SACW | 15 August 2005

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 15 August,  2005

[Interruption notice:  There will be no SACW 
posts between 17 August - 2 September 2005 ]


[1]  Sri Lanka: Media release by Democratic Left Front
[2]  Bangladesh: The long shadow of the August 1975 coup (Lawrence Lifschultz)
[3]  India : Anti Sikh riots of 1984 riots and the endless wait for justice
  (i)  1984 Revisited - Time For A National Audit 
: Personal Reflections (Lalita Ramdas)
  (ii) The Nanavati report and after  - Don't 
Shield Communal Killers (Praful Bidwai)
(iii)  Sum of all fears - Sikh families from 
Bokaro to Kanpur remember . . . (The Sunday 
Express)
[4]  India blind to Nepal's republican trends  (Bharat Bhushan)
[5]  India: Ayodhya - The Aftermath Of The Terrorist Attack (Subhash Gatade)
[6]  India: Dharna For Employment Guarantee (New Delhi, 18 August 2005)

______


[1]


Democratic Left Front

Media Release

We condemn the assassination of  Minister Kadirgamar
We await the  results of the investigation eagerly.

One can infer on the face of it that the  LTTE could
be held responsible for the assassination for the
reason that Mr. Kadirgamar was being considered an
enemy by the LTTE for quite sometime.  Nevertheless
according to the information available as of now there
has been a serious lapse related to his security
arrangements.  When the former defence  minister Mr
Ranjan Wijeratne was assassinated similarly the LTTE
was alleged to be responsible.  But later on other
forces were suspected to be behind it.  Up to date the
real fact of it is not known.

Therefore it is necessary to launch an immediate and
incisive investigation to probe into why and how the
assassin was able to get at him in this manner despite
the heavy security.  Who knew that Mr Kadirgamar was
going to the place of incident on this day and at this
time?  Why did his security leave him uncovered and
exposed in or near the swimming pool? How did the
assassin manage to escape so easily from the scene of
the crime?

His  death is a substantial loss to our  society and
we express our condolences.

As an organization that deplores any  political
violence we condemn this political assassination
vehemently.  Similarly we also condemn efforts by
racist political forces to incite communal violence
and drag the country back to war capitalizing on this
unfortunate event.


Vasudeva Nanayakkara 
		Quintus Liyanage
Secretary 
			National Organiser

49 1/1 Vinayalankara Mawatha
Colombo 10
13 - 08 - 2005

______


[2]  [Bangladesh]


http://www.thedailystar.net/2005/08/15/d5081501033.htm
The Daily Star
August 15, 2005 	 
 	 
The past is never dead
THE LONG SHADOW OF THE AUGUST 1975 COUP
by Lawrence Lifschultz

Was the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh 
Mujibur Rahman and his family members on August 
15, 1975 merely the result of personal malice and 
an act out of sudden fury of some army officers?

Long investigation by veteran US journalist 
Lawrence Lifschultz has made it clear that there 
was a deep-rooted conspiracy behind the dark 
episode of August 15.

Lifschultz in a number of investigative reports 
published in newspapers made it clear that 
Khandaker Moshtaque and a quarter of US embassy 
officials in Dhaka were closely involved with the 
small section of army officers in the August 15 
coup.

At long last, Lifschultz disclosed the name of 
his "very reliable source", the then US 
ambassador in Dhaka Eugene Booster with whom he 
has maintained close communication for the 30 
years.

Booster repeatedly objected to the conspiracy 
leading to the August 15 assassination, even 
issued written instruction in this regard, but 
failed to prevent the then station chief Philip 
Cherry of US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 
Dhaka office from doing the conspiracy.

Lifschultz's plan to publish an interview of 
Eugene Booster in this regard remained 
unfulfilled as Booster passed away on July 7 last.

The new-born Bangladesh could not save herself 
from the wrath of then foreign secretary Henry 
Kissinger who could never forget that Bangladesh 
was born in opposition to his suggestion.

Along with Salvador Allende of Chile and Taiyoo 
of Vietnam, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was 
in Kissinger's political vendetta.

What USA started during the Liberation War in 
1971 with attempt to split the Awami League using 
Khandaker Moshtaque and his accomplices continued 
after the independence following a direct US 
instigation, resulting in the carnage on August 
15, 1975.

On basis of his 30 years' investigation that 
included interviews with the US sources, 
Moshtaque and others concerned, Lifschultz has 
written a series of that tale.

The first part of his four reports is published today.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 30th anniversary of the August 15th military 
coup in Bangladesh powerfully illustrates the 
dictum of William Faulkner that the past is never 
dead, it is not even past. For those of us who 
lived through the years of Bangladesh's 'War of 
Independence' and the decade of the 1970s, we 
remember these dates as milestones of an era. 
They are markers on a road we traveled to a 
destination many did not reach.

After thirty years Bangladesh still lives with 
the legacy of the violent night of August 15th. 
Just over four years from that dark March night 
in 1971 when Pakistani Army troops rolled their 
tanks and armoured vehicles through the streets 
of Dhaka slaughtering their fellow countrymen 
instead of accepting the outcome of national 
elections they had agreed to accept, a small unit 
of the new Bangladesh Army invoking the sordid 
tradition of Pakistan Army staged a traditional 
military putsch.

