SACW | 29-30 Apr 2006 | religious identity isn't destiny ; Sri Lanka on the brink of war; Nepal headed for secular republic; Kashmir Round Table gimmick

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 29-30 April, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2244

[1]  What Clash of Civilizations? Why religious 
identity isn't destiny (Amartya Sen)
[2]  Sri Lanka at a crossroads (Jehan Perera)
[3]  Nepal: People's revolution for a secular republic
   (i) Parliament reconvenes in Nepal (Siddharth Varadarajan)
   (ii) Triumph of the popular will (Praful Bidwai)
   (iii) Slips between the cup and the lip (M.B. Naqvi)
[4]  Kashmir: Roundtable Conference Obsession (Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal)
[5]  Candle Light Vigil in solidarity with 
people's struggles (New Delhi, April 30th)

____

[1]

www.slate.com/
March 29, 2006

WHAT CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS?
WHY RELIGIOUS IDENTITY ISN'T DESTINY
By Amartya Sen


Identity and Violence by Amartya Sen
This essay is adapted from the new book Identity 
and Violence, published by Norton.

That some barbed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed 
could generate turmoil in so many countries tells 
us some rather important things about the 
contemporary world. Among other issues, it points 
up the intense sensitivity of many Muslims about 
representation and derision of the prophet in the 
Western press (and the ridiculing of Muslim 
religious beliefs that is taken to go with it) 
and the evident power of determined agitators to 
generate the kind of anger that leads immediately 
to violence. But stereotyped representations of 
this kind do another sort of damage as well, by 
making huge groups of people in the world to look 
peculiarly narrow and unreal.

The portrayal of the prophet with a bomb in the 
form of a hat is obviously a figment of 
imagination and cannot be judged literally, and 
the relevance of that representation cannot be 
dissociated from the way the followers of the 
prophet may be seen. What we ought to take very 
seriously is the way Islamic identity, in this 
sort of depiction, is assumed to drown, if only 
implicitly, all other affiliations, priorities, 
and pursuits that a Muslim person may have. A 
person belongs to many different groups, of which 
a religious affiliation is only one. To see, for 
example, a mathematician who happens to be a 
Muslim by religion mainly in terms of Islamic 
identity would be to hide more than it reveals. 
Even today, when a modern mathematician at, say, 
MIT or Princeton invokes an "algorithm" to solve 
a difficult computational problem, he or she 
helps to commemorate the contributions of the 
ninth-century Muslim mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, 
from whose name the term algorithm is derived 
(the term "algebra" comes from the title of his 
Arabic mathematical treatise "Al Jabr 
wa-al-Muqabilah"). To concentrate only on 
Al-Khwarizmi's Islamic identity over his identity 
as a mathematician would be extremely misleading, 
and yet he clearly was also a Muslim. Similarly, 
to give an automatic priority to the Islamic 
identity of a Muslim person in order to 
understand his or her role in the civil society, 
or in the literary world, or in creative work in 
arts and science, can result in profound 
misunderstanding.

Continue Article

The increasing tendency to overlook the many 
identities that any human being has and to try to 
classify individuals according to a single 
allegedly pre-eminent religious identity is an 
intellectual confusion that can animate dangerous 
divisiveness. An Islamist instigator of violence 
against infidels may want Muslims to forget that 
they have any identity other than being Islamic. 
What is surprising is that those who would like 
to quell that violence promote, in effect, the 
same intellectual disorientation by seeing 
Muslims primarily as members of an Islamic world. 
The world is made much more incendiary by the 
advocacy and popularity of single-dimensional 
categorization of human beings, which combines 
haziness of vision with increased scope for the 
exploitation of that haze by the champions of 
violence.

A remarkable use of imagined singularity can be 
found in Samuel Huntington's influential 1998 
book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking 
of the World Order. The difficulty with 
Huntington's approach begins with his system of 
unique categorization, well before the issue of a 
clash-or not-is even raised. Indeed, the thesis 
of a civilizational clash is conceptually 
parasitic on the commanding power of a unique 
categorization along so-called civilizational 
lines, which closely follow religious divisions 
to which singular attention is paid. Huntington 
contrasts Western civilization with "Islamic 
civilization," "Hindu civilization," "Buddhist 
civilization," and so on. The alleged 
confrontations of religious differences are 
incorporated into a sharply carpentered vision of 
hardened divisiveness.

In fact, of course, the people of the world can 
be classified according to many other partitions, 
each of which has some-often 
far-reaching-relevance in our lives: 
nationalities, locations, classes, occupations, 
social status, languages, politics, and many 
others. While religious categories have received 
much airing in recent years, they cannot be 
presumed to obliterate other distinctions, and 
even less can they be seen as the only relevant 
system of classifying people across the globe. In 
partitioning the population of the world into 
those belonging to "the Islamic world," "the 
Western world," "the Hindu world," "the Buddhist 
world," the divisive power of classificatory 
priority is implicitly used to place people 
firmly inside a unique set of rigid boxes. Other 
divisions (say, between the rich and the poor, 
between members of different classes and 
occupations, between people of different 
politics, between distinct nationalities and 
residential locations, between language groups, 
etc.) are all submerged by this allegedly primal 
way of seeing the differences between people.

The difficulty with the clash of civilizations 
thesis begins with the presumption of the unique 
relevance of a singular classification. Indeed, 
the question "Do civilizations clash?" is founded 
on the presumption that humanity can be 
pre-eminently classified into distinct and 
discrete civilizations, and that the relations 
between different human beings can somehow be 
seen, without serious loss of understanding, in 
terms of relations between different 
civilizations.

