SACW | 25-26 Aug 2004

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire   |  25 August,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[1]   Bangladesh: Government must stem growing 
tide of violence (Amnesty International)
[2]  [ India - Pakistan: Should Make Oil Not War 
! ] Geo-strategic efforts toward trade (M B Naqvi)
[3]  Tide? Or Ivory Snow? - Public Power in the Age of Empire (Arundhati Roy)
[4]  India Cracks Down on Media, NGOs in 
'Disturbed' Northeast (Syed Zarir Hussain)
[5]  India: Communal violence: Need for robust 
law on genocide (Siddharth Varadarajan)
[6]  India: BJP's new stunt (Praful Bidwai)
[7]  India:  More Hindutva at Work !
(i) Congress types should come clean on 
veneration for icons invoked by hindutva  . . .
- Savarkar is our hero: say the chief minister of 
a mixed up congress supported govt in Maharashtra
- Hedgewar is out for now from the list for naming Nagpur airport  . .
(ii) Comment by Mukul Dube on the recent antics 
by the former chief minster of Madhya Pradesh


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

[1]

BANGLADESH: GOVERNMENT MUST STEM GROWING TIDE OF VIOLENCE
Amnesty International Press release, August 24, 2004
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGASA130152004

Amnesty International is seriously concerned 
about the safety and security of people who are 
taking part in demonstrations in Bangladesh this 
week.

The demonstrations have been called by the Awami 
League to protest against bomb attacks on their 
leadership last Saturday, which left at least 19 
people dead and some 300 wounded. Following the 
attacks, police used excessive force against 
party activists at the scene.

"The Government has a clear responsibility to 
ensure that people attending these demonstrations 
are protected. A thorough and impartial 
investigation must also be carried out into 
Saturday's bomb attacks including an examination 
of why police personnel resorted to beating party 
activists at the scene of the grenade attacks, 
and why police officers reportedly refused to 
register a complaint against the attacks by 
survivors," Amnesty International said.

The Government has already ordered a one-person 
judicial inquiry but the terms of reference of 
the inquiry and its scope have not been made 
public. It has not been announced if the outcome 
of the inquiry will be made public and what steps 
will be taken against those identified as 
perpetrators of the attack.

"The inquiry should investigate all aspects of 
the incident and identify both the perpetrators 
of the attacks, as well as government authorities 
whose negligence led to a failure to provide 
adequate security to the opposition rally and 
adequate medical support to the wounded," Amnesty 
International said.

The organisation believes the inquiry should be 
extended to the investigation of previous bomb 
blasts to establish any pattern to the attacks, 
the type and make of explosive material used and 
its origin.

The bomb attacks have come at a time when 
Bangladesh is facing a number of other serious 
challenges to the promotion and protection of 
human rights.

The governmentâ*™s failure to prevent religious 
groups or criminal gangs from attacking human 
rights defenders or members of minority 
communities has only added to a heightened sense 
of insecurity.

Amnesty International is urging the Government of 
Bangladesh to ensure the safety and security of 
the following people it believes to be at risk of 
immanent attack:

Family members of the human rights defender Dr 
Humayun Azad, who died suddenly on 12 August 
whilst visiting Germany, have been threatened 
with death if they go to the airport to receive 
his body on 27 August.
The editors and journalists at the largest Bangla 
daily, Prothom Alo, who have been threatened with 
attacks by an Islamist group for publishing 
investigative reports about the activities of a 
number of madrasas (religious schools) in rural 
areas.
Members of the Ahmadiyya religious community, who 
have been the target of a hate campaign by 
Islamist groups in recent months and whose 
headquarters has been threatened with attack on 
27 August.

Amnesty International appeals to all political 
parties in Bangladesh to use their influence with 
their members and supporters to ensure that they 
do not take the law into their own hands and 
engage in mob violence.

