SACW | 31 Oct. 2005

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 31 October,  2005


[1]  Sri Lanka: Remembering the Eviction and 
Recognizing the Rights of the Northern Muslims 
(SLDF)
[2]  Pakistan - India: Don't let Delhi bombings 
derail the peace process! (Editorial, Daily Times)
[3]  India: The Modi Factor and Massacre of  the Innocent (I.K.Shukla)
[4]  Pakistan - India:  Earthquake and Aftermath  (Vinod Mubayi)
[5]  Pakistan: Officials Place Tents Intended for 
Victims in Storage (Human Rights Watch)
[6]  India: RSS invents another ram myth to capture the Dangs (Mahesh Langa)
[7]  November 2005 issue of  International South Asia Forum Bulletin

______

[1]


We reproduce the SLDF statement of 30 October 2004, as we remember the
eviction of the Northern Muslims.

Editor - SLDF Newswire

----

www.lankademocracy.org/documents.html#october30

30 October 2004
For Immediate Release

REMEMBERING THE EVICTION AND RECOGNIZING THE RIGHTS OF THE NORTHERN MUSLIMS

On the 30th of October 1990, fourteen years ago to this day the forced
eviction of the Northern Muslims tore apart the social fabric of Northern
Sri Lanka, and brought grief and trauma to tens of thousands of Muslim
families. As we remember that day, we voice our sorrow and outrage that
fourteen years after that cruel act of ethnic cleansing, and two and a
half years into the signing the Ceasefire Agreement, the Northern Muslims
have still not been able to return home, have not featured significantly
in the peace process and have not had their political rights substantively
affirmed by any of the major actors.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Northern Muslims by the LTTE

In 1990, the LTTE expelled all Muslims from the five districts (Vavuniya,
Mannar, Mullaithivu, Kilinochchi & Jaffna) of the Northern Province.
Muslims represented about 7 percent of Sri Lanka’s total population, and
had historically been concentrated in Northern Sri Lanka, Eastern Sri
Lanka, and in the cities of Colombo, Kandy and Puttalam. In the Northern
Province, substantial concentrations of Muslims resided in the Jaffna,
Kilinochchi and Mannar districts.

On that terrible day 75,000-80,000 Muslims were given just 24-48 hours to
leave the Northern Province (some residents in Jaffna Town were forced out
in only two hours), or meet the fate of Muslims in the Eastern Province
who had been massacred in the hundreds in August and September of that
year. They were stripped of their belongings and houses and permitted to
take only Rupees 500 with them. The plundering of the possessions from
their homes followed soon after their enforced departure. The physical,
economic, social and psychological suffering to which the entire Northern
Muslim population was subjected was immeasurable and continues to this
day. Since then the majority of Northern Muslims have been living in a
variety of refugee settlements in the Puttalam district.

This collective uprooting of tens of thousand of families was a cruel and
calculated act directed against a group of people based purely on the fact
that they were Muslims, from areas where Tamils and Muslims had lived
together for centuries. It was also an act done without any popular
support. Ordinary Tamil people were outraged and revolted, but they
remained silent out of fear of LTTE retribution. The enforced evacuation
of defenceless Muslim families was systematically carried out by LTTE
cadres who went about in vehicles fitted with loud-hailers, ordering them
to leave or face retribution. In the Jaffna town, Muslim males were
ordered to gather at the grounds of the Mosque and told they and their
families should ‘leave the boundaries of Eelam’ within 24 hours. The
movement of LTTE cadres from one local area to another, the way in which
roads were blocked off to herd people through certain routes, and the
systematic way in which people’s possessions were expropriated, sorted,
and sold or distributed among the LTTE’s chosen followers, revealed that
this was a premeditated and well-planned operation, executed with menacing
military precision and ruthlessness.

The LTTE has never given an official reason for carrying out this enforced
evacuation, leading us to conclude that it was purely an exercise in
ethnic cleansing, driven by the bigotry of exclusivist Tamil nationalist
militarism.

After the Eviction, the Northern Muslims have attempted to rebuild their
lives, mainly in Puttalam. Even though they arrived with nothing, they
have struggled to give their children education, they sought employment
under hard conditions to support their families, and they have rebuilt
mosques, new village settlements and maintained their sense of dignity.
Even as a new generation has been born in exile that has no memory of
their parents’ homes or their relationship with the Tamil community,
Northern Muslims have reached out to the Tamil community in their former
homes. Their efforts to maintain relationships when possible with their
former neighbours testify to their eagerness to rebuild Muslim Tamil
relations.

Duty of the Tamils

The Tamil people have a responsibility to help and facilitate the return
of the Northern Muslims to their homes. Civil society organizations
including churches, schools, associations (fisher and agricultural and
trader unions) among others must take the initiative in inviting Northern
Muslims to visit their homes and engage in dialogue with a view to helping
them to rebuild their lives there. Tamil people in the Diaspora, many of
whom left the country due to violations of their own rights, must even
belatedly recognise the predicament of the Northern Muslims, and champion
their case for the restoration of their shattered lives. This includes
their right to return to their own homes in the North, and their
entitlement to substantial reparations for their inhuman and unlawful
eviction, for the material losses they suffered in the process, and for
the continuing suffering to which they have been subjected to all these
years.

