SACW | 18 Dec. 2005

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 18 Dec, 2005 | Dispatch No. 2187


[1] Pakistan: The past is still present (MB Naqvi)
[2] Bangladesh: How to fight Islamist extremism (Mahfuzur Rahman)
[3] India: A citizens Response to the Communal Violence Bill, 2005
+ Full Text of Communal Violence (Prevention, Control And Rehabilitation
of Victims) Bill, 2005
+ When the law runs riot (Harsh Mander)
+ Civil society groups criticise Communal Violence Bill
[4] India: Glad-hand BJP MPs were all RSS men
[5] UK: Perils of Multiculturalism - "A little more impurity, please"
(Salman Rushdie)


___


[1]


The News International
December 14, 2005

THE PAST IS STILL PRESENT

by M.B. Naqvi

Two days hence, the New Pakistan would complete 34 years after the 1971
tragedy — when united Pakistan came to an end. Since then Pakistan has
made much economic progress of a kind but has not made any social or
political advance. The reason one wishes to remember December 16 of that
year is not merely to ruminate idly over what had happened and why on
that day. People should remember it more purposefully to see where did
they go wrong and what had better be done now.

True, Pakistanis can find no pleasure in remembering 1971, though
Bangladeshis enthusiastically celebrate it as their Independence Day. It
was the year of the dismemberment of Pakistan as it had come into being
in August 1947. It barely lasted a quarter of a century. It ended in a
civil war and an international war with India amidst much bloodshed.
Pakistan Army was decisively defeated by the Indian Army that was ably
assisted by Mukti Bahini. Pakistan gave up not only East Pakistan but
also gave 95 thousand prisoners of war. The Pakistanis’ shame of defeat
and dismemberment can only diminish if they make amends and do the right
things now. Otherwise a foolish, indeed malign, forgetfulness will
continue to colour their actions, with one disappointment leading to
another.

Why did that tragedy happen is a relevant question even today. The
answer, in retrospect, is blindingly clear: Bengalis, although a
majority of the population, were treated badly. They were deprived of
any real share in decision making. The democracy that Pakistan was
supposed to be was subverted by vested interests. Which vested interests
were they? They should be clearly defined: the big landlords that
comprised the bulk of West Pakistani part of the Constituent Assembly
—the ultimate legal authority in Pakistan —helped create a
bureaucratic-military coterie that, with their help, was able to deploy
intrigue, threats and bribes in order to manipulate the sovereign
assembly. Once the assembly could be manipulated, with governments
coming in and going out on the whim of the coterie, it lost its
sovereignty. Real power came to reside not in the assembly but in those
who could make and unmake governments without any real role of assembly
or voters. Pakistanis were robbed of their theoretical sovereignty in
tandem with accretions to the coterie’s de facto power.

The elected representatives timidly allowed themselves to be played upon
probably in a mistaken notion of patriotism. They feared bureaucracy
will formally takeover. The story is well-known. Democracy was never
allowed to work. There were various signs everywhere. The elections to
various provincial assemblies were rigged in all parts of West Pakistan.
The coterie paid no heed to growing disaffection in East Bengal as was
shown by election results of 1954. Ruling Muslim League was wiped out.
The government of the Jugto Front that had won the 1954 election so
decisively was soon dismissed. And so on. Later, after many more
manipulations of the democratic processes by the coterie, the economic
policies were so made by mainly West Pakistanis with greater benefit to
West Pakistan areas, especially Karachi. East Pakistan earned more
foreign exchange and it was spent mostly on West Pakistan for its
industrialisation, the building up of the army and constructing a new
capital needlessly.

But when Ayub Khan finally took over in 1958 and declared Martial Law
all over Pakistan, the Bengalis were forced to conclude that if they
wanted to come into their own and to work for their own zone’s
improvement they had no place in Pakistan. The ten years of Ayub Khan
finally convinced them that they would always be second class citizens
in Pakistan. The conduct of Yahya Khan confirmed all their worst fears.
The misdeeds and blunderings of Yahya Khan are well known. Who can blame
the Bengalis for opting for independence?

A question needs to be asked whether West Pakistanis did or did not
exploit the resources of East Bengal. The amount of economic progress
that West Pakistan areas made in 24 years contrasted sharply with
conditions in East Pakistan when it became independent. Instead of
industrialising the East and developing agriculture in West Pakistan —
as had been suggested by most unofficial economists and at least a few
official advisors and which was the normal course that ought to have
been followed — the priorities were reversed or rather skewed to benefit
West Pakistan in both sectors.

