SACW | 29 Dec. 2005 | South Asia: Violence and Intimidation - Public and Private

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 29 Dec, 2005 | Dispatch No. 2193

South Asia: Violence and Intimidation - Public and Private

[1] Sri Lanka: Calls for Pressure and Mechanisms to Ensure Protection of
Human Rights and End to Violence (SLDF)
[2] Pakistan: Silencing Dissenting voices
(i) Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum Seminar Disrupted
(ii) Demo after Kala Bagh Dam moot cancelled
[3] Bangladesh: A disquieting revelation (Editorial, The Daily star)
[4] India: An Agenda of Hope
[5] India - Delhi: Whose City Is It Anyway (Amit Bhaduri and Arvind
Kejriwal)
[6] India: Love-marriage scourge label on riot accused (Chandrima S.
Bhattacharya)
[7] Lessons on Terror Laws in Injun Country - Operation Romeo (Lila Rajiva)
[8] India: Civil liberty, at what price? (Renuka Narayanan)

___


[1]

Sri Lanka Democracy Forum

29 December 2005

For Immediate Release:

SLDF ALARMED BY DETERIORATION OF SECURITY SITUATION AND CALLS FOR
PRESSURE AND MECHANISMS TO ENSURE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND END TO
VIOLENCE

The North and East of Sri Lanka have been mired in escalating violence
in the last month with the LTTE’s initiation of an “undeclared war” and
the retaliatory violent response of the security forces.  Civilians have
come under attack by the security forces, the LTTE, and Karuna’s forces;
this has included the murder of Tamil National Alliance Member of
Parliament Joseph Pararajasingham and injury to several others during a
crowded Christmas mass.  Following the abduction of PLOTE Central
Committee member Sinnathamby Ganeshalingam (alias Farook) on 12 December
2005, a senior PLOTE member Veerapppan Thirupathy was shot dead in
Vavuniya on Christmas day.  In Batticaloa, eighteen year old Vallinayagi
Thambirajah was shot dead and her father was injured on the 23 December
2005 when armed men came looking for her brother.  At least forty
members of the security forces have been killed and many more injured in
blatant violations of the ceasefire by the LTTE.  This continuing
violence and the ensuing climate of impunity threaten the future of the
people of Sri Lanka, and of the North and East in particular.  The two
parties to the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), the Government of Sri Lanka
(GOSL) and the LTTE, have failed to take immediate steps to end this
spiralling violence.  SLDF calls on civil society actors and the
international community to pressure both parties to arrest the
continuing violence and to initiate campaigns and mechanisms that will
bring about an end to this violence and that will ensure the protection
of human rights.

The LTTE has initiated an “undeclared war” in the North and East,
following the LTTE leader’s Heroes Day speech, in which he threatened to
resume the war next year.  Since then, the LTTE has carried out numerous
attacks on the security forces, the most prominent of which have been
four land mine attacks leading to the death of about forty security
forces personnel, an attack on two Naval boats, and firing at a
helicopter.  Such calculated violence has been initiated to provoke the
armed forces so that, in retaliation, they will be seen to precipitate
the end of the four year long CFA and peace process.  The LTTE has also
contemptuously ignored repeated calls by the Donor Co-Chairs and the Sri
Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to cease such blatant acts of violence
and provocation.  The people of the North and East, who have suffered
two decades of war and the aftermath of the tsunami, cannot afford the
consequences of another war.
In waging this “undeclared war” and initiating provocative actions
against the security forces, the LTTE deliberately puts civilians at
risk, underscoring the fact that its interests are in direct
contradiction with the interests of the people of the North and East.
SLDF condemns the LTTE’s “undeclared war” in the strongest terms as it
is once again taking the people of the North and East and the whole
country into this dangerous precipice of an all out civil war.

The security forces have grossly violated basic norms of policing when
responding to provocations, which have included stone throwing protests.
SLDF condemns the attacks by the army on a protest organized by the
students and lecturers of the Jaffna University on 19 December 2005.
SLDF is aware that the protest was engineered by the LTTE, and that it
was accompanied by violent incidents.  These included, according to
Hagrup Haukland, Head of the SLMM, an attempt by the “protesters” to
forcibly enter the SLMM office in Jaffna.  Haukland further stated,
“This could not be called a peaceful demonstration.  It was a very
dangerous thing.”
However, the army’s retaliatory response of attacking the protesters by
firing live ammunition into the crowd was indiscriminate, excessive and
unwarranted.  Furthermore, SLDF has learned that in Mannar security
forces have attacked and killed a mother and a child with at least two
others unaccounted for, following the land mine attack on a Navy convoy
which killed at least thirteen Navy personnel.  SLDF unequivocally
condemns such attacks on civilians. SLDF demands that the GOSL carry out
an immediate investigation into these attacks and brings the
perpetrators to justice.
It is imperative that the security forces do not repeat their behaviour
of the 1980s and 1990s, when they systematically abused the basic rights
of, and persecuted, Tamil civilians in the name of counter-offensives.

During Christmas mass, Tamil National Alliance MP Joseph Pararajasingham
was shot dead and a few others were seriously injured.  SLDF strongly
condemns this brutal murder of an unarmed parliamentarian.  Irrespective
of his political positions, Pararajasingham’s rights to life, freedom of
expression, and political association deserved absolute protection.
Moreover, that these rights were so brutally violated among unsuspecting
people gathered in a place of worship reveals the dangerous degree to
which gun culture has become entrenched in Tamil politics.  In this
regard, the abduction and murder of senior PLOTE members mentioned above
are also serious attacks on democracy.

