SACW | 17 Nov. 2005

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 17 Nov, 2005 | Dispatch No. 2175

[1] Pakistan: An Interview with Dr Mubarak Ali (Communalism Combat)
[2] In Nepal, a constitutional monarchy has become a dictatorship
(Rajeev Dhavan)
[3] Why India-US War Games Cause Wide Concern (J. Sri Raman)
[4] India: Concern on Human Rights situation in Chhatisgarh (CLSS/PUCL)
[5] India: Everybody Loves A Good Tsunami (S. Anand)
[6] Upcoming Event: Words of Women - Anita Nair (New Delhi, 18 Nov 2005)

___


[1]

Communalism Combat
November 2005

HARRASSED HISTORIAN

In view of continued police harassment over the past 10 months, Dr
Mubarak Ali, an internationally recognised Pakistani historian, is
seriously considering leaving Pakistan for good. Dr Ali was among the
eminent historians who participated in the first-ever South Asia
Historians Workshop organised in Mumbai in 1999 by the Khoj – Education
for a Plural India project. CC spoke to him about his recent brush with
the Pakistani authorities.

There are reports of your being harassed by the authorities in Pakistan?
Yes, it’s true. Although I publish an internationally recognised journal
on historical studies in Pakistan, something that no university does,
though I am invited by prominent universities across the world to
deliver lectures on the history of Islam and the subcontinent, in my own
country my family and I are harassed and humiliated. My house was raided
by a junior inspector of the investigation wing of the Lahore police.
What is he investigating? False allegations against me of "theft of
manuscripts"!

What is the real reason for this harassment?
The real reason behind this targeting is my views, which are not liked
by certain circles. I have spoken against hyper-nationalism, ideology
and the domination of ruling classes in historical interpretation. Since
I write in Urdu, my books are read by common people, especially in Sindh
and Balochistan. I have a widespread readership there. But I remain very
unpopular in Punjab, which is a very conservative and domineering province.

In our society, the best method is not to attack directly, so a group of
lawyers is active against me. As they are lawyers, they know how to
misuse law. They have filed four FIRs against me so far on bogus charges
of stealing manuscripts and forging documents. And each time I am
slapped with an arrest warrant. In September this year, while I was away
in the USA, the police raided my house, harassed my wife and daughter.
Currently, I am on anticipatory bail.

This is not the first time that you have faced harassment by intolerant
regimes?
But the nature of harassment was different. Earlier, government agencies
would visit from time to time and interview me. Sometimes I would be
given an oral warning. But this time it is a direct, intimidatory
approach. Criminal cases have been filed against me. I have had to spend
my time and money to defend myself.

What was your first major work as a dissenting historian?
There are a number of books, especially in Urdu, in which I have
challenged the state-oriented approach to history. However, it is my
book Historian’s Dispute, which has also been translated into Hindi,
that is the cause for the recent provocation. Another collection of
essays, Pakistan’s Search for Identity, is forthcoming. So far I have
written 50 books on different subjects related to history and historical
interpretation.

Any suggestions for a subcontinental campaign in your support?
I believe historians and writers should be united on the issue of
freedom of speech and writing. A strong voice and campaign from all over
the subcontinent can make all the difference.

What has been your experience with the Indian authorities, in getting a
visa for example?
So far, no problems. In the past the standard practice was to delay
issuing the visa. Most of the time I was finally granted the visa with
the proviso of police reporting, which I consider insulting and
humiliating. I have strongly protested on this issue saying that both
governments treat each other’s citizens as criminals.

Is Pakistan more or less tolerant today than it was, say, five years ago?
Among the people the climate is always friendly. It is both governments
that are responsible for hostility.

-----------------------

Ø Please address your letter of protest to the President and Prime
Minister of Pakistan, Islamabad, and copy it to sabrang at vsnl.com.


In Pakistan history only serves the
ideology of the state -- Dr Mubarak Ali

Since Pakistan is an ideological state, history only serves the ideology
of the state… From the very beginning, the problem with Pakistan after
partition was how to legitimise its creation. And that’s why it is still
very difficult for Pakistani historians who want to honestly explore
origins and identities because it’s very difficult to decide where to
start Pakistani history from.

Some people argue that because it’s a new country, 1947 should be the
starting point. Some people say that not 1947, but the invasion of
Muhammad bin Qasim, who invaded Sindh in 1711, so the Muslim period
begins from the Arab conquest. There are very few people who like to
trace the history from the ancient period. Actually, we do not teach
ancient history in Pakistan, neither at the university level nor at
school or college levels, except the Indus Valley civilisation.

Interestingly, however, until the 1965 war with India in which Pakistan
faced humiliating defeat, the textbooks and syllabi did include a study
of ancient India. But after 1965, military heroes and the study of the
army entered our textbooks and the classroom and ancient history was
thrown out . . .

Now the attempt is being made to have a separate identity of Pakistan,
to de-link Pakistani history from Indian history. We actually have some
proposals from ‘eminent’ historians arguing that the history of Pakistan
should only encompass what is now Pakistan, the present-day geographical
boundaries, and we should have nothing to do with India.

