SACW | 19 Feb 2005
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Fri Feb 18 20:02:45 CST 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire | 19 Feb., 2005
via: www.sacw.net
[1] [A bus service between the divided Kashmir ]
A subcontinental turning point (Praful Bidwai)
[2] Strange Bedfellows in the War Against Valentine (Farish A. Noor)
[3] Nepal:
(i) Online Petition seeking the release of Professor Lok Raj Baral
(ii) Royal Commission on Corruption Control: A Further Step into Lawlessness
[4] India: The Lessons of 1984 [riots] (Rediff)
[5] India: Concerns for Syed Geelani (Amnesty International)
[6] India: History's Mysteries : Finding the 'Truth' (Badri Raina)
[7] French War Ship Headed to India Despite Protests (Green Peace)
[8] Book Review of 'The Ripped Chest: Public
Policy and the Poor in India by Harsh Mander'
(Dilip D'Souza)
[9] Recently Published : 'Beyond Lines of Control
: Performance and Politics on the Disputed
Borders of Ladakh, India by Ravina Aggarwal'
--------------
[1]
The News International
February 19, 2005
A SUBCONTINENTAL TURNING POINT
Praful Bidwai
It is simply impossible to exaggerate the
importance of the agreement reached between India
and Pakistan on launching a bus service between
the two divided parts of Kashmir from April 7. It
is the kind of breakthrough that has happened
only very rarely in this fraught,
long-strife-torn part of the world.
Perhaps the only other parallel is the Indus
Waters Treaty of 1960. But even that had to be
brokered by the World Bank. It essentially
settled a long-festering old dispute between the
two countries, which had by then intensified
their mutual rivalry under the first intensive
phase of the Cold War.
The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus deal is not only an
externally un-mediated bilateral agreement; it
opens up new vistas of cooperation, rather than
put the lid on an already existing mutual
dispute. This in itself is a great tribute to the
mutual trust, good faith and maturity that the
two governments are capable of. Although they
normally do not allow such trust, the bus
agreement raises hopes that able leaderships in
both countries could help India-Pakistan
relations soar sustainably to lofty heights; they
could certainly put their sordid past behind
themselves.
Soon, a bus carrying members of Kashmir's divided
families, inquisitive tourists from other parts
of Pakistan and India, and goodwill citizen
visitors will roll along the same road that
witnessed the first armed India-Pakistan clashes
after Independence, in October 1947.
The 170-km road between the capitals of the two
Kashmirs, especially its Uri-Chakothi stretch, is
precisely where the two militaries laid countless
landmines during the 1965 and 1971 wars, and even
later. The hundreds of anti-personnel and
anti-tank mines that still exist there are a
reminder of past hostility. Their removal, now
under way, could pave the way to a future that
both peoples richly deserve.
The proposal for the bus crossing the Line of
Control, ran into rough weather at least four
times before the agreement was finally reached
after much "back-channel" discussion. Ultimately,
a deal could be struck because both New Delhi and
Islamabad agreed to give-and-take -- without
compromising their respective legal or political
positions on Kashmir.
India conceded Pakistan's demand that the bus
passengers should carry neither visas nor
passports; only locally issued identity documents
would be valid. Pakistan in turn, dropped its
insistence that the service be limited to the
Kashmiris alone, and that the papers to be
carried from Srinagar should not bear a
Government of India stamp. India too agreed to
respect papers issued by the Government of "Azad
Kashmir" (which it does not politically
recognise).
With the bus agreement, three things have
happened. First, the once intense Pakistani fear
has been significantly allayed that New Delhi
would use the bus as a substitute for serious
talks on Kashmir; if anything, once the bus
starts rolling, there will be more pressure on
India to pursue the comprehensive bilateral talks
agenda.
In reality, the bus deal has created a more
favourable climate for talks on other issues,
including Kashmir. India will now be under
unprecedented pressure to put Kashmir on the
negotiating table and associate Indian-Kashmiri
opinion with the process.
Second, there has been a considerable weakening
of one lobby or current opinion in the Indian
Establishment, which holds that Pakistan is not,
and cannot be, sincere about shedding its
visceral hostility towards India, and improving
relations. This lobby argued that Pakistan didn't
want the bus in the first place; it would put all
kinds of obstacles, however unreasonable, to
scuttle it; in view of Pakistan's demands
(including one final "bargaining" proposal about
the Central government not stamping papers), it
would be futile to negotiate with Islamabad
beyond a point. This hardline opinion has got
discredited, albeit temporarily. (Presumably, the
same has happened to Pakistani hardliners.)
Third, the bus agreement has facilitated and
speeded up deals on other links, including the
Khokhrapar-Munabao rail service between Sindh and
Rajasthan, and buses between Lahore/Nankana Sahib
and Amritsar. On the rail link, Pakistani
officials only a couple of months ago demanded
about three years' time to convert the metre
gauge track on their side to broad gauge -- the
5-foot 6-inch distance between a pair of rails,
which prevails only in South Asia.
Now, however, it is agreed that pending gauge
conversion, Indian and Pakistani passengers can
use the available tracks to the International
Border, and then cross the border, and board a
train of the other country's railways. The
service should open in October.
Apart from this, the bus agreement has created a
new level of trust which is likely to result in
some prompt action on the eight month-old
agreement to re-open consulates in Mumbai and
Karachi, as well as address other outstanding
disputes and issues, including Siachen, Baglihar,
Sir Creek, etc.
To be fair, the bus wasn't the only icebreaker.
