SACW | 17 Sep [Religion UK / Afghanistan / Iran, India, Pakistan / Prisoners / Tridents]

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 17 September,  2005


[1]  UK: The state should stop playing God (Nick Cohen)
[2]  Beyond the wasteland and the minefield: What Afghanistan has to 
teach (Aseem Shrivastava)
[3]  Pakistan - India: Don't ditch Iran (Praful Bidwai)
[4]  India - Pakistan: Prisoners of peace (Sorit Gupto)
[5]  India - Madhya Pradesh: Lengthening Trident Shadows Trishul 
Diksha in Jabalpur (Ram Puniyani)

______


[1]

The New Statesman
15th September 2005

THE STATE SHOULD STOP PLAYING GOD
Nick Cohen
Monday 19th September 2005


Our pious government wants faith-based bodies to run our schools and 
provide our welfare services, and justifies this by pretending 
Britain is a religious country. But it isn't, writes Nick Cohen

In March, evangelicals gathered under the banner of the Christian 
Congress for Traditional Values outside Broadcasting House to insist 
that the BBC celebrate and reinforce the sanctity of marriage and 
family life in its dramas, documentaries and news broadcasts. Their 
leader had the unbeatable name for an Essex PR man: Garry Selfridge. 
His trade had taught him the political value of statistics, and he 
decided to use them to make the BBC feel small. If its governors 
refused to stop broadcasting blasphemous programmes and failed to 
return to the old standards of taste and decency, he said, "we will 
carry out a programme of high-profile events designed to put the 
corporation under intense media pressure to listen to the voice of 
the majority, the 42 million who registered as Christian in the 2001 
census".

Forty-two million? That sounded on the high side. But he was quoting 
the census and normally there is an incontrovertible precision to 
figures from Britain's most comprehensive and respected exercise in 
social research. Sure enough, the 2001 census clearly states that in 
England and Wales, a hefty 71.1 per cent of the population regarded 
themselves as Christian. The other major religions - Islam, Hinduism, 
Judaism and the rest - claimed the allegiance of 5.6 per cent of the 
population, and there were a few Satanists, New Age crackpots and 
Jedi knights. About four million people refused to answer the 
religion question on the census form - concluding, quite rightly in 
my view, that their faith, like their race, was no business of a 
democratic government. In their number must have been many religious 
people who would have pushed the number of the faithful higher if 
they had been prepared to speak out. Only 14.8 per cent - 7.7 million 
- said that they had no religion.

The census, compiled by the Office of National Statistics, underpins 
British social policy. It determines where resources are sent for 
schools and hospitals and the boundaries of parliamentary 
constituencies. The 2001 census was the first to ask people about 
their religion, and for the government the results were 
extraordinarily welcome. The Blair administration is the most pious 
since the 19th century, and, by God, it shows. The Prime Minister is 
an Anglo-Catholic, Gordon Brown is a son of the manse, Paul Boateng 
is a Methodist lay preacher, Hilary Armstrong is a former 
vice-president of the Christian Socialist Movement, Paul Murphy is a 
Catholic, Jack Straw is Anglican, Lord Falconer describes himself as 
a non-practising Christian and Tessa Jowell found religion in the 
early 1990s. It is tempting to speculate that, as the power of the 
socialist faith faded, the party leadership turned to old-time 
religion to find a sense of purpose. Against this background, the 
government's dangerously sectarian plans for faith-based charities 
and schools, and for laws to ban the incitement of religious hatred, 
make a kind of sense. Unfortunately for ministers, however, and for 
Garry Selfridge, those census findings are not the godsend they 
appeared, and they are now coming under convincing intellectual 
assault.

The figures hardly accord with our everyday experience. No one can 
doubt that Britain is a Christian country or, more specifically, a 
Protestant one - even the Catholics have Protestant attitudes. But 
that Protestant tradition is normally expressed in national attitudes 
and prejudices - respect for the individual, for example, and sexual 
prurience - rather than in the sort of religious commitment implied 
in the census.

