SACW | 22 June 2005

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 22 June,  2005

[1]  Pakistan:
    - Lahore -- a Muslim city!  (Ishtiaq Ahmed)
    -  Obscene questionnaire or image problem again? (Editorial Daily Times)
[2]  Bangladesh: Government Fails to Act Against Religious Violence (HRW)
[3]  India - Gujarat :
    - Riot victims file suit to make VHP BJP pay damages (Tarunabh Khaitan)
    - 'In Right Measure'  (Editorial, The Telegraph)
[4]  India: Untoo, the police and the press  (Mukul Dube)
[5]  India: No rain, but `snow' and water parks  (P. Sainath)
[6]  India - "The sounds of '[D]angey Mataram' ", 
directed by Madhya Pradesh's BJP Govt
-  Assembly Time  (Editorial, The Hindu)

______

[1]


Daily Times
June 21, 2005 

LAHORE -- A MUSLIM CITY!
by Ishtiaq Ahmed

If the obsession for confessional purity is 
allowed to keep eliminating all anomalies, the 
Shia-Sunni divide might prove fatal to the 
'homogeneity' of Lahore and Punjab. As long as 
the people of Lahore remain peaceful and perform 
their civic duties they should be left to 
practise their distinctive beliefs and thus add 
to the richness of its cultural life
The most dramatic change in Lahore's cultural 
personality in 1947 was that after August 14 it 
became an essentially Muslim city. Almost all the 
Hindus and Sikhs left and it received refugees 
from East Punjab, especially Amritsar but also 
Jullandhar and Ludhiana, and some from the 
Urdu-speaking areas of northern India and 
Hyderabad Deccan.
In the subsequent decades, the city has expanded 
in all directions and new residents have 
continued to arrive from various parts of the 
Pakistani Punjab. Many old Lahoris whose roots 
predate the founding of Pakistan, complain that 
their sophisticated city and its relaxed 
lifestyle have been gradually subverted by the 
boorish and clumsy manners of these nouveau 
riche, especially since large number of villagers 
and small town dwellers, after making a fortune 
as migrant workers in the Persian Gulf region or 
in other parts of the world, have settled in the 
new localities on the outskirts of the city. Thus 
demographic change has continued unabated and 
from a petite city of around 700,000 in 1947, 
Lahore is now home to more than six million 
people.
I remember that Lahore of the mid-1950s and the 
1960s was a very dainty city. St Anthony's High 
School at Lawrence Road, where I studied, was a 
very popular place. The Mall, the Lawrence 
Gardens and the various restaurants made our city 
a most lively place. During the 1965 war with 
India, Lahore was in a very exposed position and 
the booming of guns and deafening sounds of 
supersonic air force planes breaking the sound 
barrier created a new sort of excitement.
The next important period in Lahore's history was 
the 1968 mass movement to oust Field Marshall 
Mohammad Ayub Khan from power. That was followed 
soon by the meteoric rise of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto 
on the political horizon of Pakistan. Bhutto 
quickly won the sympathy and admiration of the 
people of Lahore and every time he was in town 
mammoth crowds gathered to listen to him or 
participate in the marches arranged by his 
Pakistan People's Party. The anti-climax to his 
popularity came in December 1972 when workers 
took over various factories all over Pakistan. He 
unleashed considerable repression and the workers 
were forced to run for safety. At that moment, he 
decided to elbow out the leftists in his party 
and welcome the landowners.
The coming into power of General Muhammad Zia ul 
Haq in 1977, by overthrowing ZA Bhutto, changed 
the character of Pakistan from a Muslim state 
with some liberal graces into an Islamic state 
distinguishable by its obscurantism. This meant 
that a deliberately dogmatic Islamic identity had 
to be fostered on Pakistan and indeed on Lahore. 
A cousin of mine tells the story that a friend of 
his who was a programme producer at the Lahore 
unit of the Pakistan Television was summoned by 
the military administrator of Lahore in the early 
stages of General Zia ul Haq's takeover of power. 
He was ordered to prepare a script for a 
television programme on the history of Lahore. 
Some days later, he returned with an outline. Not 
surprisingly he had begun the history of Lahore 
with the legendary origin of its name associated 
with Lav/Loh, son of Rama. The colonel listening 
to the script became livid with rage and demanded 
the deletion of any such reference. Instead the 
story of Lahore was to begin with the arrival in 
Lahore in 1039 of the Sufi-saint Data Ganj Baksh 
from Afghanistan along with the army of Masud of 
Ghazni.
Did Lahore transform into a homogeneous city (by 
implication one that is free of fissures and deep 
cleavages) when the non-Muslims left? Indeed no 
comparable slaughter of citizens has taken place 
in Lahore after 1947, but in 1953 a virulent 
anti-Ahmadiyya agitation broke out in Lahore. 
Some Muslim League leaders masterminded it. There 
was considerable loss of life and property. The 
same Ahmadiyya community had played an active 
role in the promotion of the Pakistan demand in 
1947 and the Muslim League had counted it among 
the Muslims. In 1974 they were found to be 
holding beliefs contrary to the teachings of 
Islam and declared a religious minority by the 
National Assembly.
Earlier in 1972 my alma mater, Forman Christian 
College, was nationalised along with some other 
colleges in the Punjab, which were under the 
control and management of Christian missions. 
Mission-run schools were not nationalised. This 
was indicative of a populist and erratic policy 
of nationalisation represented by the Pakistan 
People's Party. From what I have heard the 
nationalisation ruined the best teaching 
institutions in our province, which the 
Christians had been running so successfully. The 
tiny Christian community protested and pleaded 
but was ignored. The eviction of Christian staff 
from FC College by the police and other 
authorities was carried out in a most brutish 
manner. It is to the great credit of the present 
government that the management of FC College has 
been returned to the Presbyterian Mission and it 
has been raised to the level of a university.
From the late 1980s onwards, the tranquillity 
between the Sunni and Shia communities of Lahore 
was undermined by terrorism. Behind the 
Shia-Sunni terrorism was the international 
rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia to dominate 
the Muslim world. It resulted in proxy wars 
between their protégés all over the Middle East 
and Pakistan. Lahore became an arena for 
sectarian killings. Sectarian militias began to 
engage in recurrent and protracted terrorism in 
Lahore. They did not hesitate to kill people 
belonging to the other sect even if they were 
praying or mourning death. Desecration of each 
other's mosques, graveyards and such other places 
peaked during the 1990s.
If the obsession for confessional purity is 
allowed to keep eliminating all anomalies, the 
Shia-Sunni divide might prove fatal to the 
'homogeneity' of Lahore and Punjab. As long as 
the people of Lahore remain peaceful and perform 
their civic duties they should be left to 
practise their distinctive beliefs and thus add 
to the richness of its cultural life. It is 
therefore all the more important that the state 
remains neutral on matters of religious 
affiliation and curbs all extremist groups while 
protecting peaceful citizens irrespective of 
which religion they adhere to.