There was a second one: the Iran-Pakistan-India
gas pipeline as a stand-alone project. Hence, New
Delhi's recent decision to authorise Petroleum
Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, to negotiate oil
and gas supply agreements with various countries,
and to de-link the overland pipeline from any
transit rights through Pakistan for India, played
a critical role here.
This too became possible because Prime Minister,
Manmohan Singh rejected the hardliners' argument
that pipeline transit fees would "unduly" benefit
Pakistan, eventually encouraging it to re-launch
a proxy war against India. There was a paranoid
fear that Pakistan could cut off supplies at
will, jeopardising India's energy security. This
fear will soon be put to rest. The pipeline
deal-in-the-offing could be another instance of
nothing succeeding like success.
The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus agreement has
already spurred a demand from the Valley for bus
services between Suchetgarh and Sialkot, Nowshera
and Mirpur, Rajouri and Bimber, and Kargil and
Skardu. At any rate, there is widespread
jubilation in the Valley at the realisation of
this "dream" bus link. Political currents from
the ruling People's Democratic Party and
Congress, to the National Conference, and the
Left, have all welcomed the bus.
The only grumblers are the BJP, which says the
bus will facilitate terrorists' entry into India,
and people like the Jaish-e-Mohammed (which has
threatened to attack the bus) and Syed Ali Shah
Geelani, who makes the trite observation that the
bus won't get rid of "repressive laws" or "human
rights violations" (which it won't), and
therefore it's "a non-issue" (which it isn't)!
Asia Andrabi, chief of Dukhtaran-e-Millat, has
gone one better, saying the bus service "is a
sinful attempt to influence the disputed status
of Kashmir. Those who support the bus service are
our enemies."
This should occasion some rethinking about just
who these worthies represent in India or Kashmir.
It should also highlight the physical
vulnerability of the bus to extremist
attacks.India and Pakistan have a long way to go
in realising the potential for cooperation --
well beyond the 120,000 visas India issues every
year, and the measly proportions of their
bilateral trade in their total international
trade. The introduction of normal tourist visas
is long overdue, as is cooperation in education,
science and culture. But the two have at last
made a worthy beginning.
________
[2]
[17 February 2005]
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS IN THE WAR AGAINST VALENTINE
By Farish A. Noor
Hate and prejudice can strange bedfellows make. As the world struggles on
under the yoke of a globalisation process that continues unabated and
unguided, the crippling effects of uneven development make themselves
manifest all over. This has led to a counter-reaction from many parts of the
world from groups that oppose the globalisation process and who have
attempted an anti-systemic critique instead, though these anti-systemic
movements are arrayed across a wide spectrum and also include, quite
frankly, some creepy and loony ones.
In many parts of the developing South, the failure of the post colonial
state has contributed to the rise of right-wings conservative groups and
parties who base their narrow communitarian brand of politics on simplistic
essentialist understandings of identity and the difference between 'Self'
and 'Other'. For some of them, standing against globalisation has been
equated as standing squarely against the West in toto.
Due to the fact that most of these groups are formed out of a communitarian
mould, their politics tend to be shallow as it is short-sighted. The narrow
ethnocentrism that underlies their political campaigns also explains why
their critiques of globalisation have tended to be couched in essentialist
terms that see the 'West' as static and simple, and their own identities as
fixed by non-permeable frontiers.
This sort of simplistic politics was clearly evident this week when
right-wing groups all over the South called for a 'ban' on celebrations of
Valentine's day, which for them is yet another Western cultural import that
underscores the cultural hegemony of the West over the rest. In many of
these cases what emerged instead was a culturalist (as opposed to
structuralist) critique of Valentine's day on the grounds that it was
another case of the 'great evil Western empire' spreading its cultural
tentacles worldwide.
It is ironic that in this simplistic blanket condemnation of all things
Western that right-wing conservative groups in Asia were united by a common
hatred of Western culture. While Islamist groups in countries like Malaysia,
Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh threatened to go out into the streets and
'morally police' the behaviour of wayward youths on that day, extreme
right-wing Hindu activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)
and RSS in India also took the law into their own hands and harassed young
Indian kids who wanted to go out on dates. The leaders of the ABVP even
argued that the 'sitting culture' in Indian restaurants should be curbed, in
order to rid Indian society of social evils that emanate from the Saint who
died hundreds of years ago! As ever, the tactics of these right-wing
movements are predictably simple: Venting their spleen on the West and
laying the blame for their own economic problems on the Other is a simple
way of exteriorising what is really an internal structural crisis. It also
allows them to extend their power and influence by adopting a paternalistic
rhetoric of 'Care' for their constituencies, as well as their victims - who
more often than not happen to be young kids.
One can only lament the fate of poor old Saint Valentine, whose martyrdom at
the hands of his murderers has now served to unite Islamic and Hindu
fundamentalists in their unstated common struggle against the 'evil' West.
What is more worrying and problematic, however, is the way in which the rise
of such authoritarian groups in countries like India, Pakistan, Malaysia and
Indonesia continues unabated before the seemingly blind eyes of a public
that has grown accustomed to the hyperbolic rhetoric of the right.
