SACW | 29-30 Jan 2005
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Sat Jan 29 19:11:06 CST 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire | 29-30 Jan., 2005
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Bangladesh: Madness of violence
(i) Bangladesh: Grenade attack on opposition
party (Press release - Amnesty International)
(ii) Action Alert: Protest the assassination of Shah AMS Kibria (Drishtipat)
(iii) Women activists say people's life utterly unsafe
(iii) One by one Opposition leaders are being killed (Mahfuz Anam)
[2] Pakistan: A H Nayyar - Pacifism with a method (Ammara Durrani)
[3] India: Citizen's Letter to India's Prime
Minister seeking release of those unfairly held
on charges of organising the Godhra train fire
[4] A Report of The Fourth Meeting of All India Secular Forum
[5] India : On The Godhra train fire that triggered the riots
(i) 'But who lit the fire?' (Praful Bidwai)
(ii) The Deadly Reach of Rumor (Editorial, Los Angeles Times)
[6] India - Upcoming event :
The Festival of Non Violence by Darpana's Centre for Non Violence through Arts
(Ahmedabad, 30th January - 7th February 2005)
--------------
[1] [ In the past year there has been repeated,
abuses by Islamist vigilante groups (including
the Bangla Bhai operation in the North-West of
Bangladesh) who are running a campaign of attacks
on minorities ; rising wave of hate speech in
public rallies which incite acts of violence
against the Ahmadiyyas and the Hindus and
Buddhists; even cinema halls, sufi shrines,
traditional village fairs and cultural functions
have been targets of bomb attacks. There have
been a series of assassinations of respected
secular intellectuals, journalists and academics;
assassinations and violence against opposition
party Awami league leaders has continued. While
all this political and public violence in society
grows domestic violence and acid attacks against
women are apparently also growing. Its getting
pretty hot as the state looks askance . . . . ]
(i)
Amnesty International - Press release, 01/28/2005
BANGLADESH: GRENADE ATTACK ON OPPOSITION PARTY
The latest grenade blast at an opposition party
rally is part of a pattern of violent attacks
against the party leadership, and the
government's failure fully to investigate
previous attacks is deeply concerning, said
Amnesty International.
Five people including the former Finance Minister
and senior Awami League leader, Shah AMS Kibria,
were killed in the grenade attack on a rally in
Habiganj district, northeast of the capital
Dhaka, yesterday evening. Scores of people were
injured.
Another grenade attack on an Awami League rally
in Dhaka left 22 people dead and hundreds injured
on 21 August last year.
Amnesty International is urging the Bangladesh
government to fully investigate the attacks and
bring the perpetrators to justice. It should
establish an investigating body independent of
the government, with a mandate to investigate not
only the recent attack but any possible links to
the previous attacks. It is of crucial importance
that inquiry into these attacks is conducted by
people known for their independence and
impartiality, and trusted by the human rights
community as well as the opposition.
At the same time, the government must ensure that
all evidence relating to the attack is kept
intact. Any state institutions or employees whose
negligence may have facilitated the attacks
should be removed from any position where they
could influence the inquiries.
"The government has failed to investigate
previous attacks with the rigour and
determination they deserve," said Catherine
Baber. "Unless such inquiries are conducted
thoroughly and impartially, they will lack
credibility and the culprits will be sheltered
from justice."
Following the 21 August grenade attack, the
government instituted a judicial inquiry, but its
impartiality was brought into doubt when Prime
Minister Begum Khaleda Zia was reported to have
announced before its conclusion that the
opposition might have carried out the attack
themselves in order to tarnish the government's
image.
Although the inquiry judge submitted his report
on the August grenade attack to the authorities
on 2 October, the government has failed to make
public the content of that report, or to announce
what steps it is taking to address the attack.
The Awami League, as the aggrieved party, has not
been informed of any steps the government has
taken. The inquiry judge at the time told
journalists that he had identified the
perpetrators and a link to "foreign enemies" but
gave no details.
The present attack is a stark reminder of the
growing vulnerability of opposition politicians
and an apparent lack of determination on the part
of the government to ensure their safety and
security. Amnesty International is urging the
highest authorities in Bangladesh to condemn the
attacks and to ensure that no political pressure
influences the outcome of the inquiry.
o o o
(ii)
ACTION ALERT: Protest the assassination of Shah AMS Kibria
**** Do not circulate this alert after Sunday, February 20, 2005 ****
1. The situation
2. Take action
3. Sample email/letter/fax
4. About Drishtipat
1. The situation:
Awami League (AL) leader and former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria
was assassinated in a grenade attack in Habiganj on Thursday, January
27, 2005. The attack also left four other AL activists dead and over
70 injured.
This is the latest in a string of deadly attacks on cultural
organizations and political parties religious minorities over the last
few years, all of which remain unsolved mysteries. It also comes a
little less than five months after a similar grenade attack on Leader
of the Opposition, Sheikh Hasina, that left 22 people dead and
hundreds injured.
As Bangladeshis, it is our duty to express concern and outrage at the
government's inability to identify the perpetrators, let alone capture
the terrorists and ensure justice for the victims. Failure to hold the
government accountable at this crucial juncture will only lead to
further deterioration of the law and order situation in Bangladesh.
2. Take action:
Contact the Bangladeshi mission in your country to express your
concerns and demand that the government aggressively confront these
enemies of the state, whoever they may be. Forward this message to
your friends and acquaintances who have email. Print copies and
distribute them to those who don't.
Contact information for the missions in Australia, Canada, the UK and
USA are given below. Information for other missions can be found from
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website at: www.mofabd.org/.
Please send a copy of your email to info at drishtipat.org, and drop us a
line if you've sent a letter or fax.