______


[2]

The News International - August 25, 2004

[ Make Oil Not War ! ] Geo-strategic efforts toward trade

by M B Naqvi

India's Minister for Petroleum and Natural 
Resources Manishankar Aiyer has urged his own PM 
Manmohan Singh and the government to virtually 
hurry up and finalise the deal about the oil and 
gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan. His 
main argument is that the alternative to the 
overland pipeline, viz underwater pipelines, is 
ten times more expensive; thus it will be 
uneconomic for the users. Moreover, cost of the 
project will continue to rise with the delays; 
the costs now are expected to be Rupees three 
billion. The argument is entirely among the 
Indians, who are the only party that is still 
undecided. Iran is understandably enthusiastic 
while Pakistan goes on providing any security 
guarantees that India may require.

It is important to keep the reasons for India's 
indecisiveness in focus. The matter has been 
mixed up with the thinking of India's national 
security wallahs. A bit of background is 
necessary too. These security wallahs do not 
trust Pakistan and think that India will have 
given a hostage to an unreliable Pakistan. 
Moreover, India has been running a cold war with 
Pakistan. In recent decades its strategy has been 
to isolate Pakistan and that has determined 
India's course of action, particularly in 
Afghanistan and Central Asia. India has 
diligently cultivated Iran. That process has been 
facilitated by Pakistanis own unwise obsession 
with Taliban. India supported the Northern 
Alliance during the second civil war in 
Afghanistan in 1990s. By stretching a little, 
India's cultivation of China, too, can be put in 
this box.

There is little that anyone in Pakistan can 
usefully say or do about Indian strategic 
thinking, though one finds making a remark or two 
irresistible. The trouble with militaristic 
strategy-making is that emotionally determined 
enemy is supposed to have all the characteristics 
of a demon; his generously estimated capabilities 
become, for their purposes, equal to his 
intentions; it leaves no ground or scope for 
possible reconciliation, friendship or 
enlightened self-interest. The national interest 
always comprises a crude mix of what might be 
barely possible or even conceivable by way of 
military build up. It does uncommonly look like 
the small mind trying to think big and projecting 
its own deductions as doctrines. In any case, it 
has come to be a respected science, if also 
rather esoteric; this thinking is always guided 
by the interests of the local variant of 
Industrial Military Complex. It allows no 
enlightened discussion: one's side has to stretch 
out its own capabilities and resources on the 
assumption that the adversary will bring to bear 
all its capability which has to be countered - to 
the delight of vested interests. The phenomenon 
remains recognisable in all climes and places.

Politically it is anyhow necessary for New Delhi 
and Islamabad to sort out the pipelines' issue 
thoroughly. They can either remain caught up in 
the old cobwebs, spun over 57 years, by cold war 
thinking or they can break out of pettifogging 
and produce a common vision that would benefit 
the actual peoples of India and Pakistan. The 
silly idea of keeping all the options open is not 
wise. Keeping all the options open all the time 
means doing nothing remarkable or good.

What is needed is a vision of Indo-Pakistan 
relations that should become a model for the 
region as a whole, which can extend into regional 
integration for making progress economically, 
socially and culturally, with a modicum of 
political harmony. There is also a sub text here. 
Some Indians had at one time toyed with the 
notion that appealing to pre-independence unity 
of all the peoples, building on linguistic and 
cultural commonalties, including religions, and 
more trade would make Pakistan relaxed and become 
the kind of friend that India would be happy to 
live with. That is dated.

On this side too, there are decades of the old 
suspicion: The Indians have not accepted Pakistan 
at heart and would want to undo it somehow. One 
reference to reality should dispel these 
illusions and delusions: the kind of developments 
that have taken place in India, as well as in 
Pakistan preclude the possibility of a political 
reunion between Pakistan and India, such as was 
in the mind of Akhand Bharat Wallahs at one time. 
There are as powerful vested interests in 
Pakistan that will keep it a separate state, and 
a militarist one at that, indefinitely. In India 
the Hindutva brigade has marched so far that they 
will have to invent a Pakistan if there was none; 
they need a political demon to frighten the 
Indians with.