Lest it be forgotten, some simple truths need to be stated once more: The
celebration of Valentine's day these days may indeed be a crass and vulgar
affair totally distorted by consumerism and commercialism, but it is
certainly not the main problem of globalisation that the South faces. If
anything, the popularisation of the St Valentine cult is merely a symptom
of the wider integration of the South into the global economic system, which
has brought with it other popular cultural markers such as McDonalds, Nike,
karaoke and other such nonsensical things. To suppose, as the right-wingers
do, that the banning of Valentine's day or even McDonalds would somehow
miraculously solve the problem of uneven development and globalisation is as
naive and simplistic as their own overblown rhetoric.
Nor does the celebration of Valentine's day represent a danger in any
tangible, realistic sense. Compared to the carpet bombing of Iraq not too
long ago, to be showered by cards bearing messages of love - even if they
are written by spotty teens - is infinitely better, one should think. The
structural inequalities of the global economic system remains the primary
reason why the countries of the developing South are vulnerable to the
vicissitudes of the global economy as well as the bullying tactics and
gunboat diplomacy of powerful developed nations. As long as these structural
issues are not addressed in earnest, and with some intelligence, the
problems will remain. (And blaming dead saints will not get us anywhere.)
On a final note: In anticipation of the nonsensical accusation that I am
somehow defending the 'corrupting culture' of Western materialism by
defending poor old (and dead) Saint Valentine, allow me to state clearly why
I choose to take this stand. In an apparently loveless world beset by
man-made calamities of an unprecedented scale, I feel that what the world
needs now is Love. Putting aside the crass materialism and consumerism that
accompanies the annual celebration of Valentine's day, the fact remains that
its essential message is that of Love and companionship between human
beings. It is that message of common humanity and solidarity that the
anti-systemic and anti-globalisation movements of the South need to use and
capitalise, in order to create instrumental coalitions that transcend
boundaries of politics and culture.
So next year, instead of ranting and raving against all things Western,
perhaps some of these anti-globalisation activists of the South might want
to consider sending a Valentine's card to their counterparts in the
anti-globalisation movement in the West. That, at least, would be a step in
the right direction!
________
[3] NEPAL
(i) Online Petition seeking release of Professor Lok Raj Baral
Dear friends:
Please show your support by signing the following
petition to urge the Nepal Government to release
Professor Lok Raj Baral, a well-known Nepali
scholar and Professor of Political Science of
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. The
unlawful detention of this seventy-year scholar
is a violation of his academic freedom and
personal liberty.
http://www.petitiononline.com/FreeProf/petition.html
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Alok Bohara, Ph.D.
and many friends of Liberal Democracy Nepal
Professor Economics, UNM
=======================================================
To: His Majesty's Government of Nepal (Kathmandu, Nepal)
On 7 February 2005 (25 Magh 2061), Professor Lok
Raj Baral (Department of Political Science,
Tribhuvan University, Nepal) was picked up by
security personnel on arrival from New Delhi at
the Tribhuvan International Airport (Kathmandu,
Nepal). We strongly oppose his arrest, and urge
the government to release him immediately.
According to the Internet newspaper Tehelka,
Professor Baral was in Delhi at a meeting
organized by Observer Foundation, headed by
Maharaj Kumar Rashgotra, former Indian ambassador
to Nepal and former foreign secretary, government
of India. The meeting was attended by Professor
SD Muni of Jawaharlal Nehru University, among
others. During his stay in India, Baral also
spoke on a radio program on the situation in
Nepal (Tehelka, February 12).
The seventy-year old Prof. Baral is a well-known
Nepali scholar of political science with many
books and scholarly articles to his credit. His
arrest for unknown reasons has provided cause for
concern among the country's academics,
intellectuals and civil society members. This is
a gross violation of his academic freedom, and
all the freedom-loving citizens of the world must
condemn this act.
No society can progress when scholarly thoughts
and expression are controlled. Such actions also
hamper the search for a common solution to the
difficulties facing the country caused by the
eight-year old conflict. We the undersigned seek
the immediate release of Prof. Baral.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
______
(ii)
[18 Feb 2005]
ROYAL COMMISSION ON CORRUPTION CONTROL: A FURTHER STEP INTO LAWLESSNESS
By Nepali Citizen
Seventeen days after King Gyanendra assumed
direct rule in Nepal and declared a state of
emergency that suspended most fundamental
freedoms, he has issued an order setting up a
body that nullifies the most significant
principles of rule of law embedded in the
Constitution of 1990. In setting up the Royal
Commission on Corruption Control, the king has
created an agency to subdue critics of his 1
February takeover, threaten members of
constitutional bodies including judges of the
Supreme Court, and paralyse existing institutions
meant to tackle corruption within legal
boundaries.
The king has acted under Article 115 (7) of the
1990 Constitution, which is meant to allow for
short-term measures required to enforce a state
of emergency. The article should not be used to
go beyond the strict requirements of enforcing an
emergency, nor is it meant to weaken existing
constitutional institutions and practices.
The royal order flies in the face of the
fundamental principle of law, that investigating
and prosecuting bodies must be separate from the
adjudicating authority. The prosecutor cannot be
judge, but King Gyanendra has concentrated all
functions within the commission, giving it powers
beyond the pale of what civilized societies grant
such entities. The principle of fair trial
evaporates under the weight of today’s royal
action.
The constitution and operation of the royal
commission is designed to paralyse the existing
bodies for investigation into corruption, viz.
the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of
Authority (CIAA) and the Special Court meant to
consider the CIAA’s prosecutions. In the name of
battling corruption, King Gyanendra has made
defunct existing mechanisms set up
constitutionally for that very purpose. Rather
than setting up a royal commission with
near-total powers to prosecute anyone without
limitation, if the goal was really to battle
corruption King Gyanendra could have further
empowered the existing institutions and backed
the action with a political commitment that was
often lacking in the past. Instead, he has
created an institution designed to go after
opponents of the royal takeover.