High Commission for the People's Republic of Bangladesh , Australia:
Representative: High Commissioner Mr. Ashraf-ud-Doula
Address: 21 Culgoa Circuit, O'Malley
ACT-2606,Canberra, Australia
Phone: +(61)2 6290-0511, +(61)2 6290-0522, +(61)2 6290-0533
Fax: +(61)2 6290-0544, +(61)2 6290-0566
E-mail: bdoot.canberra at cyberone.com.au
High Commission for the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Canada:
Representative: High Commissioner Mr. Rafiq Ahmed Khan
Address: 275 Bank Street, Suite-302
Ottawa, Ont. K2P 2L6, Canada
Phone: + (613) 236-0138, + (613) 236-0139
Fax: + (613) 567-3213
E-mail: bang at bellnet.ca
High Commission for the Republic of Bangladesh , UK:
Representative: High Commissioner Mr. A.H. Mofazzal Karim
Address: 28 Queen's Gate,
London SW7 5JA, UK
Phone: 0870 005 6703
Fax: 0207 225 2130
E-mail:
Embassy of the People's Republic of Bangladesh , USA:
Representative: Ambassador Syed Hasan Ahmad
Address: 3510 International Drive,
Washington DC 20008, USA
Phone: + (1) 202 244 0183
Fax: + (1) 202 244 5366, + (1) 202 244 7830
E-mail: banglaemb at aol.com
3. Sample email/letter/fax:
A sample is provided for your convenience, but you are highly
encouraged to write a personal account to best convey your thoughts
anc concerns.
Your Excellency _______,
As a concerned citizen, I am writing to express my outrage and shock
at the assassination of senior Awami League leader Shah AMS Kibria and
demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice.
I, along with many members of the Bangladeshi expatriate community,
have been dismayed at the impunity at which these attacks have been
carried out over the last few years, and alarmed at their increasingly
brutal and brazen nature. After the assassination attempt on
Opposition Leader Sheikh Hasina on August 21, 2004, I had hoped that
the government would take appropriate measures to aggressively pursue
these terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure to deter further
attacks of this kind.
Yet, in the five months leading to the assassination of Mr. Kibria,
the government hadn't even been able to identify these terrorists, let
alone bring them to justice. It is with great disappointment that I
must ask why it is failing us on this crucial issue of national
security. When assurances of utmost effort are followed by stalled
investigations, and over a course of a few years at that, one wonders
if the government is simply unable or unwilling to carry out its
responsibilities. Needless to say, its failure to deliver will only
lead to further deterioration of the law and order situation in
Bangladesh.
We cannot afford to sacrifice the democratic values we have come to
live by on the altar of terrorism. As a citizen of Bangladesh, I
demand to know who these terrorists are, and what concrete steps our
government is taking to protect Bangladesh from these enemies of the
state, whether they are foreign or domestic.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
______________
[About Drishtipat
Drishtipat is a non-profit, non-political expatriate Bangladeshi
organization committed to safeguarding every individual's basic
democratic rights, including freedom of expression, and is opposed to
any and all kinds of human rights abuses in Bangladesh. [...].
Contact information:
Address: Drishtipat,
P O box 1581, NY NY 10156, USA
Email: info at drishtipat.org
Web: www.drishtipat.org]
o o o o
(iii)
Daily Star - January 30, 2005
WOMEN ACTIVISTS SAY PEOPLE'S LIFE UTTERLY UNSAFE
Staff Correspondent
Seventy-two leading women's rights activists and
members of civil society in a joint statement
yesterday demanded the government instill sense
of security among the citizens through restoring
public confidence in the administration and
judiciary of the country.
They termed the killing of former finance
minister Shah AMS Kibria in grenade blasts on
Thursday a tragedy for the nation and sign of
serious moral degradation.
Condemning the killing, they demanded immediate
identification of the criminals through proper
and transparent investigation into the incident.
People's lives of late have become utterly
unsafe. Lack of sincere efforts by the government
to curb crimes has pushed the country towards an
uncertainty, the statement said.
A tendency of taking law into hands is growing in
the society contributing to further worsening of
law and order, it pointed out. In reference, they
mentioned the vigilantism by Bangla Bhai and his
men. They regretted that despite the prime
ministerial order Bangla Bhai is still at large.
Referring to bomb and grenade blasts that killed
over 140 people since 1999, the right activists
said they were not any isolated ones, rather
well-orchestrated acts of violence by a powerful
gang.
Besides, they expressed concern over the failure
of the government in preventing repeat of such
attacks. In some cases, they observed, the
government failed to bring the culprits to trial
even after police had submitted charge sheet
against them.
The statement was signed among others by Sultana
Kamal, Khushi Kabir, Hamida Hossain, Ayesha
Khanom, Shirin Akhter, Advocate Sigma Huda, Sara
Zaker, Mita Haque, Rounak Hossain, Farida Akhter,
Tasmima Hossain, Advocate Salma Ali, Dr Naila
Khan, Aasha Meherin Amin, Shahin Anam, Laila
Kabir and Dr Sonia Amin, Aroma Dutta, Saida Kamal
Ila Chanda and Maleka Begum.
o o o o
(iv)
ONE BY ONE OPPOSITION LEADERS ARE BEING KILLED
Mahfuz Anam
URL: www.thedailystar.net/2005/01/29/d5012901033.htm
______
[2]
News On Sunday
30 January 2005
A H NAYYAR - PACIFISM WITH A METHOD
None of our nuclear weapon scientists seems to
have realised the terrible significance of their
work and broken ranks to help inform the rest of
society about the nuclear threat that we all now
face. Instead they have chosen to happily accept
the privileges and status that the government has
heaped upon them
By Ammara Durrani
Dr A H Nayyar, who has a PhD from Imperial
College, London, has recently retired from the
Department of Physics at Quaide Azam University,
Islamabad, where he taught for over 30 years. He
has also held several visiting appointments
abroad, including at Princeton University, USA.
He is currently a visiting fellow at the
Sustainable Development Policy Institute,
Islamabad. He is active in the peace movement,
and is serving as President of the Pakistan Peace
Coalition. He has published widely on issues of
education reform and peace. In December 2004, he
was awarded the Star Award for Activism by
US-based Association for Communal Harmony in Asia
(ACHA).