______



Daily Times
June 22, 2005
Editorial

  OBSCENE QUESTIONNAIRE OR IMAGE PROBLEM AGAIN?
The Ministry for Social Welfare and Special 
Education has blacklisted Rozan, a non-government 
organisation (NGO), for allegedly distributing an 
'obscene' questionnaire in schools and has 
ordered the NGO to immediately abandon its 
projects. Rozan had apparently circulated a 
questionnaire as part of a survey to improve 
children's emotional health and secure them 
against sexual abuse. The questionnaire asked 
students if they had ever been sexually assaulted 
or harassed or had sexual relations with the 
opposite sex. This the ministry has deemed 
objectionable and ordered the NGO to stop work on 
the project.
If the issue were not so serious we would 
probably have laughed at the ministry's misplaced 
sense of propriety. What does the ministry want? 
That no effort should be made at improving the 
emotional health of children and securing them 
from paedophiles? Or is it that the ministry 
seriously thinks that such things do not happen 
in Pakistan and any attempt to uncover them will 
hurt the image of Pakistan? We would like answers 
to these questions because there is enough 
evidence to suggest that Pakistani children, like 
most children in most underdeveloped countries of 
the world, are in need of a better emotional 
environment. The only way to go about getting 
data on the extent of emotional health problems, 
especially those that result from sexual abuse, 
is to ask the kind of questions that the ministry 
mistakenly thinks are obscene. This is ludicrous.
Pakistan is part of the modern world and it faces 
the same social problems that other countries do. 
Indeed, as Mukhtar Mai's case shows, even gang 
rape has a certain tribal sanction. Let the 
ministry therefore not express its 
holier-than-thou attitude, not deny some of the 
ugly realities that we have, for long, brushed 
under the carpet. *


_______


[2]


Human Rights Watch

BANGLADESH: GOVERNMENT FAILS TO ACT AGAINST RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
ATTACKS ON MINORITY AHMADIS CONTINUE AMIDST CENSORSHIP AND POGROMS

(Dhaka, June 16, 2005) - The Bangladesh 
government has aligned itself with extremist 
groups that foment violence against the minority 
Ahmadiyya community, Human Rights Watch said in a 
report released today.
  It's a dangerous moment in Bangladesh when the 
government becomes complicit in religious 
violence. The authorities have emboldened 
extremists by failing to prosecute those engaged 
in anti-Ahmadi violence and by banning Ahmadiyya 
publications.

Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division.	  

The 45-page report, "Breach of Faith: Persecution 
of the Ahmadiyya Community in Bangladesh," 
documents the campaign of violence, harassment 
and intimidation unleashed by the Khatme Nabuwat 
(KN)--an umbrella group of Sunni Muslim 
extremists--against the Ahmadiyya community. The 
KN and other extremist groups have attacked 
Ahmadiyya mosques, beaten and killed some 
Ahmadis, and prevented access to schools and 
sources of livelihood for others. They have 
demanded an official declaration that Ahmadis are 
not Muslims and a ban on all Ahmadi writings and 
missionary activities.  
 
Founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the 
Ahmadiyya community is a religious group that 
identifies itself as Muslim. It differs with 
other Muslims over the exact definition of 
Prophet Mohammad being the "final"  
monotheist prophet.  
 
Under the Bangladesh National Party-led 
government, discrimination and violence against 
the Ahmadis has intensified. The report documents 
the government's failure to prosecute those 
responsible for anti-Ahmadi violence. It condemns 
the January ban on all Ammadiyya publications 
imposed by the government.  
 