Then there is the whole tragedy of the year 1971. It was a West
Pakistani military dictator who treated Bengalis like dirt. Anyone could
deduce his bad intentions from his April 1970 Legal Framework Order that
asked the new assembly to produce an acceptable-to-all constitution in
120 days or there will be no transfer of power from him. His refusal to
accept the 1970 election results and refusal to call the assembly
session were a clear and final signal to Bengalis that your only option
is to go on living under a military dictatorship of a basically West
Pakistani Army. If the Bengalis refused who can blame them? That makes
the tragedy of 1971 poignant. The Army indulged in horrible atrocities.
It is necessary to recognise those atrocities by troops as atrocities.
What Biharis or rebellious Mukti Bahini did were actions of disaffected
individuals. State actions are more important — and blameworthy.

What conclusions can we draw from these experiences? First and foremost
is that without honest governance and actual democracy, nothing else
works. Pakistani rulers and army commanders mouthed much ideological
mumbo jumbo in reply to Bengalis’ demand of fairness in allocation of
resources, a proper share in decision-making and in maintenance of
democracy. Islam, Islamic brotherhood and other emotive shibboleths were
invoked by West Pakistani leadership without recognising the obvious
fact that these things had nothing to do with what was being demanded:
Bengali language and culture of the majority must be given their due
place of honour, economic policies must address Bengal’s true needs and
that their votes should decide major questions. Lectures on Islam and
patriotism, in the absence of honesty, democracy and accountability
were, and are, useless.

It stands proven that Islam, Islam alone, cannot sustain a modern nation
state, especially if it comprises two geographically separate zones.
Various ethnicities like language, culture, race etc have to be equally
respected along with religion. Now, in retrospect, it is clear that the
Bengali language and culture were sought to be smothered under
ideological hocus pocus in order to misuse the foreign exchange that
Bengal earned in West Pakistan; Bengalis should grin and bear
disparities because their resources were sustaining progress of other
Muslims. Actually subsequent actions caused by Bengalis’ protests after
1965 war for being left defenceless and the East Pakistani economists
insistence on net transfers of Rs1000 million worth of resources for
investment in East Pakistan per year in the Third Plan. The Pakistani
establishment could scarcely meet Bengali demands without scuttling its
own dominance. So they were consciously looking for ways of getting rid
of East Pakistan.

Ah! The irony of it all. West Pakistanis are paying the price. Democracy
once subverted in early 1950s has never returned either in original or
the present Pakistan. This Pakistan is still under a military government
in its fifty-eighth year. The prospects of democracy in Pakistan are not
bright. For, the Army is now well entrenched. It knows how to ‘manage’
elections. Its foreign policy ensures it American support and a bogus
legitimacy has been given it by its people’s being so laid back. The
future seems to belong to the army. Pakistan is likely to go on being
run by the army and for the army. Pakistanis are paying the price with
their own slavery for keeping the East Bengalis slaves for 24 years.



____



[2]


Daily Star
December 16, 2005

HOW TO FIGHT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM
by Mahfuzur Rahman

The mayhem being perpetrated by Islamist extremists in Bangladesh is so
widespread, and the threat of worse to come so real, that there is now a
sense of crisis in the air. And it is time too. An unconscionable degree
of complacency at almost all levels of society has so far prevented a
hard look at a phenomenon that has been years in the making. Even as of
today, one cannot be sure that an adequate understanding of the nature
of the peril has yet permeated our society.

Anyone who has observed the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh
would be struck by the long sorry path that has led us where we are
today. The country's slide towards theocracy, or political Islam, is not
new; it began some three decades ago. It is well known that the big push
came in the mid-nineteen hundred seventies when political parties with
overt religious agenda were allowed to operate in what was the new-born
secular Bangladesh. That was an enormous boon to an already large body
of fundamentalists whose hostility to the very creation of secular
Bangladesh is all too well known and whose political agenda it was to
make Bangladesh an Islamic state. But the momentum of the slide was also
maintained by a complex set of factors, not the least of which was the
pandering of political parties to forces of obscurantism. The history of
the country is replete with instances of political leaders falling over
each other in depicting themselves as the only "true" Muslims, and hence
deserving of support of Muslim voters.  But what has this to do with the
emergence of Islamist extremism? A whole lot, in fact. It is not
difficult to gauge the awful logic of the militants. If political Islam
is the ultimate goal, they may well argue, why not achieve it now rather
than later, and thus hasten divine pleasure? The emerging militant
ideology elsewhere in the Islamic world must have added to the urgency
and external assistance in the form of both money and skill must also
have bolstered the militants. Nevertheless, it is crucial to recognize
that the wind of Islamist extremism was sown over all those years when
political Islam was being nurtured in the country: it is now time to
reap the whirlwind. It will not be easy to destroy the bitter harvest.