In an e-mail interview with Political Economy,
Nayyar shed light on various aspects of debates
on nuclear weapons, educational reforms,
India-Pakistan peace process and energy politics
in the region. Excerpts follow:
PE: Why should natural scientists like you feel
the need to play a socially active role in areas
of peace, human rights and education? Shouldn't
you instead be busy in addressing the many
industrial and technological problems that
Pakistan faces?
AHN: Scientists are also citizens of their
society and have to make choices of how to
fulfill this role. There have been many
scientists including some of the most eminent
such as Albert Einstein, who have chosen to try
to combine their roles as scientists and
citizens. Einstein, for example, wrote many
articles and essays for the general public on
issues of war and peace, capitalism and
socialism, and so on, including explaining why he
was a pacifist and a socialist.
One of the major problems confronting our
country, the region and the world is the threat
of nuclear weapons. Physicists have been central
to the development of nuclear weapons. They have
also been part of campaigns against nuclear
weapons everywhere. In fact, the very first
anti-nuclear group was founded by some of the
scientists who had been involved in building the
bomb in 1945 for the US and realised the danger
they had brought to the world. Many of these
'citizen scientists', as my friend Frank von
Hippel of Princeton University calls them, were
harassed by their governments for their
anti-nuclear activism. But they persevered and
have established a tradition of scientists taking
seriously their social responsibility.
In Pakistan, we have not been so fortunate. None
of our nuclear weapon scientists seems to have
realised the terrible significance of their work
and broken ranks to help inform the rest of
society about the nuclear threat that we all now
face. Instead they have chosen to happily accept
the privileges and status that the government has
heaped upon them.
For citizen scientists, the challenge is to use
their technical knowledge and expertise to
educate policymakers and the public about the
consequences of having nuclear weapons. In
particular, they are well placed to challenge the
claims of the scientists in the nuclear weapons
complex who always push for more and bigger and
more sophisticated nuclear weapons and missiles.
They can also help humanity chart a path towards
nuclear disarmament by tackling the many
technical problems that are involved in getting
rid of nuclear weapons.
Along with the threat of nuclear weapons, the key
questions that face Pakistani citizens are those
of poverty, illiteracy, extremism and injustice.
Scientists and other professionals need to take
more seriously their responsibility to use their
skills in understanding and solving problems in
the public interest to try and address these
concerns.
PE: Your work on changes in Pakistani curricula
generated a lot of political controversy last
year. What lessons did you learn from that
episode, and what are your post-debate
reflections?
AHN: The work you are referring to was a 2003
study done by a number of academics on the state
of curricula and textbooks in Pakistan's public
schools. Our report (available from SDPI,
Islamabad), entitled "The Subtle Subversion",
exposed how our children are being fed bigotry
and hatred and filled with the most extreme,
narrow-minded and violent ideas of Islam and what
it means to be Pakistani. Our report made a
series of recommendations to try and change this
including reforms in the Ministry of Education,
curriculum and textbooks.
The report and its proposals gathered a lot of
support. It also attracted a lot of hostility.
Rather than engage with our findings or our
suggestions, the criticism came as attacks on our
character mixed with blatant lies, baseless
accusations, and conspiracy theories. Some of the
attacks came from hawks who want Pakistan to
remain forever hostile to India. Others came from
Islamic political parties determined to push for
an ever more extreme Islamic Pakistan. The two
groups were united by a desire to maintain the
ideological stranglehold their ideas have had
over the education system for two decades.
We learnt some important lessons from this whole
process. We saw just how important control of the
education system is to the Islamist groups--they
even created the Anjuman Tahaffuze Nisab to
co-ordinate their opposition to any reform. We
were also surprised by the depth of resistance to
reform from within the educational bureaucracy.
It was amazing to see this bureaucracy collude
with hawks and Islamic ideologues by lying about
our report to parliament. They claimed that a
government appointed committee had examined and
rejected our report. The committee, in fact, had
agreed with our findings and supported our
recommendations.
This response from the bureaucracy was not
because of any overwhelming ideological
commitment on the part of high officials, but
more, in my view, to their proverbial inertia and
a narrow, short-term view about the future of the
nation. Officials seem to be more worried about
damping down controversies than about what is
good for the nation. They thus become very
susceptible to pressure from groups that threaten
to take to the streets.
It is not just bureaucrats who give in to
pressure. The education minister at that time
came under so much attack from Islamic political
groups that she found it expedient to declare
herself a fundamentalist. What was even more
disappointing was that the rest of the
government, despite all its rhetoric of reform,
did not come to her support. But with time, and a
lot of effort from civil society and progressive
members of parliament, it seems that the
government has finally agreed that there is a
need to revise curricula and textbooks. The
recent statements from the new education minister
are encouraging.
However, the battle is not over. The recent case
of the Aga Khan Examination Board shows that the
pressure from those who have an ideological stake
in the existing system is continuing.
PE: One feels that the anti-nuclear and peace
groups in Pakistan did not address the A Q Khan
nuclear proliferation controversy, as they should
have. They lost an important opportunity to
strike home their point. Do you agree?
AHN: No, the peace movement has always warned of
the many dangers of Pakistan's nuclear weapons
programme--the danger of nuclear war, the risk of
nuclear accidents, the inevitable arms race, the
health and environmental impacts of nuclear
facilities, the diversion of public money from
social needs, the risk of proliferation and the
prospects of Pakistan being seen as a danger to
the international community. Many of these fears
have been realised, including the A Q Khan
affair. Sadly, those in power in Pakistan do not
yet understand the full seriousness of the harm
the nuclear programme has done to us. The peace
movement has a long way to go.
Many of us in the Pakistani peace and
anti-nuclear movement who have followed our
nuclear weapons programme closely over the past
three decades were not surprised by the
revelation that A Q Khan was running an
international network selling nuclear information
and technology. Some people made a lot of money
from being in this business. It was common
knowledge in Islamabad that not only was A Q Khan
above the law but was also living beyond his
means. He used his power and his money to build
up a cult of personality around himself, with
lots of support from successive governments.