This reductionist view is typically combined, I 
am afraid, with a rather foggy perception of 
world history that overlooks, first, the extent 
of internal diversities within these 
civilizational categories, and second, the reach 
and influence of interactions-intellectual as 
well as material-that go right across the 
regional borders of so-called civilizations. And 
its power to befuddle can trap not only those who 
would like to support the thesis of a clash 
(varying from Western chauvinists to Islamic 
fundamentalists), but also those who would like 
to dispute it and yet try to respond within the 
straitjacket of its prespecified terms of 
reference.

The limitations of such civilization-based 
thinking can prove just as treacherous for 
programs of "dialogue among civilizations" (much 
in vogue these days) as they are for theories of 
a clash of civilizations. The noble and elevating 
search for amity among people seen as amity 
between civilizations speedily reduces many-sided 
human beings to one dimension each and muzzles 
the variety of involvements that have provided 
rich and diverse grounds for cross-border 
interactions over many centuries, including the 
arts, literature, science, mathematics, games, 
trade, politics, and other arenas of shared human 
interest. Well-meaning attempts at pursuing 
global peace can have very counterproductive 
consequences when these attempts are founded on a 
fundamentally illusory understanding of the world 
of human beings.

Increasing reliance on religion-based 
classification of the people of the world also 
tends to make the Western response to global 
terrorism and conflict peculiarly ham-handed. 
Respect for "other people" is shown by praising 
their religious books, rather than by taking note 
of the many-sided involvements and achievements, 
in nonreligious as well as religious fields, of 
different people in a globally interactive world. 
In confronting what is called "Islamic terrorism" 
in the muddled vocabulary of contemporary global 
politics, the intellectual force of Western 
policy is aimed quite substantially at trying to 
define-or redefine-Islam.

To focus just on the grand religious 
classification is not only to miss other 
significant concerns and ideas that move people. 
It also has the effect of generally magnifying 
the voice of religious authority. The Muslim 
clerics, for example, are then treated as the ex 
officio spokesmen for the so-called Islamic 
world, even though a great many people who happen 
to be Muslim by religion have profound 
differences with what is proposed by one mullah 
or another. Despite our diverse diversities, the 
world is suddenly seen not as a collection of 
people, but as a federation of religions and 
civilizations. In Britain, a confounded view of 
what a multiethnic society must do has led to 
encouraging the development of state-financed 
Muslim schools, Hindu schools, Sikh schools, 
etc., to supplement pre-existing state-supported 
Christian schools. Under this system, young 
children are placed in the domain of singular 
affiliations well before they have the ability to 
reason about different systems of identification 
that may compete for their attention. Earlier on, 
state-run denominational schools in Northern 
Ireland had fed the political distancing of 
Catholics and Protestants along one line of 
divisive categorization assigned at infancy. Now 
the same predetermination of "discovered" 
identities is now being allowed and, in effect 
encouraged, to sow even more alienation among a 
different part of the British population.

Religious or civilizational classification can be 
a source of belligerent distortion as well. It 
can, for example, take the form of crude beliefs 
well exemplified by U.S. Lt. Gen. William 
Boykin's blaring-and by now well-known-remark 
describing his battle against Muslims with 
disarming coarseness: "I knew that my God was 
bigger than his," and that the Christian God "was 
a real God, and [the Muslim's] was an idol." The 
idiocy of such bigotry is easy to diagnose, so 
there is comparatively limited danger in the 
uncouth hurling of such unguided missiles. There 
is, in contrast, a much more serious problem in 
the use in Western public policy of intellectual 
"guided missiles" that present a superficially 
nobler vision to woo Muslim activists away from 
opposition through the apparently benign strategy 
of defining Islam appropriately. They try to 
wrench Islamic terrorists from violence by 
insisting that Islam is a religion of peace, and 
that a "true Muslim" must be a tolerant 
individual ("so come off it and be peaceful"). 
The rejection of a confrontational view of Islam 
is certainly appropriate and extremely important 
at this time, but we must ask whether it is 
necessary or useful, or even possible, to try to 
define in largely political terms what a "true 
Muslim" must be like.

******

A person's religion need not be his or her 
all-encompassing and exclusive identity. Islam, 
as a religion, does not obliterate responsible 
choice for Muslims in many spheres of life. 
Indeed, it is possible for one Muslim to take a 
confrontational view and another to be thoroughly 
tolerant of heterodoxy without either of them 
ceasing to be a Muslim for that reason alone.

The response to Islamic fundamentalism and to the 
terrorism linked with it also becomes 
particularly confused when there is a general 
failure to distinguish between Islamic history 
and the history of Muslim people. Muslims, like 
all other people in the world, have many 
different pursuits, and not all their priorities 
and values need be placed within their singular 
identity of being Islamic. It is, of course, not 
surprising at all that the champions of Islamic 
fundamentalism would like to suppress all other 
identities of Muslims in favor of being only 
Islamic. But it is extremely odd that those who 
want to overcome the tensions and conflicts 
linked with Islamic fundamentalism also seem 
unable to see Muslim people in any form other 
than their being just Islamic.

People see themselves-and have reason to see 
themselves-in many different ways. For example, a 
Bangladeshi Muslim is not only a Muslim but also 
a Bengali and a Bangladeshi, typically quite 
proud of the Bengali language, literature, and 
music, not to mention the other identities he or 
she may have connected with class, gender, 
occupation, politics, aesthetic taste, and so on. 
Bangladesh's separation from Pakistan was not 
based on religion at all, since a Muslim identity 
was shared by the bulk of the population in the 
two wings of undivided Pakistan. The separatist 
issues related to language, literature, and 
politics.