The Jamaat-e-Islami and the Islamic Okye Jyote, 
junior coalition partners in the government, do 
not recognize the Ahmadis as Muslims and have 
been involved in fomenting religious violence 
against them and other religious  
minorities.  
 
"It's a dangerous moment in Bangladesh when the 
government becomes complicit in religious 
violence," said Brad Adams, executive director of 
Human Rights Watch's Asia Division. "The 
authorities have emboldened extremists by failing 
to prosecute those engaged in anti-Ahmadi 
violence and by banning Ahmadiyya publications."  
 
Bangladesh's High Court has temporarily suspended 
the ban on Ahmadiyya publications and the 
government argues that the ban was put into place 
to appease extremists and thereby protect 
Ahmadis. But anti-Ahmadi violence and agitation 
has continued. These include massive anti-Ahmadi 
rallies, threats against members of the group, 
attacks on mosques, the refusal in some places to 
allow Ahmadi children to go to school, and the 
confiscation of Ahmadiyya publications.  
 
Human Rights Watch said that given the alarmingly 
high levels of communal violence in Bangladesh 
directed against other minorities, including 
Hindus and indigenous peoples, further government 
concessions to extremist religious demands would 
set a dangerous precedent and, could unleash an 
uncontrollable wave of violence.  
 
For doctrinal reasons, many Muslims consider the 
Ahmadiyya to be non-Muslims. They become easy 
targets in times of religious and political 
insecurity. For those pursuing populist political 
goals, such as Islamist and conservative parties 
in Bangladesh, raising the bogey of Ahmadi 
subversion and persecuting them, ostensibly in 
order to preserve the faith, has provided a fast 
track to political power.  
 
Ahmadis fear that institutionalized 
discrimination and violence will become the norm 
if, as demanded by the Islamic Okye Jyote, they 
are officially declared to be non-Muslims.  
 
"Political parties that engage in religious 
incitement have no place in government," said 
Adams. "The Bangladesh National Party needs to 
make it clear to its coalition partners that they 
must end all support for anti-Ahmadiyya 
activities or leave the government."  
 
Human Rights Watch urged the international 
community to press the Bangladesh government to 
prosecute those responsible for planning and 
executing attacks against the Ahmadiyya and other 
minorities, to rescind the ban on Ahmadiyya 
publications, and take steps to encourage 
religious tolerance within Bangladeshi society.  
 
To monitor the immediate implementation of these 
measures, the Bangladesh government should 
immediately provide the U.N. Special Rapporteur 
on Freedom of Religion, Asma Jahangir, firm dates 
to visit the country on terms consistent with her 
mandate.  
 
Human Rights Watch said that the ongoing official 
persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan provides a 
chilling precedent. Since 2000, an estimated 325 
Ahmadis have been formally charged in criminal 
cases, including blasphemy, for professing their 
religion in Pakistan. As a result, thousands of 
Ahmadis have fled Pakistan to seek asylum abroad. 
 
 
"Unless the Bangladesh government acts to allow 
Ahmadis to practice their faith in peace, the 
situation could spiral out of control," said 
Adams. "Continued failure to act will confirm the 
growing impression that Bangladesh's ruling 
coalition is more religiously intolerant than any 
government since the country's founding."  
 
Accounts from "Breach of Faith: Persecution of 
the Ahmadiyya Community in Bangladesh"  
 
They started hitting us with bamboo sticks. The 
beat us and beat us. We tried to escape but it 
was not possible. Shah Alam was being beaten 
particularly harshly by Aminur Rahman and Shahid. 
They continued hitting us with the bamboo sticks, 
particularly on the head. I could see that Shah 
Alam was getting badly injured. They beat his 
brain out of his head. I could see it. We asked 
them to stop as we could see Shah Alam was dying 
and had to be taken to hospital. But they did 
not. The entire incident lasted about thirty 
minutes. That is all I remember clearly. My 
memory has suffered as a result of what happened. 
 

-Interview with Abul Bashar, an Ahmadi villager, August 25, 2004.
 
 
Early in the morning, after the Fajr (dawn) 
prayers, a mob from the village surrounded my 
house, dragged me out, and tied me to a tree. 
Then they started beating me with sticks and 
rods. Then they carried me to the local market 
and beat me more, this time even more badly. Just 
when I thought I was going to die, local 
policemen came to the spot and took me to another 
house and then the policemen asked me to leave 
the Ahmadiyya faith. When I refused, the 
policemen started beating me. Then they took me 
to the police station and put me in the lock-up 
where they handcuffed me and beat me again. The 
next morning, at about 11 o'clock, the policemen 
took me to the district headquarters of the 
police and beat me again. Maulana Abdul Rajjak 
and others came to check what was going on. The 
Officer in-Charge informed them within earshot of 
me that they should not worry, the police would 
"deal" with me "properly." The police said that 
it was clever of the village people to register a 
robbery case against me and that they would use 
that as an excuse to beat a Qadiani.  

-Interview with Mohammad Mominul Islam alias Raqeeb, August 24, 2004.