Among other things, he paid for the reprinting in
Pakistan of a book The Islamic Bomb in which he
had several sections critical of him taken out
and replaced with praise. As part of this and
other efforts, including books published about
himself, he used the enormous unaccounted money
at his disposal to buy journalists.
It is hard to believe that A Q Khan and his
subordinates were involved in this trafficking
without government permission or knowledge. This
is clear both from the enormous security that
surrounds Pakistan's nuclear weapon facilities,
its officials and scientists, and the countries
to whom nuclear information and technology was
sold. There is no way that these people could
have traveled to North Korea, Iran and Libya (and
anywhere else they went) without government
knowledge, to say nothing of taking with them
entire centrifuges and other components. The
choice of countries was not random; North Korea,
Libya and Iran all have had close strategic
relations with Pakistan since the days of Z A
Bhutto.
There is another aspect to the spread of
knowledge and technology from Pakistan's nuclear
complex that is perhaps even more important. Many
of us have long worried about the growing
presence of radical Islamists in our society and
seen it happen in the nuclear complex. The
loyalty of the Islamists is as much, if not more,
to the Ummah and Jihad as to the country. It was
no surprise to learn that senior scientists from
the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission had been
trying to share their expertise with the Taliban
and al Qaeda. It will be much harder for the
government to deal with religious radicals in the
nuclear programme, some of whom are to be found
at the very highest levels in these
establishments. The problem will persist even
when they retire, since they will take their
knowledge with them. As long as the Jihad is able
to mobilise Muslims by pointing to injustices
against them, such people will always have an
incentive to play a part in the 'grand struggle'.
PE: You have been playing an active role on the
India-Pakistan Track II diplomacy front. What is
your reading of the current situation vis-a-vis
India-Pakistan peace?
AHN: Track II efforts have been very successful
in some ways. At the end of 1996 about 150
Pakistanis chose to cross the border at Wagah and
travel across India by train all the way to
Calcutta for a convention of the Pakistan-India
Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy. Now we
have hundreds of people going across the border
in both directions to these and other such
meetings. The phrase 'people-to-people diplomacy'
has now become a part of the diplomatic lexicon,
and is often welcomed by governments. Another
measure of success is how these people to people
processes have expanded from peace activists to
include a multitude of new horizontal contacts
between the business community, journalists,
writers, lawyers, parliamentarians, artists,
students etc. This is creating a diverse array of
interest groups who see the benefits of improved
relations and peace between the two countries.
It seems that there is greater caution on the
part of the Pakistani government about the
increasing people to people contacts. This may be
because decision-makers here fear that as
relations improve, the Kashmir dispute will
disappear from the radar screen of the
international community. This apprehension is
mistaken. In fact, the new people to people ties
and growing sense of their shared interests, if
allowed to flourish, will inevitably add to
pressure on India and Pakistan to resolve their
disputes, most importantly of Kashmir.
Nonetheless, the present dialogue between the
governments is very encouraging. But we have
still to see some concrete results. Suspicions
persist, and are fueled by powerful forces
opposed to peace on both sides. The situation is
not helped by the two countries continuing their
arms race, testing missiles and making nuclear
weapons. There is obviously still a lot of work
to be done by civil society in Pakistan and India
to push their respective leaders to make real
commitments to resolve their disputes and make
peace. It will take a long time, a lot of
political courage and perseverance to undo fifty
years of conflict.
PE: You have also been participating in various
dialogues between Kashmiris from both sides of
LoC. How do you view the prevailing Kashmiri
attitudes and concerns? Are Kashmiris changing as
a people?
AHN: The peace movements in India and Pakistan
have always taken the Kashmir issue very
seriously. It was and remains one of the core
issues in the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for
Peace and Democracy. Activists from both
countries, including Dr Mubashir Hasan and I A
Rahman from Pakistan and Tapan Bose and Gautam
Navlakha from India have been speaking to
Kashmiri leaders on the respective sides to
better understand the situation and what
Kashmiris want. This has included helping to
organise meetings of Kashmiri civil society
groups so that Kashmiris could talk to each other
about their future.
I have been involved in meetings with Kashmiri
leaders from Azad Kashmir and in a recent
historic conference in Kathmandu that brought
together Kashmiri leaders from both sides of the
LoC for the first time. From my meetings with
leaders of Azad Kashmir I gathered that they were
all eager to have an intra-Kashmiri dialogue to
create a Kashmiri voice in the India-Pakistan
negotiations. In Kathmandu, the Kashmiris met in
a closed session, without Pakistanis and Indians,
to talk to each other. They chose not to give a
blueprint for a final resolution of the dispute.
Rather, the consensus was that the violence in
Kashmir must end, and steps be taken to improve
the social and economic situation (specially
restoring the rule of law), and that the dignity
and welfare of the Kashmiri people must be of
paramount importance in any effort to find a
solution. They agreed that any solution must be
sought peacefully, must be honourable and
feasible.
All the Kashmiri leaders I have met believe that
the process of Kashmiris meeting and talking to
each other needs to grow, especially across the
LoC. It is a good sign that the governments of
Pakistan and India seem to recognise the need to
allow this kind of interaction. An agreement on
allowing bus services across the LoC would be a
big step forward.
PE: Energy diplomacy and politics has resumed
centre stage in our region beginning last year.
How do you view the responses and strategies of
various governments currently involved in the
energy game?
AHN: An important energy issue that has been
engaging the governments of Pakistan and India is
the prospect of gas pipelines from Iran and
Turkmenistan through Pakistan to India. All the
governments involved want the pipelines. There is
also a sense among the governments of India and
Pakistan and the larger international community
that these pipelines would create increased
mutual dependence between the two countries and
so help improve their relations. A problem for
all these governments in coming to agreement is
the question of security of the pipeline and the
supply of gas. There are armed groups in
Afghanistan and Pakistan who might find
threatening the pipeline a way to strike at or
blackmail these states.