Now look at the findings of another important piece of official 
research, the British Social Attitudes Survey. It reported that 41 
per cent of the population had no religion in 2001, as against the 
14.8 per cent who told the census takers they weren't religious. This 
is a fantastically large discrepancy. They both can't be right, 
however creatively you play about with the margins of error; and the 
evidence suggests that the Office of National Statistics blundered. 
Another study from the same year, by the Home Office, found that 
religion came ninth on a list of what mattered to the public. (Only 
20 per cent said it was important as against 71 per cent who said 
their family was their first priority.) And the Swedish-based World 
Values Survey reported in 2000 that 55 per cent of people in Britain 
said they "never" or "practically never" attended church. Only France 
was more irreligious.

I could go on, but a simple question makes the point: if the 2001 
census is right, why are so many churches closing and so many sober 
Anglicans warning that the Church of England faces catastrophic 
decline?

At the root of the problem with the census is the question that was 
presented to households: "What is your religion?" As Keith Porteous 
Wood of the National Secular Society said, it was "imprecise to the 
point of being unprofessional". What did the census want to discover 
about the British: whether they had a religious upbringing or a 
vaguely religious culture based on going to the odd wedding and 
funeral? Neither constitutes a true faith lived by word and deeds. 
The census in Scotland was more intellectually rigorous. It asked two 
questions: "What religion do you belong to?" and "What religion were 
you brought up in?" Because the Scots thought more carefully about 
their answers, only 67 per cent of them were recorded as religious 
compared to 77 per cent in England and Wales. Yet church attendance 
in Scotland is far higher.

The Scots also took great care to keep questions about race and 
ethnicity far away from questions about religion. In England and 
Wales, they followed on from each other. In a critical account of the 
census that amounts to a demolition, Professor Steve Bruce and Dr 
David Voas from Aberdeen and Manchester universities respectively 
point out that, in 2001, militant Islam was on the march and anger 
about asylum-seekers at its highest. The public was then presented 
with a form that invited them to tick boxes from a list that included 
Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. There must have been a temptation 
to tick "Christian" simply as a way of announcing that "we're white 
and not Muslim".

Bruce and Voas pointed out that the Scottish census insisted that 
people couldn't just say they were Christian, but had to declare what 
type of Christian they were - Catholic, Presbyterian or what have you.

Another problem with the census was that forms were completed by 
heads of households, and it's easy to imagine that in some 
households, be they Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or Jewish, 
patriarchs insisted that their wives and children believed what they 
were told to believe.

I sense that religious leaders know the census is full of howlers. 
The protesters outside Broadcasting House were the exception. But 
very few bishops have been trumpeting its findings. They see too many 
empty pews to be exultant. These census failings should now be 
hammered into the heads of ministers.

The London bombings have brought Britain to a decisive point where it 
can choose between two incompatible versions of liberalism. The first 
path is the one new Labour has been stumbling along for so long. In 
the name of tolerating diversity, it wants faith schools that will 
deliver sectarian education, faith-based charities that will deliver 
sectarian welfare, and a universal blasphemy law to inhibit faith's 
many critics. Respecting difference sounds and often is admirable, 
but it will lead to a liberal apartheid that separates Christians, 
Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs. How any British government can 
contemplate segregated schools after 30 years of an Irish conflict in 
which you could guarantee that every IRA bomber had been to a 
Catholic school and every UVF sniper had been to a Protestant one is 
beyond me, but there you are, this one is. The addled census findings 
reinforce its foolishness by allowing ministers to pretend that we 
are a religious country that requires the state to create religious 
institutions.

The alternative is to follow the liberal principle of equality. Great 
events, and the rise of militant Islam is certainly one of those, 
should force us to confront problems that laziness and inertia kept 
off the agenda. The overwhelmingly Christian and Jewish state schools 
should be abolished because they offend against equality of access. 
As there are hardly any Muslim schools, no one will be able to shout 
about Islamophobia. If we don't abolish them, then we'll have a 
country where whites go to Christian and Jewish schools and browns go 
to Muslim, Hindu and Sikh schools.

In short, the state should stop playing God. It should say to people 
of all faiths and to the large number of us with none that it is 
neutral and will treat us equally.