The options before both countries are stark: they 
can use, indeed misuse, emotive language to 
please the galleries about making serious efforts 
at agreement-making - and here one is talking all 
agreements all along the line over eight disputed 
subjects - without necessarily conceding anything 
from their maximal positions. The bureaucracy, 
particularly, and the politicians, in general, 
like muddling along without making any difficult 
decisions. The other alternative is that somehow 
the two states produce enough statesmanship to 
work for a vision of peace and rapid progress by 
resolving the disputes and agreeing to 
uninhibited cultural, political and economic 
relations with as free a trade as possible. 
Insofar as Pakistan is concerned, on the specific 
issue of oil and gas pipelines, it is anxious to 
give as many guarantees as India desires, as 
noted. It will earn up to $500 million in 
royalties for the transit trade in addition to 
assured oil and gas supplies for itself. In fact, 
if this Iran-India pipeline goes through, the way 
would be open for an even bigger pipeline scheme 
from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and 
Pakistan to India, as well as for some oil 
exports from Gwadar and/or Karachi.

There is no reason why the two countries cannot 
have an agreement for opening up the two-way 
transit trade for all: for Pakistani goods can 
travel by Indian railways to Bangladesh and 
beyond, while Bangladesh and India can make big 
profits by exporting by land route through 
Pakistan to Afghanistan and Central Asia. 
Pakistan can certainly compete with India in 
Afghanistan, Central Asia and wherever depending 
upon the price and quality of its goods. Such a 
free transit trade will provide welcome 
incentives to Pakistanis to improve their 
productivity.

There are international schemes of linking Far 
East and Southeast Asia with Europe by at least 
two land routes running roughly parallel; one 
through the northern parts of Asia and the other 
is intended to pass through southern parts. 
Japanese, South East Asian and South Asian goods 
can travel to Europe through South Asia and vice 
versa. The benefits to the two countries would be 
immense, including some unearned royalties.

There are myriad possibilities of progress 
inherent in Indo-Pakistan economic cooperation, 
especially in conjunction with free as well as 
preferential bilateral trade. To put it crudely, 
the two countries should happily give high value 
hostages to each other: India's investment in 
mega projects in Pakistan and Pakistan's 
investments in some big Indian projects will go a 
long way in creating mutual trust. With that the 
future of Saarc will brighten up. There will be 
then real hope for South Asia's poor. The region 
can then put itself on the road to rapid progress.

The master reason why Pakistan should reverse its 
traditional standoffishness is that the old ideas 
are no longer applicable; they were centred 
around a possible war with India on Kashmir that 
was always round the corner. After the two 
countries have gone nuclear, the idea of another 
war is simply foolish; neither side can afford to 
go to war over Kashmir or indeed anything else. 
If that basic presumption of war is knocked out, 
all the policies that were predicated on the 
likelihood of war get knocked out too. Once the 
dimensions of this huge change are assimilated, 
there would be compulsion to go over to the 
antipodal positions. And that would be logical, 
too. Pakistan was denying itself all the benefits 
of economic cooperation with India and the rest 
of the region for the sake of Kashmir. Now if 
that militaristic road to Kashmir is closed, 
there is no reason why to go on denying oneself 
what is only all too possible.



______



[3]

[Transcript of full speech by Arundhati Roy in 
San Francisco, California on August 16th, 2004]

Tide? Or Ivory Snow?
Public Power in the Age of Empire
by Arundhati Roy 	(Democracy Now!  August 24, 2004)

FULL TEXT AT
URL:  http://www.democracynow.org/static/Arundhati_Trans.shtml

 
 

______


[4]

OneWorld South Asia
25 August 2004

INDIA CRACKS DOWN ON MEDIA, NGOS IN DISTURBED NORTHEAST
Syed Zarir Hussain

IMPHAL (Manipur), Aug 25 (OneWorld) - The banning 
of a private television channel in the northeast 
Indian state of Manipur combined with the federal 
government's accusation Tuesday that at least 
five nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the 
region have links with militants has triggered a 
controversy in this already volatile region.

The twin moves have come as thousands of angry 
protestors hit the streets in Manipur, demanding 
the withdrawal of a federal anti-terror law that 
gives sweeping powers to the military to shoot at 
sight and arrest anybody without a warrant.