The present crisis in Balochistan undoubtedly
adds to concerns about the viability of securing
gas pipelines. The other countries involved in
the proposed pipeline projects will see in the
present crisis good reason to make alternative
arrangements to buy and sell gas, ones that might
be more expensive but would be more secure since
they would not involve Pakistan.
The Musharraf government seems to recognise its
vulnerability, but rather than seek a solution
that would meet genuine Baloch demands it has
chosen to threaten massive use of military force.
Not only would this be completely unacceptable,
it would certainly add to Baloch grievances in
the long term, and perhaps imperil the stability
of Pakistan.
_______
[3]
[ CITIZEN'S LETTER TO INDIA'S PRIME MINISTER
SEEKING RELEASE OF PEOPLE BEING UNFAIRLY HELD ON
CHARGES OF ORGANISING THE GODHRA TRAIN FIRE
URL: www.sacw.net/Gujarat2002/lettertoPM012005.html ]
o o o
Released by Shabnam Hashmi (ANHAD)
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India
South Block
New Delhi-110001
January 28,2005
Dear Dr. Singh,
Justice U.C.Bannerjee's interim
report on Godhra train burning confirms that
there was no conspiracy by the local Muslims to
burn the train. One recalls this conspiracy
theory, manufactured by Narendra Modi, was used
as a pretext to launch the Anti Muslim pogrom in
Gujarat. Mr. Modi came up with this thesis based
on his political calculations and Sangh combine
launched itself into the massacre of over two
thousand innocents. Interestingly Mr. Modi
concocted this conclusion out of his hat in
barely half hours time, and despite the Collector
of Godhra pointing out to the contrary, Modi
asserted that it was a pre-planned conspiracy by
Muslims. He decided to take the bodies to rouse
the communal passions and rest is the horrifying
history, which hopefully should never ever be
permitted to repeat itself.
Mass hysteria was generated on the ground that
Hindus have to take revenge of the killing of Kar
Sevaks by Muslims. Mr. Haren Pandya, who was
later killed, told the citizens tribunal about
the state officials being told to sit back when
the Hindus will be taking revenge of Godhra
killings. Mr. Vajpayee the then prime minister
while shedding the crocodile tears also went on
to justify the carnage by stating, "but who lit
the fire?" The Citizens tribunal with eminent
judges and social workers after painstaking
investigation concluded that it might have been
an accident and that there was no evidence of the
conspiracy by Muslim groups. Also despite the
lapse of over two and a half years no evidence
has been produced and no definitive accused
located who was part of this massive conspiracy,
since it was not one.
Irrespective of these logical points, the
propaganda mill of RSS family asserted this
motivated falsehood in an aggressive manner and
large section of civil society was made to
believe that Muslims burnt the train. The state
Government arrested over two hundred Muslims
under draconian POTA act on the charge of being
part of the conspiracy to burn the train.
Surprisingly despite the provisions of Railway
act the train accident was never investigated by
the compliant rail minister, Neetish Kumar in an
effort to appease his BJP allies, and failed in
his duties and obligations by not investigating
the horrific train accident. The simple facts
pointing to the conclusion that it might have
been an accident were put under the carpet. We as
a nation have a lot to learn from the antics of
RSS family.
Over two hundred innocent Muslims who have been
rotting for 'burning the train' need our
attention immediately. We demand that all those
who have been put behind the bars on the charge
of burning the train be immediately released and
suitably compensated for the torture and
humiliation, which they have suffered during this
long period. It is also urgent to attempt to
formulate provisions so that the likes of Modis
cannot usurp the due process of law to pursue
their divisive politics.
Sincerely yours
1. Aditya Mukherjee
2. AD Golandaz
3. Ali Asghar-COVA
4. Amit Sengupta-Editor,Commentary & Analysis,Tehelka
5. Ammu Abraham
6. Anand Patwardhan
7. Anil Chowdhary
8. Anish Mokshi-IIT Mumbai
9. Anu Chenoy
10. Anu Fern
11. Apoorvanand
12. Arjun Dev
13. Asghar Ali Engineer
14. Cletus Zuzarte
15. Digant Oza
16. Dolphy D'souza
17. Dr Ram Puniyani
18. Farha Naqvi
19. Fr.Cedric Prakash
20. G N Devy
21. Gauhar Raza
22. Gita Hariharan
23. Harsh Kapoor
24. Harsh Mander
25. Humra Qureshi
26. I.K.Shukla
27. Indu Prakash Singh
28. J G Krishnayya
29. J. Sri Raman- journalist and Convener, Movement for People's Unity, Chennai
30. John Dayal
31. Kamla Bhasin
32. Kamal Mitra Chenoy
33. KM Shrimali
34. KN Panikkar
35. Ra Ravishankar-University of Illinois (Urbana)
36. Malika Sarabhai
37. Manorma Dewan
38. Mansi Sharma
39. Mukul Dube
40. Mukundan C. Menon, CHRO, Keralam
41. Nalini Taneja
42. Nandita Das
43. NFIW
44. Poornima Joshi
45. Pralay Kanungo
46. Prashant Bhushan
47. Purshottam Agrawal
48. PVS Kumar
49. Rahul Roy
50. Rizwan Qaiser
51. Saba Dewan
52. Sandeep Vaidya
53. S.Irfan Habib
54. Shabi Farooq-San Francisco
55. Shabnam Hashmi
56. Shalini Gera
57. Sheelu-Tamilnadu Women's Collective
58. Shishir Kr. Jha
59. Shivali Tukdeo-Urbana, IL àUSA
60. Smita Shah
61. Shubha Mudgal
62. Shweta
63. Shyam Benegal.
64. SM Shahed
65. Sohail Hashmi
66. Stalin
67. Sukla Sen-Ekta (Committee for Communal Amity)
68. Suma Josson
69. Swami Agnivesh
70. Tarun J Tejpal
71. Vincent-NCDHR
72. V Ramchandran
73. Virendre Prakash
74. Zakia Zowher
75. Zoya Hasan
Copy to Mr. Shivraj Patil Home Minster, Govt. of India
______
[4]
[ www.sacw.net | Communalism Repository
29 January 2005
URL:
www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/secforum29012005.html
]
A REPORT OF THE FOURTH MEETING OF ALL INDIA SECULAR FORUM
at Mumbai 22-23 January
This is an effort to form an All India platform to assist and promote the
activities which enhance secular and democratic values. The earlier
meetings in this direction took place at Pachmadhi, Hydrabad and Mumbai.