The nature of protest that we are beginning to hear nowadays against
Islamist militancy should make one wonder whether we are yet equal to
the task of defeating it. Some of the recent pronouncements against
suicide bombings are not much more than anodynes. Actually, they conceal
far more than they reveal.

There have been numerous public statements to the effect that "Islam is
a religion of peace" and "does not condone violence." Some of these
pronouncements decried suicide bombing as "un-Islamic," even a sin.
Others have claimed that this (that is, the extremists' method) is not
the way to "establish Islam." Some have denounced the bombers as
"enemies of Islam."

These assertions -- some or all of them -- have been made by many
segments of the society, the government, the clergy, and the press
included. The government reportedly put out propaganda flyers
emphasizing the peaceful image of Islam. These, for example, cited a
Koranic verse suggesting that killing an individual is like killing the
whole human race. Far more importantly, religious leaders have made some
of these assertions. Imams at Friday congregations have condemned the
militants and prayers have been offered for divine deliverance from the
extremist menace.

The usefulness of merely proclaiming that Islam is a religion of peace
is highly questionable. To the public at large, its value is minimal; a
large majority of them are in any case peace loving people who hardly
need to be given a message of peace. To the militants, the message is
totally worthless. As far as they are concerned, they represent "true"
Islam, and for every verse of the Koran that the "moderates" might quote
to criticize them, they could offer quotes that they would say
vindicated them. They could also fall back, rather easily, on
traditional exegeses of the Koran. The usefulness of a polemical
confrontation with the extremists as a way of subduing them is very
limited indeed, especially when it remains on paper.

Far more significant is the reported criticism of the extremists from
religious leaders that took the form: "This is not the way to establish
Islam." Implicit in the statement is, of course, their often declared
goal of "establishing Islam." One should have thought that Islam was
firmly established fourteen hundred years ago and remains one of the
major faiths, espoused by a billion people. The Islamic faith satisfies
the spiritual needs of countless millions. What do these leaders mean,
then, when they say that they want to establish Islam? Plainly it is
political Islam that they want to establish. In other words, their goal
and that of the Islamist militants are one and the same.

Let us quickly remind ourselves that it is the relentless progression of
the ideology of political Islam in Bangladesh over the past three
decades that has nurtured extremist ideologies we are supposed to be
fighting against. Now we are being told to continue on that very path.
In other words, we have a situation where the "mainstream" Islamists are
denouncing the extremist Islamists only to advance their own political
agenda. They in effect seem to be all too willing to reap the whirlwind.

This actually leads to some crucial questions concerning the aim of the
Islamist leaders on the one hand, and the future of the country as
conceived by its founding fathers and its valiant freedom fighters, on
the other. The militants have demanded the abolition of our secular
judicial system. Hence was their bombing of courts of law and killing of
judges.

Would the mainstream Islamists abolish our judicial system? The
extremists have demanded a radical transformation of our educational
system, with even more emphasis on madrasa education than in the past.
Would this be the aim of their more peaceable counterparts? In recent
days the radicals have threatened the life of women who do not wear the
hijab. We may remind ourselves here that not so long ago their
counterparts in Algeria slit the throats of many Muslim women for not
dressing "modestly" in public. Would the political Islamists enforce
such purdah? And would all of these, and probably much more, be done
through peaceful means? History comes up some uncomfortable precedents.

In modern times there have been two radical attempts at establishing
political Islam: in Iran and Afghanistan. The revolution of 1979 in Iran
established a fully fledged Islamic state. Ever since its inception, it
has brutally suppressed dissent and individual freedom, ferociously
enforced Islamic laws, and has been utterly intolerant of religious
minorities. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan even upstaged the
Iranians. Its brutality in suppressing everything that smacked of
individual freedom and secular culture has become a legend. Its
treatment of women was unimaginably vile.