At a time when Parliament is only a memory and
the entire media sector (press, radio and
television) is shackled under censorship edicts,
this action by King Gyanendra is also seen as a
blow against what little independence there
remains of the judiciary. All relevant laws and
as well as the 1990 Constitution have been
superseded in setting up the commission, and
oversight by the courts under the order is
tenuous. For a Supreme Court already submissive
and intimidated, the order makes it pointedly
possible for the commission to investigate "the
judges of the Supreme Court and office bearers of
all constitutional bodies". The commission may
proceed with prosecution against such individuals
as long as they have informed the king. This
seems a provision carefully worded to ensure that
the judges are compliant and do not seek any
adventure vis-à-vis the authoritarian moves of
the royal palace.
The order by King Gyanendra forbids any criticism
of the commission, provides for punishment, and
has a provision for 'excuse' of those who dare to
disparage the commission. This is nothing but an
attempt to stifle criticism of the royal
commission as it begins work. There is also a
provision that prohibits anyone from protesting
an investigation being conducted by the
commission and providing for punishment. Such a
stricture goes against the rights to effective
representation and proper hearing, and
intimidates all concerned including the very
persons prosecuted. While there is provision for
appeal to the Supreme Court within 35 days of a
decision by the commission, the current status of
judicial and constitutional bodies in Nepal, as
well as the general atmosphere of fear and
intimidation, makes it unlikely that this
recourse will be utilized effectively.
The commission is chaired by Bhakta Bahadur
Koirala. Koirala was the Secretary of Home
Affairs during the repression of the People's
Movement of 1990, and the person found to be the
most culpable by the respected Mallik Commisson.
Other members are Raghu Chandra Bahadur Singh, a
retired army general, pilot and royal relative;
Hari Babu Chaudhary, former head of the
Department of Intelligence; Sambhu Prasad Khanal,
a retired official from the Revenue Service; and
Prem Bahadur Khati, whose antecedents are not
clear. The only person with judicial experience
in the commission is Sambhu Bahadur Khadka, who
has been appointed secretary. Rather than being
from the Supreme Court or the many Appellate
Courts, he is a relative junior in the judicial
service and sitting judge of the Kaski District
Court. This subordinate's appointment to a
position where he can pointedly even prosecute
the Supreme Court flies in the face of judicial
practice and is seen as a blatant message to the
bench of the highest court.
In an emergency meeting this evening, the Nepal
Bar Association has condemned the royal order as
one that contravenes the 1990 Constitution, goes
against rule of law, and undermines the
independence of the judiciary. We now wait for
other jurists and constitutional experts in the
country and internationally to weigh in on King
Gyanendra's decision. On the day that he has
announced the royal commission, however, this
looks like one more action by a monarch bent on a
descent into lawlessness.
______
[4]
Rediff.com
February 18, 2005
The Rediff Special > THE LESSONS OF 1984 [RIOTS]
The Justice Nanavati Commission submitted its
report on the anti-Sikh riots that followed
Indira Gandhi's assassination to Home Minister
Shivraj Patil last week.
Poonam Muttreja is one of the founders of
Dastkar, the movement of Indian craftspeople. She
co-founded the Nagrik Ekta Manch to help Sikhs
victimised by the 1984 violence.
This is the concluding part of a three-part
series in which she recalls one of the most
shameful phases in Independent India.
Part I: When Delhi Burnt
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/feb/16spec1.htm
Part II: 'It was not guilt; it was shame'
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/feb/16spec3.htm
When the riots broke out, we performed the role
of firefighters. When rehabilitation work
started, our work got over. After that my father
would say that the Nagrik Ekta Manch has turned
into the Never-Ending Meeting! Political
manoeuvring had started by then and no one was
ready to work long-term. The NEM was dissolved
but individual activities continued.
'I haven't absolved Congress: Justice Nanavati
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/feb/17spec1.htm
I believe that the people who were wronged in
1984 didn't get justice. I participated in the
Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission that
investigated the riots. I was a strong witness; I
had my affidavit with all the names and facts
before the commission. I took the help of
(lawyer) Nandita Haksar to prepare it. Haksar,
(social activist) Smitu Kothari and I were among
key witnesses before the Commission.
But when I appeared before the Commission, I was
disappointed. Whenever I named any guilty police
officer or politicians, they said, "You are
getting emotional." After that, I felt the
Commission was an eyewash.
About eight years after the riots, I was called
before the Jain Commission (set up to investigate
Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in May 1991). I was
asked only one question: Can you recognise all
the people you have named in your affidavit? They
trapped me. After eight years there were good
chances I may not. So I said I may not be able to
recognise them. They asked me to leave.
The biggest shock of all came when H K L Bhagat
won the 1984 election with the second highest
majority after Rajiv Gandhi. We had campaigned
against him. But he won. How do you explain this?
Sikhs were not stopped from voting but still
Bhagat won. People started telling us, "You build
wells and help the poor. Politics is for strong
people with muscle power and not for us."
We won't forget many lessons from 1984.
First, the media should not knowingly or
unknowingly contribute to the violence. For the
first few hours after the assassination, if there
had been some restraint in identifying the names
of Mrs Gandhi's Sikh bodyguards, it might have
helped.