This meeting was hosted by CSSS and around fifty activists from different
parts of the country participated in the same. Most of the participants
have been associated with different endeavors to promote the secular
values and to combat the threat of communalism.
The defeat of BJP has given us some breathing space to gear up our
activities, it is an important repreive, which can be used to make our
network stronger, to streamline and broaden our activities. One major
point which emerged was that diverse groups which are working on this
issue and the mass organizations of progressive parties need to be
involved in this effort for this platform to be more effective. At the
moment we can think of a federation with a fine balance between the
central and local initiatives and responsibilities.
Different groups presented the type of activities in which they are
engaged and also pointed out the other activities which are under planning
process or are needed to supplement this cause. Experiences of training
workshops, resource centers, theater workshops, mohalla committees, youth
groups, music concerts, experiments in inter community living and
interaction through programs were narrated. The threat of Hindutvisation
of Adivasis came out as the stark reality and the ways to combat this were
discussed. The experiences of activists in the RSS attempts to communalize
the places of worship and the efforts of local groups to stall that came
as a rich experience for the forum participants. Multilayered efforts of
activists from Ayodhya, to halt the march of communal forces were
recounted.
Various tasks to further the cause of secularism were delineated- pooling
of resources-manpower, legal assistance and awareness (handbook on
Communalism and Law for activists),the curricula and structure of the
workshops being conducted by different organizations needs to be reviewed
and enriched by drawing from each other to draw up the probable structure
of different types (targeted for social workers, teachers, students) and
durations of these( 1 day , 5 day , 7 days, 10 days), and follow up of
workshops has to get the top priority. We need to network the groups with
the aim to help the local activities through providing manpower, books,
poster and CDs for workshops. We also have to think in the direction of
linking the secular groups through a newsletter and by starting a web
site, the need for working towards a curriculum for children and to
promote EKTA clubs in colleges was also underlined.
Various activists have taken responsibility for coordinating work in
different states and they will be in touch with the secretariat for
assistance. The points for discussion, the understanding around which we
work has emerged from the three earlier meeting. These points were
circulated and it was requested that activists will respond to those
points so that a provisional draft can be prepared.
______
[4] [On the Godha Train Fire ]
[Along with the below articles, please do also
read : "Truth about Godhra" by Siddharth
Varadarajan (January 23, 2005) now available @
Parts I-VI
URL:communalism.blogspot.com/2005/01/truth-about-godhra-pts-i-vi-by.html
Part VII URL:
communalism.blogspot.com/2005/01/truth-about-godhra-pts-i-vi-by.html
]
o o o o
(i)
Frontline
Volume 22 - Issue 03, Jan. 29 - Feb 11, 2005
'BUT WHO LIT THE FIRE?'
by Praful Bidwai
The Banerjee Committee report on the Godhra train
fire, corroborated by independent expert
analysis, knocks the bottom out of the
"conspiracy" theory hatched by Hindutva forces to
rationalise the terrible pogrom of Muslims that
followed.
[Photo] MANISH SWARUP/AP
[Caption] During the post-Godhra violence, in Ahmedabad.
BARELY seven weeks after the butchery of
Gujarat's Muslims began on February 28, 2002,
Atal Bihari Vajpayee stunned the world by
virtually defending and justifying the carnage
even while describing it as a "tragedy". India's
Prime Minister, addressing a Bharatiya Janata
Party meeting in Goa, taunted and chided Muslims
by saying "wherever they are, they live
separately", and nonchalantly asserted: "If a
conspiracy had not been hatched to burn alive the
innocent passengers of the Sabarmati Express [at
Godhra], the subsequent tragedy in Gujarat could
have been averted. But this did not happen." He
then rhetorically asked: "But who lit the fire?"
Vajpayee had (belatedly) visited Gujarat just 10
days earlier. There, he had made remarks
regretting the communal killing and mildly
reprimanding Chief Minister Narendra Modi. This
raised the expectation that he would sharply
demarcate the BJP and its national government
from Modi, in particular his obnoxious
"action-reaction" rationalisation for the worst
carnage in independent India's history.
Vajpayee disgraced himself and brought ignominy
to his high office by supporting that very
rationalisation. But that he should have done so
at that fateful moment was no accident. For
Hindutva, Godhra was and remains a powerful
symbol, yet another concentrated re-creation of a
long history of victimhood, of the subjugation of
"non-violent", "peace-loving" Hindus by ruthless
and violent aggressors.
Godhra served as a justification for demonic
retaliation and retribution - Hindus "getting
even" with their oppressors by finally "waking
up" and taking to arms. The inherent justice
presumed in this retribution overwhelmed, in the
eyes of BJP supporters, all other injustices and
iniquities, including the gross disproportion in
the violence (2,000 Muslims killed and many more
raped, while 59 Hindus died) and the complete
communalisation of the State, or the sheer
perversity of taking the "eye-for-an-eye" logic
to its conclusion.
The image of the burning coach has been
politically exploited ever since. As has the
presumed idea of a prior conspiracy to kill 59
kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya, the Modi
government has accused and harassed more than a
hundred Muslims for being part of the
"conspiracy" and has filed 10 charge-sheets
against them.
This "conspiracy theory" and the vicious politics
associated with it has now been dealt a grievous
blow by the interim report of the U.C. Banerjee
Committee appointed by the Railway Ministry,
which has concluded that the fire in Coach S-6
was purely "accidental".