This outrage against the Muslim people, which was carried out by the LTTE
in the name of Tamils will continue to remain one of the darkest episodes
in the annals of our history. The Tamil people must call upon the LTTE and
its leader Velupillai Pirpaharan in particular to make an unqualified
public apology for the crime they have committed against the Muslim
people.

The Muslim people, just as much as their Tamil compatriots, are entitled
to representation that ensures that their legitimate and reasonable
aspirations are satisfied, and their interests protected. Hence, the Tamil
people must reject as deplorable any attempt by the LTTE to prevent
separate representation for the Muslim community at peace talks aimed at
finding a political solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

The LTTE

Just as majoritarian Sinhala nationalists sought to deny the legitimate
rights of the Tamil people based on the spurious claim that Sri Lanka was
the ‘homeland of Sinhala-Buddhists only’, the LTTE seeks to deny the
legitimate rights of the Muslims based on the claim that the North and
East is the ‘homeland of the Tamils only’. The LTTE must recognize that
the North and East is the homeland of all people who have made it their
home.

To this day, Vellupillai Pirapaharan has offered no apology or any
guarantee that if the evicted Muslims were to return to their homes en
masse they would not be evicted again. Muslims who have attempted to
return to the North have been discouraged from doing so. Some who have
taken the risk and returned to restart their business ventures have been
taxed heavily and their freedom to operate has been severely curtailed. In
some instances, these businesses have been taken over by the LTTE.

It is the height of hypocrisy on the part of the LTTE to demand that the
displaced Tamils from the High Security Zones should be allowed to return
to their homes, when they will not permit the return of Muslims they
themselves forcibly evicted some 14 years ago.

It is high time that the LTTE acknowledged its responsibility, making a
public apology for the crimes it has committed against the Muslim people
and subjecting itself to a process by which reparations could be
considered. It also should give a public guarantee that if and when the
evicted Muslim people return to their homes, they would be allowed the
right and freedom to occupy them without any fear of threats, harassment
or violence in the future.

Government of Sri Lanka

The Government of Sri Lanka must offer the Northern Muslims who wish to
return resources to enable them and their children born in exile to
resettle in the North. It must ensure protection against further
expulsions and provide constitutional guarantees for the political,
economic and cultural rights of the Muslim community. The Northern Muslim
question must be considered a significant part of the GOSL’s negotiation
of any interim arrangement or permanent political solution.

The SLDF supports the call by the Muslim Peoples Action Front (Muslim
Makkal Seyalani) for the appointment of a Special Presidential Commission
with terms of reference to investigate the forcible eviction of the
Northern Muslims and consider and assess all forms of damage that they
have suffered during the intervening years and make appropriate
recommendations including for the award of adequate compensation for the
victims.

The Peace Talks

The Northern Muslims came up in the peace talks only as a humanitarian
issue relating to the resettlement of internally displaced people. It was
formally part of the mandate given to SIHRN (Sub Committee on Immediate
Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs). SIHRN was confirmed in the fourth
round of Peace talks to be the primary decision making body dealing with
humanitarian and rehabilitation needs in the North and East. Subsequently,
SIHRN virtually ceased functioning when the LTTE withdrew from the peace
talks in April 2003. As a result even the Northern Muslims’ humanitarian
needs have been neglected, much less their political right to return.
Because the major actors in the peace process have failed to support the
Northern Muslims’ political right to return home, Northern Muslims are
placed in the position of having to individually negotiate their return
home with local LTTE cadres. However, we note that in the fourth round of
talks that ‘the parties agreed that a Muslim delegation will be invited to
the peace talks at an appropriate time for deliberations on relevant
substantive political issues’. SLDF demands a Muslim delegation including
Northern Muslim representatives should be invited to any further peace
talks. We demand that the substantive political rights of Northern Muslims
to return to their homes and live without fear should be affirmed and
incorporated into any peace process that aims for a just peace in Sri
Lanka.

International Community

The International community has been playing a critical role in the Sri
Lankan Peace Process. However, it has not engaged sufficiently with
Northern Muslims on issues relating to their right to return, their right
to be represented at the peace talks and their participation in
rehabilitation and reconstruction.

The Norwegian Facilitators should ensure a Muslim delegation at the peace
talks. This Muslim delegation should comprise representatives from the
Northern Muslims. The SLMM should investigate and report ongoing
violations against Northern Muslims attempting to return with the
commitment to ending such atrocities.

The Sri Lanka Donor Co-chairs on 1 June 2004 noted "that a peace
settlement can only be sustained if it respects the legitimate rights and
involvement of all ethnic groups -- The Co-chairs encouraged the parties to
agree on the modalities to invite a Muslim delegation to the peace talks
at an appropriate time for the deliberation on relevant substantive
political issues". SLDF demands that any donor assistance to the peace
process must be conditional on addressing the political concerns of the
Northern Muslims. Funds being dispersed to the North and East for
reconstruction must be accessible by all minorities and particularly the
Northern Muslims.