It is not yet clear who assassinated MP Pararajasingham and the LTTE and
the government have been trading accusations.  Some local sources point
to the Karuna faction as responsible for this brutal murder.  If indeed
the Karuna faction carried out this killing, it is a grim reminder of
the Karuna factions’ brutal past as the LTTE’s Eastern Command, and
points to serious concerns about the possibility of its future
transformation into democratic politics.  SLDF demands the government
carry out a full investigation and make its findings public.

In this climate of impunity and escalating violence, SLDF demands the
following:

·	The LTTE to immediately halt their “undeclared war” and immediately
agree to talks with the GOSL to strengthen the CFA.

·	While the LTTE and its allied organisations have every right to engage
in peaceful protests and marches, it should desist from deploying
forcible and intimidatory measures to coerce civilians and students to
participate in such protests, which are quite often marked by violent
incidents designed and aimed at provoking retaliation from the security
forces.

·	The GOSL should send a clear message to the security forces to show
restraint and not be provoked by such attacks. It should unequivocally
condemn and prevent any indiscriminate or disproportionate retaliatory
action by the security forces on the pretext of provocation.  To this
end, any security forces personnel involved in human rights violations
should be brought to justice.  The GOSL should ratify the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court to illustrate its commitment to
human rights.

·	The lack of a positive direction at the political level and the
absence of any meaningful movement in the peace process are
self-evident. The President and his government should realise the
urgency of the situation and move forward on forging a Southern
consensus for a political solution and make public his proposals for
substantive devolution of power.

·	SLDF supports recent anti-war protests in Colombo by civil society
actors and calls for the formation of broad coalitions for an anti-war
movement and similar anti-war demonstrations in the Diaspora.  SLDF
reiterates its demand that educational institutions, hospitals and
religious institutions be designated and respected as “zones of peace”.
SLDF supports the call from the human rights community and reiterates
its demand for independent international human rights monitors given the
escalating human rights crisis.

·	The international community should use maximum pressure on the LTTE,
including the application of appropriate and punitive sanctions, to end
its “undeclared war” and to return to the negotiating table.
Recognizing the limitations of the SLMM, which has now withdrawn from
monitoring of the Jaffna peninsula because they cannot guarantee the
safety of their personal, the international community, and particularly
the Donor Co-Chairs and India, should consider the induction of peace
keeping monitors with enforcement powers that could keep both parties to
the conflict and particularly the LTTE from resuming a full scale war.



___


[2]


[Forwarded message from People's Rights Movement]

PAKISTAN FISHERFOLK FORUM SEMINAR DISRUPTED

· A seminar on ‘Below Kotri water flows’ was planned by the Pakistan
Fisherfolk Forum and Action Aid Pakistan in the Dreamland Motel on
December 28th, the arrangements for which had been made many weeks in
advance.
· On arrival in Islamabad, dozens of activists of the PFF arrived at
Dreamland Motel on the evening of December 27th as planned. They were
told that there were insufficient rooms for them and that they could not
stay in the motel as planned. While this severe inconvience was dealt
with by the organisers, they could not have foreseen what was to
transpire next.
· On the morning of the 28th, the hotel management locked the rooms to
the hall in which the seminar was supposed to be held and told the
organisers that the intelligence agencies had prohibited the hotel from
hosting the event.
· A demonstration was subsequently held outside the hotel to protest
this arbitrary disruption. The protestors were addressed by PFF
chairperson Mohammad Ali Shah, Dr. Qadir Magsi, Hameed Asghar Shaheen,
Aziz Narejo, Khadim Hussain, Mushtaq Gadi, Aasim Sajjad, and numerous
other activists.
· This action demonstrates the government’s complete lack of tolerance
for democratic debate – papers were to be presented at the seminar in
which technical, social, economic, political and cultural perspectives
were expected to be raised.
· We firmly believe that this action is a reflection of the dictatorial
manner in which the government has bulldozed Water Vision 2025 on the
people of Pakistan.
· In this regard, we invite you to be part of a protest demonstration
to be held tomorrow (Thursday, 29 December) at 12pm in front of the
offices of the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to demand
withdrawal of funds for mega water projects that are imposed upon the
country by diktat.
· We believe that similar repressive measures may be employed by the
government during tomorrow’s demonstration. Therefore it is imperative
that the demonstration be attended and supported by as wide a
cross-section of people as possible, particularly because dozens of
fisherfolk will be present and they are likely to be subject to severe
harassment and intimidation.


o o o o

Daily Times (Lahore)
December 29, 2005 	

DEMO AFTER KBD MOOT CANCELLED

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: A demonstration was held outside a local hotel to protest the
hotel administration’s decision to cancel a seminar on Kalabagh Dam
arranged by the ActionAid, Pakistan, and Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF)
to hold a seminar on Kalabagh Dam.

Fishermen from the Indus delta in Sindh, water rights activists, people
from the Siraiki belt, NWFP and Balochistan, and political activists
from across the country attended the demonstration. The hotel
administration cited pressure from the authorities as the reason for its
decision. The protesters held banners and flags and shouted slogans
flaying state repression and the government’s water policy.