_______


[3]

The Telegraph
June 21, 2005

MAKE THEM PAY FOR IT

GUJARAT RIOT VICTIMS HAVE CLAIMED DAMAGES AGAINST 
THE VHP AND BJP. Tarunabh Khaitan Explores The 
Precedents And Implications

Ahmedabad, February 28, 2002
The Rs 8-crore damages claimed against the Vishwa 
Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party by 
the relatives of the victims of the Gujarat riots 
raise complex issues about the role 
constitutional morality can play in the daily 
lives of citizens. The foundational values of 
equality, human rights, security of life and 
liberty, enshrined in the chapter on fundamental 
rights of the Indian Constitution, have 
traditionally been invoked by the citizens 
against the State. The suit filed in the Gujarat 
court is a wake-up call to the reality of 
violation of these foundational values by 
non-State and quasi-State actors.

These entities perform quintessentially public 
functions affecting the rights of citizens and 
include political parties, corporate bodies, 
non-governmental organizations, trade unions, 
employers, educational institutions, building 
societies and hospitals. The need to make 
non-State actors accountable to constitutional 
values is only more acute with the 
pre-liberalization State functions of producing 
steel, dispensing medicines and educating 
engineers moving into private hands. Therefore, 
fundamental rights should not only inform the 
vertical citizen-State relationship but also the 
horizontal citizen-citizen relationship.

Civil action claiming damages against the State 
for breaching its duty of care is not new. In at 
least three cases, various high courts have 
ordered the State to pay compensation to victims 
of riots. In R. Gandhi v. Union of India (1989), 
the Madras high court held that "members of the 
Sikh community form an integral part of Indian 
society whose rights have been flagrantly 
infringed by the inaction of the law enforcing 
authorities. These unfortunate victims of arson 
and violence are entitled to seek reasonable 
compensation from the State of Tamil Nadu, which 
has failed in its duty to protect their 
constitutional and legal rights." Similar views 
were expressed by the Jammu and Kashmir high 
court in M/s Inderpuri General Stores v. Union of 
India (1992) and very recently by the Delhi high 
court in Manjit Singh Sawhney v. Union of India 
(2005). In all these cases, the courts ordered 
the State to pay compensation to the victims of 
the anti-Sikh riots for its inaction in 
protecting life and property.

By not claiming damages from the State, the 
Gujarat suit digresses from these cases. It 
embodies a realization that the responsibility 
for compensation of victims rests primarily with 
the perpetrators, and only vicariously with the 
tax-payers. The suit relies on the precedent set 
by the Kerala high court, which ordered damages 
to be paid by the political party whose bandh 
call resulted in violations of fundamental 
rights. The high court held that "No political 
party or organisation can claim that it 
is...entitled to prevent the citizens not in 
sympathy with its viewpoints, from exercising 
their fundamental rights." The judgment was 
endorsed by the Supreme Court in Communist Party 
of India (M) v. Bharat Kumar (1998).

The propriety of the right to call a bandh need 
not, however, be called into question in the riot 
compensation cases. The damages are sought for 
acts which violate the right to life, liberty and 
security, whether or not they took place during a 
bandh. That said, however, the fact of a bandh 
call surely is strong evidence for causally 
linking the alleged acts of violations of rights 
to the party which gave the call.

The responsibility of quasi-State or private 
bodies should not be limited to preservation of 
the right to life, liberty and security alone. 
Such liability should be extended to the right 
against discrimination as well. Article 15 of the 
Constitution forbids the State from 
discriminating against any person on the basis of 
his or her race, caste, creed, sex, and so on. 
However, except for the Civil Rights Act, 1955, 
which prohibits discrimination on the basis of 
caste, Indian law has largely disallowed the 
horizontal citizen-to-citizen application of the 
right against discrimination.

The point was reinforced by the Supreme Court in 
its recent decision in Zoroastrian Co-operative 
Housing Society Limited v. District Registrar 
Co-operative Societies (2005), where it allowed a 
housing society to rent and sell accommodation 
only to members of a particular religious 
community. Reports of discrimination by medical 
establishments, private employers and educational 
institutions on the basis of religion, caste and 
HIV status are not rare. Such division of civil 
society into ghettoes facilitates the insularity 
of different groups and nurses prejudice among 
them, with the disastrous consequences we have 
witnessed too often.

Many liberal democracies which respect human 
rights have made discrimination by non-State 
actors a civil liability. The US Civil Rights 
Act, 1964 has helped to shape a political 
discourse of inclusion over the years. The South 
African constitution prohibits discrimination on 
the grounds of "age, gender, sex, pregnancy, 
marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, 
sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, 
conscience, belief, culture, language and birth" 
by the State as well as by any person.

In Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) the 
Supreme Court opened up to the horizontal 
application of fundamental rights and held 
private employers liable for sexual harassment of 
employees in the work place. This idea needs to 
be taken to its logical conclusion. However, a 
judicial development of any doctrine is patchy, 
and is dictated more by the needs of the case at 
hand than by the overall policy choices. While 
the judicial expansion of the rights of citizens 
by applying them horizontally is welcome, it is 
time parliament laid down a coherent policy 
embodied in a statute.

Parliament should, by law, extend the fundamental 
rights available in part III of the Constitution 
against the State to other natural and juristic 
persons who are capable of violating these rights 
as well. Such a law would need to resolve complex 
issues such as establishing efficient enforcement 
machinery and outlining the appropriate remedies 
available for such violations that should 
preferably be settled through a public debate 
rather than through judicial law-making.