Towards a just peace

SLDF demands that the Northern Muslims be integrated into any negotiations
for peace and a permanent political solution. It appears that Northern
Muslims’ political, economic and cultural rights have not been recognized
as important enough to derail the peace process, and thus have been
neglected. We say that it is precisely the political status of
marginalised communities such as the Northern Muslims and their right to
live in their homes free from harassment, extortion and eviction that the
peace process if it is to committed to meaningful peace should address.
SLDF calls on all of Sri Lanka’s citizens, Muslims, Tamils and Sinhalese
to work towards the rights of and justice for the Northern Muslims.


______

[2]

Daily Times
October 31, 2005	 
Editorial:

DON'T LET DELHI BOMBINGS DERAIL THE PEACE PROCESS!

The Indian capital of New Delhi was hit Saturday 
with three simultaneous bombs in marketplaces 
filled with citizens belonging to the middle and 
lower middle classes, killing 58 and injuring 
hundreds. In every incident the explosives were 
said to have been placed in a rickshaw or a 
motorcycle. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has 
denounced the terrorism, thankfully without any 
reference to Pakistan; and Pakistan has denounced 
it in the strongest, and thankfully most 
unequivocal, terms. Even the BJP opposition in 
parliament, while blaming the government for 
ignoring earlier signs of terrorism, has 
abstained from naming any organisation in 
Pakistan. Experts in New Delhi have pointed the 
finger at non-Pakistani organisations active in 
India's northeast and in Held Kashmir that are 
opposed to the Indo-Pak normalisation process. 
Meanwhile, in Islamabad, after some anxious hours 
of deliberation, the two countries went ahead and 
agreed to open five points on the Line of Control 
to facilitate relief operations in the areas of 
Azad Kashmir devastated by the October 8 
earthquake.
That the two sides are not jumping to conclusions 
and have decided to wait and see what kind of 
evidence emerges is a good sign. New Delhi 
clearly wants to finish questioning the suspects 
it has caught before "guessing" at whodunnit. 
Pakistan has most vehemently condemned the 
bombings and said they are an attempt to sabotage 
the peace process, a process that has stayed the 
hands of formerly rash alarmists in India. The 
formerly defiant All Parties Hurriyat Conference 
(APHC), for example, has engaged in dialogue with 
the Indian prime minister and been allowed freer 
travel in and out of Kashmir than in the past. 
There is also a clearer understanding in both 
countries about elements on both sides that find 
it against their self-interest that the two 
countries should start patching up and settling 
their old, deadlocked disputes. So, despite there 
being much to jerk the two back into the old rut 
of accusations and counter accusations, the 
process continues.
Terrorism experts have already looked at the 
pattern of near-simultaneous explosions adopted 
as a technique by Islamist terrorists in Iraq, 
Pakistan and Indonesia and opined that it could 
be the same elements once again. Pakistan itself 
experienced similar near-simultaneous bombings in 
Lahore only last month. On September 22 "bicycle" 
blasts at two markets in Lahore killed seven and 
wounded many. The police arrested two men and a 
couple, which "may lead the police to the 
bombers". The two men were arrested in Sadiqabad 
in southern Punjab with explosives and other 
bomb-making material, and on their information, a 
man and a woman were arrested from Lahore. The 
couple were originally from Jacobabad in Sindh 
and had been living near Lahore's Data Darbar 
shrine in a rented house. Police also seized Rs 
200,000 in cash and found some "important" 
telephone numbers on them. The first reflex was 
to see the hand of the Indian RAW in the 
bombings, but there was also a doubt that 
organisations opposed to the Indo-Pak 
normalisation and provoked by Pakistan's contacts 
with Israel could have done it. Finally, there 
were some members of the "militant groups" among 
the 35 arrested who are being questioned by the 
police.
In the past, India and Pakistan have not tried to 
understand the true dimensions of terrorism and 
have blamed each other for acts performed by 
organisations not controlled by any state. 
India's position has been that even the 
"out-of-control" groups were somehow Pakistan's 
responsibility. This meant ignoring the 
importance of cooperating with Pakistan to get 
rid of them. For example, the 2001 attack on the 
Indian parliament was finally discovered to have 
been the work of a defiant group of terrorists 
that had got out of hand in Pakistan. But the 
incident led to a period of extreme tension 
between Pakistan and India, with both amassing 
troops on the border. Pakistan's denial of 
complicity was held unacceptable by India, 
although most Pakistanis were not ready to 
believe that any Pakistan-based group had done 
it. In 2003, however, the true dimension of what 
the two countries were faced with began to become 
clear after President Pervez Musharraf was 
attacked by the very organisations accused of the 
New Delhi attack. In 2004, President Musharraf 
and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz were both 
attacked again, not by RAW but by the jihadists 
working for Al Qaeda.
After the leaders of India and Pakistan began to 
lower the bilateral temperature in 2003, a better 
understanding of the nature of terrorism began to 
dawn on both sides. We now learn that there is no 
uproar about the pending sentence that a Delhi 
court is about to deliver to seven terrorists 
(one of them allegedly Pakistani) who had 
attacked the Red Fort in 2000. The men under 
trial are all Muslims and may be connected to the 
extremist organisations that have been forming in 
India. Apart from extremist elements in Held 
Kashmir, most Indian Muslims have by and large 
held aloof from terrorism. Indeed, now that New 
Delhi has started talking to the APHC, the 
chances are that the dangerous fringe 
organisations may become isolated to such an 
extent that acts of terrorism will no longer be 
popular.
Meanwhile, as if forming a backdrop to what is 
happening in the east in India, Pakistan's 
south-western province of Balochistan continues 
to languish in the grip of terrorism. On 
Saturday, as Islamabad condemned the New Delhi 
attacks, the gas pipeline serving the capital 
city of Quetta was blown up for the second time. 
Needless to say, it is advisable not to start 
accusing RAW and the Indian consulates in 
Afghanistan just because it looks plausible. This 
"plausibility" game has muddied the waters in the 
past. Both sides must avoid this reflex if the 
process of normalisation is to be saved. *