Similarly, there is no empirical reason at all 
why champions of the Muslim past, or for that 
matter of the Arab heritage, have to concentrate 
specifically on religious beliefs only and not 
also on science and mathematics, to which Arab 
and Muslim societies have contributed so much, 
and which can also be part of a Muslim or an Arab 
identity. Despite the importance of this 
heritage, crude classifications have tended to 
put science and mathematics in the basket of 
"Western science," leaving other people to mine 
their pride in religious depths. If the 
disaffected Arab activist today can take pride 
only in the purity of Islam, rather than in the 
many-sided richness of Arab history, the unique 
prioritization of religion, shared by warriors on 
both sides, plays a major part in incarcerating 
people within the enclosure of a singular 
identity.

Even the frantic Western search for "the moderate 
Muslim" confounds moderation in political beliefs 
with moderateness of religious faith. A person 
can have strong religious faith-Islamic or any 
other-along with tolerant politics. Emperor 
Saladin, who fought valiantly for Islam in the 
Crusades in the 12th century, could offer, 
without any contradiction, an honored place in 
his Egyptian royal court to Maimonides as that 
distinguished Jewish philosopher fled an 
intolerant Europe. When, at the turn of the 16th 
century, the heretic Giordano Bruno was burned at 
the stake in Campo dei Fiori in Rome, the Great 
Mughal emperor Akbar (who was born a Muslim and 
died a Muslim) had just finished, in Agra, his 
large project of legally codifying minority 
rights, including religious freedom for all.

The point that needs particular attention is that 
while Akbar was free to pursue his liberal 
politics without ceasing to be a Muslim, that 
liberality was in no way ordained-nor of course 
prohibited-by Islam. Another Mughal emperor, 
Aurangzeb, could deny minority rights and 
persecute non-Muslims without, for that reason, 
failing to be a Muslim, in exactly the same way 
that Akbar did not terminate being a Muslim 
because of his tolerantly pluralist politics.

The insistence, if only implicitly, on a 
choiceless singularity of human identity not only 
diminishes us all, it also makes the world much 
more flammable. The alternative to the 
divisiveness of one pre-eminent categorization is 
not any unreal claim that we are all much the 
same. Rather, the main hope of harmony in our 
troubled world lies in the plurality of our 
identities, which cut across each other and work 
against sharp divisions around one single 
hardened line of vehement division that allegedly 
cannot be resisted. Our shared humanity gets 
savagely challenged when our differences are 
narrowed into one devised system of uniquely 
powerful categorization.

Perhaps the worst impairment comes from the 
neglect-and denial-of the roles of reasoning and 
choice, which follow from the recognition of our 
plural identities. The illusion of unique 
identity is much more divisive than the universe 
of plural and diverse classifications that 
characterize the world in which we actually live. 
The descriptive weakness of choiceless 
singularity has the effect of momentously 
impoverishing the power and reach of our social 
and political reasoning. The illusion of destiny 
exacts a remarkably heavy price.

Amartya Sen is the Lamont University Professor at 
Harvard and the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in 
Economics. Adapted from Identity and Violence: 
The Illusion of Destiny, by Amartya Sen. 
Copyright 2006 by Amartya Sen. With permission of 
the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


____


[2]

New Age
April 28 2006

SRI LANKA AT A CROSSROADS
The ceasefire still holds in a technical sense. 
But escalating acts of war make it akin to a dead 
letter. The likely scenario at the present time 
is a period of war before a new Ceasefire 
Agreement or new peace process can be obtained, 
writes Jehan Perera

The suicide bomb attack at the army headquarters 
in Colombo is the latest in a series of major 
blows to the peace process. This attack seriously 
injured the army commander, General Sarath 
Fonseka, killed 10 and injured 28 others. It has 
also expanded the theatre of hostilities to 
Colombo. The National Peace Council condemns this 
suspected LTTE attack. It is especially 
deplorable as it comes at a time when the 
Norwegian facilitators were making a special 
effort to bring the government and LTTE back to 
the negotiating table.
    The ceasefire still holds in a technical 
sense. But escalating acts of war make it akin to 
a dead letter. It is reported that Sri Lankan 
airforce and naval craft have been bombarding 
LTTE-held areas in the east in the aftermath of 
the assassination attempt on the army commander. 
Many civilians have been killed and thousands are 
fleeing those areas as a result and are becoming 
refugees.
    The peace process, as it has evolved since 
2002, is near its terminus point. The end stage 
began during the Presidential election of 2005. 
During the election campaign, President Mahinda 
Rajapakse and his nationalist allies sought to 
distance themselves from the fundamentals of the 
existing peace process. They spoke about getting 
rid of the Norwegian facilitators and about a new 
ceasefire agreement that would replace the 
existing one. Upon winning the presidency, 
however, the government adopted a more reasonable 
approach to the peace process. But it is evident 
that the change of heart is not complete.
    The inability of the Norwegian special envoy 
to the peace process, Jon Hanssen Bauer, to 
obtain a second meeting with the LTTE's political 
wing leader, S P Tamilselvan, was the latest blow 
to the peace process. Hanssen Bauer had taken a 
revised proposal of the government for the 
consideration of the LTTE. The LTTE's snub was 
perhaps more directed to the government than to 
the Norwegian special envoy. However, his 
inability to meet with either President Mahinda 
Rajapakse or with LTTE leader Velupillai 
Pirapaharan was an even worse setback. It 
demonstrates a lack of commitment on the part of 
these two leaders to do everything in their power 
to avert a human and national catastrophe.
    While the top leaders of the government and 
LTTE strived to show that they were above the 
fray, at the ground level an unsustainable 
situation has arisen. There are multiple 
incidents of violence being reported from the 
north-east that could soon lead to full-scale 
fighting. Most of those who are dying are 
government soldiers who are being ambushed on a 
regular basis. The latest development is the 
killing of Sinhalese civilians. The justification 
that the LTTE would be seeking to give is that 
any retaliation against Tamil civilians will be 
met with their own reprisal killings. There have 
been incidents of mob violence and military 
retaliation against Tamil civilians after LTTE 
attacks against the Sri Lankan military and home 
guards.
    Looming large in the disaster that is 
befalling the country is one of the LTTE's former 
commanders, Colonel Karuna Amman. Only now are 
the fearful repercussions of the great split that 
occurred within the LTTE in March 2004 becoming 
apparent. When the split occurred it seemed to 
herald a major weakening of the LTTE. Karuna 
challenged the two most important claims of the 
LTTE, that it was the sole representative of the 
Tamil people, and that the north and east were 
one. Claiming that he had 6000 cadre backing him, 
Karuna claimed the east for his group. At that 
time there were scenes of open public support for 
Karuna in the east.
   