The report's principal conclusion, ruling out the
"petrol theory" and the "miscreant activity
theory", has been stridently attacked both by the
BJP national leadership and the Gujarat police on
substantive grounds (it lacks substance and
ignores weighty evidence that Muslims threw
fireballs or lighted rags into Coach S-6), as
well as procedural ones (regarding the timing of
its sudden release just prior to the elections to
three State Assemblies, without notice or
warrant).
BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley has attacked
Banerjee as an unreliable "retired justice"
handpicked by Lalu Prasad for political reasons.
He has repeatedly sought to discredit the
report's main findings on the ground that it
ignored "evidence" that 140 litres of petrol had
been purchased from a nearby petrol pump and that
some men threw an inflammable liquid into Coach
S-6 from near the toilets.
The criticism is plain unconvincing because
Jaitley has not read the report; nor did he
provide any evidence that contradicts its
findings. On the face of it, Banerjee's
conclusion fully conforms to several accounts of
the causes of the fire, including the first
forensic laboratory report, the eye-witnesses'
depositions (including of the railway staff who
observed Coach S-6 from the cabins), and
published photographs of the coach, which show
that the smoke and the fire started from the top,
rather than from the bottom. All these suggest
that the fire was not caused by inflammable fluid
thrown on to the floor.
Gujarat police officials claimed, while appearing
before the Nanavati-Shah inquiry commission, that
there was indeed a conspiracy, "hatched at the
Aman Guest House two days before the carnage",
which was linked to a "terrorist outfit". The
officer concerned, however, refused to name the
outfit. Gujarat officials also contradictorily
claim that "60 litres of petrol" and "120 litres
of flammable material" were poured into Coach S-6
to cause the fire.
Questions do arise about the timing of the
release of "an interim report" just five weeks
short of the final one that is due by February
22. But the Railway Board's records reportedly
show that a request had been made to Banerjee to
submit an interim report by January 15 (The
Hindu, January 18). A delay of two days is hardly
abnormal.
Yet, it must be admitted that the report's sudden
release has created some misapprehensions and
made it needlessly vulnerable to political
attacks. The BJP's capacity for sheer
childishness and mulishness must not be
underestimated. It generally thinks that whatever
does not favour it must be "prejudiced",
inherently wrong and the result of a "secularist
conspiracy". For months, it refused to accept
politically the verdict of the last Lok Sabha
elections, which by any standards were free and
fair. Nevertheless, the Banerjee Committee would
have enhanced its own credibility had it released
the interim report somewhat earlier, or waited
until after the elections.
As for the Gujarat police, the less said about
their record in the Godhra case the better. They
have unfailingly barked up the wrong tree and
indicted as many as 131 people under POTA
(Prevention of Terrorism Act) for the burning of
the coach, of whom 104 have been arrested and
detained. Their application of this draconian law
is so full of double standards (all of Gujarat's
300-odd POTA detainees are non-Hindus, see
Frontline April 7, 2004), their record of
intimidating witnesses and accused so appalling,
and their communal prejudice against Muslims so
intense, as to cast doubts over all their claims.
Even so, let us assume that they are right in
saying that a conspiracy was hatched to attack
the train carrying militant kar sevaks. That
still does not get them off the hook of
establishing the causal link between the
conspirators and the actual initiation of the
physical processes that started the smoke and the
fire in Coach S-6, eventually killing 59 people.
They have to detail and validate the precise
sequence of steps through which the process took
place - whether caused by "conspirators", or
accidentally.
They have completely failed to do that. All the
forced confessions they extract and the fanciful
hypotheses they manufacture about the fire,
without a rigorous forensic analysis, will have
no credibility unless they produce clinching
evidence about what killed the 59 victims (was it
asphyxiation from smoke, soot and toxic gases, or
burns from the fire?) and through what processes.
ONE can only hope that the Banerjee report has
such a convincing hypothesis, which bears
scientific and forensic scrutiny. But its
principal finding is strongly corroborated by the
report of an independent inquiry by engineers and
experts under the auspices of an activist group
with an excellent record - the Hazards Centre of
New Delhi.
The report is authored by two Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT), Delhi professors - Dinesh Mohan
with expertise in safety and human tolerance to
injuries, and Sunil Kale, with expertise in
thermodynamics and fluidisation - an Indian
Railways mechanical engineer with experience in
coaching, and the Hazards Centre's Duny Roy, with
some solid work in occupational health, hazards
and safety. It is written in a simple, easily
accessible manner and illustrated with slides
that bring out the specific nature of damage to
Coach S-6.
The report's greatest merit is that it adopts an
analytical framework that is systematic and
rigorous - going through the pattern of the fire
sparks on the coach, the type and causation of
the fire, the depositions of 41 surviving
passengers of the coach to the police, a critique
of the post-mortem reports pertaining to 27
cases, and a correlation of the injuries
sustained by 56 passengers with the spread of the
smoke and the fire. The report establishes that:
* The fire probably originated in the region
between the last two cabins (8 and 9) and it is
highly unlikely that it could have started on the
floor of the passage or the floor outside the
toilets by someone throwing inflammable fluid.
* The resultant dense and high temperature smoke
spread along the ceiling of the carriage and
eventually resulted in a flash-over when the fire
engulfed the entire coach from the top.
* In the above circumstances, people must have
gathered trying to escape and been subjected to
dense and toxic fumes and radiative heat,
resulting in asphyxiation and death. (All quotes
from the original.)
The Hazards Centre report does not claim to be
the last word on the subject and calls for "a
dual strategy of experimental and computer
simulations" to understand the process of
combustion so that its results could be used for
"deciding the location of fire detectors" and
other safety interventions.
Several elements of the report are noteworthy. It
analyses the damage to Coach S-6 by comparing it
with six other burnt coaches, including one that
is now parked at Jagadhri. This caught fire while
under maintenance in the washing line of Delhi
Junction Station in November 2003 and has a
burns-marks pattern similar to Coach S-6. The
patterns indicate that the heat was more severe
on the upper half of the coaches and greater at
one end of the coach in both cases.