When Islamist leaders in Bangladesh talk about "establishing Islam," it
is political Islam exemplified above that they have in mind. Consider
the stance of some of these leaders in defence of it. In not so distant
a past, they publicly declared their intention of turning Bangladesh
into a Taliban type state. This makes them indistinguishable from the
Islamist extremists they now seem to decry. It is worth remembering too
that when the Americans put the Taliban to flight in Afghanistan many
imams in Bangladesh, including some who are lending their voice against
extremist bombers today, wanted to wage jihad against the Americans. The
reason behind the protest was of course not that a Muslim country's
sovereignty was violated, but that the political regime of the country
happened to be close to the protesters' hearts. It is also important to
note that none of these religious leaders of any stature has protested
the many past bombings of secular jatra stages and cinema halls and even
darghahs as unacceptable acts not in conformity with Islam. On the
question of the place of the Ahmadiyyas in society, they have either
prevaricated or have come down heavily against the sect.

In sum, in fighting Islamist militancy our society should not only
resist those who are using terror to further their ultimate goal of
establishing political Islam, but must also face squarely all others who
share the same goals. It needs unequivocally to reject political Islam,
while continuing to guarantee full freedom of conscience to all
individuals. For the society to be doing anything less will be to
deceive itself. The rejection of political Islam must also be combined
with a longer-term effort at free and open discussion on Islam that goes
well beyond piety and instills a critical spirit of inquiry among
mainstream Muslims in the country. An open society is generally one
where shadowy groups find less scope for mischief.

Mahfuzur Rahman is a former United Nations economist.


____


[3]  [CRITIQUE OF COMMUNAL VIOLENCE (PREVENTION, CONTROL AND
REHABILITATION OF VICTIMS) BILL, 2005 ]

Dear Friends,

   Please find enclosed the Communal Suppresion Bill 2005 (
www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/India-TextofcommunalsuppressionBill.pdf 



) which was tabled in Rajya Sabha on December 5th, 2005 and a response
to the bill by a number of organisations . We  organised a meeting at
Anhad yesterday which was attended by Colin Gonsalves, Gagan Sethi,
Kamal and Anu Chenoy, Anil Choudhry, Farha Naqvi, Uma Chakravarty,
Digant Oza, Apoorvanand, Siddharth Vardarajan, Siddharth Narayan, Harsh
Mander and Shabnam Hashmi.

   The following statement was released today and we are preparing a
detailed response to the Bill.

   It is a matter of grave concern that a bill of such national
importance has been brought in literally from the back door even after
an assurance was given to the members of the National Integration
Council that it would be widely circulated and secular groups would be
consulted.

   We  request you to  respond to the bill and send your responses to
the concerned authoritites as well as to the media in your cities.

   Sincerely

   Shabnam Hashmi

o o o


   A RESPONSE TO THE COMMUNAL VIOLENCE (PREVENTION, CONTROL AND
REHABILITATION OF VICTIMS) BILL, 2005

   Anti-communal groups, human rights organizations and women’s groups
express their strong opposition to the Communal Violence (Prevention,
Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill which the UPA government
recently tabled in the Rajya Sabha on December 5th, 2005. The government
did not consult civil society groups or even attempt to forge a national
consensus on a bill of such importance and magnitude. A demand for such
a bill had been made in light of an increasing atmosphere of
communalisation across the country and particularly in light of the
events of Gujarat 2002. On neither front does the Bill deliver.

   The violence in Gujarat was primarily about State complicity in the
violence through both acts of omission and commission. In it, the state
machinery was found by many independent citizen investigators to be
gravely complicit in planning and executing the most brutal massacre
since Independence of women and children of the minorities. It did
little to control the violence for weeks, refused to set up relief camps
or to rehabilitate the victims. Almost four years later, many more than
half those who lost their homes are unable to return because of
continuing fear. The legal process has been subverted.

   The problem with Gujarat in 2002, and for that matter Delhi in 1984,
Bhagalpur in 1989 or Mumbai in 1992-93, was not that the state lacked
the powers to act, but that it lacked the will to act, or worse that its
will was for the communal violence to continue. Even under existing law,
most of what the law envisages is already permissible: arms can be
banned, routes of processions regulated, armed forces called in to
assist civil administration, special courts established. The law did not
need to            add any powers to those of the state in communal
situations. On the contrary, draconian powers would cower down
minorities further.

   What the law needed was to increase the democratic powers of the
citizens to be able to hold their governments - elected representatives,
policepersons, civil administrators, and hopefully even the judiciary -
accountable and actually criminally liable for their acts of omission or
commission, in failures to protect or rehabilitate them, or punish the
guilty.  But instead of strengthening the hands of citizens the Bill
further strengthens the hands of the State Governments, giving State
actors (political leaders, administration, police) wide powers which we
all know are largely used against the very minority groups which the
Bill purports to protect.