What has riled people in India's neglected 
northeast is the federal Home Ministry's decision 
Tuesday to place five NGOs working in the region 
on the watchlist for suspected links with rebel 
armies.

"All the five NGOs have some links with terrorist 
organizations in the northeast," India's junior 
Home Minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal told the Indian 
Parliament.

The organizations are the United Committee of 
Manipur (UCM), the Manab Adhikar Sangram Samity 
(MASS), the Northeast Coordination Committee of 
Human Rights (NECCHR), the Naga People's Movement 
for Human Rights (NPMHR), and the Naga Students' 
Federation (NSF).

The UCM is a rights group in Manipur which came 
into the limelight in 2001 after it spearheaded a 
violent agitation to oppose the extension of the 
jurisdiction of a ceasefire by New Delhi with a 
Naga tribal separatist group in Nagaland state.

MASS, NECCHR and NPHMR are all rights groups in 
Assam and Nagaland, while the NSF is an 
influential students group in Nagaland.

The NGOs, of course, vehemently deny any truck 
with terrorists. "It is very easy for the 
government to dub us pro-militant. But the fact 
is that whoever raises the banner of revolt 
against the government invites New Delhi's wrath 
and that is precisely what has happened to us," 
claims UCM leader S. Singh.

"We don't have any links with militant groups. We 
have the support of the people and it was proved 
when the whole of Manipur was with us during the 
anti-ceasefire agitation in 2001," he adds.

The other NGOs have also lashed out at the government's statement.

"It is nothing but an attempt to defame rights 
groups like us who always espouse the cause of 
innocent civilians who are tortured and harassed 
by security forces in the name of curbing 
militancy," declares NPMHR spokesman N. Krome.

The state governments in Assam, Manipur and 
Nagaland are tightlipped about New Delhi's move 
to paint the five NGOs in militant colors.

"Perhaps the federal intelligence agencies may 
have given the Home Ministry some inputs and so 
the minister made such a statement," remarks a 
senior Nagaland police official.

"We are yet to get details of the home ministry 
report and so cannot comment on the charges. 
Unless we get specific reports it is difficult 
for us to act or take any action against the NGOs 
in question," says Nagaland home minister T. 
Lotha.

Similar views were echoed by the Assam and 
Manipur government's on the federal home 
minister's statement.

The drive against the NGOs followed pot shots at 
the media. On August 14, a day before India's 
Independence Day, the Manipur government asked 
the Information Service Television Network (ISTN) 
to shut down transmission with immediate effect.

"The district magistrate issued an order 
prohibiting the transmission of ISTN under the 
Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, 
in the name of public interest," says a 
government spokesman.

ISTN is a popular - and the only independent - 
television network in Manipur, which borders 
Myanmar. The channel produces news bulletins in 
the local Metei dialect, besides the usual 
entertainment fare.

"We were showing the protests and the agitation 
in Manipur over the Armed Forces Special Powers 
Act in our news bulletins like normal 
professionals. We did not exaggerate but were 
very objective in our reporting and showed events 
as they happened," says ISTN secretary Khagendro 
Singh.

"The order barring us from transmitting news and 
entertainment programs is nothing but an 
infringement on the freedom of expression and 
attempts at gagging the freedom of the press," he 
protests.

What seems to have angered the government are 
visual images of thousands of people taking to 
the streets to protest the law and the subsequent 
incidents of the military firing rubber bullets 
at protestors and bursting teargas canisters to 
scatter the mobs.

"The authorities thought ISTN was the only 
channel viewed by the locals as we tried to come 
up with exclusive visuals of the developments. 
The government-run television network, 
Doordarshan, was showing nothing. So they tried 
to stop us," explains ISTN president T. Kulesho.

But ISTN wasn't cowed down. The channel's 
management hit back on August 18 by filing a 
petition in the high court and on Tuesday an 
interim order was passed where the court decided 
to "suspend" the government order barring the 
channel from transmission.

"The court says we can broadcast or transmit news 
as long as we do not disturb public tranquility," 
contends the channel's legal counsel B.B. Sahu. 
"The court's order vindicates our claim that we 
were airing news in an objective manner as the 
people of Manipur have the right to information."