Within hours, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, symbol for 
many of an ideal of liberation, was dead in a 
military coup d'etat that had run amok in a 
frenzy of killing. Mujib and almost his entire 
family were slaughtered including his wife and 
sons, the youngest only twelve. On that deadly 
night groups of soldiers broke into squads and 
traveled around the city killing relatives of 
Mujib's family.

The pregnant wife of one relation who attempted 
to intercede to save her husband's life was 
herself killed for her efforts. Mujib's two 
daughters were abroad and they survived with 
Sheikh Hasina years later becoming Prime 
Minister. Yet, only a year ago, she too was 
nearly assassinated in broad daylight by a hit 
squad that still "eludes" capture, demonstrating 
yet again Faulkner's insightthe past is not even 
past. It is very much present.

The political configuration that exists today is 
a direct descendant of August 15, 1975. The 
current Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, was the wife 
of the late General Ziaur Rahman, the Deputy 
Chief of Army Staff in 1975, who played a crucial 
behind scenes role in the plotting that preceded 
the coup and in the events which followed.

At the American Embassy that night political and 
intelligence officers tried to monitor the 
unfolding events. But, there was one figure at 
the Embassy in the days that followed the coup 
who was particularly unsettled. A small knot had 
settled in his stomach. The events were an echo 
of what he had feared might happen months earlier 
and which he had made strenuous efforts to 
prevent.

I would meet this man in Washington three years 
later. He became a critical source for me and 
clearly hoped the information that he provided 
would one day lead to uncomfortable truths being 
revealed and those responsible being held 
accountable. For the first time in nearly thirty 
years I can identify this individual. I have been 
freed from a restraint of confidentiality that I 
have adhered to for almost three decades. But, be 
patient, with me a bit longer while I explain how 
and why I came to meet this individual.

I was one among many foreign correspondents 
covering the coup. Yet, I was the only journalist 
reporting these events for a major publication 
who had actually lived in Bangladesh as a 
journalist. I was the Dhaka correspondent of the 
Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong) in 1974. 
The following year I moved to New Delhi and took 
up a new position as South Asia Correspondent for 
the Review. The violent death of Mujib would draw 
me into an inquiry that I could never have 
anticipated would, again and again, hold me in 
its sway at different stages of my life.

My unusual source who worked at the American 
Embassy that night would encourage me forward by 
his own honesty and quality of integrity. He was 
one of those unusual individuals one occasionally 
finds inhabiting an official bureaucracy. He was 
deeply distressed about the coup and the 
subsequent killings. He was a man with a 
conscience. Unlike the rest of us he knew 
something others did not and that knowledge tore 
at his conscience. It was this sense of ethical 
responsibility that brought us face-to-face in 
one of the more memorable encounters I had as 
young reporter.

After the coup against Mujib the official story 
put about by the successor regime and its minions 
in the Bangladesh press disturbed me. It didn't 
hold together. Moreover, the cracks began to 
reveal rather curious links and antecedents.

The version of events which emerged at the time 
was that six junior officers, with three hundred 
men under their command, had acted exclusively on 
their own in overthrowing Mujib. The motives for 
the coup were attributed to a combination of 
personal grudges held by certain of the officers 
against Mujib and his associates, together with a 
general mood of frustration at the widespread 
corruption that had come to characterize certain 
elements of Mujib's regime. In short, according 
to this view of events the coup was an ad hoc 
affair not a thought out plan a year or more in 
the making.

The morning Mujib and his family were killed, the 
figure installed by the young majors as President 
was Khandakar Mustaque Ahmed, generally 
considered to be the representative of a rightist 
faction within Mujib's own party, the Awami 
League. After the putsch, Mustaque remained 
impeccably reticent about any part he personally 
might have played in Mujib's downfall. He neither 
confirmed nor denied his prior involvement. He 
simply avoided any public discussion of the 
question and desperately attempted to stabilize 
his regime.

A year following the coup, after he had himself 
been toppled from power and before his own arrest 
on corruption charges, Mustaque denied to me in 
an interview at his home in the "Old City" of 
Dhaka that he had any prior knowledge of the coup 
plan or piror meetings with the army majors, who 
carried out the action. However, the majors who 
staged the military part of the coup and were 
forced into exile within four months by upheavals 
within the Bangladesh Army began to tell a 
different tale.

In interviews with journalists in Bangkok and 
elsewhere, bitter at their abandonment by their 
erstwhile sponsors and allies, the majors began 
to talk out of school. They confirmed prior 
meetings with Mustaque and his associates. A 
story began to emerge that Mustaque and his 
political friends had been involved for more than 
a year in a web of secret planning that would 
lead to the overthrow and death of Mujib.

A few months after the coup, a mid-level official 
at the U.S. Embassy told me that he was aware of 
serious tensions within the U.S. Embassy over 
what had happened in August. He said that there 
were stories circulating inside the Embassy that 
the CIA's Station Chief, Philip Cherry, had 
somehow been involved in the coup and that there 
was specific tension between Cherry and Eugene 
Boster, the American Ambassador. He had no 
specific details about the nature of this 
"tension" only that there were problems. "I 
understand," he said, "something happened that 
should not have happened." He urged me to dig 
further.