______


[2]

www.sacw.net
16 September 2005

BEYOND THE WASTELAND AND THE MINEFIELD: WHAT AFGHANISTAN HAS TO TEACH
by Aseem Shrivastava
http://www.sacw.net/peace/aseem16092005.html

______

[3]

The News International
September 17, 2005

DON'T DITCH IRAN

Praful Bidwai

The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and 
human-rights activist based in Delhi

India and Pakistan today share an identical experience, something 
they have very rarely done in the past 58 years. They are both under 
growing pressure to side with the United States in its escalating 
diplomatic-political confrontation with Iran, and in particular, to 
abandon the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline. They are 
also being offered inducements to "sweeten" the coercion.

Pakistan and India should do everything within their power to resist 
Washington's pressure. This Column argues that not doing so would 
deeply compromise the interests of their own peoples, besides closing 
avenues to long-term cooperation between South Asia, and West, 
Southwest and Central Asia, with all its tremendous potential 
benefits.

Iran has become a test case for Indian and Pakistani diplomacy, and 
for the independence of both states' foreign policies. The reason is 
simple. The US has unilaterally decided that Iran is -- like Iraq was 
15 years ago, and again, three years ago-hell-bent on acquiring 
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Washington is going all-out to 
isolate Iran and have its nuclear activities referred to the United 
Nations Security Council for possible sanctions. The crunch could 
come next Monday when the board of governors of the International 
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meets in Vienna. It alone can refer Iran 
to the Security Council.

There are two differences between the Iranian and Iraqi cases. The US 
has demonised the Iranian government right since the Islamic 
Revolution of 1979, regardless of the political changes under way 
there, especially in recent years. It declared Iran a "rogue state" 
just as it was emerging from the shadow of Ayatollah-style Islamic 
extremism.

By contrast, Washington backed Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq 
war of the 1980s, passed on vital intelligence to him, and condoned 
his use of chemical weapons against civilians -- before turning 
against him.

Secondly, the US, with Britain's collusion, built up some sort of a 
case in 2002-03 that Iraq had, or was about to make, WMD. Most 
sensible people didn't fully believe this or the sexed-up 
intelligence on which it was based. They were soon vindicated. Now, 
even Colin Powell says he regrets having made a false report on 
Iraq's WMD.

However, not even a remotely plausible case has been made that Iran 
has WMD or that its nuclear programme has a military component. The 
IAEA has repeatedly given Iran a clean chit. In its latest reports, 
it concludes, on the basis of tests, that the traces of enriched 
uranium detected two years ago at Iranian nuclear facilities are 
attributable to equipment imported from Pakistan. Repeated 
inspections have found no evidence that Iran is running a clandestine 
nuclear weapons programme. But the US dismisses these and the fact 
that Iran, unlike Saddam's Iraq, has cooperated with the IAEA.

It's perfectly legitimate to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes 
under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and other laws. Iran could 
of course use enriched uranium for military purposes in the future. 
But that's a matter of intention. Negotiated ways could be found to 
prevent Iran from realising that intention. But the US has already 
pre-judged Tehran's intentions as unalterable, and decided that 
sanctions are indispensable.

Washington is being profoundly, paranoically, irrational. It has 
seriously misjudged the international mood. Unlike Saddam's Iraq, 
Iran enjoys a fair amount of goodwill the world over. It won't be 
easy to isolate it. Regrettably, Washington is encouraged by the 
pusillanimity of the European Union-3 (Germany, France and Britain) 
and the inconsistent approach they showed in their two years-long 
negotiations with Iran.

In 2003, the EU-3 persuaded Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran 
also signed the IAEA's tough Additional Protocol that year. But the 
EU-3 missed an agreed deadline (this past July 31) to propose a 
political and financial incentives-based deal to Iran. Actually, the 
EU-3 had developed a package on the assumption that Ali Akbar 
Rafsanjani would win the presidential election. When he lost, they 
hardened the deal's terms and demanded that Iran permanently 
renounced uranium enrichment. Iran refused.

The crisis worsened when the IAEA reported Iran had produced seven 
tonnes of uranium hexaflouride gas at Isfahan. (The gas can feed 
enrichment centrifuges at another facility, in Natanz. But Iran has 
not started enrichment yet.)

The EU is reluctant to refer Iran to the Security Council. So are 
two-thirds of the IAEA's 35-member board -- including Pakistan and 
India, besides 13 other Non-Aligned countries. Russia and China are 
even more reluctant to sanction Iran. Russia is building a nuclear 
power station at Bushehr and says Iran hasn't violated the 
non-proliferation regime. The IAEA has always taken decisions by 
consensus -- which won't be possible on Iran. So the US is pushing 
for a change in procedure, to voting.