   The new law should not just enable the state to act (which it is
enabled sufficiently even without the law), but to require it to act,
and to make failures to protect citizens and the law impartially a
criminal failure, and if the outcomes are genocidal as in Gujarat, a
crime of no less than of genocide. The bill does provide for punishment
against public servants who fail to prevent communal violence; but the
prosecution of public servants requires prior consent of the some state
government that may be partisan. The power of the Central Government to
order armed forces to intervene under the bill (in cases where the State
Government is complicit in the violence) is specifically negated by a
provision, which requires the Centre to seek permission of State
governments for such intervention.

    On the issue of mass sexual violence in conflict situations the Bill
is silent. There is no definition of sexual assault to include the kinds
of horrific violence which women in Gujarat suffered –  stripping,
mutilation, insertion of objects into their bodies. All that the present
Bill gives women survivors of communal sexual violence is Section 376 of
the IPC – the much maligned rape law whose evidentiary requirements are
difficult to meet even in peace-time and impossible in a situation of
violent communal conflict. As for the increasing communalization of
society and the polity at all levels, the Bill fails to even acknowledge
or bring within its purview areas such as driving minorities out of
erstwhile mixed settlements, social and economic boycott of particular
groups, discrimination in employment, communal writing in textbooks etc.

   The right of survivors to rescue, relief and rehabilitation has been
introduced in a watered down fashion without stipulating any mandatory
national norms for a rehabilitation scheme. Non-official members of the
stipulated rehabilitation committees are nominated by the same state
government that may choose to act in a partisan fashion against its
citizens. Further, the Financial Memorandum accompanying the Bill sets
out no liability of the governments. The present Bill is nothing less
than an act of bad faith by a government, which promised much to combat
the communal threat in its Common Minimum Programme, and has so far
delivered little.

   While rejecting this draft, we call upon the UPA government to open
negotiations with wide ranging stake holders, civil society groups and
seek consensus while preparing a new law which can genuinely strengthen
the hand of the citizens of this country, and allow them to demand
protection and accountability from their governments.

AMAL CHARLES, INSAF, SECUNDERABAD
ANIL CHOUDHARY, INSAF
ANU CHENOY, PROFESSOR, JNU
APOORVANAND, ACADEMICIAN, DELHI
B. SHIVARAJEGOWDA, SAMRUDDI, KANAKAPURE, KARNATAKA
COLIN GONSALVES, HUMAN RIGHTS LAW NETWORK
Dayamani Barla , INSAF,  RANCHI, JHARKHAND
DIGANT OZA, SENIOR JOURNALIST, GUJARAT
DYNAMIC ACTION GROUP (DAG), UP
FARAH NAQVI, INDEPENDENT WRITER AND ACTIVIST,
GAGAN SETHI- JANVIKAS, GUJARAT
HARSH MANDER- ANHAD, NEW DELHI
HASINA, AWAZ-E-NISWAN, MUMBAI
JAMMU ANAND , BHAI SUDAM DESHMUKH SHIKSHAN SANSTHA, NAGPUR
JYOTSNA MACWAN, BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE CENTRE, AHMEDABAD
K.N.SASI , DIST. KOTTAYAM, KERALA
KALYANI MENON, JAGORI, DELHI
KAMAL MITRA CHENOY, PROFESSOR JNU
M.  MOUTTOUCANNOU, PUCL, PONDICHERRY
MADHAVI KUCKREJA, VANANGANA, UP
MADHU MEHRA, LAWYER, DELHI
MALINI GHOSE, NIRANTAR, DELHI
MARTIN MACWAN, NAVSARJAN, GUJARAT
MUKUL SINHA, JANANDOLAN, GUJARAT
N.B. SAROJINI, SAMA, DELHI
NANDITA GANDHI, AKSHARA, MUMBAI
NAYAN PATEL, YUV SHAKTI, GUJARAT
NUPUR, CENTRE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, GUJARAT
PRAMADA MENON, CREA, DELHI
RAMESH ALI BEASANT, AMBEDKAR LOHIA VICHAR MANCH , CUTTACK
RANJANA GAUR, SARC, UP
REHANA, ASTITIVA, UP
ROOPREKHA VERMA, SAJHI DUNIYA
SANDHYA GOKHALE, FORUM, MUMBAI
SHABNAM HASHMI- ANHAD, NEW DELHI
STALIN K., DRISHTI, GUJARAT
SUNIL KUMAR SINGH, LOK MANCH, Aurangabad
TULLIKA SRIVASTAVA, AALI, UP
UMA CHAKRAVARTY, ACADEMICIAN, DELHI
VANI SUBRAMANIUM, SAHELI, DELHI
VN RAI, SAJHI DUNIYA, LUCKNOW
ZAKIA JOWHER, AMAN SAMUDAYA, GUJARAT

o o o o


The Times of India
December 15, 2005
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1332503,curpg-1.cms

WHEN THE LAW RUNS RIOT
by Harsh Mander

In defiance of public opinion, the government has chosen to introduce in
Parliament a discredited version of its long anticipated Bill to control
communal violence.