Though ISTN has got a lifeline, the journalist 
fraternity isn't mollified. The All Manipur 
Working Journalists Union has asked the state 
government to come up with an explanation for 
trying to gag the freedom of the press by banning 
ISTN.

Local journalists have for long complained about 
the dangers of being a media person in the 
insurgency-hit region. "Journalists in Manipur 
have always been at the receiving end from both 
the government and rebel armies," says a senior 
journalist.

At least half-a-dozen journalists were killed in 
the northeast by rebels during the past five 
years, while more than a dozen were arrested on 
charges of aiding and abetting militancy.

"Journalists in the northeast are always under 
tremendous pressure from both the state machinery 
and the underground groups," says Pradip 
Phanjoubam, the editor of Imphal Free Press, the 
leading English daily from Manipur's capital, 
Imphal.

There are more than 30-odd rebel armies in 
India's restive northeast with demands ranging 
from secession to greater autonomy and the right 
to self-determination. More than 50,000 people 
have lost their lives to insurgency in the region 
since India's independence in 1947.


______


[5]


The Hindu  - Aug 25, 2004
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/08/25/stories/2004082507471100.htm 

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE: NEED FOR ROBUST LAW ON GENOCIDE

By Siddharth Varadarajan

NEW DELHI, AUG. 24. The Common Minimum Programme 
of the Manmohan Singh Government promises the 
enactment of a "comprehensive law on communal 
violence" but a group of eminent jurists, retired 
police officials and human rights activists is 
leaving nothing to chance.

Concerned about the legal vacuum which allows 
mass killings like Gujarat to take place, the 
group on Tuesday released a draft model law - The 
Prevention of Genocide and Crimes against 
Humanity Act 2004 - which, if enacted in its 
current form, will fix criminal responsibility on 
Ministers and officials for incidents of mass 
violence against a group of citizens in which 
they fail to exercise control.

Command responsibility

One of the pathbreaking aspects of the draft is 
that it tries to enshrine for the first time in 
domestic law the principles of vicarious criminal 
and administrative liability as well as the 
doctrine of command responsibility - both settled 
concepts in international humanitarian law.

If India had enacted such legislation - as it was 
supposed to do soon after it became party to the 
Genocide Convention in 1959 - it is possible that 
the Gujarat Chief Minister would have thought 
twice about allowing the "Newton's Law" to 
operate freely in his State following the Godhra 
incident. Or that Inspector K.K. Maisurwala would 
have insisted on sending an SOS wireless message 
to the police control room when a murderous crowd 
started attacking the Muslim residents of 
Naroda-Patiya. For in all such cases, the failure 
to "take all necessary and reasonable measures 
within his or her power to prevent or repress the 
commission of genocide or crimes against 
humanity" would have rendered the individuals 
concerned liable for prosecution.

Among those who helped draft the proposed law are 
Justices Hosbet Suresh and P.B. Sawant and 
activists Teesta Setalvad and Iqbal Ansari. Ms. 
Setalvad says the aim is to circulate the draft 
as widely as possible and to invite comments so 
that the Centre can move quickly on the 
legislative front.

Definition of genocide

The draft's definition of genocide is the same as 
that of the 1948 Genocide Convention, with for 
one difference: it adds the attempt to subject a 
group to "sustained economic or social boycott" 
to existing elements of the crime such as killing 
members of a group or causing them bodily or 
mental harm. Thus, the attempts by the Sangh 
Parivar in Gujarat to enforce an economic boycott 
of Muslims in the State would be covered by the 
definition. Crimes against humanity include 
murder, forcible eviction or enforced migration - 
such as what the Kashmiri Pandits have been 
subjected to - torture and the enforced 
disappearance of persons.

The draft envisages the establishment of a 
National Authority for the prevention of 
genocide, consisting of the Prime Minister, the 
Leader of the Opposition, the chairperson of the 
National Human Rights Commission and two serving 
DGPs. Acting on the basis of information from 
official or civilian sources, or even suo motu, 
the authority would have the responsibility of 
setting up a special court in consultation with 
the local High Court and tasking the CBI with the 
criminal investigation. The court, in turn, will 
appoint a special prosecutor.