Second, the press reported Rajiv Gandhi making
this statement: 'When a huge tree falls, the
earth shatters.' I think this was a very immature
statement, if not downright communal. I don't
think Rajiv Gandhi understood the political
implications of his statement. And how it
encouraged Congressmen to legitimate the violence.
The third lesson is that when such events occur,
every citizen should take charge. How do I
contribute to stop violence in my street? If this
awareness and commitment exists, then the
violence can be controlled faster. We perhaps
cannot completely stop violence in our society
but we can be effective in making sure it does
not escalate. Every citizen should vow that in
any such situation he or she will do his or her
bit to reduce the violence.
Lastly, I don't think the Congress party has
learned any lessons from 1984. What can they have
learnt when the Sikh victims are still to get
justice? Ours is a non-caring society in which it
is difficult to get justice. Gujarat has been
completely shattering for me.
After 1984, the Sikhs also got a lot of respect
and compassion. But in Gujarat not many Hindu
volunteers rushed to help the Muslims. The 1984
riots didn't mobilise large sections of Hindu
society against Sikhs. But in Gujarat the
division is very worrying.
If the Hindu-Sikh divide had deepened, 1984 could
have paved way for another Partition. If large
numbers of Hindus had supported the violence
against Sikhs, the communal divide would have
been worrying. But the Sikhs are back on their
feet now. Their rehabilitation is not yet over,
they didn't get justice from the legal system,
but Hindu-Sikh tension is not present today. And
perhaps that one fact should be something to be
thankful about.
As told to Senior Editor Sheela Bhatt
o o o o
[See Also:
Reuters - February 15, 2005
Indian Film Seeks Justice Over 1984 Sikh Massacre
By Philip Blenkinsop
http://www.reuters.ca/locales/c_newsArticle.jsp?type=entertainmentNews&localeKey=en_CA&storyID=7636515
_______
[5]
Amnesty International
Public Statement
AI Index: ASA 20/012/2005 (Public) News Service No: 040
18 February 2005
INDIA: CONCERNS FOR SYED GEELANI
Amnesty International is gravely concerned by the
shooting of Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani outside his
lawyer's house on 8 February in New Delhi and
fears that the current investigation by the very
police force which allegedly had been involved in
this attack may not be relied on to establish the
truth. The organization therefore calls on the
Government of India to promptly set up a judicial
inquiry into the attack to bring to justice
anyone responsible for instigating, assisting or
carrying out the attack.
Geelani was sentenced to death for conspiring,
planning and abetting an attack on the parliament
building in New Delhi in December 2001, but was
later acquitted on appeal. Since his release
Geelani has publicly expressed fear for his life.
Amnesty International urges the Government of
India to take firm steps to ensure the safety of
Syed Geelani and all the other accused,
witnesses, lawyers and judicial officers
connected with the case. The organization also
requests the Government of India to institute a
judicial inquiry into the investigaton of the
attack on the Indian Parliament building and
events leading up to and following it, as many
key aspects remain unclear.
After the attack on his life, Delhi police has
begun to investigate the incident and the Supreme
Court has directed that it be informed within a
week of any findings of the police. Also, the
Ministry of Home Affairs has called for daily
police status reports. Human rights activists
have demanded that a central police force, the
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), be
entrusted with the investigation.
Background
On 13 December 2001, five men organized an attack
on the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi.
In the ensuing shootout, all the attackers, eight
police personnel and a gardener were killed and
16 others were injured. In the following days,
four Kashmiris, namely Syed Geelani, an Arabic
lecturer in a New Delhi college, Mohammad Afzal,
Shaukat Hussain Guru and his wife Afsan Guru,
were arrested. They were charged with conspiring,
planning and abetting the attack under the
Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO). On 16
December 2002, the three men were sentenced to
death for conspiracy to attack the Parliament,
waging war against India, murder and grievous
hurt. Afzan Guru was sentenced to five years'
imprisonment. The Delhi High Court heard the
appeal against the convictions in October 2003
and ruled that there was no evidence to link Syed
Geelani to the attack and acquitted him of all
charges. The other death sentences were
confirmed. Appeals against the death sentences
and Geelani's acquittal are currently being heard
in the Supreme Court.
Syed Geelani's lawyer has stated that Geelani was
followed by police and harassed after his release
and that he had publicly expressed his fear that
he might be killed in a staged police encounter.
The lawyer also reportedly alleged that her and
her client's phone were under police surveillance
enabling the attacker to trace Geelani on the day
of the attack. On several occasions in the past,
Geelani had reportedly been threatened and
harassed by unidentified individuals after he
resumed his teaching assignment. Though he did
not formally seek police protection, Amnesty
International believes that it would have been
the duty of the state to ensure his safety once
it became known that he suffered harassment and
intimidation and feared that he might be killed.
_______
[6]
http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2005&leaf=02&filename=8267&filetype=html
The Economic and Political Weekly
February 12, 2005
HISTORY'S MYSTERIES : FINDING THE 'TRUTH'
The 'truth' about Godhra appears more clouded
with the partial findings of the interim Banerjee
Report. Several actors, including the Election
Commission, continue to debate the propriety or
otherwise of the report's release, and whether
citizens will be well served by the dissemination
of its findings. In all this, it is 'truth', the
search for it, that ultimately makes up an
individual's response as to how life should be
lived, becomes a casualty.