American involvement in the coup didn't make 
sense to me. In the United States, two 
Congressional Committees were gearing up to 
investigate illegal covert actions of the Central 
Intelligence Agency. The so-called Church and 
Pike Committee hearings in Washington on CIA 
assassinations of foreign leaders had begun. The 
committee hearings were having their own impact 
within the American diplomatic and intelligence 
bureaucracies creating great nervousness and 
anxiety. The American press was openly 
speculating that senior American intelligence 
officials might face imprisonment for illegal 
clandestine action in Chile and elsewhere.

It was the summer when citizens of the United 
States first heard acronyms like MONGOOSE, 
COINTELPRO, AM/LASH and elaborate details of 
assassination plots against Lumumba in the Congo, 
Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. The covert 
hand of American power had touched far and wide. 
Now the tip of the iceberg was publicly emerging 
so that for the first time Americans could take a 
clear look. Yet, all that was happening far away 
in Washington, in a muggy heat as sultry as any 
South Asian monsoon.

In India, Indira Gandhi, speaking of the tragedy 
of Mujib's death, spoke of the sure hand of 
foreign involvement. As usual, Mrs. Gandhi was 
graphically lacking in details or specifics. 
However, her avid supporters during those first 
nuptial days of India's Emergency, the pro-Moscow 
Communist Party of India (C.P.I.) were more 
explicit: the CIA said the CPI was behind the 
coup. I dismissed this as propaganda based on no 
specific evidence.

Yet, how had the coup happened? There were still 
huge gaps in my knowledge of how specific actors 
had traveled through the various mazes they had 
constructed to disguise their movements yet which 
ultimately led to August 15th. I was living in 
England nearly three years after the coup when I 
decided to make a trip to Washington to visit a 
colleague of mine, Kai Bird, who was then an 
editor with The Nation magazine, published from 
New York. Today he is a prominent American author.

Lawrence Lifschultz was South Asia Correspondent 
of the Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong). 
He has written extensively on European and Asian 
affairs for The Guardian (London), Le Monde 
Diplomatique, The Nation (New York), and the BBC 
among numerous other journals and publications. 
Lifschultz is editor and author of several books 
including Why Bosnia? (with Rabia Ali) and 
Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of 
History & The Smithsonian Controversy (with Kai 
Bird). He is currently at work on a book 
concerning Kashmir.



______


[3]

(i)

www.sacw.net
15 August 2005
URL: 
http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/LRamdas14082005.html

1984 REVISITED - TIME FOR A NATIONAL AUDIT

Personal Reflections

by Lalita Ramdas

August 2005 - the Report of the Nanavati 
Commission of Inquiry into the 1984 slaughter of 
thousands of innocent Sikhs - [the ninth such 
appointed by a succession of governments], was 
eventually tabled and made public. The last two 
days have seen mayhem and Hungama in Parliament - 
statements by the Prime Minister - self-righteous 
speeches by opposition politicians, resignations 
of Ministers amid protests of innocence - angry 
demonstrations  on the streets -- calls for 
Khalistan - and sensational headlines.

The events of the week in parliament and on the 
streets pushes my thoughts inexorably back to New 
Delhi -  October 31 1984 ŠŠlike so many, I too 
have been guilty of keeping that particular 
compartment locked away. But today I feel 
impelled to speak up again.

  I was among those who watched with horror and 
disbelief the slaughter of thousands of innocent 
Sikhs following the assassination of Indira 
Gandhi on October 31st.  It did not take much 
intelligence for even the most naïve of us to 
realize that we were witnessing something that 
went beyond a mere spontaneous outpouring of 
grief and anger at the death of a leader. From 
across the city  the reports were the same: mobs 
on the rampage - Sikhs in cars and scooters being 
attacked; fires and smoke across Delhi. 
Instinctively, many of us broke curfew, stepped 
out of our relatively secure homes , and made our 
way to the areas which were burning and to which 
police was already blocking access. Trilok Puri - 
Mongol Puri - Sultan Puri - Lajpat Nagar - Bhogal 
- the names have gone down in grisly historical 
memory. And within those first 24 to 48 hours, 
those of us who were able to venture out into 
some of the worst hit areas, were witness to the 
unspeakable acts of deliberate identification, 
hunting down and brutal killings.  Much of this 
has been recorded in the thousands of recorded 
statements by those fleeing from their homes who 
certainly had no time to `manufacture evidence'. 
The names of those who were perceived to be 
behind the attacks - often perpetrated by poorer 
communities in their own neighbourhood - 
Dharamdas Shastri, HKL Bhagat, Lalit Maken, 
Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, and many others, 
were already common knowledge and surfaced in 
statement after statement. I have personally 
recorded hundreds of testimonies from broken and 
distraught women who had seen sons, husbands, 
brothers and fathers hacked, burned alive or 
tortured before their eyes. It is these images 
that come back today to haunt us all.

NAGRIK EKTA MANCH, a people's initiative - was 
born spontaneously, as much out of the enormous 
outpouring of outrage  at the genocidal killings, 
as of a desire to provide some form of succour 
and relief.  NEM became the hub of one of the 
most amazing, well organized, non-governmental 
relief and rehabilitation efforts in recent 
times. For three years, the quest to unravel the 
truth about 1984, bringing the guilty to justice, 
and securing basic relief and rehabilitation and 
justice to the victims, crowded out all else. 
Our small NGO - ANKUR, prioritized this issue 
above all else  and also  evolved into a more 
politically aware group through this experience.