    Karuna's revival
    In the months that followed, however, the 
eastern rebellion seemed to fade away and the 
LTTE seemed to have re-established the status 
quo. The LTTE warned the government that the 
Karuna split was an internal one that they would 
deal with and they would brook no interference. 
The breakaway Karuna group sought to invoke the 
safeguards of the Ceasefire Agreement to preserve 
themselves and be an entity separate from the 
LTTE. But neither the government nor Norwegian 
facilitators stepped into to secure a negotiated 
settlement between the LTTE and its rebel faction 
in terms of the Ceasefire Agreement. An LTTE 
military attack outside of the limits established 
by the Ceasefire Agreement saw top Karuna cadres 
killed, in the east and in safe houses in Colombo.
    But throughout the past two years the Karuna 
group has been active in the east, and now it is 
said to be strong as well. Independent sources 
report that hundreds of Karuna cadres are present 
in the Batticaloa district and a few hundred are 
also present in the Trincomalee district. The 
LTTE's dilemma is that the longer they wait, tbe 
stronger the Karuna group is likely to get, both 
militarily and politically. Earlier this month 
they opened a political office in Batticaloa. The 
LTTE's interest would be to eliminate the Karuna 
group as a military and political force as soon 
as possible. Unlike in April 2004, however, it is 
not possible for the LTTE to launch a military 
offensive against the Karuna group. They are no 
longer protecting territory as they are in the 
government-controlled areas and operate as a 
guerrilla force from there.
    Therefore, for the LTTE to eliminate the 
Karuna group they need to get the government to 
perform this task. Or else they need to get the 
Ceasefire Agreement abrogated so that they can 
engage in hot pursuit within 
government-controlled areas. At the first round 
of Geneva talks in February, the LTTE made no 
secret that their sole concern was to have the 
government disarm and eliminate the Karuna group. 
But unfortunately, the discussions on the Karuna 
group at the Geneva talks were not based on truth 
but on falsehood. The LTTE insisted that the 
government was providing assistance to the Karuna 
group, which the government denied.
   
    Acknowledge truth
    Tragically, there is a growing impression that 
those at the highest levels of the government are 
preparing themselves for an inevitable war. 
Certainly the LTTE is giving them every reason 
for resorting to war. But the sufferings of war 
will be immense to the people who will be its 
first victims. Even now it is the poor villagers 
of the north-east who are suffering the brunt of 
the undeclared war that is expanding its 
tentacles. The moment that large numbers of 
people become the victims of war, they will 
withdraw their support to the leaders who led 
them into war. Obviously the government will be 
more vulnerable on this score as it has to face 
elections sooner or later, unlike the LTTE.
    A wise political leadership would do 
everything in its power to avoid a war, whether 
it takes the form of a high intensity or low 
intensity war. This does not mean destroying the 
Karuna group or acceding to the LTTE's agenda. 
The break-up of the LTTE in March 2004 and the 
existence of an eastern Tamil identity are 
realities that the government has no reason to 
try and reverse. So far the LTTE has sought to 
ignore the existence of the Karuna group as an 
autonomous entity, and instead refers to them as 
paramilitaries who are creatures of the Sri 
Lankan military. But the LTTE cannot reasonably 
expect the government to join it in suppressing 
this eastern Tamil identity and the group that 
stands for it, merely because this is 
disadvantageous to the LTTE and to its cause.
    On the other hand, the government needs to 
stop denying its relationship with the Karuna 
group.
    The international monitors and other 
independent observers have pointed to the 
existence of Karuna group camps in 
government-controlled areas. They have also seen 
Karuna cadre in uniform and with arms in close 
proximity to military camps. The government needs 
to consider formalising its relationship with the 
Karuna group, perhaps by entering into a 
bilateral agreement with them that outlaws the 
use of force, just as the Ceasefire Agreement 
with the LTTE does. These are realities that the 
government should be prepared to discuss with the 
LTTE instead of denying them.
    But the main question today is whether the 
peace process as it has existed can survive. The 
lack of commitment of the government and LTTE 
leaderships to the peace process is manifest in 
their reluctance to meet with the Norwegian 
special envoy. The peace process that commenced 
in 2002 was based on the primacy of the 
government and LTTE, with the Norwegian 
facilitators playing a subordinate role of acting 
at their behest, and not doing anything that they 
did not approve. This system can only work on the 
basis of the genuine will and commitment of the 
government and LTTE to compromise with each other 
and reach a settlement. This system is no longer 
working because the basic premise of mutual 
commitment is lacking.
    Therefore, the likely scenario at the present 
time is a period of war before a new Ceasefire 
Agreement or new peace process can be obtained. 
Or there needs to be a change of heart, prior to 
the tragedy of war. A new peace process would 
require the inclusion of more parties, including 
the Muslims and also the Karuna group, and the 
elevation of the facilitator to the status of a 
mediator and even arbitrator. This requires a 
change of heart or of ground realities. Let us 
hope it is a change of heart.
    Jehan Perera is media director of the National 
Peace Council in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A graduate 
of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he has 
worked for the past ten years as a journalist in 
Sri Lanka