Muhammad Ali Shah, the PFF chairperson, said that the people of Sindh
and other oppressed people in Pakistan had been resisting the
“dictatorial policies of the state for decades and would continue to do
so despite efforts to suppress their voices”.

He said that the people of Sindh would never allow the Kalabagh Dam and
any other mega water project that denied them their “historic right to
the water of the Indus River”. He said that the PFF, ActionAid-Pakistan
and other supporters would organise another protest demonstration on
Thursday in front of the offices of the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank to demand the withdrawal of funds for the Water Vision
2025.

Taj Haider, the information secretary of the Pakistan People’s Party,
said that by refusing to allow a peaceful seminar, the state had proved
that it had no tolerance for democratic dissent. He said that the state
was unwilling to concede that the rationale for projects such as the
Kalabagh Dam and the Greater Thal Canal was “completely nonsensical”.

Dr Qadir Magsi, chairman of the Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party, said that
state functionaries had based their entire case for building mega water
projects on “lies and the Sindhi nation has rejected these lies”.


____



[3]

The Daily Star (Dhaka)
December 29, 2005 	
   	  	
Editorial

A DISQUIETING REVELATION

Time has come for government to clean house
The facts could not be any clearer. Elements within the government have
for a long time been sponsoring and sheltering the outlawed JMB
[Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh] and JMJB [Jagrata Muslim Janata,
Bangladesh] militants. This original revelation was reported in the
media long ago and has since been corroborated time and again through
confessional statements made during the interrogations of suspected
militants.

The evidence suggesting such links is now so great and disquieting that
it can no longer be plausibly denied, and the revelations of recently
arrested JMB leader Lutfar Rahman are merely the latest in what now
amounts to a mountain of substantiation

What is becoming clear is that, when it comes to the militants, the
government has been pursuing a policy that can at best be described as
extremely short-sighted, and at worst, utterly reckless and indefensible.

The evidence is incontrovertible that in response to banditry of
so-called leftist groups in the north-west of Bangladesh, certain
elements within the government took a decision to sponsor the rise of
the militant religious groups to take up arms against those outlaws.
This is how the religious militancy arose and how it was able to spread
far and wide with relatively little check from the authorities.

Now that government's ill-fated policy of sponsoring vigilante justice
has backfired disastrously and been exposed for all to see, the time has
come for the government to first acknowledge its grievous error and then
to correct it.

The first thing that the government needs to do is to follow up on the
information that has been provided implicating members of the
administration. If there is credible evidence suggesting someone in the
government has a connection to the militants, he or she needs to be
brought to justice, not shielded.

The government needs to publicly disassociate itself from those within
its ranks who are soft on the militants. It should make clear that there
is no place for such people in the administration. This will send the
message to the militants that their virtual impunity is a thing of the
past. The government must renounce and abandon the policy of tolerating
the sponsorship and shelter of the militants, and take full action
against those within its ranks who do so.


____


[4]

Tehelka.com
Jan 14 , 2006

AN AGENDA OF HOPE

Compiled by Abdus Salam, Deeptiman Tiwary and M. Radhika


Aditya Nigam
Academic

In terms of immediacy, I think there are three crucial areas that we
need to focus on in the coming year. The first is to interrogate the
very logic of economic reforms that has so much primacy in our agenda of
governance. I do not posit this as a free market versus public sector
debate, but want to draw attention to the wanton cult of consumerism and
mindless development that so threatens to deplete our scarce resources.
There is a pernicious over-reliance on non-renewable sources of energy
viz petroleum and hydro-electricity. I do not even wish to reiterate the
risks involved in putting a primacy on atomic energy. I believe it’s
time we concentrated on alternate renewable sources of power like solar
energy and wind energy. Harnessing these would not only make us
self-reliant but it also safeguards our ecology and environment as
energy is tapped in decentralised ways.

There should be a rethinking of pedagogy. The entire educational syllabi
should be looked at afresh. A beginning has been made last year with the
great degree of autonomy given to ncert and other institutions. This has
enabled a much more broad-based exercise in reformulating textbooks.

Our workplaces need to have a diversity of representation. A beginning
has been made with reservations in private educational institutions, but
it needs to be extended to equal employment opportunities in the private
sector as well. In this, the government can make a crucial intervention
by extending subsidies and benefits only to those companies that
practice fair employment practices. There are many mncs that abide by
certain norms of diversity in their home countries, but choose to
overlook them when they set up base here.

Bipan Chandra
Historian

I think the government has done a pretty good job thus far, especially
as far as enacting people-friendly bills are concerned, specifically,
the Employment Guarantee Act and the Right to Information Act. But the
priority should be to see these things through in the coming year. In
this, the importance of bureaucratic reforms cannot be undermined,
though I believe this can only be a slow and drawn-out process.

Hence, above all else, I believe civil society holds the key to the
effective implementation of governmental projects. The Employment
Guarantee Act, if carried to its fruition, would be able to bring in a
substantial segment of the rural poor into its ambit. The civil society,
ngos, intellectuals, the media, have a very important task of monitoring
the implementation of this act. There can be no two ways about its full
implementation. This is where the rti would also come in handy, for it
can be a useful tool to ensure financial transparency.

The other issue I believe needs deep introspection and actualisation is
a change in the mindset of the people. The government can check and curb
communal violence, but unless we reverse the communal way of thinking,
arresting communal outbreaks would only be a perfunctory fire-fighting
exercise. The way to move ahead is an all-out campaign (a la Gandhi
during the national movement) against the seed of communalism that is
there in the minds of the people. One committed person can intervene in
as many as five panchayats, so it’s something that’s not unachievable.
The educational policy needs to be tailored to address this. The civil
society and the media, they have a crucial role to play.