Recent events in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa suggest that the
experiment in communal social engineering in Gujarat is not an aberration.

With ideologically driven social and political organisations in control,
hatred against minorities is systematically fanned, as a result of which
they are isolated socially and economically, and live in perennial fear
of another holocaust like Gujarat.

The proposed legislation — The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control
and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill — was anticipated as a sturdy shield
against the state (the police, the civil administration, the judiciary)
and even an increasingly pliant civil society that could turn against a
segment of innocent citizens for the only crime that they worship a
different god.

Instead, the Bill only further strengthens the same state by expanding
its powers, known to be used against minorities by most administrations,
more so by those which are openly communal.

  The problem with Gujarat in 2002, and for that matter Delhi in 1984,
Bhagalpur in 1989 or Mumbai in 1992-93, was not that the state lacked
the powers to act, but that it lacked the will to act, or worse that its
will was for the communal violence to continue.

Even under existing law, most of the powers envisaged are already
permissible: Arms can be banned, routes of processions regulated, armed
forces called in to assist civil administration, special courts
established. The law did not need to add any powers to those of the
states in communal situations.

On the contrary, what the law needed was to increase the democratic
powers of the citizens, particularly minorities, to be able to hold
their governments accountable and actually criminally liable for their
acts of omission or commission, in failures to protect or rehabilitate
them, or punish the guilty.

The state's duties would be to prevent the build-up to the violence,
which would entail control and punishment of hate speeches and
mobilisation; ensure early, adequate, impartial and timely use of force
when violence breaks out; relief and rehabilitation according to
internationally accepted norms; and secure the process of justice.

If, for instance, a woman suffers harassment from police and courts
after sexual violence, in communal or normal situations, the answer
would clearly not be to add to the powers of the same policepersons and
judges who victimise her, or even to enhance punishment as is proposed
under the Bill.

  Instead, the need is to expand the legal rights of the woman herself,
to be protected and treated in certain mandatory codified ways, and to
give her the powers to have punished actors in the criminal justice
system who fail to respect her rights.

Today, Narendra Modi and his administration stand guilty of enormous
crimes against humanity in the eyes of many secular, democratic people.

But he cannot be charged under the existing national law of these
crimes, unless actual conspiracies such as those alleged by some of his
officials and a slain minister are proved beyond doubt.

However, his manifest acts and failures should in themselves qualify as
crimes, which would be possible only if the new law would not just
enable the state to act (which it is enabled sufficiently even without
the law), but to require it to act.

It should punish failure to protect citizens and inability to implement
the law impartially. If the outcomes are genocidal as in Gujarat, the
crime should be treated as genocide.

  There are a few noteworthy improvements over the draft Bill earlier
circulated by the government. There is provision for appeal to a senior
police officer against FIRs that are not lodged or inaccurately recorded
by police stations; for punishment against public servants who fail to
prevent communal violence; and a rehabilitation committee with
non-official participation.

However, the rehabilitation committees are appointed by the state
government; the senior police officer is still directly subordinate to
the same government; and the prosecution of public servants requires
prior consent of the state government.

Once again, using the yardstick of a leadership determined to subvert
the constitution as in Gujarat, all of these progressive measures would
in the end have still not protected the rights, life and properties of
minorities in Gujarat.

This is not an ordinary law, which can legitimately be assessed by
everyday parameters. It is a historic opportunity for the Union
government, tainted as it is by passivity and even covert complicity
with the rise of communal parties and organisations, to forge a new
beginning.

Its effort to force through a Bill that claims to defend citizens in
communal situations but makes them even more vulnerable can only be
interpreted as an act of bad faith.
  Its leadership must display the courage of conviction to defend
secularism and the equal rights of all people regardless of religion and
caste, even against communally driven governments.

If it misses this opportunity, who knows how much innocent blood and
poison must flow before history allows for making amends.