______


[3]

THE MODI FACTOR AND MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENT
I.K.Shukla

Well timed in the evening, targeting Eid and 
Diwali shoppers for dramatic effect, the three 
bomb blasts in Delhi’s  three most populous and 
popular areas on Oct.28 destroyed far more than 
only 70 innocent lives and over 115 injured. 
Whose purpose this wanton massacre served, how it 
advanced a cause, whom the criminals sought to 
avenge, whom they so brutally taught a lesson, 
whether this is a prologue to the series of 
blasts in gestation, and where and when next – we 
will never know, because our law and order 
machinery is unwilling and unable to probe it 
all. As has been the practice thus far, glibly or 
sagely it can all be laid at the doors of ISI, 
Lashkar-e-Taiba, and, of course, the ubiquitous 
monster Al Qaeda, which goes on getting invented 
endlessly for a multiplicity of purposes and by a 
slew of ever ready users.

First, the police alacrity post-blasts. The whole 
city was covered with police patrol. Isn’t that 
something the citizenry is expected to be 
grateful for? Why the intelligence failed to 
prime itself prior to the mayhem, or why it did 
not consider posting patrols in the dense 
shopping centres when it had received 
intimations of such threats materializing soon, 
which was what it could and should have done as 
the most minimum required in the name of civil 
safety, passes understanding. But, the 
establishment will not admit it was careless or 
clueless or incompetent.

The other, ancillary question, from just not the 
usual run of skeptics. Why was this carnage timed 
to burn and blacken the bonhomie increasingly 
gathering strength and volume between the peoples 
of Pakistan and India? Whoever did it must have a 
vested interest in keeping the jihadi or 
patriotic pot boiling. Not above suspicion are 
the two nations’ institutional cabals of 
warmongers who, with peace and normalcy 
prospectively regnant, will be grievously bereft 
of their vested interest, their venal cause. 
These cabals can be political heavyweights, 
political parties, and the entrenched 
bureaucracies of the two nations who have to 
upstage each other just for the fun of it- 
grandstanding, keeping the other flustered and 
short of breath are such pure fun in underhand 
politicking!

One aspect that by some unwritten but suspicious 
compact, always gets omitted from consideration, 
both in the media and government circles, is the 
Modi Factor. This is a small name for a large but 
lethal enterprise. The enterprise is Hindutva : 
liquidation of minorities in well-planned series 
of massacres, seemingly random, localized, and 
dressed up as “reaction”. This experiment of 
ethnic cleansing has signally succeeded in 
Gujarat. The plight of Gujarat Muslims ever since 
the 2002 genocide has remained abysmal, if the 
recent reports of Kuldip Nayar and Harsh Mander 
are any guide.

No criminals were punished. Killers, rapists, 
arsonists, thugs and assassins were lionized as 
Hindu heroes. The saffronazi cult of crime and 
the dagger-invested brotherhood of mobsters, 
upgraded, the former as Hindu religion and the 
latter as its exemplars, were admitted, without 
any shame or apology or remorse, into national 
polity as legitimate constituents. It is this 
which on the one hand has led to a feeling of 
helplessness and humiliation among the victims 
and survivors, the state reduced in this 
perception as complicit or co-sponsor of the 
crimes of Hindu terrorists, and on the other a 
very starkly demonstrable proof of a failed state 
catering with determination to the interests of 
fascist gangsters and theo-terrorists, which 
cannot be confronted other than by its own 
methods of terror and tyranny, indiscriminate, 
endless, and unrelenting.

The continual murders of Christians all over and 
their churches being vandalized and burnt, the 
non-stop murders of Muslims, more grimly and 
recurrently in western UP, the calls by Hindu 
outfits on BJP aggressively to pursue the 
Hindutva agenda, their main warlord Sudarshan’s 
assertion that there are no minorities in India 
except Parsis and Jews, and any slight concession 
to justice or even a modicum of legalistic 
equality in bourgeois terms is tantamount to 
appeasement, none of them being arrested or 
prosecuted for harboring killers and funding 
criminals – all the mounting congeries of  ever 
swelling volume of violence and terror against 
the minorities stresses the obvious repeatedly 
that the state in India is mired in a big 
failure, and that violence prevails both to 
undermine the state constitutionally and to 
indulge in ethnic cleansing with impunity.

Whether the government at the centre was BJP’s is 
immaterial in so far as the constitutional 
safeguards were concerned in the case of Gujarat. 
There was a glaring case  for the President to 
dismiss the delinquent government of Vajpayee. 
Then, the UPA government in New Delhi could have 
remedied the situation by kicking out Modi 
government. But, popular, “democratically 
elected” government seemed to have held UPA’s 
hand. There was no such compunction on the part 
of Congress when it had sacked the Kerala 
government of Namboodiripad on far trivial 
excuses in the 1950s.