This fits in with the pattern of burns sustained
by the victims: most of these are on the upper
portions of their bodies and few below the
abdomen. This could not be the case had the fire
originated from the floor. Had the fire started
on the floor of the passage or the floor outside
the toilets, "inflammable plywood and foam in
three tiers of seats would not be available for
the fire to burn in this area. If the fire was
started by an inflammable fluid on the floor, the
flames would have been noticed right away in a
very crowded carriage, precluding the possibility
of a long smouldering source", says the report.
In all likelihood, combustible material placed
below the lower berth (bench), including clothing
and plastic goods, caught fire accidentally,
probably because of a half-lighted match, a
cigarette butt, or a cooking stove. This probably
set the plywood base of the seat on fire, and
then the latex foam on the seat. The foam creates
"enormous clouds of hot, dense, asphyxiating,
black smoke and this itself becomes the source of
ignition for other materials as the temperature
rises to flash point".
Latex foam and the rexine (vinyl fabric) covering
the berth as well as laminated plastic partitions
(sunmica) and vinyl flooring (linoleum) produce
extremely poisonous gases on combustion,
including hydrogen cyanide, free isocyanates and
carbon monoxide, along with dense smoke.
It is this toxic smoke that probably caused a
majority of the deaths, while direct fire burns
were responsible for far fewer casualties.
THE report demonstrates how the post-mortem
examinations were done in a hurry in the railway
yard, each lasting an average of 38 minutes, and
are unreliable. But the injury reports are far
better and strengthen the main conclusions that
the fire started in the luggage below one of the
seats "in the 8th or 9th cabin and then spread
through radiative and convective heating from the
overhead smoke".
The Hazards Centre report highlights one major
feature of the expertise now available with many
NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and
people's movements, through their capacity for
public-spirited scientific and technological
analysis.
Such groups are able to do a far better job than
governments of understanding hazards and
analysing safety issues. This has been
demonstrated time and again in the recent past -
during the reconstruction effort after the
Uttarkashi, Killari and Gujarat earthquakes and
the Orissa super cyclone, as well as during the
Bhopal gas disaster.
The Banerjee committee would do well to draw upon
such expertise before producing its final report.
And the BJP would do well to accept that the
truth about Godhra lies outside fanciful and
communal conspiracy theories.
o o o o o
(ii)
Editorial from Los Angeles Times dated Saturday, January 29, 2005
THE DEADLY REACH OF RUMOR
An Investigation In India of the 2002 burning of
a railroad car filled with Hindu pilgrims has
found that the fire may have been an accident
aboard the train and not the work of a Mus-lim
mob. The horrible significance of this
al-ternative explanation Is that 50 deaths in the
train fire triggered the revenge slaughter of
more than 1,000 of India's minority Muslims In a
wave of religious fanaticism. An even harsher
light Is now cast on the govern-ment's response
at the time.
In February 2002, Hindu nationalists controlled
the federal and Gujarat state govern-ments. Their
responses to the train fire and subsequent
violence were slow or nonexist-ent, their
Investigations essentially worth-less.
When voters returned the opposition Congress
Party and Its allies to office last year, the new
national rulers appointed are-tired Supreme Court
judge, U.C. Banerjee, to Investigate the fire.
Last week, Banerjee Is-sued a report saying there
was no evidence to show the fire had been caused
by Muslims pouring gasoline onto the train and
lighting
It. An independent group of engineers con-curred,
saying the fire appeared to have been started by
a passenger's cigarette or flames from a cooking
stove.
The Banerjee commission is due to Issue a final
report within weeks. If It credibly sticks to the
conclusion that the fire was an acci-dent, the
findings should be discussed not just in federal
cabinet meetings but In village councils and
schools, to amend a sorry pe-riod in the nation
that prides itself on being the world's most
populous democracy.
India's Supreme Court can pride itself on
demanding investigations and trials when state
officials Initially tried to avoid doing
anything. Each passing month makes It more
difficult to find the ringleaders of the ri-ots
and put them on trial, but truth Is Itself a
partial form of justice.
If the fire aboard the Sabarmati Express as It
stopped in the town of Godhra was an accident,
politicians should use the report as a cautionary
tale about sectarian grievances. Wild rumors are
deadly, and it is up to gov-ernment to search for
the truth and protect those most at risk.
________
[5]
[Upcoming event]
Darpana's Centre for Non Violence through Arts Presents:
THE FESTIVAL OF NON VIOLENCE
30th January / Sunday / 8.30 pm
ROMEO AND JULIET
Directed by American director Betty Bernhard
Performed by Darpana Performing Group
31 January / Monday / 8.30 pm
V FOR . . .
Created by John Martin and Mallika Sarabhai
Performed by Mallika Sarabhai
with the Darpana Performing Group
1st February / Tuesday / 8.30 pm
THE MAHATMA AND THE POETESS
A play by Tom Alter and Mrinalini Sarabhai
2nd February / Wednesday / 8.30 pm
A solo by Lushin Dubey, Theatre World
Directed by Arvind Gaur
Music direction Sangeeta Gaur
3rd February / Thursday / 8.30 pm
BITTER CHOCOLATE
A bilingual solo performance
by Lushin Dubey, Theatre World
Directed and scripted by Arvind Gaur
Music direction Sangeeta Gaur
4th February / Friday / 8.30 pm
BHOMA
By Budhan Theatre
Written by Badal Sircar
Directed by Dakshin Chhakra
7th February / Monday / 8.30 pm
SOCHO KABHI AISA HO TO KYA HO
A play written by Madhyam Communication for Development
Written by Ranjit Gadhvi
Directed by Archan Trivedi
For further information contact:
Natarani, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts,
Usmanpura Ahmedabad - 380013
Phone: 27556669 / 27560971
E-mail: natarani at darpana.com
www.darpana.com
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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