But at the same time it is very difficult for complete exclusion from
India because then we are left with the problem of the Sultans, the
Mughals...

Since the two-nation theory is the basis of Pakistani separatism, there
is a constant need to prove that Hindus and Muslims have remained
separate from time immemorial. So, there is a constantly constructed
myth of Muslim separatism.

(Excerpted from an article published in Communalism Combat, February, 1999.)


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[2]

The Telegraph
November 17, 2005

LOSS OF THE SPIRIT
- In Nepal, a constitutional monarchy has become a dictatorship
Rajeev Dhavan

There is a constitutional crisis in Nepal. Following the end of rule of
the Ranas in 1950-51, Nepal experimented with many constitutions,
largely owing to the refusal of the king to give up power. The
constitution of 1959 was subverted in 1960 when King Mahendra seized
control. The panchayat-based constitution of 1962 limped on until the
national constitutional referendum of 1980. King Birendra agreed to
‘direct’ elections, provided it was not on a party basis. Following
protests, the constitution of 1990 came into being, leading to elections
in 1991, 1994 and 1999. By 2000, there had been nine governments in 10
years. On June 4, 2001, the palace shootings led to the installation of
King Gyanendra.

Meanwhile, the Maoists had began an insurrection around 1995, seeking a
people’s republic to replace the constitutional monarchy. In November
2001, an emergency was declared which was extended, resulting in
political confrontation and the dissolution of parliament of 2002. Since
then, no elections have taken place.

>From late 2002, King Gyanendra has played musical chairs in appointing 
and dismissing prime ministers at will. With no parliamentary elections
and none but the people and media to oppose him, the king converted a
constitutional monarchy into an unconstitutional dictatorship. An
emergency was declared on February 1, 2005 and withdrawn. Faced with
criticism, ordinances against the media have been introduced.
Non-governmental organizations are threatened with suppression. Human
rights violations have increased. The constitutionality of some of these
changes is being considered by the supreme court.

The king claims to act under the constitution. Such a claim is
incredible. Large parts of the constitution lie in ruins. Constitutions
consist of political texts (which determine how democratic power is to
be exercised) and justice texts (which reinforce the rule of law,
fundamental rights and the custodianship of the judiciary). In Nepal,
the political texts have been subverted and the justice texts suffer
diminution. There is no parliament. The last elections were held in
1999. It is now five years since parliament was dissolved in 2002. Faced
with this, the supreme court evaded deciding on the issue of dissolution
in 2002 instead of adding to its precedent in the Manmohan Adhikari case
of 1995. It refused to entertain the bid to restore the old parliament
in January 2005. The king refused to order the election of a new one.
The political texts lie dead. The justice texts are in- animately
refusing to rise to the situation.

The king now both reigns and rules — claiming legal sustenance from
those parts of the constitution which he likes. The cardinal principle
of the parliamentary government is that the king must rule with a prime
minister and cabinet [Nepal constitution: Article 35(3)]. This does not
suit the king. But he seeks recourse in certain other articles to
autocratize his power. The king claims that, even without parliament and
the political process, he is the custodian to “preserve and protect the
constitution by keeping in view the best interest and welfare of the
people of Nepal” [Article 7(3)]. But does this give him absolute power
indefinitely? Once past this hurdle, the king claims use of the
emergency power (Article 115) and the ordinance making power (Article
72) without reference to the discipline of the constitution. Any further
usurpation of constitutional authority is claimed from the power to
remove difficulties (Article 127).

But can the power to remove difficulties be greater than the
constitution itself? It should be noted that the highest power in the
constitution is to amend the constitution, which in Nepal (Article 116)
is subject to the “spirit of the preamble”, which enumerates
parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, liberty equality,
justice and the rule of law. If the highest power in the Nepal
constitution is subject to principled implied limitations, can any
limited power claimed by the king be unlimited ?

With this we turn to constitutions in crisis. A lot of constitutions
fail — either partly or wholly. In fact, in the last 60 years, very few
constitutions have remained unscathed. But this does not mean that
constitutionalism fails. There are three possible results. The first is
that constitutional failure signifies a revolutionary change and creates
a void to start afresh. This void theory was supported by Pakistan’s
courts in Dosso’s case in 1958. The second approach is to recognize
constitutional failure but to limit the executive power to exercise
power consistent with necessity. This was the improved view of the
Pakistani courts in Asma Jalani (1969) and other cases. There are also
intermediate formulations from Ghana (1966) and Nigeria (1969).

But all these approaches create a “usurpers’ jurisprudence”. In the case
of Rhodesia, the British Privy Council, pronouncing from a distance,
called Ian Smith’s regime unconstitutional in 1969. But it could not
enforce its orders anywhere — except in England. We must, therefore,
turn to the third path of what I call “constitutional legality”. When a
constitution fails, we must turn to the principles underlying the
constitution to devise a system of constitutional governance. This is
precisely what the amending power of the Nepal constitution underlines
in Article 116 by referring to the spirit of the constitution.