____


[3]  Nepal

(i) 

The Hindu, April 29, 2006

PARLIAMENT RECONVENES IN NEPAL
by Siddharth Varadarajan
[. . .]
  Prominent among the demonstrators outside the 
Singha Darbar were representatives of Nepal's 
different ethnic and tribal groups such as the 
Newars, Magars, Sherpas and Gurungs, most of whom 
are marginalised in the current political system. 
Marching under the banner of the Nepal Magar 
Mahila Sangh, for example, Kavita Alemagar, a 
famous singer, said Nepal's janajatis were in 
favour of a constituent assembly that would 
protect their rights. "All Nepalis have suffered 
a lot these past few years but now we are 
conscious and alert and will not give up the 
struggle till there is a new constitution."

Asked about specific changes, Mr. Alemagar said 
Nepal should not remain a Hindu nation. "People 
of all religions live in Nepal. There are Hindus, 
Buddhists, Muslims and others. That is why the 
state must be secular." The demand for a 
"dharmanipeksh," or secular, state figured 
prominently in the slogans of the demonstrators 
on Friday.

o o o

(ii)

The News International
April 29, 2006

TRIUMPH OF THE POPULAR WILL
by Praful Bidwai

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

When former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and 
Nawaz Sharif met in London and announced their 
plan to return to Pakistan and fight jointly to 
restore democracy, one wonders whether they paid 
attention to one of the most remarkable movements 
unleashed anywhere to regain and extend the rule 
of the people -- namely, Nepal's anti-Palace 
pro-democracy mass agitation. Its success in 
bringing the arrogant King to his knees in just 
19 days is a measure of what grassroots popular 
mobilisation can accomplish in the face of 
overwhelming state power and armed repression.

It's hard not to experience a strong, spontaneous 
sense of solidarity with the pro-democracy 
struggle, to feel proud of the Nepali people, and 
to want to share in their jubilation. Their 
victory over a powerfully armed and remarkably 
brutal regime represents a triumph of the 
people's will and kindles or reinforces the hope 
that the people will eventually, but inevitably, 
prevail over tyrants and elitist rulers, however 
powerful, and however much protected these 
bigwigs might be by curfews, shoot-at-sight 
orders, and other draconian measures, besides 
laws gagging free expression.

The triumph of the democracy agitation in Nepal 
also vindicates and reconfirms a great lesson 
which history has taught us right since the 
English Revolution of 1640 -- that the era of the 
despot is over, that kings and emperors, however 
mighty, have no future as rulers, that public 
opinion will prevail over the force of arms.

It also disproves a stereotype about the peoples 
of South Asia, which holds that thanks to their 
fatalistic attitudes, and the existence of deep 
social hierarchies, as well as powerful and 
arrogant states, they tend to put up with the 
most extreme forces of oppression and 
exploitation. They won't rebel or revolt.

Nepal's 'democratic revolution' has been in the 
making for a long time. Ever since King Gyanendra 
usurped direct executive power 15 months ago in a 
putsch, itself following his coup of October 
2002, it has been obvious to everyone familiar 
with Nepal that the Palace was courting serious 
trouble. Blatant mis-governance, cavalier 
interference with countless ministries, cronyism 
of the most despicable variety, muzzling of the 
media, and brutal repression soon became the 
order of the day.

The King's direct rule, disastrous in every way, 
further strengthened the Nepali people's already 
adverse opinion of the monarchy. In recent 
months, their day-to-day life became more and 
more suffocating. The Palace's attempt to justify 
autocratic government by citing the Maoist 
'threat' failed to cut any ice with the people. 
Rather, larger numbers began to sympathise and 
identify themselves with the Maoists.

Eventually, all the seven parties that make up 
the bulk of the Nepali political space were 
forced to form an alliance to defend themselves 
against the Palace's depredations. Last November, 
they joined hands with the Maoists on the basis 
of a thoughtful, well-negotiated 12-point 
agreement under which the Maoists agreed to shun 
violence in return for a joint commitment by the 
broad coalition to demand the establishment of a 
Constituent Assembly.

The Assembly would decide whether Nepal would 
have a nominal or ceremonial monarchy, or become 
an outright Republic. The consensus excluded a 
continuation, in one form or other, of the 
ultra-authoritarian system that Gyanendra has run 
under the guise or pretence of a 'Constitutional 
monarchy', coupled with 'multi-party democracy', 
the so-called 'twin pillars'. Put simply, he 
wilfully destroyed both the pillars.