The writer's research in Gujarat is supported by the Dalai Lama Foundation.'

o o o
         	
CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS CRITICISE COMMUNAL VIOLENCE BILL
http://www.hindu.com/2005/12/18/stories/2005121803511000.htm

____


[4]

Deccan Chronicle
December 18, 2005

GLAD-HAND BJP MP's ARE ALL RSS MEN
  	
New Delhi, Dec. 17: All the six BJP MPs caught in the cash-for-questions
scam were given tickets on the recommendation of the RSS. At least four
Lok Sabha MPs, Y.G. Mahajan, Suresh Chandel, Pradeep Gandhi and
Chhatrapal Singh Lodha, were activists. The RSS backed these candidates
strongly with its cadre in the general elections.

The cameras that caught them accepting money for raising questions in
Parliament also capture, in the background, framed pictures of RSS
ideologue and founder Guru Golwalkar and Keshav Baliram Hegdewar.  In
the editorial of its latest issue, the RSS mouthpiece Organiser attacked
the politicians ganging up against these “poor MPs”. It stated: “He that
is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.”

Criticising the way action was taken against the legislators, the
editorial added, “The poor MPs, mostly backbenchers, did not even get
the chance that our democracy generously grants to even the most
despicable criminals, like Abu Salem or Mohammed Shahbuddin (RJD MP).”
The editorial pointed out, “Even MPs like Afzal Ansari, accused of
murdering BJP MLA Krishnand Rai and eight others, could evade the law
and attend Parliament — no questions asked.”

“Swayamsevaks” Y.G. Mahajan, Suresh Chandel and Chhatrapal Singh Lodha
were all connected to Sangh units like the Vanavasi Kalyan Parishad,
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, sources
disclosed. As Mr Chandel, a former Himachal Pradesh BJP unit chief known
as the “darling of the RSS”, accepted money for raising questions in the
Lok Sabha, looking down on him from the wall were Golwalkar and
Hegdewar. Addressing a press conference in Shimla on November 24, 1999,
Mr Chandel had defended government officers attending RSS functions and
had asserted that they were “free to associate with any social
organisation”.

While Mr Mahajan was shown on camera telling the “Cobra-Post” scribe,
“Aap material dete rahiye, main uthate rahoonga (You keep on giving me
material, I will keep raising issues),” pictures of “Bharat Mata,” Guru
Golwalkar, Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani were seen on the walls.
Mr Mahajan, a “swayamsevak”, was associated with the Sangh unit Vanavasi
Kalyan Parishad, and is also known for his close links to the VHP.
In RSS-dominated Chhattisgarh, Mr Pradeep Gandhi emerged as the
“blue-eyed boy” of the RSS. He actively participated in “Vanavasi
Kalyan” programmes. This “RSS man” was also considered the “right-hand
man” of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh.

Mr Lodha, the Rajya Sabha BJP MP, was a “strong RSS man from Uttar
Pradesh”, the sources said.  His candidature for the Rajya Sabha was
reportedly pushed by the RSS in UP. Mr Lodha was considered a “true
swayamsevak” by the RSS. RSS spokesman Ram Madhav confirmed that three
of the MPs were “swayamsevaks”, but claimed “none of the MPs were ever
RSS pracharaks”.

The Organiser targeted the BJP leaders in its editorial for their
rhetoric. “It is easy to join the crowd that crucifies the sinner, but
tough to stand apart like Christ and search one’s own conscience.” The
editorial stated, “Most parties want their ticket aspirants to fill the
party coffers...”  Criticising the “big sharks” who go scot-free, the
editorial stated, “It is always the daily wage earner who gets trapped,
while the big sharks go scot-free. If we have to clean up the system, it
has to start from the top, delve into one’s inner most self and
mercilessly analyse individual probity in public life.”

	
____


[5]


The Telegraph
December 15, 2005

A DEFENCE AND A DEFINITION
- Cultural plurality is an irreversible fact today
by Salman Rushdie

Multiculturalism has always been an embattled idea, but the battle has
grown fiercer of late. In this, as in so many other things, it is
terrorism that is setting the agenda, goading us and forcing us to
respond — terrorism, whose goal it is to turn the differences between us
into divisions and then to use those divisions as justifications.

No question about it: it’s harder to celebrate the virtues of
polyculture when even Belgian women are being persuaded by Belgians of
North African descent to blow up themselves and other people.

Comedians, among others, have been trying to defuse — wrong verb —
people’s fears by facing up to them: “My name’s Shazia Mirza, or at
least that’s what it says on my pilot’s license.” But it will take more
than comedy to calm things down.

Britain, the most determinedly “multiculturist” of European nations, is
at the heart of the debate. According to some opinion polls, the British
people avowed their continued support for multiculturalism even in the
immediate aftermath of the July 7 bombings. Many commentators, however,
have been less affirmative.