Despite the CMP's promise on a comprehensive law 
against mass violence, no responsible Minister or 
senior UPA leader has sought to elaborate on what 
exactly the Centre has in mind. Legally, however, 
India is under an obligation to pass a robust 
domestic law on genocide which provides for not 
only effective penalties but also the 
establishment of trials by a "competent 
tribunal." Prof. V.S. Mani, who has argued the 
need for such a law in the past, says that such a 
law would be fully in keeping with the spirit of 
Articles 51 and 253 of the Constitution, which 
mandate Parliament to make laws for implementing 
any treaty, agreement or convention signed by the 
country.

o o o o

[See Also:

GUJARAT RIOTS, GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER
Cop admits he got bodies of 13 Muslim victims burnt
Rohit Bhan  (Indian Express, August 26, 2004)
URL: www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=53857


______



[6]

The News International - August 26, 2004

BJP'S NEW STUNT

by Praful Bidwai

The Bharatiya Janata Party has proved to be a 
bad, terribly peevish, loser. It still behaves as 
if the last Parliament election were somehow 
stolen from it. Unable to prove relevant, or 
provide a half-way coherent opposition to the 
ruling United Progressive Alliance, it is looking 
for any issue on which to attack the government. 
The latest is the National Flag and the claim 
that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati 
resigned last Monday because she was falsely 
implicated in a criminal case 10 years ago for 
the "crime" of hoisting the Flag in Hubli in 
Karnataka.

In reality, the story is more complicated-in 
fact, devious. Bharati wasn't hoisting the flag 
in any old place, but in the Idgah Maidan-as part 
of the BJP's anti-Muslim agitation in Karnataka. 
The charge against Bharati is not that she 
hoisted the Flag, but includes rioting, 
instigating a mob to violence, and attempt to 
murder. The BJP was trying to forcibly dislodge a 
Muslim organisation (Anjuman-i-Islam) from the 
Idgah. There is poetic justice in the way the law 
caught up with Bharati last week through an 
arrest warrant in that old case, now revived.

Earlier, Bharati had chosen to ignore more than 
100 court summons and bailable warrants and as 
many 18 non-bailable warrants. The BJP's response 
to the warrant is two-pronged. It claims the case 
is "political". And it has resorted to cheap, 
rabble-rousing nationalism by focusing on the 
National Flag-and distorting the real charges.

This is ironical because the BJP's top leaders 
have their primary loyalty not to the Tricolour 
but to the RSS's triangular saffron flag. For 
decades, the RSS rejected India's National Flag, 
in particular its green (read, Islamic) colour 
band and the Ashoka Chakra (a Buddhist symbol of 
peace and good governance).

But let that pass. What acutely embarrasses the 
BJP is that the latest warrant comes bang in the 
middle of its own high-decibel campaign against 
"tainted" ministers in Manmohan Singh's Cabinet. 
The BJP should have known better. Many of its top 
leaders, including L K Advani and Murli Manohar 
Joshi, face criminal charges. Its own former 
president was caught accepting a huge bribe on 
camera in the Tehelka "sting" operation.

The BJP makes a curious distinction between 
"political" and "criminal" cases. It says its 
opponents violate laws, or are dacoits, 
murderers, etc., but its own leaders are charged 
with "political" offences-like razing the Babri 
mosque. This distinction is utterly, 
perniciously, spurious. The demolition was driven 
by communal hatred-a vile crime, whose gravity 
was compounded by the orgy of killing and arson 
that followed, leading to hundreds of deaths, 
especially in Mumbai. Such hate-acts are more 
reprehensible than individual crimes. They must 
be more severely punished.

Bharati's offence at Hubli falls exactly within 
that category. This was part of the BJP's effort 
to establish a toehold for itself in Karnataka. 
Baba Budangiri and Hubli were the two planks on 
which it incited violent anti-Muslim emotions. In 
the first case, the BJP-VHP tried to put a 
"Hindu" stamp on a shrine belonging to the 
composite sufi tradition. In Hubli, it polarised 
opinion by claiming, without evidence, that the 
land used as the Idgah had been appropriated by 
Muslims.