Badri Raina
There has always been a class of thinking people
who have been wearied and disappointed by the
cussed obtuseness of history to yield up
transcendent truths. Nor have all of them been
poseurs or charlatans, masking self-interest
under an attitude of affected profundity. Through
the ages, a good number - writers, artists, other
caring people - have suffered (as they continue
to suffer) genuine despair at the absence of
final answers. Some, embracing contingent
contributions to causes dear to them, have opted
for often frustrating involvements to the bitter
end (a Yeats, a Lukacs, a Sartre). Others have
been helped by their angst to produce memorable
works of literature and philosophy (a Joyce, a
Hiedegger). Some others have concluded their own
histories in self-slaughter (a Mayakovsky, a
Camus, a Rimbaud, a Virginia Woolf). Many,
jettisoning their seemingly fruitless
intellectualities, have made submission to the
authority of dogma (an Augustine, an Ashoka, a
Kafka, an Eliot). And, posited on the other side,
not a few rationalists/Marxists, violated by the
rugged imperfections of praxis, have found
cheerful telos in an alternate god, nature and
the market (a Malthus, a Bernstein, a Gorbachev).
And yet others have opted to offer learned
comment from sanctuaries offered by expert
distance (the names here are too many to recite)
in the belief that it is worthwhile, after all,
to be impartial, even if somewhat cynical,
denoters of partial truths than to sink into
silence altogether, particularly if there is some
remuneration at the end. Let it be understood
that the names I have picked are random rather
than inclusive, illustrative rather than
exhaustive. (Indeed, were this line of thought
pursued in some detail, the procedure could lead
to a rewarding compendium of the interfaces
between specific histories and individual
odysseys. But this is neither the place for such
a project, nor the purpose entirely of this piece
which is occasioned simply by some learned
comment in sections of the media that all reports
- of this committee and that commission - are
worthless political tools meant to further or
hinder some crass interest or the other, and the
truth of things such as the Godhra occurrence can
never be found). To carry on: there are, however,
also those who have found it in them, wittingly
or unwittingly, to internalise that text in the
Bhagwad Gita which suggests that we discriminate
in the momentary here-and-now, between the vile
and the not-so-vile, and do our bit on behalf of
the latter without seeking to reach after some
ultimate consequence, or without confining the
ambit of that consequence to the span of our
private lifespans. In other words, learn to
school our intelligence to recognise that there
has been a long line of others before us, and
there will be a long line of others after us. So
that it were best not to preclude what
consequence our honest effort may have in the
course of things.
So also of the Godhra event, the Banerjee Report,
and the uses to which it has been put.
Succinctly, if the Godhra lies could be deployed
to win one election, why may not some part of the
Godhra truth be likewise pressed to win another?
It is now to be noted that the local Gujarat VHP
leader has testified at the Nanavati Commission
that they had/have no direct evidence that the
Godhra event was planned. Likewise, the BJP
leader, Nalin Bhatt, has testified that the BJP
had/has no direct evidence that any inflammable
materials were thrown from the outside of the S6
coach. But, most significantly of all, the father
of the slain Haren Pathak (who was a member of
Narendra Modi's cabinet) has testified that the
Gujarat carnage was 'ordered by Modi' as he
called 'fifty-six leaders of the BJP to a meeting
at 5 pm on February 27, 2002 and told them that
the Godhra killings must be retaliated.
Alas, the only choice we have is to make a choice
for the time-being, and the option of not making
a choice is the worst of choices we can make. Nor
should the 'time-being' concern us less than
eternity, since as best we know in our
finite consciousness, eternity may in the end be
only an endless stream of 'time-beings'. As in
the case of our own brains, we may never know
more than a small percentage of its composition,
and the little we know is all we have to go on.
And it may be that pushing by best reason
the little we know, more may come into our ken.
If, then, the Banerjee Report, authorised and
authenticated by due processes of constitutional
governance, helps us today to understand somewhat
better how the tectonics of the Gujarat carnage
were engineered (so as we may forestall its
second coming) where is the harm in sharing those
reasoned and public findings with the people of
India. For, crucially, sharing those findings
cannot be intended to foment communalism but to
make known how coach S6 was made to function as
the vehicle of communalism. Would it be our case
that Darwin was wrong to publish his findings on
evolution because it upsets Genesis, or that
Crick was wrong to isolate the DNA because it
exploded theories of human inequality? If not,
how can a report that goes some way to illuminate
the constructions of fascist politics in our time
be deleterious to the nation?
As to the Election Commission: consider that
during the long-drawn-out electoral campaign in
that most 'beloved' of countries, America, how
many ugly facts - partial and political - were
revealed one after the other, day after day; and
nobody cried 'stop'. Indeed, had not that
happened, the neanderthal neoconservatives might
have had the world uncontestedly under their
jackboots. As it happens, that churning has gone
a long way to tell us what we are in for. It is
of course a circumstance that America has no
Election Commission; perhaps their founding
fathers recognised that politics (the ordering of
public life to the best public good) should not
be an adjunct to 'management' and 'good
governance' but a field of transparent
contestations shared widely and repeatedly among
the people in whom sovereignty rests.
If it is truly our collective desire to forge an
informed and secure culture of democracy - rather
than its mere trappings - let us accept that
there is no other way to defeat viciating
gullibilities than by a relentless exposure to
available and verifiable truths. We cannot at
once sing praises of the perspicacity of our
electorate as well as seek to treat them with
paternalistic condescension.