In my capacity as co-ordinator at Nanaksar Relief 
Camp, I testified before the Justice Ranganath 
Mishra Commission - and foolishly hoped that 
justice would be done. Young and old alike put 
their lives on hold for varying periods of time. 
Clearly we were no match for the staying power of 
the State - and one by one - we too fell by the 
way side, and went on to deal with ongoing work 
and newer crises of which there was no dearth. 
But we bore direct witness to the communalization 
of politics.

I was living in one of the better known colonies 
of Lutyens Imperial city - Lodi Estate - across 
the road from the India International Centre, and 
home to senior serving officers from  the top 
civil and military echelons in the country.  My 
husband - then a serving Admiral in the Indian 
Navy, was based in Visakhapatnam, where he was 
commanding the Eastern Fleet. We knew we had his 
support for using our  home as the impromptu camp 
office to a motley group of us - academics, 
activists, housewives, students and others, who 
would spend the days at Nanaksar, Farsh Bazaar 
and other far flung locations where the initial 
relief camps were set up. Returning home late, we 
would spend most of the night systematically 
documenting and tabulating the data gathered 
during the day. Similar scenes were enacted in 
several parts of the city.  It was the syntheses 
of all our reports and eyewitness accounts which 
went to make up one of the seminal reports on the 
1984 massacres [they cannot be termed RIOTS] - 
entitled WHO ARE THE GUILTY? [URL: 
http://www.sacw.net/i_aii/WhoaretheGuilty.html ]

When we were not in the camps - we were either 
rescuing friends from mobs in far away places - 
or taking out Peace Marches in areas where 
vulnerable Sikhs cowered in their homes - 
terrified to come out and be seen. It was during 
the `Peace March' through Bhogal that we came 
face to face with the already organized shape of 
militant Hindutva - a mob of youngsters - all 
male who were ready to use their Trishuls and 
iron rods against us. It was a close call indeed 
- with us women and a saffron robed swami to the 
rescue.

In my own neighbourhood - yes, the posh locality 
where the genteel folks lived - we were the main 
links to the outside world - and for providing 
daily necessities to an Army general, a Navy 
Commander and their families, who dared not stir 
out of their homes. Thanks to sympathetic 
individuals and a service jeep, I was able to 
rescue another friend, a Sikh Naval officer and 
his family from their trans Yamuna home, hidden 
under a camouflage of gunny sacks and razais. 
Imagine his feelings.
Door to door appeals for medicines and clothing , 
were more often than not  greeted with the words 
`they deserved it' and doors slammed in the faces 
of the kids who volunteered to go around 
collecting. More reality bytes - what values had 
our education system in secular India actually 
taught us? Clearly secularism was skin deep.

We were all in a state of shock. Could this 
really be happening in the capital city of `free, 
democratic and secular' India? What had happened 
to all the constitutional assurances, our vision 
and dreams of a plural, diverse, tolerant society 
? All that was dealt  a mortal blow in November 
1984 and the script was already being written for 
Godhra, Gujarat. Criminalisation and 
communalization  increasingly became the warp and 
weft of our political structure used to good 
effect in both 1984 and in  2002 to turn 
neighbours against each other.

Soon India will celebrate yet another 
Independence Day. The familiar rituals will be 
re-enacted from the ramparts of the Red Fort, and 
we will in all probability revert to business as 
usual. If this is to change and if the nation is 
to introspect, then it is time to cry halt to the 
blame game and to point out that the Emperors - 
be they green, blue, red or saffron, truly have 
no clothes . The Nanavati Commission report - 
inadequate as it is - provides us with an 
invaluable opportunity to introspect, and to 
begin to put right the terribly flawed electoral, 
legal and political systems which have been 
allowed to flourish and proliferate.

It is time for a rigorous national audit - of our 
institutions, our structures, our educational, 
political, judicial and other systems. The 
collapse of Mumbai in the recent rains, was just 
one dramatic instance of the many fronts on which 
governments have failed to deliver. This is the 
challenge we face - it is time for `we the 
people' of India to stand up and be counted. Our 
failure to do so at this time can carry serious 
consequences for our common futures.


[Lalita Ramdas has worked for over three decades 
in the field of  education with deprived groups, 
minorities and women through a range of 
organizations. She has been active together with 
her husband, Admiral L. Ramdas, in the Indo Pak 
Peace process and the Movement for Nuclear 
Disarmament. Recently she has featured as one of 
the 91 Indian nominees, among the 1000 Women for 
the Nobel Peace Prize 2005. She lives and works 
out of a village near Alibag in the Konkan 
region.]

o o o o


(ii)