The most despicable part of that campaign of 
incitement was the abuse of the National Flag as 
a Hindutva symbol. Hindu communalists 
increasingly use this tactic to falsely equate 
the (religious) majority community with the 
nation. They challenge the minorities to prove 
their loyalty to the nation-by subordinating 
themselves to the majority. This illegitimate 
equation fits the pattern of profoundly 
anti-democratic majoritarian communalism. It 
distorts the true nature of the national 
community, comprised of equal citizens.

So it's totally dishonest for Bharati to claim 
she's being prosecuted for hoisting the 
Tricolour. The National Flag is a mere instrument 
in her cynical politics. If anything, its abuse 
makes Bharati's offence graver. Bharati has 
decided to launch a Tiranga Yatra from Hubli to 
Jallianwala Bagh. But such stunts probably won't 
have any impact. The public knows how to 
demarcate flag-hoisting from communal incitement.

The law, assuringly, may be similarly catching up 
with Narendra Milosevic Modi too. The Supreme 
Court of India has ordered Gujarat to review and 
reopen 2,100 cases of violence-or half the 
total-which were summarily closed on the pretext 
that the police could not trace the accused. New 
evidence is emerging at the Gujarat 
government-appointed (Nanavati-Shah) commission 
of inquiry of the Modi's culpability. Testimonies 
by police officers and senior civil servants 
confirms that Modi himself took the decision to 
stir up emotions on Feb 27, 2002 by bringing the 
bodies of the Godhra victims to Ahmedabad. Former 
police chief K Chakravarthi has revealed that he 
ordered his officers to investigate the 
"conspiracy angle" to the post-Godhra violence-an 
implicit admission that it was pre-planned.

A specific allegation was made before the 
Concerned Citizens' Tribunal by a "highly placed 
source" (a former Gujarat minister) that a 
meeting was held on Feb 27 where Modi, some other 
senior ministers and police officials were 
present: "The senior-most police officials were 
told that they should expect a Hindu reaction 
after Godhra. They were told that they should not 
do anything to contain this reaction".

Other evidence is emerging too, especially from 
the Ahmedabad police commissioner P C Pande, 
joint commissioner M K Tandon, and additional 
director-general (intelligence) R B Sreekumar. 
This shows that the police communication system 
and the law-and-order machinery completely broke 
down in Gujarat. Thus, top police officials got 
to know about the Noroda-Patia and Gulberg 
Society incidents many hours after they occurred.

The local police were ordered not to report these 
by wireless because the communications system 
might get clogged! Even more eloquent is the 
172-page affidavit by Sreekumar, which details 
the role of police officials and politicians in 
the post-Godhra violence. It says: "Officers at 
the decisive rung ... ignored the specific 
instructions from the official hierarchy on 
account of their getting direct verbal 
instructions from the senior political leaders of 
the ruling party."

This evidence should be used in the trial courts 
to convict the culprits. The Modi government 
cannot be expected to do this. It is the greatest 
culprit of all. The Central government must step 
in-by setting up a new inquiry commission and 
impleading itself as a party in all relevant 
litigation. The UPA owes this to the people of 
Gujarat and to India's Constitution.

The UPA's Common Minimum Programme promised to 
"to preserve, protect and promote social harmony 
and to enforce the law... to deal with all 
obscurantist and fundamentalist elements who seek 
to disturb social amity and peace". It has done 
little to bring justice to the Gujarati people. 
Gujarat, India's greatest state-aided pogrom of a 
religious minority since Independence, did not 
even find a mention in Manmohan Singh's first 
address to the nation. Nor did the word 
"secularism".

This void must be filled without delay. Gujarat 
was a case of genocidal violence. No society can 
claim to be civilised if it cannot punish 
genocide.


______


[7]    HINDUTVA  AT  WORK !!