In the Hindutva book Red Indians are not a 
minority because they belonged to the land. That 
they were massacred in millions to render them 
into a besieged minority is not a fact to bother 
him. That 1 million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds 
were killed in Turkey’s genocide by state 
connivance and sponsorship in 1917 too would not 
matter to him, despite the fact that both had 
lived there for hundreds of years. He would 
refuse to see they were the minorities singled 
out for liquidation just as Hindutva has singled 
out Christians and Muslims.

Whether this violence was a plant or a vengeance 
of the weak we will perhaps never know. But, if 
we seek to have a grip on the situation, we will 
have to look deeper, look farther. What our 
police and military are capable of in terms of 
cold blooded murder in the lock up or fake 
encounters is public knowledge. Our army excelled 
itself in Chattisinghpura in Kashmir by 
slaughtering in cold blood 24 Sikhs and laying 
the crime at the doors of the militants, the more 
savagely to pursue them and win awards. Such 
plants are endemic to the institutional 
imperatives of a repressive state.

As to vengeance. Those guilty of the murders of 
Christians, those guilty of the genocide in 
Gujarat 2002, those killing Dalits and adivasis 
in various urban and rural locations, must be 
seen punished, or the state would seem to have 
nullified itself. It is the frustration of the 
victims which may be stirring, however blindly, 
to resort to these wanton acts of terror. The 
perpetrators may not even care if they are thus 
helping the victims of state terror or inducing 
the state to intensify its regime of unremitting 
terrorism on the minorities. Did the shoppers in 
Paharganj, Govindpuri, and Sarojini Nagar not 
include Muslims?

Two issues that are not so apart must be broached 
here. BJP has denounced Punjab government for the 
statues of seven terrorists in Ludhiana. It 
should have begun with denouncing itself for the 
two statues raised in Gujarat to its own 
terrorists. Two, have we not failed, as in 
Gujarat, to validate our claims and honor the 
constitutional guarantees in the case of Kashmir 
pulverized by quake? Have we done enough, and 
fast, and well to
reach people there the much needed help and 
succor?  Or, the Hindu “majority (a fiction) is 
happy to get Kashmir, but cleansed by nature of 
thousands of Muslims? These utterances are not 
limited to a crazy fringe in India any more. And, 
they unmask us both as a state and tarnish us a 
society. The report of our national endeavor 
there are not upbeat (Yogi Sikand: 
countercurrents.org).

Rounding up of Muslim youths following each such 
mayhem, torturing them, destroying their families 
with violent meanness and reckless mendacity, 
concluding even without any preliminary inquiry 
of substance that it was Al Qaeda or 
Lashkar-i-Tayyeba which caused the blasts, is, to 
put it mildly, both to revel in  dereliction of 
duty, and promote terrorism for 
establishmentarian ends.

30Oct.05



______

[4]

INSAF Bulletin
November 2005

EARTHQUAKE AND AFTERMATH
by Vinod Mubayi

A lot of words have been written to describe the 
tragedy that hit Kashmir and the north-west 
region of South Asia after the devastating 
earthquake. But all the words cannot come close 
to wiping the tears of the families who have 
suffered the loss of their near and dear ones and 
continue to suffer from the anxiety of what life 
has in store for them especially now that winter 
is fast approaching in areas that are known to 
experience heavy snowfall. All one can hope for 
is that the outpouring of words will lead to more 
effective action and larger aid on the part of 
global civil society. Thus far the quantum of aid 
is much less than what was offered after the 
tsunami last December although the magnitude of 
casualties and need is roughly on the same order 
of magnitude. Whether this indicates donor 
fatigue on the part of the global public that has 
witnessed an unprecedented number of natural and 
human disasters in the last year or whether it 
shows a reluctance to support aid to South Asia, 
especially Pakistan, is unclear.

The entire Himalayan region is seismically 
active, threatened by the relentless advance of 
the Indian plate towards the Eurasian plate that, 
in fact, created the Himalayan range a few 
million years ago. Several high magnitude seismic 
events have occurred over the last century in the 
mountainous regions of South Asia: some in 
populated areas like the great Quetta earthquake 
in 1935 that is estimated to have killed more 
than 30,000 and the major quake in Assam in 1950 
that fortunately took a lower toll of life 
because it affected mostly unpopulated areas. 
While there is not much that can be done to 
reduce the occurrence of these events since they 
happen due to natural causes, their impact on 
human populations can certainly be lessened by a 
combination of swift and effective relief actions 
after an event, improved building practices and 
better environmental policies. Setting up an 
emergency response capability and making plans 
and testing them through periodic drills is an 
essential first step for Pakistani and Indian 
authorities in the seismically active Himalayan 
region. Both countries have spent billions over 
the last half century on maintaining and 
equipping their armies in one of the most 
challenging terrains in the world where a 
soldier's risk of death from cold is more likely 
than death from military action. A small fraction 
of this amount spent on developing an effective 
response capability to respond to natural 
disasters will do more, far more, to protect 
their populations than all the resources devoted 
to the military on both sides. Relatively low 
cost building practices and technologies that use 
locally available materials have been developed 
that can survive quite significant earthquakes. 
Stopping deforestation on mountain slopes can 
greatly reduce the chance of devastating 
mudslides that wipe out entire villages in the 
hills. Putting these into practice does not need 
as much in the way of resources as it does in 
changing the politics and organization of the 
civil society and the bureaucracy at all levels. 
However, these are longer range policies