To do this, Washington must split the Non-Aligned Movement group in 
the IAEA board, currently headed by Malaysia. NAM adopts a unanimous 
position at the IAEA. It defends Iran's "right" to enrich uranium for 
peaceful purposes. Malaysia declares this to be "basic and 
inalienable".

The Iran issue has become a symbol of Third World defiance of 
bullying by the First World, led by a power that has no intention of 
disarming its own nuclear weapons. It goes without saying that Iran 
should not make nuclear weapons. But its legal right to civilian 
nuclear energy must be defended -- whatever one's reservations about 
nuclear power as an energy technology, often expressed in this Column.

The US is mounting pressure on India, Pakistan and other states to 
change their stand on Iran. It has challenged India, with Russia and 
China, to take the leadership in isolating Iran. It has reportedly 
offered incentives to Pakistan through civilian nuclear cooperation. 
Both governments have shown signs of vacillation, especially on the 
IPI pipeline. India's vacillation became evident during Prime 
Minister Singh's July visit to Washington, when he questioned the 
pipeline's feasibility on the ground of high investor risk.

India and Pakistan must stand firm behind Iran and the pipeline -- on 
principle. They should know that Washington is overplaying its hand 
and will probably fail at the IAEA board. The nuclear allurements 
Washington is holding out to India and Pakistan cannot possibly 
promote economically viable or environmentally sustainable energy 
paths.

The IPI pipeline makes a lot of sense -- with energy conservation 
caveats added. It will deliver natural gas at less than half the cost 
of gas pumped from Turkmenistan. The IPI pipeline is not just an 
economic project. It will open new political vistas through fruitful 
cooperation between West and Central Asia, on the one hand, and South 
Asia, on the other. It will spur closer integration of these regions. 
Ultimately, it's in such integration that India's and Pakistan's 
future lies, not in subordinate partnerships with the US.

A final word. The US is already facing enormous difficulties in 
occupied Iraq. If it attempts a diplomatic-political, and especially 
military, misadventure against Iran as well, its plans for Empire 
could come crashing down. Iran is a strong middle power, has a 
vibrant economy, and the second largest known oil reserves after 
Saudi Arabia. Culturally, Iran is flourishing. Democracy has imparted 
some popular legitimacy to its government.

The US will find it hard to humble Iran through coercion. Pakistan 
and India would be disastrously mistaken to overestimate American 
power. That's one more reason for standing firm.

______


[4]


The Times of India
September 15, 2005

PRISONERS OF PEACE
Sorit Gupto

Danish Kumar, 13, is in Indian custody since June 27, 2003. His 
parents were on a visit to their native village, Umarkot, in Sind 
when Danish escaped from his home on June 26, 2003 and unwittingly 
crossed over the border to the Indian side.

According to media reports, he was arrested by the BSF for not 
carrying legal documents, while trying to enter India through gate 
101 at Wagah border.

Like Danish, a large number of Indians in Pakistani jails and 
Pakis-tanis in Indian jails have been stuck for years, their only 
crime being crossing the border without legal documents.

The most affected are fishermen who have strayed across the invisible 
line that divides control of the Arabian Sea - men lost as a result 
of rough seas, broken engines or poor navigation.

Many of these fishermen are mere children, some as young as 14. What 
happens to these poor, illiterate and innocent people, once they are 
caught in 'foreign territory'?

They become 'spies', disappearing into the oblivion of a jail 
register. They rot in jails year after year, sometimes for more than 
25 years.

Life imprisonment in India, a sentence given for murder, does not 
exceed 14 years. Mohammad Babar crossed over to Rajasthan to buy a 
gift for his fiancee.

He spent 15 years in jail, only to be released recently on an 
arbitrary burst of goodwill between the governments of India and 
Pakistan.

Was his crime more grave than murder? Unfortunates like Babar can 
face a trial against any kind of allegation, the most common being 
spying as in the case of Roop Lal or Sarabjit Singh.

Some die in jail. Muhammed Ahmed of Dera Dosa Budha village of 
Chak-wal district, Pakistan, died serving his term in an Indian jail.