In a talk to the Nepalese Bar Association on November 6, 2005, I
compared a modern constitution with its multiple protections to the
famous military formation of a chakravyuha in the Indian epic the
Mahabharata, where one wall rises to the defence when the preceding one
falls. So, in the Nepal crisis, the king has been trying to take over,
threaten, manipulate, and overawe the other protecting walls of the
constitution, including the corruption commission, the constitutional
council, the human rights commission, the media, NGOs and so on. But the
judiciary must stand up to the situation. To restore the constitution
(a) a cabinet must advise the king, (b) all laws must conform to the
bill of rights, (c) new laws must not be promulgated except when
necessary, (d) elections must be announced (e) ordinances in excess of
provisions must be limited or struck down, (f) a political dialogue with
all, including the Maoists, must be sustained even in the face of
American pressure that the political parties must not ally with Maoists,
(g) the judiciary must not be compromised, (h) an independent NHRC must
be reconstituted, (i) there can be no arbitrary detention and (j) the
media and NGOs must be protected. The king must respect the principles
underlying the constitution from which he claims to draw his power. All
these form the principles of constitutional legality in the interregnum.
They should be recognized and implemented by the supreme court as drawn
from the constitution itself (Article 116 read with the preamble).

No doubt, Nepal is in a state of insurrection. But counter-terrorism
cannot include a royalist subversion of democracy without reserve. The
Maoists are willing to talk. They want a new constituent assembly. But
talks may reveal that changes can be made by a new parliament through
the power of amendment. These are matters that do not brook avoidance.
But Nepal is subject to some indifference from India, undefined pressure
from China and a new version of the Bush doctrine from America. The
people of Nepal will overcome. Even if, in Yeats’s phrase, “…the best
lack conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity”,
Nepal’s constitutionalism deserves better.


___


[3]


truthout.org
08 November 2005

WHY INDIA-US WAR GAMES CAUSE WIDE CONCERN
by J. Sri Raman

The peace of an Indian village was disturbed on Monday morning by the
sudden eruption of a dogfight between US and Indian fighter planes. The
mock battle over paddy fields was greeted by tens of thousands of
militant demonstrators below with slogans asking the Bush air force to
go back.

The joint exercise by US and Indian air forces, named Cope India and
staged in the Kalaikunda airbase located 120 km to the southwest of
Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), scored two firsts straightaway. It was the
first US-India war game to be staged in the state of West Bengal under a
Left Front government headed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
It was also the first such exercise to provoke an active protest of this
kind.

It was not only a traditional Left allergy to Pax Americana that led to
the protest against the 12-day, the longest ever, US-India exercise, as
media advocates of a special relationship between New Delhi and
Washington have sought to make out.

The exercise and the protest have followed India's vote with the US and
against Iran, in the meeting of the board of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) in September. The wider-than-Left criticism of the
exercise thus is part of a larger political controversy.

The media defenders of the exercise miss an important point when they
ask in all feigned innocence why the Left and others should object to it
when they did not oppose exercises with Russia and China. It is the
rapid growth of US-India military ties that marks India's increased
involvement in a dangerous international alliance.

True, as the media mandarins note again, US-India military exercises
began way back in 1992 (under a West-leaning P.V. Narasimha Rao
government). The games, however, were given up after India's
nuclear-weapons tests in 1998. They have been resumed, and with gusto,
after the emergence of an "alliance against global terror" in the wake
of 9/11.

Under the National Democratic Alliance government of Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, the joint exercises between all the three wings of the armed
forces were carried several jumps ahead. Particularly notable was the
threat they appeared to pose to peace in South Asia and beyond, despite
media efforts to project them as no more than expertise-and-experience
sharing.

An example was the joint exercise conducted in May and April 2003 in
freezing Alaska. The sharing of expertise and experience in
high-altitude military operations, in high-tech combat in icy
conditions, obviously, could not be viewed with equanimity by Islamabad.
The games had a two-week sequel in September 2003 in Ladakh, the
Buddhist segment of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan was
provoked to lodge an official protest this time against the intimidating
display of India-US partnership so close to the disputed territory of
Kashmir and Siachen Glacier, the world's highest battlefield.

The beginning in an even more intimidating series of joint naval
exercises was also made during the Vajpayee years. The Indian Navy did
not endear itself to Southeast Asian countries and governments by
joining the US in the euphemistically so-called "search" and
"anti-piracy" operations in the Straits of Malacca. This foreshadowed
the concerted campaign by the Bush regime for a Proliferation Security
Initiative (PSI), which envisages high-handedness on high seas by the US
and its band of "counter-proliferation" crusaders.

As we have seen in these columns before, New Delhi has not concealed its
keenness to be counted among these crusaders, especially if the PSI
could be turned into a US-India alliance against Pakistan as a promoter
of nuclear proliferation. In June 2003, New Delhi tried to rope China
into joint "anti-piracy" exercises in the Straits of Malacca. Beijing,
with significant stakes in Southeast Asia, however, declined.