In the immediate short-term there is no doubt 
that reaching desperately needed shelter, food, 
and medical help to the survivors is the highest 
priority and all efforts must be made to ensure 
that this happens. In this regard, India being 
the immediate neighbor and having experienced the 
calamity in its own part of Kashmir, although at 
a significantly lesser level in terms of deaths 
than the disaster in Pakistan, has a special role 
to play in providing help. Although both 
countries have taken some initial steps to make 
this happen, it does seem that the biggest 
obstacle remaining is the character of their 
bureaucratic and political establishments that 
are simply unable to overcome the distrust and 
hatred of each other they have so carefully 
nurtured for over a half a century despite the 
overwhelming sentiments among the "aam aadmi" 
(common person) in both countries who are miles 
ahead of their so-called leaders in this respect. 
One bureaucrat was overheard remarking that one 
earthquake cannot change 50 years of history. 
This person (and others like him) needs to be 
told that while history is history the main 
lesson from this earthquake is that it is people 
like him that need to be urgently changed and the 
sooner it happens the better it will be for the 
future of all our South Asian countries.

______


[5]

Human Rights Watch

Pakistan: Officials Place Tents Intended for Victims in Storage

Urgent Help Needed to Shelter Earthquake Victims

(Islamabad, October 22, 2005)-Scarce tents and 
other relief supplies are being put in storage in 
the city of Muzaffarabad in earthquake stricken 
Pakistan-administered Kashmir by civilian 
authorities working under the supervision of the 
military, rather than handed out to needy, 
homeless persons, Human Rights Watch said today.

On October 19 at Muzaffarabad's civil 
secretariat, Human Rights Watch was present at a 
supply depot where government civil servants were 
working to help store supplies on the promise of 
being provided tents at the end of a day's labor. 
The depot was under the control of officials from 
the "services group," an administrative unit 
working for the chief secretary, the highest 
ranking civil servant in Pakistan-administered 
Kashmir. Several civil servants informed Human 
Rights Watch that they had been engaged in the 
activity for three days, only to return to their 
shelterless families empty-handed every night.  

Human Rights Watch was told by officials at the 
scene in charge of dispersing these tents, which 
had been designated for government workers in 
Muzaffarabad, that tents and other emergency 
supplies were being stored instead. Officials 
present said that this was being done so that 
they would be able to avoid problems when senior 
military and civilian officials demand supplies 
that otherwise would not be available. One 
official said that he would be fired if he handed 
out the tents. Under pressure from the intended 
recipients, one official did release some tents 
to some of the people on the list of designated 
civil servants. Each tent can provide shelter for 
six people.  

"In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, tents are the 
difference between life and death," said Brad 
Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "It 
is essential for the public to know that aid is 
being handled in a non-arbitrary, 
non-discriminatory manner."  

After the earthquake, Human Rights Watch warned 
that the greatest threat to human rights often 
arises in crisis situations and called on the 
government of Pakistan to adhere to international 
human rights standards in the organization and 
provision of relief.  

Asma Jahangir, chairperson of the Human Rights 
Commission of Pakistan, was also present at the 
scene. She told Human Rights Watch that, "Tents 
are now the most important commodity in Kashmir. 
But they are being used for power and patronage 
by military and civilian authorities that control 
the territory. This needs to be sorted out 
immediately."  

Hundreds of thousands of homeless and displaced 
victims of the October 8 earthquake that 
devastated Pakistan-administered Kashmir and 
Northern Pakistan face the threat of disease and 
death from exposure unless the supply of 
weatherized tents and blankets increases 
dramatically and quickly. Almost two weeks after 
the earthquake, there is a massive shortage of 
tents even in Muzaffarabad, the hub of 
international and Pakistani relief efforts.  

Relief efforts have been hampered by a lack of 
coordination between the army and civilian 
authorities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and 
a scarcity of resources.  

"The tsunami and other natural disasters have 
made it clear that it is critical to involve 
civil society and community leaders in the relief 
effort, regardless of political affiliation," 
said Adams. "This is a challenging situation for 
all concerned but it may worsen unless the 
Pakistani authorities become more inclusive in 
the coordination and organization of relief 
efforts."  

At least 55,000 people are thought to have died, 
though the number is likely to rise 
significantly. At least 70,000 are injured. 
Almost three million people have lost their homes 
and been displaced. The United Nations says that 
the situation for survivors is worse than after 
the Southeast Asian tsunami.  

UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, has said 
hundreds of villages remain inaccessible and 
10,000 children could die of hypothermia, hunger 
and disease over the next few weeks. Though the 
Pakistani military authorities and others are 
attempting aerial aid drops, the distribution to 
thousands of scattered mountain communities 
remains haphazard. Villagers who had trekked for 
hours to reach Muzaffarabad described to Human 
Rights Watch how helicopters sometimes miss their 
targets and the goods land thousands of feet 
below in valleys or forests, remaining 
inaccessible.  