A civil liability on non-State and quasi-State 
actors to respect the fundamental values of the 
Constitution may not see the end of communal 
violence in this country. But it will make it 
more expensive to loot, kill and discriminate. 
Many acts of communal violence have gone 
unpunished by the criminal justice system. A 
civil remedy has the advantage of having to 
satisfy a lesser standard of proof than the more 
demanding "beyond reasonable doubt" standard 
required in a criminal trial. It is also more 
sensitive to the restorative and remedial needs 
of the victim. Further, a civil remedy is driven 
by the victim rather than by the State officials 
(especially the police) who themselves might be 
implicated in the violations.

This is certainly not to suggest that the 
criminal justice system can be left in the mess 
it is in. A civil remedy, like the one demanded 
in the Gujarat cases, will complement the quest 
for justice. Those who reject the values of 
tolerance and plurality underpinning our 
multicultural Constitution should pay up.


o o o o

The Telegraph
  June 16, 2005 | 	 Editorial

IN RIGHT MEASURE

There are some changes that take place almost 
invisibly. The demands for justice for the 
unspeakable horrors that took place in Gujarat in 
early 2002 have been gathering direction, as is 
demonstrated by the number of cases now in the 
courts. Most recently, the representatives of 
those killed in the Gulbarg Society massacre have 
filed a civil suit, demanding compensation from 
the local leaders of the Bajrang Dal and the 
leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Mr Praveen 
Togadia. The compensation suit makes particular 
political organizations liable, instead of 
claiming damages from the state for having failed 
to protect the life and liberty of its citizens. 
Petitions of the second kind are more common, and 
in a favourable judgment, the state, or the 
public, compensates the victims of violence. But 
the Gulbarg Society suit is the second of its 
kind. In the first, relatives of two non-resident 
Indians, who had been killed during the communal 
violence in Gujarat, filed a compensation suit 
making Mr Narendra Modi liable.

The shift in emphasis is worth noting. The rights 
to life and liberty, to free movement and the 
right not to be discriminated against are no 
longer being held to be the sole responsibility 
of the state. Preserving constitutional rights is 
as much a responsibility of citizens towards one 
another as much as it is that of the state 
towards its citizens. The way to this change was 
inaugurated by the judgment of the Kerala high 
court against bandhs, by which the liability of 
the damage to life, property and mobility 
consequent upon a bandh could be fixed on 
political parties calling that bandh. At the 
broadest theoretical level, the expansion of the 
notion of accountability is the best route to a 
fuller understanding of the relationship between 
rights and responsibility, and of the application 
of the idea of rights. On a more practical level, 
it is an effective weapon against the overriding 
arrogance of dominant political parties. It is 
true that court cases take time. The message may 
take a while to sink in. Yet compensation to the 
tune of crores or lakhs or even thousands will 
begin to pinch, and the strength of numbers will 
no longer provide immunity from legal action. It 
is far more difficult to fix liability for murder 
during violent conflicts. The shift of emphasis 
will ultimately compel political organizations 
and every other institution and individual to 
think twice before attempting to breach the 
rights of citizens.


_______


[4]

www.thehoot.org
15 June 2005

UNTOO, THE POLICE AND THE PRESS 

Why did no one from the press attempt to get more 
information than was given out at briefings? Did 
any newspaper ask its people in Kashmir to make 
enquiries about anything connected with this case?

Mukul Dube
 
A report in the Pioneer of 26 February 2005 
begins, "Delhi Police have arrested a former 
Kashmiri militant and a Pakistani agent, Mohammed 
Ahsun Untoo, from Church Road in Cantonment Area 
on charges of spying." Note that the staff 
reporter describes Untoo thus, implicitly 
accepting the claims of the police as fact.

Here is how subsequent paragraphs of the report 
begin: "Police have recovered..."; "Deputy 
Commissioner of Police (south-west district) 
Dependra Pathak said..."; "Sources said..."; "The 
special staff got a tip-off...". Clearly an 
energetic and mobile reporter. 
 
The report says that Untoo was paid  Rs 6 lakh  
by the Pakistan High Commission for handing over 
"defence secrets". One of the documents 
"recovered" was a schedule of patrolling drawn up 
in the late 1950s, which just happens to be 
available to anyone for the asking. Untoo was 
charged under two sections of the Official 
Secrets Act. He was arrested on 12 February, and 
"on the basis of information received from him", 
his "associate" Gulam Nabi Nagar was arrested in 
Srinagar on 17 February. [All spelling errors in 
the published report have been reproduced 
faithfully.] 
 
The Asian Age of the same date calls these 
inDIViduals Mohammed Ahsun Untoo and Gulam Nabi 
Najar. Untoo is described as "the former 
launching commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen 
terrorist group" and the other man is "his 
militant operator", the place of his arrest 
having changed to Baramulla. The list of 
"recovered" documents is much the same, but 
mobile phones "operating from Pakistan-occupied 
Kashmir", "fake identity cards" and "fake curfew 
passes" make their appearance.
 
The report in the Hindu of the same date tries to 
play half-safe but falls on its face. It 
describes Untoo as "a self-proclaimed human 
rights activist" but says that he was arrested 
for "allegedly passing on sensitive 
information...." A little later we have, "Untoo, 
a former Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militant, had joined 
the human rights DIVision of the APHC in 1994." 
It is not clear whether this DIVision of the APHC 
consists only of self-proclaimed human rights 
activists or if Untoo is the lone one who sneaked 
in.
 