The present government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may have
assumed power last year with the promise to work for a "multi-polar"
world. But it has only followed its "nuclear deal" with the US and its
Iran vote with demonstrations of its fervent desire to play a major role
in the PSI. For ten days following September 25, the Indian navy
conducted its biggest-ever joint exercises with its US counterpart, with
the aim of "building up cooperation to deal with piracy and terrorism."
The exercise, named Malabar, the eighth in the series, it was given out,
exemplified Washington's desire to give India "a key role in fighting
global terror."

Defenders of the current Cope India do not omit to suggest an
anti-Pakistan dimension to it. Security expert Jasjit Singh, in a
newspaper article, notes that "the Americans are employing the F16
fighters, backed by AWACS (the Airborne Warning and Control System) this
time." The exercise, he argues, gives "a unique opportunity to our air
warriors" to practice against Pakistan's air force, which has been
operating F16s for years and is waiting to acquire its AWACS from Sweden.

It is not without reason that the "dogfight" of roaring jets over
Kalaikunda does not provide an entertaining spectacle to the region.



____


[4]

16 November 2005

Dear Friends

The author of the report below is my elder brother, who is a
paediatrician and human rights activist with the People's Union of Civil
Liberties (PUCL) in Raipur, the capital of the state of Chhattisgarh in
east central India. The purpose of this e-mail is to solicit your
support in spreading the message here as widely as possible among any of
your friends who may be in a position to publicize the violations of
ordinary life (never mind civil liberties) that are being inflicted on
people in my country by their own government.

If you do a Google on "Salwa Jurum", you are likely to find nothing.
This means that there is probably no mention in the Indian media online
of the state terrorism that masquerades as a popular anti-Maoist
campaign. This is a dangerous situation, not only because the state is
apparently at war against its own people, but also because the media are
failing to highlight what is happening in the name of anti-terrorism .
This perpetuates the illusion that the Maoists are a bunch of marauding
anarchists who deserve to be put down with the full force of the state.

Indian democracy is sufficiently vibrant to ensure that we have enough
laws to protect the ordinary citizen from the abuse of power by state
functionaries and others. But without a sufficiently vigilant press and
media that hold the state to account for its failure to obey its own
laws, these statutory protections may as well not exist.

The world is just beginning to find out what the complicity and silence
of the "free embedded media‰ has led to in Iraq. A similar pervasive
media silence is suppressing the widespread distress in the villages and
slums of India. Internationally, the corporate media like to project
India as the latest economic powerhouse in Asia. The report below is yet
another inadequately publicized account of what is happening to the
people who are paying the price of this so-called progress.

While the Indian state now seeks the US and Israel as partners in the
war on terror, its methods at home have always displayed an uncanny
similarity to the methods of these two global paragons of democracy and
civilization that have so horrified the world. When virtually the only
position that is represented in the media on the issue of Maoism (which
was regarded as a spent force by the end of the 70's) is that of the
state, the state acts with impunity. As in Iraq, so in India.

In friendship,

Gautam Sen

Appeal from the Chhattisgarh Lok Swatantrya Sangathan (PUCL) regarding
ongoing suppression of human rights in Chhattisgarh by the state power.

Chattisgarh Lok Swatantrya Sangathan (PUCL)
(A-26 Surya Apartments, Katora Talab, Raipur, C.G. 492001. Ph.
(0771-2422875) e mail- sbinayak at gmail.com

Friends,

PUCL Chhattisgarh would like to appeal to all human rights organizations
in the country as well as to intellectuals and all democratic forces in
the matter of the deterioration of the human rights situation in the
state of Chhattisgarh. The situation is fast reaching an explosive point
and we request your support and urgent response

to this appeal .

In the recent past, the people of Chhattisgarh have faced a continuous
onslaught on their human rights through displacement in the wake of
several Œdevelopment' projects like dams, factories and express
highways, and through the blatant loot of natural resources like
forests, minerals, land, water and natural resources. Thermal Power
Plants and Sponge Iron factories have destroyed the once pristine
environment, and peoples' legitimate protests about such invasive
policies have been brutally suppressed. Workers are forced to work in
subhuman conditions in the many older and new industries of the region
like the Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), National Thermal Power Corporation
(NTPC), Bharat Aluminium Corpn (BALCO), and Jindal Steel and Power
(JSP).In all these industries, there is widespread prevalence of the
contractual system, and deaths and injuries in industrial accidents are
extremely common. Land Mafiosi and industrial concerns violate the
rights of indigenous communities; ordinary people are victims of
malnutrition, police excesses, and shrinking life and livelihood
opportunities. In the forest areas, people are also routinely subjected
to harrasment, questioning and torture by the CRPF and state police in
the name of anti Naxalite operations, and the DK Basu protocol with
regard to the norms for arrest and questioning is violated every day.

PUCL Chhattisgarh has been in communication with some of you on many of
these issues in the past, and will continue to keep you posted about the
situation in Chhattisgarh in the future as well. The objective of the
present communication is to acquaint you with the extremely serious
situation arising out of the 'mass awakening' campaign being carried out
in the Bastar region under the banner of the 'SALWA JURUM',a supposedly
spontaneous peoples' uprising against Naxalite violence, and to seek
your support in carrying out an investigation about the real nature of
this so called peace campaign .