(i)

[Spineless politicians from Congress / NCP in 
Maharashtra continue playing games competing with 
the Hindu right in venerating Savarkar. This 
business of  imputing glowing status to Savarkar 
is an old disease within Maharashtra; Bombay has 
a major road named after him, besides a prominent 
roadside bust ready to pounce on people; Also for 
long years it seems a Veer Savarkar chair has 
existed at the Indian Military academy in Pune. 
All this should be gotten rid of in that 
'Secular' Country. They should clear their 
wavering record on this business of Savarkar, 
Shivaji . . .  once and for all times or . See 
below  how the current chief minister of 
Maharashtra claims Savarkar is a hero; and the 
second  report suggests there was a prior 
proposal to name the Nagpur airport after 
Hedgewar (another Hindutva laden 'war-head'). Was 
the earlier proposal by Hindutva creeps or by the 
nickerwalas in the congress. xxx HK ]

o o o o

Economic Times - August 25, 2004
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/825072.cms

SAVARKAR IS OUR HERO: SHINDE
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2004 12:00:33 AM ]
NEW DELHI: In an attempt to cut the political 
losses caused by Mani Shankar Aiyar's statement 
against RSS icon Savarkar, CM Sushil Kumar Shinde 
today stepped in to assert that his party did not 
share the Union petroleum minister's 
controversial views.

"We consider Savarkar as a great patriot," Mr 
Shinde said. Mr Shinde's assertion clearly 
indicated the anxiety in the Maharashtra Congress 
to contain the fallout of Mr Aiyar's statement.

Mr Aiyar had not just questioned Veer Savarkar's 
role in the freedom struggle, but had also said 
that Port Blair airport, named after the patriot, 
was in for rechristening. Reports also talked 
about Mr Aiyar directing authorities to remove 
Savarkar plaque in the cellular jail.

Mr Shinde's statement comes in the backdrop of a 
Left-prompted 'reassessment' of Veer Savarkar by 
the Congress central leadership.

Sonia Gandhi, who decided to opt for the 
Leftist's views on Veer Savarkar, had stayed away 
from a function to unveil the statue of Savarkar 
in the Parliament House complex sometime ago.

Mr Aiyar's statement was in line with this 
'reassessment' of the patriot by the Congress. 
But faced with an assault from the Sena-BJP in 
the state, Mr Shinde must have thought it 
politically crucial to disassociate the state 
unit from the views of the central leadership and 
leaders like Mr Aiyar. "He was a larger-than-life 
figure in his own time. He was incarcerated in 
Andamans for over a decade for fighting for the 
nation's freedom," Mr Shinde told a TV programme.

This is not the first time that sober voices in 
the Congress have spoken against such arbitrary 
interrogation of the roles played by freedom 
fighters. Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee had 
said that the trend was unhealthy.

Mr Shinde's statement is sure to embolden the BJP 
and the Sena, which are demanding an apology from 
the petroleum minister. The issue was raked up in 
the Rajya Sabha again today by Shiv Sena's Sanjay 
Nirupam.


o o o o


The Tribune, August 25, 2004
NAMING NAGPUR AIRPORT - -  HEDGEWAR IS OUT, AMBEDKAR IS IN
Swati Chaturvedi
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 24
With elections round the corner in Maharashtra, 
the Civil Aviation Ministry has shot down a 
proposal to name Nagpur airport after the 
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founder, Dr 
Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. Instead, it has taken a 
decision to christen it Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar 
airport. [...].
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040825/main2.htm


______


(ii)

[Comment from Mukul Dube re the recent antics by 
the Hindutva leader Uma Bharati who first sent 
her resignation letter not to Governor of the 
State but to her party boss. . . . ]

23 August 2004

Although chief ministers are appointed by the governors of their
respective states, Uma Bharti of Madhya Pradesh has twice sent in
her resignation to Venkaiah Naidu, her party's president. I
propose that Mr. Naidu be bound in buckram dyed saffron, with the
words "Constitution of India" printed on his spine if that can be
found.

Mukul Dube


o o o o

Uma Bharati sends resignation to Venkaiah Naidu (August 22, 2004)
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug222004/i5.asp




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