Vijay Tendulkar
Playwright

There are so many issues to look at. The whole polity has become so
corrupt. The quality of democracy has gone down. People, both in rural
as well as urban areas, are suffering. In this country only small fishes
get punished; the big ones go scot-free. Why is there something called
lobbying in Parliament? Why do corporate or other groups have to lobby
for their demands? How does the common man approach Parliament? He
cannot afford a lobbying apparatus. The thing is, there is a lot of
money involved here. If it continues, all the parliamentarians will have
to be thrown out. Democracy is being reduced to a farce. Everything
needs to be re-examined from top to bottom. Terrorism and communalism
are some of the issues we have to be concerned with. The only hope I
have seen in the recent times is Sonia Gandhi’s choice of Manmohan Singh
as the prime minister. The others are not trustworthy.

UR Ananthamurthy
Writer

I think corruption will be the main issue in 2006. We would be honest if
we critique our democratic system along with corruption. Where and how
can political parties get the money to be spent on elections? Can we
reform the electoral system drastically?

Environment is a big issue as well. Unless we evolve a good public
transport system, our roads will be hell. And we will be neurotic as
people. All grace in public life may disappear.

Unfortunately, we as people are too preoccupied with the game of power.
Unless we are sensitive to death, which is imminent, we will not even be
fully alive to the present. And we should have the sensitivity to do all
we can, in times of crises. The stampede in which people in Tamil Nadu
died trying to collect a pittance is more horrible than even the
tsunami. People are treated like animals: Such insensitivity can be
avoided in our public life.

Kancha Ilaiah
Academic

The major issue in 2006 is going to be the caste equation. The caste
relations are getting more and more strained today — across all parties
and organisations. 2006 is expected to heighten the debate on the issues
of caste and untouchability. Communalism and social violence in terms of
caste and religion could rise as parties like the bjp and Shiv Sena lose
their leaders. They will try to stoke such emotions to retain their grip
on the people. The agenda for the next year, in this context, should be
equality at all levels in
the society.

Mahesh Dattani
Playwright, Filmmaker

I am not sure whether India is prepared for a disaster, no matter how
much we learn from previous disasters. No country can really be
prepared. We don’t know what nature has in store for us. But if disaster
strikes, we should have a mechanism in place, where relief operations
can be expedited without bureaucratic obstacles.

Politically, 2005 has been a little better than previous years. The
coalition (in Karnataka) is good. It keeps the ruling party in check.
They’ve learnt from previous mistakes and will now look at the common
person’s plight first before trying hard to please the corporate urban
lobby alone.

We simply have to return to the drawing board and relook at the Garibi
Hatao campaign with greater sincerity. Education should be the key
focus, not defence. We must bring down barriers between South Asian
countries and have a free flowing economy. Globalisation is fine, if it
benefits more people and helps alleviate poverty. If we had a United
South Asia (USA!), it will be far more powerful as trade on this level
will benefit more people. We can be far more powerful than the USA.

Swami Agnivesh
Social Activist

I think the government needs to lay emphasis on the proper
implementation of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan as well as live up to its
promise on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The government
also needs to incorporate the non-organised workforce in its policy
ambit by putting together a National Wage Policy, and not just cater to
sections of government employees by instituting pay commissions.

The other thing that needs to be accounted for is the government’s
position on arising national and international issues. I disapprove of
the government’s handling of the wto multilateral talks, where Kamal
Nath put forth the government’s agenda without concurring with
Parliament. On significant issues, it is imperative that our polity
discusses, debates, and reaches a consensus.

On the corruption front, we need something on the lines of an ombudsman,
an idea that has been in the air for long, if we are to arrest the
cancer that has eaten into the vitals of our State. There should, at the
very least, be a legal framework that holds everyone, including the high
and mighty, accountable. If need be, we should even effect a
constitutional amendment for this purpose.

The government has framed useful legislation with the poor in mind and
needs to be commended on that front. But it needs to do more to push
through the Women’s Reservation Bill and for reservations for the
disadvantaged and marginal sections in the private sector.

Certainly, the recent bill in the educational sector is a step in the
right direction, but I oppose the exemption provided for minority
institutions. We ought to go the whole hog.

Kumar Ketkar
Editor, Loksatta

The two most important issues in 2006 will be globalisation-induced
income inequality and infrastructure in the country. I believe that
post-liberalisation, the semi-skilled labour has got a raw deal. For
example, a peon does not get more than Rs 5,000 as salary, but even an
undergraduate who merely knows how to speak basic English without any
added skills is able to draw as much as Rs 15,000 every month as salary.
That’s what the bpo culture has done to us as a nation. This discontent
is going to be explosive in times to come and we can’t ignore it.

The other important issue will be infrastructure. It is no more an
economic, but a social issue. Access to transport is going to be
crucial, especially connectivity to the cities. Communalism is, I
believe, passé. Such forces will have no say in the coming year in India.


____


[5]


The Times of India
December 29, 2005

WHOSE CITY IS IT ANYWAY
by Amit Bhaduri And Arvind Kejriwal

The last four months have seen two types of demolitions in Delhi —
demolitions of jhuggis on the one hand and unauthorised and illegal
structures in middle and upper income areas on the other.