International teams have set up field hospitals 
and provided some relief in Muzaffarabad and 
outlying areas. Pakistani relief agencies and 
volunteer groups have also ferried relief goods 
and personnel into the territory.  

The United Nations has only received firm 
commitments of U.S. $37 million of the U.S. $312 
million flash appeal it launched in the aftermath 
of the earthquake.  

"Donors should make sure that they provide enough 
support and the right types of support, 
especially tents, blankets and medicine, as soon 
as possible," said Adams. "Inaction or further 
delay may mean that hundreds of thousands of 
people will freeze to death as the Himalayan 
winter approaches."

______


[6]

Tehelka
Oct 15 , 2005

RSS INVENTS ANOTHER RAM MYTH TO CAPTURE THE DANGS

The Gujarat administration 'vibrantly' backs the 
RSS efforts in tribal-dominated Dangs to stem 
Christian missionary 'proselytisation'. 
Reinventing tradition and reconversion are 
stock-in trade of the Parivar machinery

By Mahesh Langa
Dangs, Gujarat

The Legend Of Ram Reconstructed: Ram, Lakshman and Sabari idols
Photo Laxman


A Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad leaflet says Dangs is 
Dandakaranya Pradesh of Ramayana. To complete the 
picture, a check-dam over Purna River has been 
named Pampa Sarovar and a statue of Sabari 
installed on its bank On Christmas day in 1998, a 
nondescript village called Subir in Ahwa (Dangs, 
Gujarat) hit the headlines when a rally of about 
1,500 people from Hindu right-wing outfits like 
VHP and Bajrang Dal turned violent, attacking a 
missionary school and church. Within a week, 35 
churches and prayer halls were burnt down in this 
tribal district of south Gujarat. The rally was 
organised by right-wing groups to protest the 
alleged conversion of tribals to Christianity by 
missionaries. Importantly, the chain of events 
occurred after BJP rule was instated in Gujarat 
and the BJP-led NDA formed the government in New 
Delhi.

According to Fr Raphael, a Jesuit at Nav Jyot 
School at Subir, "Barring that incident, we have 
never had a problem in the area since we started 
our work about a couple of decades ago." 
Countering the RSS claim that missionaries pose a 
threat to the country and Hindus, Fr Raphael 
said: "I don't know what we have done to pose a 
threat." The 1998 incident was the first time 
that missionaries, who have been working in the 
field of education and health in the Dangs for 
nearly a century, were directly attacked by Sangh 
Parivar outfits.

Since then, however, no violent incident has 
occurred against minorities in this predominantly 
tribal district (Dangs has a population of 1.87 
lakh and over 95 percent of it is tribal). To 
counter missionaries' activities and the supposed 
proselytisation among tribals, Sangh Parivar 
outfits and other neo-Hindu groups (like Swadhyay 
Parivar and Swaminarayan) have adopted new 
methods and new means to Hinduise Adivasis, 
including invention of new traditions and myth 
making. Attempts at staving off the missionary 
'offensive' have continued unabated, and the 
latest is a Kumbh mela to be organised by RSS 
from February 11-13, 2006, at Subir village, 
around 35 kms from Ahwa, the district headquarter 
of Dangs. The selection of the place is very 
significant, because it was here that militant 
Hinduism was first asserted.

In Dangs, there is a common belief among tribals 
that the legendary Ram and Lakshman had passed 
through the area on their way to Lanka. Cashing 
in on this belief, the Sangh Parivar has 
endeavoured to reconstruct the history of Dangs. 
This is how a leaflet of Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, 
a Parivar-affiliate, describes Subir: "Dangs is 
Dandakaranya Pradesh of Ramayana. Passing through 
densely forested hilly areas of the region here, 
Ram and Lakshman met Sabari (a mythological Bhil 
lady). Ram ate the fruits Sabari offered and 
blessed her on the bank of Pampa Sarovar. So 
Sabari had belonged to this village and therefore 
it is known as Subir."

A Sabari Dham temple has been built on a hill in 
Subir, and every year on Sharad Purnima, a fair 
is held to celebrate Sabari's birthday. According 
to the Kumbh mela office at Sabari Dham, a Ram 
Katha of a well-known kathakar Morari Bapu was 
organised in 2002, and it was then that Bapu had 
suggested organising a Kumbh mela for vanvasis 
(tribals).

To complete the imaginary Dandakaranya Pradesh 
and Sabari Dham, a check-dam built under the 11th 
Finance Commission scheme for tribal areas over 
Purna River, which passes through the area, has 
been named Pampa Sarovar and a statue of Sabari 
installed on its bank. Massive preparations 
undertaken for the upcoming event can be seen at 
the Kumbh mela office near Pampa Sarovar, but 
people at the office were not very forthcoming 
with information. However, during an informal 
talk, Mukesh Daga, an RSS activist at the office, 
divulged a few details of the planned Kumbh: 
"This programme is meant for the whole Hindu 
samaj. About five lakh people are expected to 
assemble here. Forty huge tents will be erected 
to accommodate them. The state government is 
going to assist with power, transportation and 
whatever is needed. The main objective of the 
fifth Kumbh is to put a full stop to conversion 
of tribals. During the three-day mela, a special 
drive for Ghar Vapsi (reconversion) will be made. 
Only yesterday, we reconverted around 20 vanvasis 
here."