The Salwa Juroom campaign has been underway in Chhattisgarh for the last
several months. It has been described as a spontaneous peoples' uprising
against Naxalite Violence, and it enjoys the joint patronage of the
state government, the state unit of the BJP, the leader of the
opposition in the State Assembly, sections of the Congress party, the
State Police and the Central Reserve Polkice Force (CRPF). It is
officially described as a non-violent peace campaign to put an end to
the problem of Naxalism in the state, and is currently being carried out
in the Bijapur and Bhairamgarh areas of Dantewara (South Bastar)
District. There is talk of extending the campaign to other areas.
However, the information and reports coming out of Bastar in recent
weeks, raise several concerns about the nature of this campaign and its
implications for human rights. We would like to share these concerns
with you.

* There has been a phenomenal increase in the Police and CRPF presence
in Bastar including Dantewara in the recent past, and the latest
addition to this force is a contingent of the Naga battalion, notorious
for its excesses on the civilian population in the North-East. This
raises questions about the non-violent nature of Salwa Juroom.

* Reports on the Salwa Juroom in the media, instead of being based on
independent investigative journalism are based on police sources. In
itself this is a cause for serious concern about the nature of our
democracy, polity, and the role of the media.

* Some independent reports like the one conducted by Shri Manish Kunjam,
former MLA, and currently President of the Dantewara district unit of
the CPI, and reports published in the Jansatta as well as corroborated
by an NDTV journalist contradict the mainstream media reports of the
Salwa Juroom as a spontaneous peoples' movement. According to these
reports, people are being compelled to join the Salwa Juroom rallies by
brute force, and the homes of those refusing to do so are being burnt
and their crops destroyed. Youth are particularly being terrorized into
consent, and any young person refusing to join the Salwa Juroom rallies
is being assumed to be a Naxalite supporter, and being terrorized and
tortured accordingly.

* According to an independent report, even unmarried young women are
being forced to wear 'sindoor' in order to lay pretence to a male
protector. There was a heartrending story of an Anganwadi worker named
Sonia, who was beaten by the jawans of the Naga battalion, tied up with
ropes at the ankle, dragged in this condition to the police station and
forced to spend the night in the lock up along with men, all on the
suspicion that she was a Naxalite supporter. Similar stories of excesses
committed on women by Police, CRPF, and Naga forces have been recounted
by NGO activists from Dantewara.

* According to one one estimate, more than 12,000 villagers,
participants in the Salwa Juroom campaigns, have been displaced from
their villages and lodged in police protected camps in the name of
security. Conditions in these camps are sub human. One family is given
one tent to live in. Sleeping arrangements are on a wet ground,
protected only by a rubber sheet. There is no adequate arrangement for
drinking water, no lighting, no health facilities, and food is provided
by the police department. There have been several outbreaks of diarrhea,
and several children have succumbed to these.

* There are reports that indicate that anyone who is suspected of being
a supporter of Naxalites or a Sangham member is brutally tortured,
beaten and in many cases killed.Through a combination of a carrot and
stick approach, many people are being prodded into playing the role of
informers for the Police department. In this way, there are indications
that normal democratic and civil right have ceased to exist in the
Bijapur, Bhairamgarh, Nilasnaar, Kotrapal and Gangalur areas.

* Several villages in the areas where Salwa Juroom is going on are
reported to have become devoid of males, who have either run away or
have been forced into camps. The meagre seasonal agriculture of the
adivasis is severely compromised in this way, and with the breakdown of
economic life, life and livelihood seem to be seriously threatened.

Many of the observations outlined above are in direct contradiction to
the proclaimed peaceful, spontaneous and voluntary nature of the Salwa
Juroom. It is our perception that the Salwa Juroom 'campaign' needs to
be seen in the context of the overall situation of the tribal areas of
the state, notably Bastar, including North and South Bastar, Raigarh and
Surguja. Many of these areas are extremely rich in mineral and forest
wealth, at the same time as the people living in these areas are poor,
malnourished, and exploited. One of the stated priorities of the present
state of Chhattisgarh is the exploitation of these resources for
industrial development and for export. In the last few years, a sum of
over Rs 60 thousand crores (USD 13.3 billion) has been invested for the
development of mining and transportation in these areas. In Bastar
alone, MOUs for an investment of Rs 17 thousand crores (USD 3.8 billion)
have been signed this summer for the proposed Tata and Essar Steel
Plants. Many of these development projects are achievable only at the
cost of the destruction of tribal livelihood systems and as such tribal
resistance is only to be anticipated. As such, the establishment of an
'enabling' environment for these investments, devoid of any resistance,
seems also to have become the priority of the government .The deployment
of police and other armed personnel in these areas should be interpreted
in this perspective. The fact is that for the ordinary person, these
forces become major agents of repression, as many earlier reports of
Chhattisgarh PUCL have highlighted.