This report also contains this fascinating 
information: "[Untoo] had been arrested ... for 
being in possession of AK-57 assault rifles. But, 
he was later acquitted." I call it fascinating 
because it is the mother of all Rubik's Cubes. 
What was Untoo doing with rifles (note the 
plural)? Was he a gun-smith licensed to stock, 
sell and repair unlicensed fire-arms? Had the 
security forces set up a museum of captured 
weapons and employed Untoo as its curator? We are 
not told of the charge or charges of which he was 
acquitted. Why, above all, did the staff reporter 
of the newspaper put in this singularly 
meaningless morsel? I can think of no reason 
other than the opportunity it gave to speak of an 
arrest and of weapons. Untoo's acquittal was an 
unfortunate but necessary footnote.
 
Only one report published on that date, that 
which appeared in the Times of India, is almost 
entirely consistent in speaking of statements and 
claims made by the police. That is, it does not 
apply the stamp of truth to that which it does 
not know to be the truth. The first three reports 
give the date of Untoo's arrest as 12 February, 
all speak of Delhi's south-west police district, 
the first speaks of the cantonment area and the 
second speaks of Srinagesh Garden, which is in 
the cantonment.
 
These reports were published in English 
newspapers. Of the three reports I have seen 
which appeared in Hindi newspapers, I shall speak 
only of the remarkable piece of work which the 
Dainik Bhaskar had put out some days earlier, on 
12 February 2005. [The translation is mine.]
 
"The Crime Branch Joint Commissioner, Ranjit 
Narain, said that solid clues about the attackers 
had been found, and they would soon be arrested. 
He said their links extended to Jammu and 
Kashmir." We should pay attention to three things 
here. The first is that "attackers" (plural) were 
spoken of. The second is that, as this very 
report said, "Even today, the police could not 
record Geelani's statement. They spent the whole 
day wandering about the hospital."
 
When the police were finally allowed to meet 
Geelani - they had been held back not by Geelani 
himself or by cruel fate, as they and the 
newspapers constantly suggested, but by the 
doctors treating him - he spoke unambiguously of 
a lone attacker. How could the Joint Commissioner 
have said what he did? That is the third thing to 
which we should pay attention: the dates on which 
things happened or were said to have happened. We 
shall now look at claims that Untoo had already 
been in the custody of the police - but had not 
been formally arrested - for some days when Shri 
Ranjit Narain spoke to the Dainik Bhaskar.
 
The Statesman of 17 May 2005 reported that S.A.R. 
Geelani's lawyer Nandita Haksar told members of 
the press that Untoo had in fact been illegally 
picked up by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police 
from the Priya Guest House in Paharganj on 9 
February. She said he was being tortured so that 
he would confess falsely to having attempted to 
murder Geelani.
 
The Asian Age of the same date says that Untoo 
was "allegedly beaten, tortured and sodomised in 
police custody." It goes on, "Untoo's lawyer N.D. 
Pancholi has filed an application on his behalf 
seeking protection of his life and enquiry into 
the torture by the police." Nandita Haksar is 
reported to have announced that a letter from 
Untoo, in which he had described the treatment 
meted out to him by the police, had reached the 
All-India Defence Committee for Syed Abdul Rehman 
Geelani. Sampat Prakash, state president of the 
All Jammu and Kashmir Trade Union Centre, is 
reported to have said, "Untoo is a well known 
human rights activist and is the chairman of the 
Human Rights Forum in J&K." It is not known if he 
said that that Forum was a bogus organisation 
which issued fake identity cards to non-existent 
members.
 
The Hindu of the same date reported that "social 
activists from various organisations ... demanded 
that Mohammad Ahsan Untoo ... be immediately 
released." His lawyer, N.D. Pancholi, was 
reported to have said at a press conference, "He 
has told us that he was picked up by the police 
on February 9. But the FIR against him has only 
been lodged on February 12. Why this gap? And he 
was tortured and sodomised." The report says also 
that Untoo was "compelled to sign on blank pieces 
of paper."
 
The Indian Express of 16 May had given Daryaganj, 
not Paharganj, as the location of the Priya Guest 
House. It had also said that Untoo's letter had 
been smuggled out. It had reported that the 
police had described Haksar's claim as false, 
given that the FIR in the case had been 
registered at the Delhi Cantonment police 
station. It had not, however, reported Haksar or 
Pancholi as having said that the FIR had been 
filed in Visakhapatnam. They had said that Untoo 
had been in illegal detention for three days. 
Assuming that the FIR was filed three days late, 
what was to prevent its being filed several miles 
away from the place where he had been picked up? 
If space can be changed, so can time.
 
The police version may be true, of course: after 
all, there is an official document to show that 
it is true. Anyone who claims that it contains 
lies must prove that. If such a person presents 
an alternative document, the truth of that 
document - not an official one - must be 
established. The advantage always lies with those 
who have the majesty of the Indian State behind 
them.
 
12 February, which is the day on which the police 
claim to have arrested Untoo, was a Saturday. He 
was therefore produced before the duty magistrate 
the next day, a Sunday. Apparently this procedure 
has become routine in such cases. The accused, 
being surrounded by policemen who may well have 
been physically unpleasant to him or her, is 
usually too frightened to say anything to the 
magistrate, who therefore records only what the 
police say. It is part of the job of a magistrate 
to ask after the condition and welfare of the 
person being produced: but it appears that in 
this instance, the duty magistrate did not do 
this. Untoo could not say to the representative 
of Justice what appears in the next paragraph.
 