The overall in-charge, Swami Asheemanandaji - a 
Bengali sadhu who has been active in Dangs for 
almost a decade - was unavailable for comment. 
But the local media has often quoted him saying: 
"Bharat is facing two big challenges in the 21st 
century. One comes from Islamic jehad and the 
other from Christian missionaries. To counter 
these challenges, we need to awaken the Hindu 
samaj. And this is what I have been doing here in 
Dangs. My main objective is to completely 
eradicate Christianity from this tribal district."

Local tribals, though, are vociferously opposed 
to any such Kumbh. Says Rajubhai Pawar, sarpanch 
of the village, "I don't know what they are going 
to do here. But we villagers don't want such 
tamasha. They are outsiders from Surat and 
Navsari and other places. They want to assemble 
five lakh people here. What will happen if so 
many people throng the place? The district has no 
system to support such a huge crowd. It will 
certainly create environmental damage and 
law-and-order problems."

The Parivar Troika? Narendra Modi with swamis involved in the project
Photo Laxman


Some local tribals are
opposed to the Sabari Dham Kumbh, alleging that 
the organisers are outsiders from Surat, Navsari 
and other places. Backed by local MLAs and the 
erstwhile ruler of Dangs, they recently held two 
huge protest ralliesRecalling the visit of RSS 
supremo Sudarshan to the place last July, 
Rajubhai said the police beat up villagers in 
order to clear the road for the convoy. "He came 
here on a Wednesday, which is when we have our 
weekly mart. So there was a crowd. All of a 
sudden the police lathicharged, and four people 
were injured. So now we have decided to oppose 
such nataks."

On September 28, locals organised a big sabha at 
Ahwa to formally decide opposition to the Sabari 
Dham Kumbh. Chhotubhai Vasava, the JD(U) tribal 
MLA from Jhagadiya, while addressing the meeting 
said: "They want to spent eight crore rupees in 
this Kumbh. I would like to ask: why splurge 
money on such tamashas? If you are genuinely 
interested, do some positive and constructive 
work here. Otherwise leave us alone, please don't 
divide our tribal society."

This was followed by another recent protest led 
by the erstwhile ruler of Dangs and the sitting 
Congress MLA. Addressing a rally, the former 
maharaja spoke out against the plan. "As the king 
of the adivasis of Dangs, I would say that 
disputes in the community have increased ever 
since the Swami Asheemanandaji set up his ashram 
on the Chamak Dungar hills. He had taken one-acre 
land on the mountain for Rs 10,000 and now he 
occupies four hectares. Mokhanwad villagers will 
file a complaint against the ashram."

The former ruler dubbed the Sabari Dham a sham, 
saying, "Our social fabric is being damaged. 
Previously, three stones atop the hill used to be 
worshipped as our own tribal gods. But now they 
have built a Sabari Mata temple and keep 
propagating that tribals worshipped Sabari there. 
This is totally false as it was never the case."

Madhubhai Bhoye, Congress MLA of Dang Vansda, was 
more vocal and levelled serious allegations: "The 
Central government has allotted Rs 15 crore for 
carrying out development work in the district. 
There are 311 villages in Dangs but the district 
administration has spent Rs 9 crore on 
constructing check-dams all over eastern Dangs 
keeping in mind the venue for the Kumbh. They 
built 20 check-dams to create an imaginary Pampa 
Sarovar. I have written to the Central government 
to investigate the misuse of money." Bhoye also 
pointed out that the state government and 
district administration are helping the RSS in a 
big way to make the function "successful".

Dangs Collector RM Jadhav confirmed the 
administration's involvement: "We are providing 
infrastructure support like electricity, 
check-dams etc. for the Kumbh." When asked 
whether Dangs needed a Kumbh, Jadhav parried it, 
saying, "It's a religious issue. What can you do 
if people want it?" The large-scale protests seem 
to have had no impact on the RSS and other 
outfits involved in organising the mela, though. 
Incidentally, all trustees of Sabari Dham are 
from Surat and Navasari - Jayantibhai Kevat, 
south Gujarat in-charge of BJP, Ramesh Bamrolia 
and Gopal Patel, a Surat-based textile trader.

Gopal refused to believe that locals are against 
it. "The protests have been orchestrated by local 
politicians. Otherwise tribals are with us. It's 
their programme and they are doing it for 
themselves." He also denied that a special drive 
would be made for reconversion. "We don't believe 
in conversion or reconversion. As Hindus, it is 
our duty to help our Dangi brothers," he said.

Satyakam Joshi, an associate professor at Centre 
for Social Studies, Surat believes that an event 
like Kumbh will have vicious impact on the 
locals: "The core issue of development and 
poverty eradication will take a backseat to 
Hinduisation." On the process of Hinduisation, 
Joshi considers this as not a recent phenomenon, 
only that now it is being done systematically. He 
believes the Hindu outfits would try to draw 
political advantage from the process at work. 
Joshi, however, believes that even Christian 
missionaries have also played this game. "In 
tribal areas of Dangs the process of Hinduisation 
and Christianisation has been going on since the 
last hundred years," he observed.


______


[7]

November 2005 issue of  International South Asia 
Forum Bulletin is now available, check:
www.insaf.net/

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