The process of reaching the 12-point agreement, 
which New Delhi facilitated largely under the 
pressure of the supporting parties of the United 
Progressive Alliance, was a tortuous one. India 
vacillated and prevaricated. The United States 
was hostile to the agreement, and until last 
week, made public its preference for the Palace 
over the Maoists whom it distrusts and has put on 
the terrorist watch-list.

The agreement, mercifully, survived the 
vacillations and ups and downs, punctuated by the 
resumption of (limited) arms supplies to the 
Royal Nepal Army by the US and India. Not to be 
left out, the British too supplied arms to the 
RNA, no doubt impelled by their long-enduring 
addiction to recruiting Gorkha soldiers as 
mercenaries.

Last month, the agreement was fleshed out in the 
form of an agitation plan that would be 
implemented beginning April 6. The King got 
increasingly delusional as the agitation gathered 
force in the face of savage repression. India, to 
its abiding disgrace, sent a former maharajah, 
Karan Singh, who is married into Nepalese 
royalty, as an emissary to Gyanendra. The message 
was clear: India still sets store by King 
Gyanendra as a guarantor of Nepal's stability. On 
April 21, Gyanendra played his last card, by 
pretending to restore democracy, but under his 
own hegemony or paramountcy.

However, such was the force of popular rejection 
of this egregious ploy that he was compelled just 
three days later to retreat and announce that 
'state and power sovereignty are inherent in the 
people of Nepal' and that he takes cognisance of 
'the wishes' of the 'Jan Andolan' (people's 
movement). India had clearly misjudged the mood 
of the Nepali people and was forced to revise its 
April 21 stand -- although Prime Minister 
Manmohan Singh reiterated it the next day, only 
to be contradicted by Foreign Secretary Shyam 
Saran.

The Nepali people have won a historic battle. But 
two issues remain: the procedure to be adopted 
for proclaiming elections to the Constituent 
Assembly, and differences between the Seven-Party 
Alliance and the Maoists over the King's latest 
announcement. The SPA has welcomed it and 
proceeded to form a government. The Maoists 
reject it.

These problems are not insuperable. There has 
been some informal consultation between the SPA 
and the Maoists. The Maoists will keep up the 
pressure for a Constituent Assembly even after 
the Nepali parliament is restored and an SPA 
government is installed. According to informed 
sources, a confrontation between the SPA and the 
Maoists is unlikely. The demand for a Constituent 
Assembly represents a popular urge in the streets 
of Nepal. It would be extraordinarily foolish for 
the SPA to try to bypass it.

The Indian government has promised cooperation 
with, and an economic package to help, the new 
government. Although it is still silent on the 
issue of whether and how soon a Constitutional 
Assembly is to be convened, it is unlikely to 
resist that demand.

There are major lessons in the Nepal developments 
for all of South Asia. The region's peoples are 
getting politicised. Once they take to the 
streets to assert their democratic aspirations 
and rights, they get more and more energised and 
empowered, and the momentum of their power 
becomes unstoppable.

Political arrangements like the 12-point 
agreement, which accommodates the urges of the 
underclass represented by the Maoists, are the 
best -- if not the only -- way to bring militant 
currents into the mainstream and tap their 
creative energies. Armed repression cannot work 
beyond a point. Nor will Machiavellian 
manipulation and backroom deals.

Bhutto and Sharif will do well to pay heed to 
these lessons -- as will all others in the region 
who share a pro-democracy sentiment. The best 
guarantee of a genuine and enduring democratic 
transformation of South Asian politics lies in 
mass mobilisation that empowers the people -- not 
in shady, slimy political deals.

o o o

(iii)

April 29, 2006
SLIPS BETWEEN THE CUP AND THE LIP

By M.B. Naqvi

Just as one was about to salute the people of 
Nepal for their victory over a dictatorial King, 
few confusing developments occurred. It split the 
opposition seven party alliance with Maoists: 
traditional or mainstream parties accepted the 
King's haughty formulation while Maoists, the new 
element in Nepalese politics, rejected it and 
threatened it with reimposing the blockade on 
Kathmandu Valley. But nimble-footed Indian 
diplomacy soon restored it.

The main issues were: Future of King Gyanendra 
alongwith the institution of Kingship was to be 
put to popular vote by electing a Constituent 
Assembly which would draft a new Constitution to 
finally decide all issues. It is a fact that the 
multi-party democracy, abolished by Gyanendra on 
Feb 1, 2005, had failed to deliver. Meantime the 
Maoist revolt against the King, Parliament (as it 
was) and the system was succeeding. Since 1996 
Maoists have acquired control over half to two 
thirds of the country and their revolt against 
the Royal Army was so effective that it could 
enforce a blockade even on Kathmandu. People of 
the capital have voted for Maoists with their 
feet. Maoist sympathizers had made all the 
difference to popular protests since February 
last.

What the King has conceded is: (a) restoration of 
the Parliament he had suppressed; and (b) 
readiness to transfer executive power to a 
nominee of the seven party alliance for Prime 
Minister's office. The Parliament met on Friday 
(April 28). But new PM, veteran Girja Prasad 
Koirala, could not attend or take oath of office 
due to illness. Would this formula work? India's 
third successive emissary, CPM's Secretary 
Sitaram Yechury, succeeded in making the Maoists 
reverse their boycott of the parliamentary road 
for now; Maoists have given three months to the 
Parliament to implement the programme they insist 
on after which they will resume Khatmandu's 
blockade (and bring down the whole government). 
How will the Parliament implement the crucial 
programme remains to be seen.