Our Proposal

The Chhattisgarh PUCL has always maintained that the questions of Maoism
and Naxalism in the tribal areas of the state cannot be seen as a law
and order problem but must be seen in the overall social, economic and
political context. However, the state government continues to view it as
an administrative and police problem, and attempts to seek solution
through policing that today amounts to a civil war like situation. In
this crisis, we appeal to all democratic forces, all human rights
organizations to join hands in investigating the reality of the Salwa
Juroom. This is an urgent appeal, since, in view of the mainstream
media's present role of propagating the government view point only, an
ordinary investigation into the reality does not seem any longer
fruitful. We propose that a national level investigation team,
consisting of members drawn from the widest cross section of democratic
forces in the country be constituted, and we together conduct an
investigation at an early and mutually convenient date.

We look forward to your positive and early response, so that the task of
constituting the team, drawing up terms of reference and other
logistical matters can be taken up in the shortest possible time.


With greetings,

Dr Binayak Sen,

General Secretary, Chhattisgarh Lok Swatantrya Sangathan (PUCL), and
National Vice President, PUCL.


____


[5]

Outlook Magazine | Nov 21, 2005

TSUNAMI RELIEF
Everybody Loves A Good Tsunami
And none more than the cash-flush NGOs, whose unsupervised enthusiasm is
driving too much to some, nothing to others
by S. Anand

"When you take honey from the hive, you do lick what sticks to your palm."
--A Tamil proverb

The tsunami of December 26, 2004—the biggest natural disaster on earth
in public memory—triggered the largest fund-raising exercise, generating
$12 billion the world over.
India was one of the largest recipients of aid from UN agencies and
NGOs. Tamil Nadu, with more than 8,000 dead and 1.3 lakh homes damaged,
received over Rs 4,000 crore of NGO money, of which at least Rs 3,000
crore has been allotted to the worst-affected Nagapattinam district.
About 650 NGOs are working in the 13 tsunami-affected coastal districts
of TN and in Pondicherry. Where's all the money going? An Outlook
investigation into NGO spending revealed that disaster management has
been a disaster in itself. Flush with funds, NGOs are squandering money
and resources. And no one's asking them questions.

The glut of funds, of course, has led to abuse and misuse. According to
a recent report of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies (IFRC), many aid agencies wasted the money, failing
to consult survivors, the UN or other relief groups.
"Without knowing who was doing what, and where, some communities were
inevitably overwhelmed with aid while others were neglected," the IFRC's
annual report said. Competition to spend unprecedented budgets and
wanting to "fly the flag" discouraged information-sharing and led to
duplicated work and wasted resources.

In Nagapattinam, there are 193 NGOs registered with the NGO Coordination
and Resource Centre (NCRC), but more than a hundred others work outside
it. About 60 NGOs are registered with the Cuddalore collectorate. Says
collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi: "In some villages we see NGO signboards
we've never seen before. There is no legal way of checking or stopping
NGOs from working. It is beyond the purview of the district administration."

So, how did the NGOs become the lead players and what have they really
done? As early as on January 13, GO (government order) 25 of the state
government solicited the famous 'public-private partnership' wherein the
NGOs and the corporate sector were expected to take up the bulk of the
long-term work on rehabilitation, shelter and livelihood. This threw the
sluice-gates open. Says Senthil Babu, vice-president, Tamil Nadu Science
Forum (TNSF): "The GO skewed the balance in favour of the NGOs. Where
were they in the first four days when the debris and the dead were being
removed? Who helped the people get compensation? Civil societal groups.
The NGOs descended when the picture became clear." Says V. Vivekanandan,
chief executive, South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS),
instrumental in establishing the UNDP-supervised NCRC: "The announcement
of the public-private partnership was an effort to find out how much
money was available with the NGOs and the private sector. Once the NGOs
moved in, even players like FICCI and CII, who played a major role in
the reconstruction of Gujarat, were crowded out of TN." He admits the
tsunami fund flow has been oversubscribed by four to five times. After
realising the financial muscle of the NGO sector, the government even
hiked the allotted spending per permanent structure from the initial Rs
50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh.

The NGO coordination meetings at Nagapattinam and Cuddalore
collectorates saw serious competition. "Some were pressuring us to give
the bigger building jobs," according to a senior district official in
Cuddalore. Says Revathy, a social activist working among deprived
children in Nagapattinam: "It was an auctioning of people and villages.
NGOs call it village mapping." Their brigade created independent
surveys, gathered enormous data on hitherto unknown criteria, did not
share this with the competition, and generated various projects to
impress their donors.

Today, the state has ceded almost all post-tsunami work to the NGOs. The
district administration oversees the allocation of work, but rarely
oversees the work itself. The state asserted its agency this August only
while trying to auction surplus relief material in Nagapattinam. The
auctioning of 75 metric tonnes of rice, 2 metric tonnes of sugar, 53
barrels of Dalda and 6 metric tonnes of dal among other items was
stopped following a public outcry. The goods continue to go waste in the
TN Warehousing Corporation godown.