Both types of demolitions were ordered by the Delhi high court and the
directions were so strong that the government had to act. In the eyes of
law, the nature of violations in both cases is virtually the same.

But the reaction of politicians has been very different in the two
situations; it reveals a particularly ugly face of the current state of
politics.

Cutting across party lines, politicians are strongly opposing
demolitions in middle and upper income areas in the capital. They have
done all that they could to stop the Municipal Corporation of Delhi
(MCD) from carrying them out.

The Delhi assembly went to the extent of declaring a war against the
high court. It passed a resolution unanimously directing the MCD to stop
demolitions immediately. Top state leaders are confabulating with
central leaders to find solutions.

  Why do politicians lose sleep over demolitions in middle-class areas?
On the face of it, they are worried about the public outcry and its
adverse impact on their political fortunes in next elections. But
appearances can be deceptive.

About 150 jhuggis in Mayur Vihar and almost double that number in
Patparganj — both east Delhi colonies — were razed to the ground in
September.

More than 400 families were suddenly rendered homeless. Barring a few
token visits and crocodile tears, politicians did not bother to do anything.

Jhuggi residents are electorally important for politicians because,
unlike the middle class, they do go out and vote.

One should have expected a stronger reaction from political parties when
jhuggis were demolished. However, what one witnessed was utter
indifference; electoral considerations did not seem to matter.

  Jhuggis were broken in Mayur Vihar on September 30. Each family was
given a demand notice to deposit Rs 7,000 within 10 days as lease fee
for the alternative plot of land that the government would provide them.

But when people went to the Delhi Development Authority office to
deposit the money, no one accepted it. The officials refused to divulge
the information as to when and where they would be resettled. The very
poor among them live on footpaths in this bitter cold.

Now, property dealers approach them, offering Rs 30,000-40,000 to each
family for ration card and other papers that are important to claim an
alternative plot for resettlement. Obviously, the families have been
allotted land at some place and the property dealers know about it.

They want to grab that land. Information is being denied systematically
to prevent them from claiming their land. Being out on the streets,
these people have little staying power; they would soon succumb to
pressures from land sharks.
  This game plan has already started yielding results. Twenty families
have already sold their papers. Would it be wrong to presume that this
would be impossible without the active connivance of the officials and
the politicians?

Huge funds are spent for developing an area after people are evicted
from it. It is another matter that the alternative site is often in
appalling condition, without even the rudimentary civic amenities.

The alternative plot size allotted to a family of slum-dwellers has
fallen over the years. It fails to measure up to the most rudimentary
parameters for a decent existence.

To cut a long story short, there is huge money to be made for
politicians, in connivance with contractors, in jhuggi demolition.

In contrast, in the case of upper and middle income areas, there is
money in perpetuating unauthorised and illegal constructions. There is
money to be paid to construct illegal structures.

Money has to be paid on a regular basis for continuing those
illegalities. Politicians themselves own unauthorised structures, often
in the form of huge commercial establishments, in violation of all norms
and laws.

Shopkeepers, who are affected by recent demolitions, are those who
regularly and generously contribute to the coffers of political parties.
It is to protect these financial interests that the politicians are up
in arms.

Our democracy has degenerated into a play for money, ignoring the voice
of the majority. The name of the game is clear: Money is to be made
everywhere in the name of politics by rendering the poor homeless on the
one hand and milking the cow of illegal constructions on the other.

Citizens should make use of the recently-enacted Right to Information
Act, in order to put the following information in public domain.

Who were issued plots after jhuggi demolitions in the last few years?
Among them, how many were politically promoted land sharks and not the
displaced people? Which are the illegal and unauthorised structures in
middle-class Delhi and in how many of them do the politicians have
direct or indirect financial interests?

Such information would expose the ugly politics of demolitions. Arvind
Kejriwal is a right to information activist working with Parivartan.

Amit Bhaduri is a professor of economics at Pavia University, Italy.

_____


[6]

The Telegraph
December 29, 2005

LOVE-MARRIAGE SCOURGE LABEL ON RIOT ACCUSED
by Chandrima S. Bhattacharya

Mumbai, Dec. 28: At parents’ bidding, girls are being kidnapped, abused
and forced to remarry for “straying” from their community. Not in any
remote village, but in the heart of Mumbai, according to a petition.

Last Thursday, Bombay High Court issued notices to the parents of four
girls from the Gujarati Patel community, who had secretly married
outside their community.

Soon after marriage, the parents allegedly arranged for the girls to be
forcibly taken to the Naroda locality in Ahmedabad, where they live in
an environment of physical and mental abuse, till they promise to marry
a Patel.

The man behind this is allegedly the mastermind behind the Naroda-Patiya
massacre during the Gujarat riots — Babu Bajrangi. Eighty-three people
were killed in Naroda.

Bajrangi and his organisation, Navchetan Sangathan, have taken it on
themselves to protect the “honour” of their community, for a fee.

Early this month, four young men — two from Ghatkopar in central Mumbai
— moved a petition in the high court, alleging their wives, all from the
Patel community, were kidnapped by Bajrangi’s men and taken forcibly to
Ahmedabad.

They said Bajrangi, a Patel who spearheads a movement to keep his
community pure by not letting girls marry into another caste or
community, charges parents lakhs to take their daughters “into his care”.

The court has also sent notices to police forces in Gujarat and
Maharashtra, to whom the men have repeatedly turned to. Responses have
to be filed by January 23.