Kashmir Times
August 14, 2005

DON'T SHIELD COMMUNAL KILLERS
THE NANAVATI REPORT AND AFTER
By Praful Bidwai

'The charred and hacked remains of the dead 
eloquently described a horrible and heart-rending 
tragedy. Women, children and a handful of [men], 
hiding under dead bodies. were rescued by 
reporters . They were emotionless. They had no 
tears to shed. A three-year old girl, stepping 
over the bodies of her father, three brothers and 
countless others lying in the street, clung 
helplessly to a reporter, pleading for help. 
"Please take me home," she said..' -Newspaper 
report form Trilokpuri, East Delhi, Nov 3, 1984, 
where more than 350 Sikhs were gorily killed in 
the preceding 36 hours. Yet, a police officer 
told the reporters filing the story, "Nobody has 
been killed in Trilokpuri". Shortly thereafter, a 
Sikh youth, his stomach slashed, collapsed in 
their arms.
The contrast between reality and the official 
version of the horrific massacre that followed 
the killing of Indira Gandhi by a Sikh guard 
could not have been starker. As organised 
violence raged through bustee after poor bustee 
and colony after middle class colony of Delhi, 
the police stood by and watched. Worse, in many 
cases, they participated in the bloody carnage 
and looting. The higher authorities had enough 
warning of trouble within a few hours of Indira 
Gandhi's assassination on October 31, but did 
nothing to prevent it.
This writer had just flown into Delhi from Bombay 
that morning and witnessed the events from a 
vantage point. By the early afternoon, tension 
was palpable in the air. False and malicious 
rumours flew thick and fast about how "thousands 
of Sikhs" had celebrated the assassination by 
distributing sweets. "They must be taught a 
lesson", it was whispered. President Zail Singh's 
car was stoned as he left the All-India Institute 
of Medical Sciences.
By the evening, systematic killing and arson had 
begun-at the behest of Congress le, who mobilised 
mobs crying for "revenge". Columns of smoke rose 
all over the city. Cars and two- and 
three-wheelers were stopped to check the identity 
of the passengers. All bearded men were 
threatened. Soon, Sikh truckers started being 
"necklaced": lorry tyres containing kerosene were 
hung around their necks and they were burnt 
alive. According to official accounts, as many as 
2,733 people were killed in the worst orgy of 
communal violence in Independent India, barring 
Gujarat.
Twentyone years and nine enquiry commissions 
later, the perpetrators of the carnage have still 
not been brought to book. Not a single politician 
or policeman has been convicted. A small fraction 
(only 13 people) of the thousands who killed, 
raped and burned have been held guilty. All hopes 
that the Nanavati Commission, appointed five 
years ago to inquire into the orgy of killing, 
rape and pillage, would spur adequate corrective 
action now stand belied. The government's Action 
Taken Report (ATR), tabled six months after the 
Commission submitted its own report, is yet 
another black mark in this prolonged cover-up of 
the state's collusion with premeditated killings 
and its repeated betrayal of the victims.
The Nanavati report is far from perfect, indeed 
shoddy in parts. It recognises that the violence 
was "systematic", "organised", and conducted 
under "instructions", but fails to fix 
culpability, especially at the apex level. The 
judge was working within the narrow confines of 
the evidence presented to him and did not demand 
fresh investigations. Evidence in cases of 
serious communal violence can often be 
manipulated: testimonies can be withdrawn or 
changed. Key witnesses can be bribed or 
bludgeoned into changing their statements to 
weaken the case against powerful individuals. 
This is how those who instigated the violence to 
"teach the Sikh community a lesson" tried to 
escape the law's net.
The role of Congress politicians in plotting and 
organising the carnage has been well-documented. 
They took their cue from the moral ambiguity of 
Rajiv Gandhi who infamously said: "When a big 
tree falls, the earth shakes." The coterie around 
Rajiv Gandhi, including Messrs Jagdish Tytler, 
H.K.L. Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar, Arun Nehru and Kamal 
Nath instigated or condoned a campaign of mayhem 
and killing. Some of this was carefully recorded 
by citizens' groups like Nagarik Ekta Manch, 
which interviewed thousands of victims' families 
and eyewitnesses and produced a booklet entitled 
"Who Are the Guilty?" It's truly regrettable that 
nine official commissions couldn't achieve even 
this much despite all the authority, time and 
resources at their command.
Justice Nanavati, for incomprehensible reasons, 
found the Delhi authorities collectively guilty, 
but individually innocent-a contradiction in 
terms. He also held that top Delhi administration 
officials, including Lt Governor P.G. Gavai and 
Police Commissioner S.C. Tandon, should not be 
prosecuted because they have retired. This makes 
no sense. You can't accuse the police of 
"colossal failure" to maintain law and order and 
of "collusion" and "ineffectiveness" in stopping 
the looting and killing-and yet let them off the 
hook. Mr Tandon may have retired, but he is 
liable for actions committed while holding a high 
office. As for Mr Gavai, he took his orders from 
the Union home ministry, as the Lt Governor of 
any Union Territory must. He seems to have been 
made a scapegoat.
It's recorded that Mr Gavai ordered Mr Tandon to 
call in the Army in the morning of November 1. 
However, the Army arrived in all six police 
districts of Delhi only on November 3, by which 
time hundreds of lives had been lost. Mr Gavai 
now says even Chief of Army Staff Arun Vaidya was 
indifferent when he asked him about the delay in 
deployment. Gen Vaidya said: "These things take 
time." And Home Minister Narasimha Rao was worse. 
He was only interested in protecting his friends; 
and he "hid like a rat" for three days after the 
violence broke out. Clearly, there was no 
political will to stop the violence, and later, 
to punish its perpetrators. The Congress party is 
also trying to pretend that only "local-level" 
leaders had a hand in instigating the violence. 
This simply won't do.
Even more disgracefully, the Centre failed to 
commit itself to taking action even where the 
Nanavati report warrants it. It's only under the 
Left's and his UPA allies' pressure that Dr 
Manmohan Singh asked Mr Tytler to resign, and Mr 
Sajjan Kumar too made his inglorious exit. But 
there was "credible evidence" that he "very 
probably" organised anti-Sikh attacks. The 
government originally tried to dilute the 
observation as amounting to "probabilistic" 
evidence. But all criminal cases are registered 
on probabilistic evidence! It's only conviction 
that needs proof beyond doubt.
Similarly, the ATR rules out prosecuting Mr 
Bhagat because of his poor health and Mr Kamal 
Nath because of a changed affidavit by a key 
witness. Poor health can justify a lighter 
sentence, but not the absence of prosecution. 
Thus, Chilean dictator Pinochet is being tried 
today for his horrendous crimes of the 1970s and 
1980s-despite his advanced age. Similarly, it's 
for a trial court to evaluate the worth of the 
evidence against Mr Nath. But the ATR drops their 
prosecution on flimsy, unconvincing grounds.
This is a travesty of justice. Not only will it 
alienate most Sikhs; it will horrify the public 
at large and announce to the world that impunity 
for grave crimes is the rule in India: the 
powerful cannot be brought to book; the rich 
rarely go to jail. The law is only applied 
against the underprivileged and powerless. The 
UPA must not vacillate over fulfilling its 
"solemn promise" to pursue investigations against 
all specific individuals named by Mr Nanavati. It 
must formally charge them and rehabilitate the 
victims. It must set up special courts to try all 
the accused who figure in the reports of earlier 
commissions, including 72 policemen.
A higher principle is involved here. If India is 
to live up to the great democratic aspirations of 
its people, it must establish and affirm the rule 
of law-systematically, painstakingly and 
impartially. This is a precondition for democracy 
and political legitimacy. The anti-Sikh pogrom 
presents a special challenge-and an opportunity 
to do justice to the victims of a gruesome 
massacre by applying the law to the powerful 
people who caused it.
In a sense, taking prompt and serious action on 
the Nanavati report will be a prelude to the 
Ultimate Test the nation faces: namely, denying 
impunity to the perpetrators of crimes against 
humanity in Gujarat. The Gujarat pogrom was even 
greater in scale and brutality than the Delhi 
carnage, especially in the bestial quality of the 
killings and the sexual violence. It was also 
more directly instigated by the state. The global 
public has not forgotten what happened in Gujarat 
and who was responsible for it.
India's claim to high stature in the world does 
not lie in a Security Council seat or in nuclear 
weapons, and not even in economic might. It lies 
in democracy and pluralism. This is where our 
people's interests and their greatest 
achievements are also located. That claim will be 
reduced to a farce if heinous mass-level crimes 
and barbaric forms of collective victimisation go 
unpunished. That would be a tragedy not just for 
Delhi's Sikhs or Gujarat's Muslims, but for all 
Indian citizens.