Earlier the Indian Prime Minister had chosen two 
'royals' - Kashmiri 'Maharaja' Karan Singh and 
later 'Raja' Jaswant Singh of the BJP party - to 
go and persuade King Gyanendra to bend. (Choice 
of emissaries made by Dr. Manmohan Singh shows 
how well-adjusted America and India's Congress 
and BJP are who appear to think alike in trying 
to save King Gyanendra; wouldn't they cooperate 
in fighting India's own Maoists)?

The net result of the Indian diplomacy and the 
action of King Gyanendra can still come unstuck 
if the seven parties fail to implement the 
Maoists' demands: a newly elected Constituent 
Assembly to give a new constitution. Maoists have 
promised to give up the 'gun' in favour of 
democratic politics on the basis of the old 
assembly doing what they demand: transfer of 
effective power immediately to the seven parties 
to implement their demands. The way mainstream 
Nepalese parties, comprising the more or less 
discredited politicians, have accepted the King's 
offer with alacrity might mean their reverting to 
old games.

A break in opposition unity would please the King 
no end. So far India and America had wanted the 
King to survive. For them, it did not matter if 
virtually the entire population of Nepal was 
restive and had demonstrated against the King's 
continuance. The people want him out and insist 
on a Constituent Assembly to draft a new 
constitution, obviously a republican one, and 
power to be taken from the King in the here and 
now. That has been denied the people on the 
promise that restored Parliament can do all that. 
But the mainstream parties'-controlled Parliament 
having three months to play power games, they 
might collude with Indo-American designs, 
including saving the kingship. The bottomline 
would be to keep Maoists out. That will be QED 
for the US and probably India.

But will that solve Nepal's problems? What that 
means is that parliamentary parties will betray 
their own people. Popular struggle was not for 
retention of King Gyanendra or keeping out the 
Maoists. The King might again stage yet another 
coup later, and assume total power, if he can get 
enough foreign support and aid for his Army. The 
Nepalese Army's loyalty being to the King, the 
revolutionary situation would resume. No section 
of the Nepalese, including individual 
bureaucrats, was King's side. Recent 
demonstrations had shown that there was no 
significant popular support left for the King. 
The writ of the King ran only where the troops 
were present at any given time. At other times, 
the writ of the Maoists ran. No great sagacity is 
required to foresee what the Maoists would do 
then.

They will resume the war against the King and 
make life even more difficult for the King plus 
the politicians who may govern with, if not 
under, the King. The chances of that government 
plus the King do not amount too much unless, of 
course, foreign troops can be inducted or foreign 
aid is truly massive to create new killing fields 
in Nepal. Would or can India go on siding with 
Gyanendra?

What the Maoists can do is known. Even more 
importantly, the people of Nepal have also shown 
that they no longer accept the King and that they 
will willingly obey the Maoists. The recent new 
enthusiasm in the opposition movement came 
largely from the Maoists, it bears repetition. It 
was Maoists' contribution that had made all the 
difference to the political struggle against the 
King and his Army. Trying to take the people back 
to square one is a perilous course. It is no 
longer practical politics to ask the Maoists and 
the country to go back to ancien regime. 
Something will then have to give way.

The issue is not strictly local to Nepal. India 
has its own Maoists and the two are in contact. 
In the US perception, India's own future is 
involved. The US can be expected to lean on India 
to go on supporting Gyanendra and to help him. 
Much depends on the Congress (UPA) government in 
New Delhi. If it continues to move into America's 
corner internationally and decides to crackdown 
on its Naxalites, good and proper, it will try 
and enable Gyanendra to wipe out his Maoists. 
That is the worst case scenario.

There is another and more optimistic scenario: 
Indian government has to do more damage 
limitation and to avoid alienating the Left 
altogether by being perceived as supporting the 
tyrannical Gyanendra. It was this consideration 
that made it send CPM's Yechury to mediate 
between the seven parties and Maoists so as to 
arrive at the modus operandi he helped arrange. 
Whether his formula for the unity of parties with 
Maoists will work is an open question. What is 
certain however is that the Maoists will not 
settle for anything less than an elected 
Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution. 
Will the King and the hyperpower let a new 
constitution, obviously a republican one, come 
into being? Also, have second thoughts in New 
Delhi gone far enough to accept the Maoists 
demands? Only time will tell. What may be more 
likely is renewal of the long war in which the 
victorious side is likely to be the Maoists. The 
parliamentary lot will have very largely 
discredited itself conclusively.


____

[4]

Kashmir Times
April 29, 2006

ROUNDTABLE CONFERENCE OBSESSION
by Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal

The state government has found a new obsession - 
talking about round table conference as an 
election gimmick. Peace process is pass’. The 
latest trend is talking about this bonanza of 
round table conferences that the people of Jammu 
and Kashmir are constrained to watch. The prime 
minister's sincerity to the Kashmir issue is 
being measured by the number of hours he spent at 
the round table conference in Delhi in February 
and the amount of time he would be spending 
sometime in May in Srinagar. To sell the round 
table conference as a marketable branded product 
of the ongoing peace process, the Jammu and 
Kashmir chief minister has now begun to state 
that the second round table would focus on 
'quality and quantity'. Already, several people 
have begun interpreting it in several ways and 
there is a common belief that unlike the huge 
mela that the first round table conference turned 
out to be, the second one in Srinagar would see 
the participation of only select group of 
mainstream leaders. Should that be considered as 
a meaty bait for the separatist leaders to join 
the event? Or would it actually turn out to be 
another futile and unscientific exercise in 
pursuit of peace and solution to Kashmir dispute?
The basic question to be addressed before 
organizing this event, which is expected to build 
up a hype with the presence of the Indian prime 
minister in Srinagar, is not who all should 
participate in the conference but the very 
semantics of the round table conference. Has a 
dialogue process reached a stage where inclusion 
of all ethnic and religious groups becomes 
imperative? Secondly, can mainstream leaders, who 
have no reason to disagree with India and have 
simply been engaged in their vote bank politics 
for last several decades of turmoil in the state, 
be given a space at the dialogue table in the 
name of representing the ethnic and religious or 
regional minorities of a pluralistic Jammu and 
Kashmir? The answer to both these questions is an 
emphatic no.
A dialogue process is a continued mechanism of 
negotiations between state and the parties who do 
not agree with the former. By that definition, 
the dialogue process, which New Delhi claims to 
have been set into motion, is yet to begin. India 
may have had two round of talks with one faction 
of Hurriyat and two separate rounds of talks with 
two other separatist leaders of reckoning but the 
entire process lacked consistency. Besides, the 
key issues taken up during these talks, which are 
in principle not quite a dialogue but meetings, 
have not even been followed. The confidence 
building measures talked about have not been 
implemented to enable the dialogue process to 
actually take off. Where is the bid to 
de-militarise the state? Where is the withdrawal 
and repeal of draconian laws or release of 
political and innocent prisoners? Besides, there 
has been no serious efforts to cobble together 
the divided and fractured separatist groups for 
talks. All these are important ingredients for an 
actual dialogue to begin.
It is a fact, that Hurriyat or any other 
separatist group, singularly, or together, cannot 
claim to be the sole representatives of the 
entire state; and that apart from Kashmir Valley, 
there are other regions of the state including 
Jammu with its different sub-regions, Ladakh and 
other parts of the state under Pakistan control 
that have an equal right to talk about the future 
of the state and take a final decision. Jammu and 
Kashmir is a complex state, not only by virtue of 
the complexity of the Kashmir dispute, but also 
by virtue of its demographic balance and its 
ethnic and religious diversity that is 
overlapping and inter-dependent and cannot be 
disturbed by any division formula. Therefore, 
wishes of people of all regions need to be 
accommodated in the final solution. But it is 
also a truism that this is not the juncture for 
involving all other groups. Process of talks must 
first begin with the most alienated sections of 
the society and gradually involve the rest. And 
before this rest begins, is it not important to 
also include Jammu and Kashmir based militant 
organizations in a dialogue. Certainly, the 
so-called dialogue process between India and 
people of Jammu and Kashmir has not reached that 
stage - not without existence of genuine 
confidence building measures, not without 
consistency and continuity in talking and 
certainly not without the clarity it deserves.
Talks are successful only when they begin to 
remove layers of mutual suspicion and build up a 
level of trust between two parties who do not 
agree with each other. It is at this juncture 
that other groups can be invited to participate 
in a dialogue. But then, the moot question is who 
are these others who should be involved? Should 
they be the representatives elected for the 
assembly elections, which are already seen as 
rigged and at least lopsided, in view of the poor 
participation of the people, and the known 
reality of coercive voting patterns? Can their 
inclusion be justified on grounds of ensuring 
there are no regional disparities while talking? 
Certainly not. In fact, the same people who have 
been responsible for creating these regional 
disparities and causing alienation of the people 
cannot be expected to solve the Kashmir dispute 
or talk of an egalitarian society.
There is a tendency to compare the talks 
facilitated by non government organizations and 
talks between government and representatives of 
Jammu and Kashmir and question why separatist and 
mainstream leaders cannot sit together for talks 
with New Delhi. There is a serious flaw in this 
argument, since talks organized at non-official 
level have a different concept, scope, range and 
ramifications from the official one. At the 
official level, talks require clarity and this 
clarity needs to be guided by logic that paves 
way for peace process, not a cosmetic arrangement 
where peace and solution as per wishes of the 
people remains elusive.

____


[5]

CANDLE  LIGHT  VIGIL

Sunday, 30th April 2006
  6:30 PM onwards
  Jantar Mantar, [New Delhi]

The violent and forced eviction of people from 
their natural habitat and homes, be it in the 
Narmada Valley, the slums of Mumbai or Delhi, or 
the adivasi areas of Orissa, is a matter of 
increasing alarm and worry.  It seems to be 
happening in a more and more systematic, 
calculated and sinister way. The government  is 
clearly promoting this violent neoliberal 
paradigm of development at the cost of its people.
We cannot remain silent any more. We will NOT 
tolerate this violation of democracy and human 
rights any more.
Peoples' movements and struggles from across the 
country must come together and unite forces to 
fight this battle against injustice.
NO MORE FORCED EVICTIONS!!!! NO MORE SLUM DEMOLITIONS!!! NO MORE
DISPOSSESSION OF PEOPLE FROM THEIR HOMES, LANDS AND LIVELIHOODS!!!
Come light a candle on 30th April at Jantar 
Mantar to express your solidarity with people's 
struggles for their rights.
Please bring candles along with you to add to the lights of hope.
From Narmada to Mumbai, from Delhi to Orissa... our struggle is ONE.
This is a critical issue that concerns each one of us. Democracy is at stake.
We must unite to speak truth to power!! The time is NOW!!
PLEASE BE THERE!!! PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN DELHI!

                                                              In solidarity,

Delhi Solidarity Group for the NBA and other movements against displacement

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

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.