Freelance graphic designer Ajay Nikam, a Maharashtrian, was in love with
his neighbour Geeta, a Patel. They lived in Ghatkopar. They knew the
opposition they would face from her family and married in secret in
November 2003. They stayed in their respective homes for a few months,
but then she ran away and came to live with him. Then their nightmare began.

Ajay said on November 30, 2004, Geeta’s mother called her home for a
visit to the doctor, but she did not come back. “That night she was
directly taken to Ahmedabad,” he said.

As he looked for her everywhere, he started to get calls from Ahmedabad.

He realised she was trying to call him. Ajay traced the number to an STD
booth and found out the address. It was a Naroda locality. He went there
and found that the entire locality was under the “protection” of Bajrangi.

He also found out that Geeta, along with several other girls, were being
detained at BF 6, Bhagyodaya Society, behind Krishna Talkies.

As he wandered in the area, he was picked up by Bajrangi himself. He was
beaten up and forced to sign papers consenting to a divorce. He came
back to Mumbai and for a year ran from police to court. But there was no
ray of hope.

He met his wife briefly when Mumbai police presented her in a court
here. “She lives with about 10 other girls in the Naroda house and all
are tortured severely,” Ajay said.

“I have written to the police commissioner, the chief justice and the
home secretary in Gujarat, naming Bajrangi, but there has been no
response. “I have been told that Bajrangi has ‘rescued’ 560 other Patel
girls before and I am the 561st case.”

The story of 22-year-old Raju Medige, Ajay’s friend from Ghatkopar, is
eerily similar. So are those of Abhijit Sonavane from Pune and Prashant
Samudre from Sangli, who joined hands when they heard Ajay and Raju had
sought Teesta Setalvad’s help. The activist has taken up the case on
behalf of the NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace.
	  	
____


[7]

counterpunch.org
December 28, 2005

LESSONS ON TERROR LAWS IN INJUN COUNTRY
OPERATION ROMEO

By Lila Rajiva

Young men and women in a public park in the North Indian city of Meerut
were slapped, and punched by the police on the 19th of December on the
grounds that they were having 'illicit affairs' though it's not clear
how different things would have been had they been licit. In any case,
in Uttar Pradesh state (UP), where Meerut is located, students burned
effigies of the policemen and even Parliament blustered through enough
of a condemnation for the Meerut police chief to order the suspension of
two officers. Ironically, they were female. Lynndie England, in jail for
much less, would have been envious.


Meerut Masala and Domestic Repression:

Meerut police first claimed it was only a part of "Operation Majnu
(Romeo)," a drive to 'cleanse' public spaces of lewd behavior, often
undertaken at the instigation of parents of young women. On paper, it's
to reduce sexual harassment. But TV pictures of police beating the
couples blew that pretext apart. (1)

Prowling after amorous couples in a park turns out to be less about
protecting women from "eve-teasing" (the Indian euphemism for sexual
harassment) as it is about policing the boundaries of India's still
deep-rooted caste-system, boundaries threatened by "love-marriages"
between upper and lower caste partners and the pre-marital canoodling
which presumably wets the slippery slope to the declasse unions.

India has consistently refused to see caste as racial discrimination,
with some sophistry, since in India caste operates much in the way race
does elsewhere. Lower caste is classed with black and black is seen as
inferior and/or forbidden. If it were not, the 1991 film Mississippi
Masala, a portrait of the love affair between an African-American man
and an Indian woman, would not have had the purchase it did.

The Meerut case is actually only a pallid sample of the violence,
usually far more blood-soaked, in which sexuality and caste have become
inseparably entangled in many parts of India. And UP trounces the rest
of India in such violence. It accounts for more than half the rapes of
dalit women in the country, dalit being the self-description of
so-called 'untouchables,' the lowest social group defined by the caste
system. In 2000 alone there were more than 400 dalit rapes. (2)

But many more rapes are not even filed as cases because the government
itself cuts a prominent and malevolent figure in the whole sordid business.

And that's what the Meerut row is really about. The state either closes
its eyes to 'social crimes' or uses them as a pretext to dole out
'frontier justice' to selected targets, using morality and culture to
repress the weakest groups at home.

Which is why lawless policing, already endemic in UP, took a sharp turn
for the worse when the fundamentalist BJP government came to power there
in 2001 and whipped up popular hysteria over cultural contamination. A
Lucknow-based human rights activist estimates that more than six
extra-judicial executions occur every day in UP, while in 2000-2001, the
state topped the list of false "encounter" deaths with 68 out of the 109
reported nation-wide. (3)

"Encounter" is the gauzy term used by police to soften the reality of
violent confrontations with citizens and suggest provocation or
resistance by the victims. But the truth is that many "encounters" are
simply fabricated by the police to conceal their crimes. One justice
calls the UP police the 'biggest organized gang of criminals.'(4)

But such abuses as Operation Romeo or the surge in extra-judicial
"encounters" in UP are not simply the outcome of rogue cops running amok
or of rampant government corruption or of grossly inadequate numbers of
judges. There's a far more potent cause.

And that is India's terror legislation. In theory, terror laws are meant
to defend against secessionists and jihadists; in practice, they're
brandished like a bludgeon against the civilian population.