That the temporary shelters—in which people are to stay for close to two
years—were not built well is something Nagapattinam collector J.
Radhakrishnan admits. If the 42° C summer scorched the people inhabiting
the one lakh-plus temporary shelters and forced them to spend time
outdoors, the rains now battering TN have forced them to stay indoors.
The water makes its way in easily and people struggle to keep themselves
warm and dry. Hardly 300 metres from the collectorate, 118 temporary
shelters of the Pattinchery fisherfolk caught fire on Diwali. Given the
incessant rains, it could take another two weeks for them to find new
shelters. In Akkarapettai, Padmavathi, who lives in a temporary shelter,
complains of poor kerosene supply. "Initially, so many NGOs gave us
stoves. Some of us ended up with three. But now the government gives us
only 2.5 litres of kerosene per month. On an average, a family requires
half a litre a day. Many are forced to use firewood and risk fires." In
September, a fire had destroyed another shelter in Nagapattinam.
Radhakrishnan—rated highly by Bill Clinton, President A.P.J. Abdul
Kalam, the general public and especially the NGOs—says on his mobile
from an inundated Akkarapettai shelter: "Despite several successive
adversities, the people of Nagapattinam are resilient." Patience may be
a more necessary virtue than resilience.

On the surface, Nagapattinam's NGO-inflated economy seems to be shining.
Besides the surge in real estate, the cost of living too has shot up.
"The sale of mineral water has increased by three times," says the
cashier at Annapurna Hotel, a small tiffin centre. Hotel Tamizhagam,
which came into existence this June and claims to offer three-star
facilities with rooms priced between Rs 1,200 and Rs 2,000, has seen 70
per cent occupancy thanks to NGOs. "Besides an electronic gym, we offer
ayurvedic massage for Rs 375, a facility most foreigners from NGOs use
to destress," says hotel GM R. Ravichandran.

The scene is dismal even on the permanent housing front. "The same NGOs
who built abysmal temporary shelters are building permanent homes," says
M. Azhagesan of the Tsunami Legal Action Committee (TLAC) which has
collected 1.6 lakh complaints (from 13 districts). In Madathukuppam
village, NGO Gandeepam mixed sea-sand and seawater with the cement.
Instead of a seven-foot pile foundation recommended by the government,
it did a 1.5-foot brick foundation without granite. "The government does
no checks. We drew the attention of the collector and got Gandeepam's
work stopped," says Azhagesan.

In Singarathoppu, Cuddalore, the Evangelical Church of India (ECI) went
ahead and built 70 one-room homes without informing the government. The
district administration wised up to these poor, norm-defying in situ
constructions only when the issue of evangelism cropped up apropos a
'tuition centre' run by the ECI. (Every religious outfit focuses on
tuition centres for long-term harvests.) "The police has secured the
disputed ECI structure," says district collector Bedi. The ECI has
scooted. Sarada Siva, who lives in the ECI-built House No. 7, demands
that we climb her terrace and look at the water that stagnates after
every shower, which she hauls out in buckets.

Each house has an embossed plaque: 'This House is a Gift from Providence
Baptist Church, NC, usa, through ECI Relief Team'. "After dumping
uninhabitable houses on us, the administration and other NGOs are
ignoring us," says Kasambu, an old woman. "I wish the tsunami had killed
me; at least my son would have got Rs 2 lakh compensation," she says—a
refrain common among the aged forced to live in inhospitable conditions.
Vehicles of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an NGO active in the
Nagapattinam belt, have perhaps still not reached Singarathoppu to offer
'psycho-social care'.

If the ECI's was a case of unsolicited intervention, the Mata
Amritanandamayi Math (MAM) is being actively encouraged as an ideal
private partner in both Cuddalore and Nagapattinam. In Pudukuppam,
Cuddalore, which witnessed 102 deaths, the task of permanent housing was
allotted first to Oxfam India. But they did not deliver. "We were pushed
into the task of temporary and permanent shelters. That's not our focus
area. We made a token participation. Some partners on the field made a
commitment, so we honoured it," says K. Gopalan of Oxfam, Chennai. In
several places, including Pudukuppam, Oxfam's shoddy temporary shelters
collapsed in a week.

Enter RSS outfit Seva Bharati, which introduced MAM to Pudukuppam
panchayat president V. Chandran. MAM built 87 houses in record time by
September. (Of the 46,000 permanent houses to be built in the first
phase in the 13 districts, only 400 have been completed.) Every MAM
house prominently bears the conch and discus symbols of the Math. The
place has been renamed Amritanandamayi Nagar. There are several
allegations against Chandran. Says resident C. Anbazhagan: "He has asked
Rs 2,500 from each occupant of the MAM house." Chandran, who sold three
acres of his land to the government at Rs 35,000 per acre, convinced
'beneficiaries' to part with this Rs 2,500 per head as compensation for
the low price he got. He has also managed to get MAM to build 145 more
houses for Pudukuppam. While officially only 137 houses are damaged, 232
will be coming up in their place. "This shows how these NGOs have so
much to spend. The tsunami's created a lot of benamis," says Azhagesan.