o o o o

(iii)

The Sunday Express
August 14, 2005

SUM OF ALL FEARS
RESENTFUL, TIRED AND HURT, A CLUTCH OF SIKH 
FAMILIES FROM BOKARO TO KANPUR REMEMBERS THE 
HORRIFIC AFTERMATH OF OCTOBER 31, 1984. The 
Sunday Express goes visiting the tragedy beyond 
Delhi
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=76209


______


[4]

The Telegraph
August 15, 2005

BLIND TO NEPAL'S REPUBLICAN TRENDS

Bharat Bhushan

A political paradigm shift is taking place in 
Nepal. The people of Nepal are questioning every 
assumption - from the institution of the monarchy 
to the role of the political parties and the 
Maoist agenda. Nothing is as it was six months 
ago.

There is probably more pro-monarchical sentiment 
in India's ministry of external affairs and in 
some political parties in Delhi than in the 
entire opinion-making elite of Nepal. While 
Indians continue to see the monarchy as a one of 
the twin pillars of stability in Nepal, the 
Nepalese themselves see it for what it is - a 
rapidly sinking pillar that will bring the entire 
edifice down.

Yet, on Friday, the national security council 
reiterated its faith in Nepalese monarchy. The 
prime minister, Manmohan Singh, still thinks that 
King Gyanendra can be converted from an executive 
to a constitutional monarch. The NSC press 
release says that it is against disturbing the 
"balance" between constitutional monarchy and 
multi-party democracy. That, it believes, would 
not be in the long-term interests of the Nepalese 
people. This is pure uninformed assertion.

Yet, within Nepal more and more people believe 
that the king will have to go, the only question 
is when? It is amazing that the Nepali Congress, 
the largest political party of the country which 
actually sacked its student leaders for their 
republicanism once, is likely to drop references 
to constitutional monarchy in its resolutions to 
be adopted at its national convention at the end 
of August.

Several significant changes have occurred in 
Nepal over the last six months of the King's 
direct rule. Public protests are undoubtedly on a 
slow track but the battle of ideas has been 
raging as never before. The protests by political 
parties have been sporadic and are not expected 
to take off in a big way till the monsoon ends, 
and the largest of them, the Nepali Congress, 
holds its four-day national convention. On the 
outcome of the convention would depend not only 
the future of the party but also of Nepal.