The warning to America could not be clearer. UP police abuse, and yes,
torture, appear to stem directly from laws which have massively
strengthened the hands of state police and administrative officials,
laws like the National Security Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act
(POTA). POTA, India's Patriot Act, was hustled through by the BJP
government during the hubbub over an attempt to bomb India's parliament.
And though repealed in name, its provisions still operate under cover of
a revamped old law.

Americans inclined to swallow government propaganda that the Patriot Act
is either effective in fighting foreign terrorism or unlikely to cause
wide-spread domestic repression need to look hard at India's experience
with POTA and its copycats and consider whether they like what they see.

Frontier Justice in India:

As in America, the rhetoric that led to India's terror laws was the
rhetoric of the untamed frontier. The population was warned of rebels
springing up from the soil like dragon's teeth, of the state splintering
on the reefs of secession, of civil war tearing apart the glittering
fabric of the republic.

In America, neo-conservative practitioners of this rhetoric are
apparently quite prepared to find the untamed frontier whole oceans and
continents away from the American border; in fact, anywhere they say it
is. According to Robert Kaplan, the swathe of Islam stretching from
Africa through the Middle East to South East Asia is all "Injun Country"
wide open for America's cowboys to tame and settle.(5)

In India, on the other hand, frontier rhetoric actually does have a firm
footing in reality-based geography. In India, every corner of the
peninsula has literally been ravaged by terrorism - in the north, Muslim
terrorists and Kashmiri secessionists; in the south, the Tamil Tigers;
in the west, Punjabi secessionists; in the north-east, Naga rebels; in
parts of the center, Maoist insurgents. More than 60,000 people have
been killed in Kashmir alone in the last ten years or so, several times
the numbers killed in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. And of course that accounts
for only one decade out of the five since independence and ignores the
other areas of conflict.

So at first glance it seems as though if any country had a reason to
invoke the frontier justice of terror laws it would be India.

But in fact, the case is precisely the opposite. India's experience
overwhelmingly confirms the failure of special legislation that violates
the constitution to tackle problems which are inherently political and
economic. Long before POTA, security laws like the Armed Forces Special
Powers Act (AFSPA) were in place in a large part of the North-East for
decades and far from having quenched terrorism, have fanned it into a
raging fire.

Furthermore, even though POTA was repealed, the revamped 1967 act which
replaced it has several provisions that remain just as they were under
POTA.. The government can still designate organizations as "unlawful"
with only a nominal judicial review. It can still make speaking in
support of a terrorist organization the equivalent of supporting
terrorism. And the revamped law does not even allow for POTA's limited
safeguards on the interception of telephone calls and electronic
communication. Shades of the Bush spy-machine.

Any wonder that the UP police believe that they have carte blanche to
rough up the populace on the slightest pretext? The wonder is that they
don't do worse.

What the Indian experience demonstrates with Greek symmetry is that
frontier justice crafted against bad guys unfailingly ends by targeting
fall guys.

POTA:

     "'It is usually after midnight that there is violent knocking on
your door. Before you realize it, 20-30 policemen storm into your house,
hurling abuses, kicking and beating even women and children, smashing
furniture, ransacking papers.' (6)

Iraq under American occupation? No. Gujarat under POTA in 2002.

In Gujarat, after the massacre of about 2000 Muslims and the gang-rapes
of scores of Muslim women in retaliation for the burning of a train
carrying Hindu activists in which a few dozen people died, POTA was used
to arrest 287 people. 286 were Muslim.

Even a South Indian politician, Vaiko, who voted for POTA recanted after
he ended up jailed under it for 19-months. "I deserve the [sic] jail for
voting for POTA," he admitted. (7)

AFSPA:

Under the AFSPA, created in 1958, the army can shoot to kill for
offenses, or suspected offenses, against laws prohibiting five or more
people from gathering in an assembly and the carrying of weapons.

Neither 'assembly' nor 'weapon' is specifically defined, so the army
could technically be within its rights shooting to kill a family or
someone armed with no more than a stick. And that's exactly the history
of AFSPA.

In just one of scores of incidents, in 1995 in Kohima, capital of the
north-eastern state of Nagaland, army forces mistook a tire bursting in
their own convoy for a bomb attack and began firing indiscriminately.
After more than an hour of random gunfire, seven civilians, including
two girls 31/2 and 8 years old, were dead and 22 were seriously injured.(8)

And only last year in July, Thangjam Manorama, a young woman from
Manipur, was raped and killed by members of a paramilitary force. Only
after her killing provoked an unparalleled civil disobedience movement
that extended to self-immolation, fasting and nude protests did the
Manipur state government withdrew AFSPA from parts of the state capital. (9)

In June this year, Amnesty International began a campaign to repeal the
AFSPA completely, something human rights activists have been demanding
for years.

But with the government board reviewing AFSPA packed with army
officials, a genuine repeal is not a sure thing.

The UP Goondas Act:

Last week's Meerut affair is birthed from the same rough-neck tactics,
only in UP the extra-constitutional laws are directed not at foreign
terrorists but at local criminals. One such law is the Control of
Goondas (thugs) Act.

And how are goondas controlled?

In Meerut again this past year, police dragged Rajeev Sharma out of bed
without a warrant on suspicion of burglarizing a merchant. It was for
routine questioning but Sharma's brother claims the questioning left the
28-year-old electrician unable to walk and bleeding from the mouth.
Later, he was reported to have committed suicide. The death provoked two
days of rioting so severe that arrest warrants were issued for the
merchant and the six officers involved but though the merchant is now in
jail, the officers are no where to be found.