Too many boats is another spoiler by the NGOs. Admits Vivekanandan:
"There was an oversupply of fibre boats, mostly defective. The motor
boats now are ten times the actual loss." In Sangolikuppam, the
Claretians and the Family of India procured 25 small fibre boats
(kannas) in place of the traditional catamarans. None of these boats is
useful. "When we used them for inland fishing, they capsized. We
collected our gear and swam to safety," says fisherman S. Pugazhendi.
When contacted, Claretians said their responsibility ended with the
supply of boats, made at Inniyan Fibres, Cuddalore. Inniyan manufactured
500 boats against various NGO orders, doing business of Rs 3 crore.
"These boats are really light and structurally flawed," says Pugazhendi.
The boat-makers, under pressure from NGOs keen to be the first to
deliver, compromised on material. In Pudukuppam, the "spineless,
unstable" boats gifted by the VHP and World Vision lie unused next to
each other.

Says Vivekanandan: "NGOs seem to have preferred fibre boats because you
can't really paint your names on catamarans." Pre-tsunami, one out-board
motor (OBM) fibre boat was used by five fishermen. The fund-rich NGOs
calculated the loss as one OBM boat per fisherman. Since most fishermen
now have their own boats—however faulty—few want to work for others.
While Bedi says the replacement of unwieldy, low-yielding catamarans is
good "since fibre boats are safer for youngsters", one fallout of too
many boats is lack of labour. "This results in parents employing their
own children, forcing them to drop out of school," says an activist.It
could also lead to over-fishing.

The tsunami has even spawned new NGOs. Nagapattinam's K.A. Seetalakshmi
floated the Phoenix Federation in March 2005. Phoenix is yet to attract
a serious inflow of funds. "We have heard that NGOs working in tsunami
areas are being given fcras quickly. We hope it happens. We have 80(G)
for now." Till February, people looked up to NGOs as succour-providers.
Today, people see them as unscrupulous elements who thrive by peddling
victimhood. "They come, pose with us, take pictures while handing us
something, ensure media coverage and get funds. We are just being used,"
says Anbazhagan. Seetalakshmi's Phoenix office is wall-papered with
photos of 'field work'. They even 'digitally documented' Outlook's
visit. Bedi recalls other such camera-dependent outfits: "A TV actor
from Mumbai, Ved Thapar, representing Ham Aawaz Trust, landed here on
the fourth day after the tsunami and promised to buy boats, nets and
engines for Mudisalodai village. He always went around with a handycam.
One day he just vanished, and we could not reach him despite repeated
efforts."

With the government a facilitator and the absence of civil society
groups as watchdogs, the NGOs lord it over all that they survey. Even
political parties are not asking questions. Instead, the cadre of CPI(M)
affiliate Democratic Youth Federation of India have tied up with
international NGOs such as MSF and the UK-based Every Child. "At least
the government is an accountable entity. The NGOs aren't accountable to
those they serve; they only have to give accounts to donors," says
Azhagesan.

Eleven months after the tsunami, the NGOs are busy gathering data to
"fill the gaps"—a favourite term with them. "Now every 'gap' is being
projectised under pressure from donors," says TNSF's Babu. As K.
Selvakumar of Pudukuppam sees it: "The only thing they can't give us
back is lost lives." For all else, there's money.

____


[6]

WORDS OF WOMEN - ANITA NAIR, 18 NOV 2005

Hi!

Zubaan and the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi will be continuing its
programme of conversations with women writers, "Words of Women". This
month we have Anita Nair (http://www.anitanair.net/ ) on Friday, 18th of
November. Manju Kak, writer, critic, and painter will be in conversation
with Anita. Anita Nair was working as the creative director of an
advertising agency in Bangalore when she wrote her first book, a
collection of short stories called Satyr of the Subway. The book, which
won her a fellowship from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts was
followed by her second book "The Better Man", published by Penguin Books
India (
<http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/>http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/),
and was also the first book by an Indian author to be published by
Picador USA. Her third book, "Ladies Coupe", which was rated as one of
2002's top five books of the year, has been translated into more than
twenty-five languages around the world, She has also written "The Puffin
Book of World Myths and Legends" which is the first of a two-part series
of books for children on myths and legends and has edited "Where the
Rain is Born: Writings About Kerala". Her most recent book is
"Mistress". Anita lives in Bangalore and Mundakotukurussi, Kerala.

Started in 2003, this programme, entitled Words of Women, has so far
featured Mahashweta Devi, Indira Goswami, Githa Hariharan, Mridula Garg,
Manjula Padmanabhan, Mrinal Pande, Mitra Phukan, Kamila Shamsie, Kunzang
Choden, Bulbul Sharma, Manju Dalmia, C.S. Lakshmi (Ambai), Namita
Gokhale, Paro Anand, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Shobhaa De, Arupa Kalita
Patangia and we hope to include many more other women writers in the
months to come.

We'd be delighted to welcome you to this discussion. The venue is
Casurina at the Habitat Centre, Lodi Road, New Delhi at 7 pm on Friday,
18th November 2005.

The programme usually lasts just over an hour.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Jaya Bhattacharji
For ZUBAAN


Zubaan,
An imprint of Kali for Women,
K-92, First Floor,
Hauz Khas Enclave,
New Delhi - 110016
INDIA
Tel: +91-11-26521008, 26864497 and 26514772
Email: zubaanwbooks at vsnl.net
Website: www.zubaanbooks.com


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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
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necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.