Yet students and professionals - lawyers, 
doctors, engineers, and journalists - have come 
out in the streets in large numbers. The open 
protest of the government employees - especially 
non-gazetted ones - is perhaps the best indicator 
of the lack of support for Gyanendra's rule. They 
are totally dependent on the state and yet they 
protested in the streets against changes in Civil 
Service Act to take away their trade union rights.

Protest by civil so- ciety organizations against 
the king is drawing a mass response - this was 
most recently demonstrated when thousands of 
people sat through in pouring rain in Kathmandu 
for several hours at an event organized to 
challenge the king's actions.

Those who had hoped that King Gyanendra would 
reduce corruption and give good governance have 
been disappointed. The way the state machinery 
was used to get customers for the king's 
son-in-law's mobile telecom company was there for 
everyone to see. In the name of providing good 
governance, convicts (junior minister Jagat 
Gochan) and bank loan defaulters (vice-chairman 
of the king's governing council, Tulsi Giri) had 
been appointed ministers.

The economic situation in Nepal has also worsened 
in the last six months. There is no fresh flow of 
foreign direct investment and earlier investment 
is exiting. Nepal has precious little to export. 
With travel advisories aplenty in America and in 
Europe, dollar-paying tourism is down. There is 
no development activity. One-third of the entire 
budget goes directly to defence and no one knows 
about the invisible flows. To raise revenue, this 
year a 5 per cent tax has been imposed on 
textbooks. People are openly saying that books 
are being taxed to buy guns.

Although India loves to berate Nepal's political 
parties for not getting their act together, seven 
mainstream political parties have in fact joined 
hands. They are: the Nepali Congress, Nepali 
Congress (Democratic), Communist Party on Nepal 
(UML), Jan Morcha, Samyukta Vam Morcha, Nepal 
Sadbhavna Party (Anandi Devi) and Nepal Mazdoor 
Kisan Party.

They are unanimous about a dialogue with the 
Maoists. But they have nagging doubts about the 
Maoist professions of faith in multi-party 
democracy, and of respect for the rule of law and 
civil liberties.

The informal talks between the political parties 
and the Maoists seem to have gone off well. 
However, the political parties have shied away 
from nominating an official team for a formal 
dialogue. A lot of mutual confidence building is 
still required though almost all the parties 
agree, directly or indirectly, on the need to 
elect a constituent assembly.

The most significant development has been a 
serious rethink among the Maoists. After much 
deliberation and debate, the Maoists have come to 
the following conclusions:

a. That the main enemy in Nepal is the monarchy 
and that the focus should be on attacking the 
king rather than anyone else;

b. That it is not feasible to capture power militarily and retain it.

c. That they should evolve a common minimum 
agenda to fight the monarchy with the political 
parties through a process of dialogue;

d. That if the political parties do not agree to 
the immediate removal of the king and the 
ushering in of a democratic republic, then the 
process of electing a constituent assembly should 
be explored with them;

e. If the settlement is for a constituent 
assembly, then the armed forces of the two sides 
should be managed preferably by the UN or 
otherwise, by any neutral party acceptable to 
Nepal's two biggest immediate neighbours, India 
and China.

The two most important decisions are that the 
Maoists see the king as the main enemy and that 
given the international situation they do not see 
the feasibility of sustaining a classic 
insurrectionary revolution in Nepal.

The biggest contribution of the Maoist ideologue, 
Baburam Bhattarai, lies in situating not only the 
Nepalese Maoist movement but also other third 
world communist movements in the international 
situation, raising questions of political 
strategy about how they might survive today. He 
has argued that unlike the Fifties and Sixties, 
there is no prospect for a communist revolution 
in Nepal seeking sustenance from friendly 
movements or states. As in Latin America, a 
momentary capture of power could be subverted in 
no time.

Given the geo-strategic position of Nepal, 
sandwiched as it is between China and India, the 
Maoists believe that Nepal cannot choose a 
political path that both states find unpalatable. 
Nor do the Maoists think that given its low level 
of industrial development, Nepal can leapfrog to 
a socialist or communist stage without going 
through a phase of bourgeois democracy.

After asking themselves whether the king or 
Indian expansionism was the bigger threat, the 
Maoists have decided that the king is the bigger 
enemy. They have thus the option now of seeking 
the help of democratic forces in India in their 
struggle for democracy in Nepal.

From these crucial political formulations follows 
the newfound desire of the Maoists to negotiate 
with the political parties. These two forces - 
the parliamentary political parties and the 
Maoists - are coming together, and the king's 
days are numbered. But it appears that the South 
Block mandarins are determined not to see this.

______


[5]

SAHARA TIME, 20 AUGUST 2005

AYODHYA : THE AFTERMATH OF THE TERRORIST ATTACK
by Subhash Gatade

The terrorist attack in Ayodhya, which had the 
potential of igniting passions, has already 
become part of history. Life inside Ayodhya - 
Faizabad has again limped back to normalcy. 
Today, apart from the extra units of security 
personnel, which have been brought in to 
supposedly provide extra security, no change is 
visible in the ambience.

Ofcourse barring some fanatic elements it has 
always been the case that, ordinary local people, 
to whichever faith they belonged to, have tried 
to maintain harmonious relations with each other. 
It has been reported umpteen times how the 
'sanjhi sanskriti' ( common culture) has evolved 
at the grassroot level since centuries with a 
intermingling of cultures and close 
interpenetration of economies.