The application mentioned in the Asian Age of 17 
May (see above) was either not filed or else not 
heard.  It  contains these complaints: that Untoo 
was stripped and beaten; that a scavenger was 
made to sodomise him; that alcohol was forced 
down Untoo's throat and he was compelled to sign 
blank pieces of paper; that the magistrate before 
whom Untoo was produced on 13 February "did not 
give an opportunity to [him] to complain about 
the torture"; that the police denied him access 
to a lawyer as well as medical assistance; and 
that there had been reports in newspapers which 
said that Untoo had been arrested in connection 
with the attempt on S.A.R. Geelani's life.
 
Despite the efforts of the police, though, Untoo 
did not "confess" to having made an attempt on 
Geelani's life. Possibly because setting him free 
could have created all manner of problems, the 
Delhi Police put together an assortment of papers 
- unless it keeps such things ready for such 
situations - and booked him under the Official 
Secrets Act.
 
Untoo's lawyer, N.D. Pancholi, had spoken to the 
press. This is evident from the fact that at 
least one newspaper knew about and mentioned the 
"Application for protection of life ..." just 
described. Geelani's lawyer, Nandita Haksar, had 
spoken to the press. Sampat Prakash had spoken to 
the press. Why, then, were the complaints listed 
above buried by all but a few newspapers? Why is 
it that no one from the press appears to have 
attempted to get more information than was given 
out to all who attended the briefings? Did any 
newspaper ask its people in Kashmir to make 
enquiries about anything connected with this case?
 
Was Untoo really "masquerading" as a human rights 
activist? Were identity cards really "recovered" 
from him, and were they really "fake"? What of 
the "large number of secret military documents, 
maps", etc., also "recovered"? Was Untoo carrying 
them on microfilm or on compact disks? In half a 
dozen suitcases on the back of a camel secretly 
brought in from across the border, perhaps?
 
If indeed the police did any of the things which 
are listed in N.D. Pancholi's application, it is 
a serious matter in a country which calls itself 
a democracy. If indeed the magistrate before whom 
Untoo was produced failed to do his or her duty, 
that is a considerably more serious matter, since 
it reflects on our judiciary, to which was given 
both an independent place and great power in 1947 
and in 1950.
 
I do not know if the press is unaware of these 
matters. I do not know if the press considers 
these matters inconsequential. I do know, though, 
that in either eventuality, the press must be 
called, at the very least, irresponsible. It 
could be given a good many worse names. So far as 
I can see, it took the easy route: don't think, 
just swallow and regurgitate. Practise your 
vaunted "investigative journalism" only where 
unimportant, expendable people are not involved. 
Go where the gold is.
 
Many have been saying, and for long - the press 
statement released on 16 May by Sampat Prakash 
was hardly the first example - that it has become 
the policy of the Indian State to "catch and 
frame" or "catch and kill" Kashmiris. It is 
legitimate to ask if there has been no change in 
the attitudes and biases - or the policy - of the 
Indian State despite the change of government at 
the Centre a year ago.
 
The press cannot claim that it is not involved 
here. Does it not see Kashmiris as Indians and, 
for that reason, people to be respected and cared 
for by the Indian State? Is it the same press 
which, three years ago, roundly castigated Modi, 
Gujarat and the Sangh Parivar for having 
committed crimes against humanity in their own 
country? Is it now so obsessed with the stock 
market, fashion, motor cars and the shenanigans 
of political leaders who have no discernible 
ideology, that it has decided that such ideals as 
truth and justice are archaic and no longer of 
any consequence?
 

_______


[5]

The Hindu
June 22, 2005

NO RAIN, BUT `SNOW' AND WATER PARKS

P. Sainath

Water-starved Vidharbha has a growing number of 
water parks and amusement centres.

EVEN WHEN it's 47 degrees in the rest of the 
region, it's cool here. A little away from us is 
a patch that clocks in at minus 13 degrees. This 
is "India's first Snowdome" - in burning 
Vidharbha. Keeping its ice rink firm costs 
Rs.4,000 a day in electricity charges alone.

Welcome to the Fun & Food Village Water & 
Amusement Park in Bazargaon gram panchayat of 
Nagpur (Rural) district. A portrait of Mahatma 
Gandhi greets visitors in the office of the huge 
complex. And you're assured daily disco, ice 
skating, ice sliding and "a well stocked bar with 
cocktails." The 40-acre park itself offers 18 
kinds of water slides and games. Also services 
for events ranging from conferences to kitty 
parties.

The village of Bazargaon (population 3,000) 
itself faces a huge water crisis. "Having to make 
many daily trips for water, women walk up to 15 
km in a day to fetch it," says sarpanch Yamunabai 
Uikey. "This whole village has just one sarkari 
well. Sometimes, we have got water once in four 
or five days. Sometimes, once in ten days."

Bazargaon falls in a region declared as 
scarcity-hit in 2004. It had never faced that 
fate before. The village also had its share of 
six-hour - and worse - power cuts till about May. 
These hit every aspect of daily life, including 
health, and devastated children appearing for 
exams. The summer heat, touching 47, made things 
worse.