If in the months to come other findings surface
that put Banerjee to grief then so be it. Let, as
we go along, truth prevail for the 'time-being'
until it is overthrown by truths even more
substantiated. There is a brand of modern-day
philosophers who have persuasively argued that
the only certainty we possess is that nothing is
certain. Let us say with equal, and equally
contrary, certainty that we are not in the
business of either finding the absolute or,
failing that, abandoning altogether the
contingent need to make sense of the world we
inherit, we inhabit, and we act in. And that,
therefore, we simply assume, as creatures of the
here-and-now, our obligation towards furthering
what Habermas called the 'project of modernity'.
That assumption requires that we propagate any
and all texts, including the Banerjee
Report, which help to enlarge our humanity from
moment to moment, month to month, year to year,
generation to generation, without being deterred
by the truth of that Keynesian text which reminds
us of precisely what is suggested here in
sardonic rebuke - 'in the end we are all dead'.
That rebuke was meant to suggest to us that
between birth and death falls that thing called
life; and whether we acknowledge this or not, we
all live it in specific ways of which the least
profitable is the gesture of expert disinterest
in the doings of the tainted, or lofty disdain at
their claim that they may have located some part
of a petty truth.
[This article was written before the interim
report of the Banerjee Commitee was 'made
available' to a wider group on February 7, 2005.]
_______
[7]
Greenpeace India
FRENCH WAR SHIP HEADED TO INDIA DESPITE PROTESTS
Tue 01 February 2005
INDIA/Bombay
The Clemenceau, a 33,000-tonne French military
warship is headed to Alang, Gujarat for ship
breaking. It is expected to arrive there in the
first quarter of 2005. This vessel is known to
contain hazardous chemicals, because of which it
has already been denied entry in many
ship-breaking yards in Greece, Turkey etc.
Greenpeace has called on Indian authorities to
take urgent action to stop the illegal import of
the toxic behemoth 'Clemenceau,' and to ensure
that the import of this ship will not contravene
the Supreme Court order on ship recycling or the
Basel convention on trans-boundary movement of
hazardous waste. This is the second reminder that
Greenpeace has sent to the concerned Indian
Ministries and authorities.
Clemenceau has been ridden with controversy right
from the day she was decommissioned in 1997 after
35 years of service; the 33,000-tonne ship was
sold to a Spanish company, which undertook to tow
it to the port of Gijon in northern Spain to be
demolished.
French authorities had declared that all toxic
wastes contained in the ship - like
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), tributylin
(TBT) and approximately 210 tonnes of Asbestos,
amongst others - would be decontaminated before
the ship was recycled. But surprisingly on
leaving its Mediterranean base at Toulon, the
carrier was seen heading not towards the straits
of Gibraltar -- and thus to Spain's Atlantic
coast -- but eastwards towards Turkey. A clause
in the contract stipulated that the demolition
had to take place in Europe and not in Turkey, in
keeping with European Conventions on the issue of
Asbestos removal.
Faced with this flagrant violation of the
commitments made by the company, the French
government cancelled the contract to the Spanish
company. Thereafter the French Government offered
the ship to a German firm, which planned to break
it up in the Greek port of Piraeus, and with
negotiations underway between the two companies
the Clemenceau was stranded at anchor off the
Sicilian coast.
In November 2003, Turkey and Greece refused to
allow Clemenceau to enter their waters until it
had been decontaminated. Both governments were
aware that the aircraft carrier would have vast
quantities of toxics materials such as PCBs,,
TBT, Asbestos, and in all probability,
radioactive waste on board. The French
authorities had committed to decontaminating the
ship in Spain, but for inexplicable reasons the
ship never reached Spain, following which both
Turkey and Greece refused to allow the ship to be
scrapped at their countries.
The EU Waste Shipment Regulation 259/93 (EU Waste
Regulation) obligates the Member States, France
in this particular case, to ensure that the
notification procedure is followed; to ensure
that there is consent in writing; to ensure that
the shipment of waste is reduced to the minimum,
consistent with environmentally sound and
efficient management of such wastes; not to allow
the export of hazardous or other wastes if the
Member State has reason to believe that the
wastes in question will not be managed in an
Environmentally Sound Management manner; and if
illegally shipped, to take back the waste.
The requirement of written prior consent based on
adequate information (Prior Informed Consent or
Notification) and the requirement that hazardous
wastes to be exported are subject to
Environmental Sound Management are two important
legal obligations of the Basel Convention to be
respected in the case of the export of the
"Clemenceau" to France.
For India the orders of the Indian Supreme Court
clearly indicate that ships need to be free of
hazardous substances before they come onshore for
ship-breaking. In addition the Court orders place
the responsibility for removing the hazardous
waste on the ship owner. Hence any ship that is
sent for breaking must be decontaminated.
Greenpeace India has been protesting against the
deemed illegal import of the Clemenceau and
states that it is imperative that the government
take the following steps:
- Immediately ask France to clarify whether all
relevant obligations and procedures of the
international regulation on ship recycling (in
particular the EU WS Regulation) have been
complied with, including obtainment of "non
objection certificate from the Indian Ministry(s)
of Defense and Environment and Forest."
- Check as a matter of urgency and priority full
compliance with the requirements under the orders
of the Indian Supreme Court, in particular the
need for decontamination.
- Inform the Customs department in Bhavnagar and
in Mumbai that they cannot allow the import of
such ship if they fail to provide "No objection
Certificate from Government of India".
For further information, please contact:
Ramapati Kumar,
Greenpeace Campaigner, +919845535414
Namrata Chowdhary, Greenpeace Media Officer, 98108 50092
_______
[8]
Book Review / The Hindu
Feb 15, 2005
Attitude to poverty
THE RIPPED CHEST - Public Policy and the Poor in
India: Harsh Mander; Books for Change, 139,
Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025. Rs. 350.