David Goodhart, editor of Prospect magazine, asks the old philosophical
question, “Who is my brother?” and suggests that an overly diverse
society may become an unsustainable one. Britain’s first black
archbishop, the Rt. Rev. John Sentamu, accuses multiculturalism of being
bad for English national identity. And the British government has
announced that new citizens will have to pass a “Britishness test” from
now on. A passport will be a kind of driver’s licence proving that
you’ve learned the new rules of the nationalist road.

At the other end of the spectrum, Karen Chouhan of the 1990 Trust, a
“black-led” human-rights organization, insists that “we need to move
forward with a serious debate about how far we have to go in tackling
race discrimination in every corner of society, not move it back by
forcing everyone to be more (white) British”.

And Bhikhu Parekh redefines multiculturalism as the belief that “no
culture is perfect or represents the best life, and that it can
therefore benefit from a critical dialogue with other cultures...
Britain is and should remain a vibrant and democratic multicultural
society that must combine respect for diversity with shared common values”.

It’s impossible for someone like myself, whose life was transformed by
an act of migration, to be entirely objective about the value of such
acts. I have spent much of my writing life celebrating the potential for
creativity and renewal of the cultural encounters and frictions that
have become commonplace in our much-transplanted world.

Then again, as people keep pointing out, I have a second axe to grind,
because the Satanic Verses controversy was a pivotal moment in the
forging of a British Muslim identity and political agenda. I did not
fail to note the ironies: a secular work of art energized powerful
communalist, anti-secularist forces, “Muslim” instead of “Asian”. And,
yes, as a result the argument about multiculturalism for me has become
an internal debate, a quarrel in the self.

Nor am I alone. The melange of culture is in us all, with its
irreconcilable contradictions. In our swollen, polyglot cities — “the
locus classicus of incompatible realities” one of the characters in The
Satanic Verses calls them — we are all cultural mestizos, and the
argument within rages to some degree in us all.

So it is important to make a distinction between multifaceted culture
and multiculturalism. In the age of mass migration and the internet,
cultural plurality is an irreversible fact, like globalization. Like it
or dislike it, it’s where we live, and the dream of a pure monoculture
is at best an unattainable, nostalgic fantasy, and at worst a
life-threatening menace — when ideas of racial purity, religious purity
or cultural purity turn into programmes of “ethnic cleansing”, for
example, or when Hindu fanatics in India attack the “inauthenticity” of
Indian Muslim experience, or when Islamic ideologues drive young people
to die in the service of “pure” faith, unadulterated by compassion or doubt.

“Purity” is a slogan that leads to segregations and explosions. Let us
have no more of it. A little more impurity, please, a little less
cleanliness, a little more dirt. We’ll all sleep easier in our beds.

Multiculturalism, however, has all too often become mere cultural
relativism, a much less defensible proposition, under cover of which
much that is reactionary and oppressive — of women, for example — can be
justified.

The British multiculturalist idea of different cultures peacefully
coexisting under the umbrella of a vaguely defined pax Britannica was
seriously undermined by the July 7 bombers and the disaffected ghetto
culture from which they sprang. Of the other available social models,
the one-size-fits-all homogenizing of “full assimilation” seems not only
undesirable but unachievable, and what remains is the “core values”
approach to which Parekh alludes, and of which the “Britishness test”
is, at least as currently proposed, a grotesque comic parody.

When we, as individuals, pick and mix cultural elements for ourselves,
we do not do so indiscriminately, but according to our natures.
Societies, too, must retain the ability to discriminate, to reject as
well as to accept, to value some things above others, and to insist on
the acceptance of those values by all their members. This is the
question of our time: how does a fractured community of multiple
cultures decide what values it must share in order to cohere, and how
can it insist on those values even when they clash with some citizens’
traditions and beliefs?

The beginnings of an answer may be found by asking the question the
other way around: What does a society owe to its citizens? The French
riots demonstrate a stark truth. If people do not feel included in the
national idea, their alienation will eventually turn to rage. Chouhan
and others are right to insist that issues of social justice, racism and
deprivation need urgently to be addressed. If we are to build a plural
society on the foundation of what unites us, we must face up to what
divides.

But the questions of core freedoms and primary loyalties can’t be
ducked. No society, no matter how tolerant, can expect to thrive if its
citizens don’t prize what their citizenship means — if, when asked what
they stand for as Frenchmen, as Indians, as Americans, as Britons, they
cannot give a clear reply.


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

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