All these iron laws of rural life do not apply 
within Fun & Food Village. This private oasis has 
more water than Bazargaon can dream of. And never 
a moment's break in power supply. "We pay on 
average," says Jasjeet Singh, General Manager of 
the Park, "about Rs.4 lakhs a month in 
electricity bills."

The Park's monthly power bill alone almost equals 
the yearly revenue of Yamunabhai's gram 
panchayat. Ironically, the village's power crisis 
eased slightly because of the Park. Both share 
the same sub-station. The park's peak period 
begins with May. And so things have been a little 
better since then. The Park's contribution to the 
gram panchayat's revenue is Rs.50,000 a year. 
About half what Fun & Food Village collects at 
the gate in a day from its 700 daily visitors. 
Barely a dozen of the Park's 110 workers are 
locals from Bazargaon.

Water-starved Vidharbha has a growing number of 
such water parks and amusement centres. In 
Shegaon, Buldhana, a religious trust runs a giant 
"Meditation Centre and Entertainment Park." 
Efforts to maintain a 30-acre `artificial lake' 
within it ran dry this summer. But not before 
untold amounts of water were wasted in the 
attempt. Here the entry tickets are called 
"donations." In Yavatmal, a private company runs 
a public lake as a tourist joint. Amravati has 
two or more such spots (dry just now). And there 
are others in and around Nagpur.

This, in a region where villages have sometimes 
got water once in 15 days. And where an ongoing 
farm crisis has seen the largest numbers of 
farmers' suicides in Maharashtra. "No major 
project for either drinking water or irrigation 
has been completed in Vidharbha in decades," says 
Nagpur-based journalist Jaideep Hardikar. He has 
covered the region for years.

Mr. Singh insists the Fun & Food Village 
conserves water. "We use sophisticated filter 
plants to reuse the same water." But evaporation 
levels are very high in this heat. And water is 
not just used for sports. All the parks use 
massive amounts of it for maintaining their 
gardens, on sanitation and for their clientele.

"It is a huge waste of water and money," says 
Vinayak Gaikwad in Buldhana. He is a farmer and a 
Kisan Sabha leader in the district. That in the 
process, public resources are so often used to 
boost private profit, angers Mr. Gaikwad. "They 
should instead be meeting people's basic water 
needs."

Back in Bazargaon, sarpanch Yamunabai Uikey isn't 
impressed either. Not by the Fun & Food Village. 
Nor by other industries that have taken a lot but 
given very little. "What is there in all this for 
us," she wants to know. To get a standard 
government water project for her village, the 
panchayat has to bear 10 per cent of its cost. 
That's around Rs.4.5 lakh. "How can we afford the 
Rs.45,000? What is our condition?" So it's simply 
been handed over to a contractor. This could see 
the project built. But it will mean more costs in 
the long run and less control for a village of so 
many poor and landless people.

In the Park, Gandhi's portrait still smiles out 
of the office as we leave. Seemingly at the 
`Snowdome' across the parking lot. An odd fate 
for the man who said: "Live simply, that others 
might simply live."


_______


[6]

The Telegraph
June 22, 2005 | Editorial

ASSEMBLY TIME

What is common to government offices, cabinet 
meetings and schools in Madhya Pradesh? They have 
all been reduced to a levelling juvenility by Mr 
Babulal Gaur. His government had ruled that from 
July 1, all government employees, ministers and 
students would have to congregate and sing Vande 
Mataram on the first day of every month. This 
would inspire them to not only patriotic feelings 
but also punctuality, honesty and so on. 
Government employees would also have to be in 
some sort of uniform - back to school again - 
together with badges displaying their names and 
posts. There is a background to all this, which 
goes back to Mr Gaur's predecessor, Ms Uma 
Bharti. Ms Bharti, after enshrining the cow in 
her state's economy, had set about declaring all 
its pilgrimage spots "holy". This meant a ban on 
the sale of eggs, meat, fish, alcohol, sex and 
condoms in these towns. The sex-workers were 
piqued, but the sadhus and mahants were 
delighted. Mr Gaur then outdid her by declaring a 
few more towns holy, and outlawing 
"multi-national drinks" (Pepsi and Coke) as well, 
in order to promote butter milk, lassi and 
shrikhand in their place.

The state legal department has now pointed out to 
Mr Gaur that it would be quite unconstitutional 
to force people to sing religious or patriotic 
songs and then punish them if they refused to do 
so. There are Supreme Court and high court 
rulings as well, which make such arbitrary 
impositions illegal. Minority organizations, 
civil rights groups, opposition members and women 
who cannot bear to wear cheap printed sarees 
supplied by the government have also added their 
voices of protest. This, as some would remember, 
is vintage Hindutva. Even the Bharatiya Janata 
Party, in its current avatar, would consider this 
sort of thing retrograde. When, in 1999, a "basic 
education" minister in Uttar Pradesh made similar 
noises about the same song, Mr L.K. Advani vetoed 
him, against the wishes of some of his party 
colleagues in the state. This minister was later 
removed, but UP's latest basic education minister 
has now vetoed sex education in the state's 
schools, declaring condoms - which Ms Bharti and 
the sadhus had once declared "evil" - bad for 
children. With purity-enthusiasts like Ms Bharti, 
Mr Gaur and these basic education ministers, the 
BJP would need to work somewhat harder to 
modernize its public image.



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