Interestingly while the ordinary people have 
heaved a sigh of relief, the triumvirate of the 
VHP-BJP-RSS has not taken very kindly to these 
developments. Much on the lines of the arrest of 
Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati they had dreams 
that they would be able to cash in on the 'anger' 
of the people. But nothing of that sort came out. 
Tired of emotive issues which affect their own 
lives and feeling cheated at the hands of these 
selfproclaimed upholders of Hindutva, people just 
did not care when the saffron brigade gave a call 
for agitation over insult to 'hindu' identity. 
Excepting the few BJP ruled states one noticed 
only few symbolic actions elsewhere.

Considering the fact that people at large were 
losing their interest in this issue which would 
prove to be a deathknell to their own brand of 
politics of 'othering' they tried in vain all 
sorts of ways to foment fresh bout of tension. 
And ranging from the likes of Lalkrishna Advani 
to the local level leaders of the VHP, everybody 
tried all sorts of ways to create fresh wedge 
between the communities. While Mr Advani, who 
himself is an accused in the Babri Mosque 
demolition case, tried once again to committ 
himself to the 'unfinished task' of temple 
building and appealed to the religious minorities 
to be sensitive towards the feelings of the 
Hindus, others from his ilk were more direct. In 
the public meeting held in Ayodhya itself they 
had tried to demonise the whole Muslim community 
and asked for their eviction from the periphery 
of the acquired land in Ayodhya.

Ramvilas Vedanti, a VHP leader from Ayodhya who 
received enough bytes the day the terrorist 
attack occurred had spewed venom , "Muslims 
should be shifted from the adjoining areas and 
the localities acquired in Ayodhya. There will be 
no guarantee of security of the Ram Lalla till 
they are not shifted." Acharya Giriraj Kishore, 
the vice president of the VHP categorily made the 
same demand in his New Delhi press conference. 
And now comes the news that on 9 th August a 
group of sadhus and activists of an outfit 
stormed the graveyard to dig the graves of the 
five militants killed in the recent attack. They 
demanded that the graves be shifted from within 
the Chaudah Kosi Parikrama area of the temple 
town.

Ofcourse it was not for the first time that 
attempts had been made by the Hindutva goons to 
target all Muslims with impunity. It was only 
last year that they had launched an agitation 
against the state government's plan to provide 
houses to poor Muslims living in Bacchara 
Sultanpur Mohalla in Faizabad, which is around 
two kilometers from Ayodhya. Their contention was 
that they would not let the government construct 
an 'I.S.I. Camp' near this sensitive area and if 
at all it is to be done then it should be done 
outside the 'holy borders' of the city.

As things stand today it is being reported that 
the much dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba was behind this 
attack. The law and order people seem to be 
patting themselves on their backs for 
apprehending the terrorists involved in the 
attack in record time. But some questions refuse 
to die. Why the  utter silence over the 
deliberate attempts by the Hindutva brigade to 
spread communal disharmony in the aftermath of 
the attack ? It is clear even to a layperson that 
despite delivering hatespeeches which is a 
congnizable offence neither the Vedantis nor the 
Kishores nor the Uma Bharatis were even sent 
summons to explain their conduct. Of course as 
far as the basic provisions of the law are 
concerned they are quite clear. Under the various 
provisions of the Indian law ( Section 153 A, 153 
B,, 298, 505 etc  ) promoting enmity between 
different groups on grounds of religion is a 
recognized criminal offence for which they could 
be punished with three years of imprisonment.

Everybody knows that it is not a question of 
legal provisions. It is basically a question of 
political will to show whether one really is 
concerned about the acute sense of deprivation 
and insecurity which pervades muslim community in 
India in general and Uttar Pradesh in particular. 
The recent findings of the Prime Minister's high 
level committee rather further corroborate this. 
A member of this committee shared his findings 
after a three day sitting in Lucknow "Muslims 
felt they were treated like second grade citizens 
and their condition, at times, was worse than 
other deprived sections, with accusations of the 
police and PAC being prejudiced when it came to 
muslims."

Is not it time that serious attempts are made to 
rectify the situation ! May be Uttar Pradesh a 
harbinger of change in this direction.

______


[6]

DHARNA FOR EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ON 18th AUGUST

A one-day dharna will be held at Jantar Mantar 
(New Delhi) on Thursday 18th August, to protest 
against the flaws of the National Rural 
Employment Guarantee Bill (NREGB) and demand 
immediate pro-people amendments.  The dharna may 
be followed by other forms of action including a 
hunger strike, which could be indefinite.

The "revised" NREGB is expected to be discussed 
in Parliament on 17th August.  The revised Bill 
has not yet been made public, but it is almost 
certain to have major flaws, such as the absence 
of any time frame for extension to the whole of 
rural India and the absence of individual work 
entitlements.  The main objective of the dharna 
on 18th August is to ensure that the Bill is 
suitably amended before being placed and passed, 
within the monsoon session of Parliament which 
ends on 26th August.

Please join the dharna (and possible hunger 
strike) in full strength.  The dharna will start 
at 10 am on 18th August and will continue for the 
whole day.

This is a follow-up of the Rozgar Adhikar Yatra 
(which travelled through ten states before the 
monsoon session in Parliament), an initiative of 
People's Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG).

For further information please send a line to rozgar at gmail.com [. . .].


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[7]



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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 
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necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.