WHAT IS the difference between a tsunami
demolishing poor Indians' huts and the Bombay
Municipal Corporation demolishing poor Indians'
huts? Why does the first result in middle class
India racing to loosen purse-strings and people
volunteering to help; but the other gets approval
and support from the same middle-class India? The
slums are "illegal", of course; they must be
demolished.
But so were the fishermen's colonies on the
Chennai shore. Yet, when the tsunami struck, we
did not sit back saying "right, they had to be
demolished." No, we ran over to help. What
explains this schizophrenia?
Antipoverty measures
In some ways Harsh Mander alludes to this too,
through this book. Because he writes about case
after case, through our post-Independence
history, of government programmes to tackle what
is arguably India's greatest shame - widespread
poverty. There has been no lack of them, their
acronyms using up every plausible letter of the
alphabet such as UBSP, EIUS, SJGSY, SEP, IRDP,
TRYSEM, DWCRA, MWS, RPWP, NRY, JRY, JGSY which is
the new avatar of JRY and in fact all of these
are collectively called APPs (antipoverty
programmes).
They have all had laudable objectives, been
launched with fanfare and high hopes. For
example, the Development of Women and Children in
Rural Areas (DWCRA) programme aimed to "raise the
income levels of [poor] women," and thus improve
their "access to basic services of health,
education, childcare, nutrition, water and
sanitation." Similarly for the others. Fine aims.
But measured by the level of poverty around us,
DWCRA and every other scheme have clearly failed.
To know the truth of that, you need only walk out
onto any street in any city in this country; you
know that within minutes - seconds - you will see
some of the one-third or more of our nation that
suffers the miseries of being poor.
And as you read this book, digest its litany of
failed programmes, and try to understand why they
failed, the feeling grows on you that the reason
for failure is, above all, attitude; a certain
middleclass contempt for the poor. And as long as
that persists, whatever we try - whether state
employment programmes or a totally free market -
will fail.
Attitude
Because in a real sense, too many of us do not
much care about the poor and their daily
struggles.
That attitude is the root of the schizophrenia I
mentioned. It raises its head all through
Mander's book. Thus the scheme to "assure"
wage-employment to poor rural families "assures"
instead of "guarantees" so that the scheme will
not be legally binding. Or the belief among
policymakers that "economic development need not
take into account the interests of the poor."
Or that "the poorest are deliberately kept out"
of self-employment programmes as they are seen to
"lack motivation." Or the "bitter irony" that
"the very people who build homes [i.e.
construction workers] should be rendered
homeless."
The profound injustice of India's poverty leaves
you feeling bleaker and bleaker as the pages of
this comprehensive book go by. Yet, there are
tools now available to improve governance and
thus, both Mander and his reader might hope, to
improve the lives of India's poor.
Right to information
The Right to Information Act is one such. "The
only feasible way" of ensuring good governance,
writes Mander, "is for people to exercise direct
control over a significant part of the levers of
government" and right to information (RTI) offers
at least the potential for just that. But that
hope runs up against attitude too. As I write
this, the drive on slums in Mumbai has accounted
for nearly 50,000 homes belonging to fellow
Indians.
It has left some 2,00,000 of fellow Indians
homeless and devastated. Those numbers are
comparable to that of tsunami-hit Tamil Nadu
(though thousands actually died in Tamil Nadu).
What are not comparable are our reactions to
these two disasters. That leaves me baffled and I
get the feeling it does the same to Harsh Mander.
DILIP D'SOUZA
_______
[9] [Recently Published]
Beyond Lines of Control : Performance and
Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India
by Ravina Aggarwal
Duke University Press
Due/Published November 2004, 312 pages, paper
ISBN 0822334143
The Kashmir conflict, the ongoing border dispute
between India and Pakistan, has sparked four wars
and cost thousands of lives. In this innovative
ethnography, Ravina Aggarwal moves beyond
conventional understandings of the
conflict--which tend to emphasize geopolitical
security concerns and religious essentialisms--by
considering how it is experienced by those living
in the border zones along the Line of Control,
the 435-mile boundary separating India from
Pakistan. She focuses on Ladakh, the largest
region in northern India's state of Jammu and
Kashmir. Located high in the Himalayan and
Korakoram ranges, Ladakh borders Pakistan to the
west and Tibet to the east. Revealing how the
shadow of war affects the lives of Buddhist and
Muslim communities in Ladakh, Beyond the Lines of
Control is an impassioned call for the inclusion
of the region's cultural history and politics in
discussions about the status of Kashmir.
Aggarwal brings the insights of performance
studies and the growing field of the anthropology
of international borders to bear on her extensive
fieldwork in Ladakh. She examines how social and
religious boundaries are created on the Ladakhi
frontier, how they are influenced by directives
of the nation-state, and how they are shaped into
political struggles for regional control that are
legitimized through discourses of religious
purity, patriotism, and development. She
demonstrates in lively detail the ways that these
struggles are enacted in particular cultural
performances such as national holidays,
festivals, rites of passage ceremonies, films,
and archery games. By placing cultural
performances and political movements in Ladakh
center stage, Aggarwal rewrites the standard plot
of nation and border along the Line of Control.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
Sister initiatives :
South Asia Counter Information Project : snipurl.com/sacip
South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
More information about the Sacw
mailing list