Indian state of Karnataka, focussing their
role in promoting inter-communal harmony and
amity.
Crossing the Border: Shared Hindu-Muslim
Traditions [pp.52]: This booklet is a collection
of short essays on men of God who spent their
lives crusading against communal rivalries,
calling for Hindus and Muslims and others to
recognise their common humanity and live in peace
and harmony. Included are pieces on Guru Nanak,
Bulhe Shah, Dara Shikoh, Sarmad Shahid, Mirza
Mazhar Jan-e-Janan, Kutuban and Ras Khan, as well
as essays on the Imamshahi Satpanth in Gujarat,
the Natha-Tantra interface in Bengal, and the Meo
Muslim Mahabharata.
The Chishti Sufis of India [pp.48]: This booklet
provides a general introduction to the life and
teachings of the great Chishti Sufi masters of
India, focussing on their role in promoting peace
and harmony between people of different faiths.
It also includes excerpts from their writings and
poetry.
The Islamic Movement and the Political Challenge
[pp: 31]. This booklet is a summary in English of
an Arabic book written by the Lebanese-born
Islamist political activist Mustafa Tahan,
exploring the vexed issue of political Islam
[Islamism] and its bearing on questions such as
democracy, secularism and the rights of
minorities and women.
The Deendar Anjuman [pp.64]: This booklet looks
at the teachings and history of the now-banned
Deendar Anjuman, exploring its links with the
Lahori Ahmadis. It examines the claims of the
founder of the sect, Siddiq Hussain [b.1886] of
being the incarnation of a Lingayat saint,
Channbasaveshwara and how the sect has sought to
use the cover of inter-faith dialogue to promote
its own agenda, not hesitating to use violent
means for its own purposes.
The Pranami Faith: Beyond Hindu and Muslim
[pp.80] [Author: Dominique Sila-Khan]: This
booklet provides an overview of the life and
teachings of Mahamati Prannath [Meher Raj
Thakur], the seventeenth century founder of the
Pranami religion, who claimed to be the Kalki
Avatar of the Hindus and the Imam Mahdi of the
Muslims. It focuses, in particular, on his role
in promoting inter-communal amity.
All booklets are priced at Rs. (Indian) 10 each,
plus Rs. 5 per booklet postage within India.
Payment by MO, cheque or in the form of unused
postage stamps. You can place orders by writing
to Yoginder Sikand at yogisikand at yahoo.com
Directory of Kashmiri NGOs: A copy of this
directory can be sent by email by writing to
Yoginder Sikand at ysikand at hotmail.com
If you wish to contact me, please do not press
the reply button to respond. Instead, please
address your mail to me at yogisikand at yahoo.com
Thanks.
Regards,
Yoginder Sikand
______
[iv]
Indian Express
May 06, 2004
FILM ON SIKH RIOTS EXPLORES IDENTITY, MULTICULTURALISM
Express News Service
New Delhi, May 5: Three nuns in an old,
dilapidated convent. The tension in the
atmosphere is evident as the oldest of them turns
rosary beads while another plays the piano. The
phone rings. The youngest nun attends the call
and her face displays a combination of shock and
grief.
The scene was being enacted during the shooting
of a Hindi film, Kaaya Tharan (Chrysalis) at
Dasna in UP, about 50 km from Delhi. Kaaya Tharan
is the first feature film being made by former
Doordarshan newsreader Sashi Kumar, who is now
the chairman of the Media Development Foundation,
a trust that runs the Asian College of Journalism
in Chennai.
His film, set against the backdrop of the 1984
Sikh riots, stars Joy Michael of the Yatrik
theatre group, Poonam Vasudeva, Seema Biswas and
Angad Bedi, former cricketer Bishen Singh Bedi's
son. The movie will be released in June.
The plot revolves around a nunnery that gives
shelter to a Sikh woman and her son Juggi, played
by seven-year-old Neelambari Bhattacharya - the
great-granddaughter of political stalwart E.M.S.
Namboodiripad. The story unfolds when they escape
from riot-torn Meerut and seek refuge in the
convent located in Dasna.
The film is partly based on Van Marangal
Veezhumbhol (When Big Trees Fall) - a Malayalam
short story written by bureaucrat N.S. Madhavan.
The film depicts Sikh riots, but Kumar says he
wants to look at the larger picture. ''Whether
it's the 1984 riots or Godhra carnage, they
challenge the multiculturalism of our society.
Individual identity is threatened by factors like
religion, caste and race. I'm making a statement
that individuals need space in a multicultural
society,''he says.
Michael calls it a ''human story'' and stresses
on how Kumar is trying to keep out violence. Vani
Subanna, who plays a nun, adds: ''We can't
connect with all this violence. We are old,
ailing and lost in our world until this child
comes along. Should the two be protected? The
nuns are faced with this conflict.'' Subanna is a
drama teacher at Janaki Devi College.
Neelambari, a Class 2 student of Blue Bells
School in the Capital, is of course too young to
realise the serious issues the film depicts. All
she knows is she has to deliver a good
performance. Her father, Saumyajit, a lecturer of
economics at Kirori Mal College and mother
Sumangala Damodaran, who teaches economics at
Lady Shri Ram College, accompanied her to the
shoot.
The film also features two journalists, Joseph
Maliakan and Rahul Bedi, who had covered the
riots for The Indian Express.
Some scenes have been shot in Delhi, in Civil
Lines and the Press Club at Raisina Road.
Contemporary dancer Chandralekha choreographed a
piece featuring dancer Navtej Johar and
Delhi-based Sufi singer Madan Gopal Singh
composed a song.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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/
The complete SACW archive is available at:
bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
South Asia Counter Information Project a sister
initiative, provides a partial back -up and
archive for SACW: snipurl.com/sacip
See also associated site: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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