And what sort of questioning might Rajeev Sharma have faced? A senior
police officer in Meerut points to a two-foot-long rubber belt with a
wooden handle. "We call this thing samaj sudharak (social reformer).
When we hit with this, there are no fractures, no blood, no major
peeling of the skin. It is safe for us, as nothing shows up in the
postmortem report." (10)

The Sharma story is typical. UP terror laws only end up terrorizing the
poor, lower castes, tribals, and political or personal enemies.

Or young people in a park doing what young people have always done.

And for all of that, what have any of these states to show?

UP remains a by-word in India for criminality of all kinds.

The Naga problem has not been solved despite 45 years of the AFSPA.

In Manipal where there were only 4 armed opposition groups when the
AFSPA was introduced in 1980, there are over two dozen today.

Says Chandramani Singh, the former deputy chief minister of Manipal, a
man who ought to know, "The solution to the problem lies in holding
unconditional talks with the insurgent outfits instead of trying to find
a military solution and allowing the armed forces to let loose a reign
of terror in the name of counter-insurgency operations." (11)

American cowboys might listen up to this Indian.

Lila Rajiva is a free-lance journalist and author of "The Language of
Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American media," (Monthly Review Press). She
can be reached at: lrajiva AT hotmail.com

NOTES:

(1) "Policewomen slap dating couples," BBC, December 21, 2005.

(2) "Growing atrocities against dalits in Uttar Pradesh," Subhashini
Ali, People's Union for Civil Liberties Bulletin, September 2001.

(3) Human Rights Features, http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/hrfeatures/HRF82.htm

(4) PUCL Bulletin, February 2002, Human Rights Record of Uttar Pradesh,
November & December 2001.

(5) In "Imperial Grunts: The American Military On the Ground," Robert D.
Kaplan, Random House, September 2005.

(6) "Pota & its Phantom Limbs," Harsh Mander, Hindastan Times.com,
September 24, 2004

(7) "Reporter's Diary," Farwa Imam Ali, The Week, March 21, 2004.

(8) South Asia Human Rights Documentation: AFSPA - a study in National
Security tyranny, http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/resources/armed_forces.htm.

(9) "Manipur's protest," Sushanta Talukdar, Frontline, August 14-17, 2004.

(10) "In India, Torture by Police Is Frequent and Often Deadly," Rama
Lakshmi, Washington Post, August 5, 2004, p. A11.

(11) Talukdar, Frontline, August 14-17, 2004.


____


[8]

Hindustan Times (New Delhi)
December 29, 2005

CIVIL LIBERTY, AT WHAT PRICE?

by Renuka Narayanan
			
Yesterday, The Kashmir Times reported that the J&K police had launched
an ‘Op Majnu’ in Reasi, a small town in Udhampur district, about 50 km
from Vaishno Devi. SHO Daljit Singh raided a hotel at 10.30 p.m. Monday
night and flushed out two couples, of which one was married and the
other affianced. The police contacted their families and told the press.

The fraught question now facing lawmakers and civil society in India
after Meerut's infamous Operation Majnu is what price, civil liberty? In
this ugly moment of introspection about what it means to be Indian,
moral policing appears no more than a pathetic cover-up by India's
police of its failure to fight real crime. But civil society and media
are also squarely to blame, for finding young lovers a salacious subject
of gossip and coverage. Going by the evidence, the police could not
threaten couples in public if the fear of media exposure and the
consequent fear of condemnation by society did not make couples
vulnerable to police duress.

The perils of living and loving in young India take a peculiar cultural
twist in our northernmost state, Jammu and Kashmir. According to sources
in the state, the police set up pickets and send constables to nab all
young couples sitting together, no matter how chastely, in Srinagar's
Mughal Gardens. Only middle-middle and lower middle class local couples
are targeted, not tourists, because in any city only such locals can be
so blackmailed. And rich couples don't need parks for togetherness.

The young couples so targeted are asked to produce nikahnamas to prove
they are married. Curiously, the police in Kashmir have not registered a
single case against such couples, say indignant locals. Instead, at both
Shalimar and Nishat gardens, there are touts planted who offer to sell
nikahnamas for the small consideration of Rs 500, of which the police
apparently get a substantial cut. If couples demur, they are threatened
with media exposure, in blatant violation of civil rights: even
pickpockets and commercial sex workers are allowed to veil their faces
from publicity, but not India's young. Say Kashmiris, the police even
regularly raid hotels in Gulmarg and demand nikahnamas of local couples.
When people took this up with the Inspector General of Police, say
sources, he reportedly justified the police action in the name of
‘Kashmiri culture’. (Just as Khushboo is supposed to have gone against
‘Tamil culture’.)

Couples in Kashmir, especially girls, are painfully aware of what befell
Anara Gupta who didn't yield to the police baton of morality. It may be
recalled that according to the Jammu moral police, Gupta, who was ‘Miss
Jammu’ in 2004 had acted in pornographic videos but was exonerated by
the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad. It was the police
who leaked the story to the media, which promptly blew it up. In the
furore, Anara became the most important ‘criminal’ nabbed in 2004 by the
Jammu Police — a force that allowed Kaka Hussain, the jailed JKLF
commander, to run away while being taken to court under police escort
from a Jammu jail. Small wonder that Meerut's police and now J&K's, felt
empowered to conduct Operation Majnu with impunity.


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

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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