It is argued that such people are in the jails of Pakistan or India 
because they do not have legal documents; hence, it is not possible 
for the authorities to prove their identity.

If so, how or why did the authorities reveal the identity of Muhammed 
Ahmed only after his death? Some of them meet with an even more 
tragic death, as in the case of a Bangladeshi who came to Ajmer on 
pilgrimage.

He was alleged to have been taken away to a police station. He was 
never traced. The needle of suspicion points to the police and BSF.

A habeas corpus petition was filed in Calcutta high court; it was 
dismissed on grounds of jurisdiction. Sarabjit Singh is luckier than 
most.

His family is fighting a battle with the governments of Pakistan and 
India to prove his identity. Singh's case is one rare moment of 
national attention for an issue that has stretched back to 1947, when 
Britain divided the subcontinent into India and Pakistan.

The rare few were freed, as in the case of Mehboob Iliyasi of 
Kolkata, who was released in December 1996. He had spent 20 years in 
Pakistani prisons on charges of espionage.

According to Iliyasi, successive Indian governments have not done 
enough to secure the release of Indian prisoners in Pakistan.

Iliyasi is ready to identify places in Pakistan where helpless 
Indians are imprisoned. But Indian authorities are in no mood to 
listen.

The callousness of both governments shows in their records - they 
don't have any official figure of the number of foreign prisoners in 
their respective jails.

On September 12, as a goodwill gesture, India and Pakistan released 
587 prisoners, of which 472 or 80% were poor fishermen, not criminals.

Of these released prisoners some were deaf and dumb. One Pakistani 
prisoner was been released from a leper home in Delhi. No one knows 
how many still await their freedom in different jails of India and 
Pakistan.

They do not have anyone to provide them legal support. They have 
pinned their freedom hopes on goodwill gestures between two nations.

They are pawns that politicians toy around with in grand summits and 
conferences. The Geneva Convention commisserates with prisoners of 
war.

But what of Babar, Iliyasi, Singh and Lal? Caught in turbulent waters 
between two countries, they are prisoners of peace.



_____


[5]

www.sacw.net
16 September 2005
http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/RamPuniyani16092005.html

MADHYA PRADESH: LENGTHENING TRIDENT SHADOWS
Trishul Diksha in Jabalpur

by Ram Puniyani

[Published earlier in Issues in Secular Politics - September 2005]

In a public function held in Jabalpur, M.P. (Sept.
2005) five thousand trishuls were distributed under
the leadership Mr. Pravin Togadia of Vishwa Hindu
Parishad. The function was organized by Bajarang Dal,
an affiliate of RSS. In the meeting a pledge was
administered, which stated that all will be done to
bring in the Hindu Rashtra.

The previous Congress government had put a ban on
trishul diksha and with the BJP Government coming to
power the ban has been lifted. Many a places Mr.
Togadia's entry has been banned so far as his speeches
heat up the atmosphere of communal hatred. Trishul
Diksha has been devised by VHP as a mechanism to use
religious cultural symbols for political mobilization
of Hindutva. During the period of Rath Yatra the use
of stickers like 'Garv se Kaho Hum Hindu hain' and the
one of Lord Ram with an aggressive posture were used
with effect not only to mobilize Hindus but also to
intimidate the minorities.

The Hindu right has been cleverly using the symbols
and imageries to polarize the communities and one
recalls its culmination in the post rath yatra
communal violence, demolition of Babri Msajid and
horrific riots in Mumbai, Surat and Bhopal. The use of
symbols with religious resemblance has been the
strength of RSS progeny. Just to recall few more in
this direction, one has been the popularization of
Vinayaka idols and Ganapati festival in South, the
other being Hanuman and Shabri festivals in the
Adivasi areas. Most of these act to give the cultural
channels especially to Dalits and adivasis to co-opt
them into Hindutva fold. The choice of Hanuman and
Shabri for adivasis gives a very precise message of
their place in the Hindu fold.

It is being said that Trishul is a part of Hindu
religious tradition. Interestingly one never heard of
Trishul Diksha earlier. It is a political innovation
by VHP. Earlier Trishul has been a symbol associated
with Lord Shiva, it was not meant for use in social
gatherings. It was mostly used while traveling to
pilgrimage sites and also by the sadhus. Its role is
not similar to that of Kripan, which is amongst the
five basic ingredients of Sikhism. The Trishul
designed by VHP and used for mass distribution is a
disguised knife with sharp edges which have more of
destructive potential.

Madhya Pradesh has been having BJP Government off and
on. It also has a deep and powerful network of RSS
shakhas, Bajrang dal offices and Vanvasi Kalyan
Ashrams, the latter spread in the adivasi areas. It is
here in Jhabua that attempt was made to give a
communal color to the rape and murder of a young girl
by a miscreant in the campus of a Christian school. It
was in Jhabua region again that the intimidation of
Missionaries has been intense on various pretexts. The
main grudge has been the activities of missionaries in
the remote places. In one of the trips to Jhabau
region, where the alleged conversions are going on,
the writer of these lines was made to realize the real
motive behind the attacks on Missionaries. One of the
Principals of the missionary schools told an
interesting episode. His school is located in a
township where, as is usually the case, many RSS
supporters also send their children for studying, as a
matter of choice. Same RSS supporters allege that the
missionaries are doing the conversion work through
their schools in remote area. The Principal told that
one such parent of a child invited him for a dinner.
In the after dinner talk he appreciated the
Principal's work in educating the children. But he
also pointed out that the schools in cities and town
places are OK but why should the missionaries open the
schools in the remote places to educate those
'animals', meaning adivasis! The real reason for
opposing these activities happens to be to oppose this
empowerment of adivasis through education, which is
not much to the liking of the Hindutva forces.

The coming to power of BJP Government in MP has opened
the gates for intrusion of Hindutva in its full
aggressive mode. This Govt. first with Uma Bharati as
the CM brought in Cows and Sants in the physical
vicinity of the rulers. Cow based economy was
envisaged as a panacea for the economic ills of the
state. With Bharati's Tiranga Yatra and her
resignation, which came as a big respite for BJP, as
any way Bharati had become a good deal of
embarrassment for the party. Later Babulal Gaur
stepped in. For various reasons, to win over the
patron ship of RSS, to keep his seat safe from
Bharati, Gaur treaded the safe path of handing over
the policy making department to RSS, which now is
determined to convert MP into another laboratory of
Hindutva, a la Gujarat. First the Government went on
to ensure that Vande Matram is brought in, in offices
and schools. The activities of Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram
have been stepped up in the Adivasi areas. With this
tirshul diksha the intensity of the communal
polarization will go up tremendously. The issue is not
just the insecurity of minorities; the issue is of
violation of the basic norms of democratic society,
law and order. The mass distribution of knives,
disguised as religious symbols, will step up the
violent psychology and intensify the polarization of
communities.

It is precisely here that prior to election the
Bhojashala-Maula Masjid issue was brought up for
electoral purposes. The anti Christian violence
unleashed in Jhabua-Meghnangar region had paid
dividends and BJP got good deal of electoral
advantage. While the BJP government is ruling, the RSS
affiliates have got a free hand to intensify their
Hindutva agenda. MP has traveled a far way during last
year and a half.

The intense violence in Gujarat was preceded by a
period of BJP rule in Gujarat where the VHP, Vanavasi
Kalyan Ashram had a free run. The issue of conversion
and terrorism was manipulated to doctor the social
psychology, and the emotional distances between the
communities. The culmination of this into the violence
and later ghettoisation, this has become a 'model'
pattern of Hindutva politics. What begins as innocuous
sounding phenomenon gradually takes the direction of
dividing communities along religious lines. It is
conceded that BJP led NDA government at the center did
provided the cover to the local BJP government in its
communalization of society but even before the full
fledged pogrom was launched by Modi and company the
religious divide in the state was extreme. The
communal violence played the role of driving the
permanent wedge in the same. Despite the claims to
contrary the society in Gujarat is getting vertically
split with emotional ghettoisation preceding the
physical ghettoisation. The process in MP is going on
in the similar lines and this trishul diksha is yet
another step in the ongoing process. Hope the central
government wakes up in time to put brakes on this
divisive process being permitted by Babulal Gaur
Government.




_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace 
and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & 
non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia 
Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at:  bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

Sister initiatives :
South Asia Counter Information Project :  snipurl.com/sacip
South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.