SACW | 14-15 July 2006

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 14-15 July, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2273

[1]  India:  Mumbai picking up the pieces (Praful Bidwai)
[2]  Pakistan: Fault lines in law-making (I.A. Rehman)
[3]  Of Many Pasts - The 1857 celebrations raise 
questions Indians must confront (Shahid Amin)
[4]  Fissile materials in South Asia and the 
implications of the U.S.-India nuclear deal
(Z. Mian, A.H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman, and M.V. Ramana)
[5]  India: Pipe Bomb Blast in Nanded - Police, 
Media Cover Up RSS Role  (Subhash Gatade)
[6]  India: Noted rationalist Edamaruku passes away 
[7]  Letter to the Editor (Mukul Dube)
[8]  Seminar - Karachi Citizens Forum (15 July 2006)

********

[1]

Inter Press Service
July 14, 2006

MUMBAI PICKING UP THE PIECES
by Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI - As the death toll continues to mount 
in Mumbai's ghastly serial bomb attacks of 
Tuesday, it is becoming clear that India is 
witnessing a human tragedy of the same dimensions 
as the Madrid train bombings of March 2004, in 
which 192 people lost their lives. The bombings 
were Europe's worst-ever case of sub-state 
terrorism.

Spain responded to that humanitarian disaster by 
replacing conservative prime minister Jose Maria 
Aznar with Social Democrat Jose Luis Rodriguez 
Zapatero and withdrawing Spanish troops from 
Iraq, sent as part of the United States-led war 
coalition.

India does not seem about to execute such a big 
political change, but the Mumbai bombings, that 
targeted commuters returning

China Business Big Picture

home and which have claimed about 200 lives, have 
raised a number of questions in the minds of 
observers and analysts of the country's society 
and politics.

Some of these are: do such professionally 
coordinated, well-articulated bombings really 
pose a serious, systemic threat to the fabric of 
India's society and its democracy? Who carried 
these out and from what motivation? How should 
India respond to such violence without losing its 
democratic and constitutional obligation to 
defend human rights while bringing the culprits 
to book?

And not least, what will be the likely impact of 
the attacks on the India-Pakistan dialogue 
process? In the past, Indian leaders typically 
blamed Pakistani secret agencies or 
Islamabad-supported militants for terrorist 
attacks against Indian civilians.

The last question may be easier to answer than 
the first three. A senior Pakistan high 
commission official in New Delhi told Inter Press 
Service, "We do not see any hitch in the coming 
round of bilateral talks. Pakistan was among the 
first countries to condemn the Mumbai bomb 
attacks. No fingers have been pointed at us by 
Indian officials. And we believe that both states 
are serious about their two-year-old 
understanding that no incident of violence would 
be allowed to wreck the all-important dialogue 
process."

The process was not interrupted by recent 
terrorist violence, including in the disputed 
Kashmir Valley last week. Pakistani officials 
expect their foreign secretary's visit to India, 
likely next week, to be "a smooth affair" with 
positive engagement between the two sides.

Although Indian intelligence agencies do not rule 
out the involvement of "rogue" elements within 
Pakistani secret services in anti-India 
terrorism, they note that President General 
Pervez Musharraf has pitted himself against 
Islamist extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As the Indian public experiences the full impact 
of the blasts, with their sickening violence 
against ordinary civilians, it is increasingly 
apparent that it cannot duck these questions. 
Yet, there are no consensual answers to some of 
them. But, despite a lot of confusion over the 
past couple of days, the Indian public refuses to 
be shaken off its feet by the blasts' trauma and 
to lose its robust democratic bearings.

In sheer numbers, the serial bombings of Mumbai 
represent one of worst episodes of terrorism in 
India, only slightly smaller in scale than 
Mumbai's March 12, 1993 bombings, which claimed 
257 lives.

The 1993 blasts were widely seen as "retribution" 
for the demolition of a 16th century mosque and 
systematic demonization of Muslims. The present 
blasts are random: you are targeted not because 
you belong to a particular category, but because 
you happen to be one of the 4 million-plus 
commuters who use the city's suburban rail system.

"This randomness makes the violence especially 
frightening," says Achin Vanaik, a political 
scientist with Delhi University. "It is meant to 
intimidate you and make you feel extremely 
vulnerable. But beyond that, it poses no real 
challenge to the political system or to Indian 
democracy," Vanaik adds.

In the past, terrorism has typically failed to 
create a sense of grave systemic crisis or 
near-collapse of governance in India; to 
encourage social schisms and alienation; or to 
lead to Hindu-Muslim violence. The Indian public 
simply refused to be provoked.

This is a tribute to the ordinary citizen's 
maturity and affirmation of social assimilation 
and pluralism in India, rather than the state's 
handling of terrorist violence. "This handling is 
marked by lack of intelligence, sloppy 
investigation and collation of evidence, absence 
of thorough interrogation of witnesses, loose 
framing of charges, and poor conduct of 
prosecution," says Nitya Ramakrishnan, a civil 
liberties lawyer based in Delhi.

Adds Ramakrishnan, "The state fails to gather the 
information necessary for successful prosecution 
of culprits in case after case, or to create a 
data-base on different groups and their links. 
There are hardly any cases where an alleged 
terrorist is prosecuted on adequate evidence."

The police often stage fake "encounters" and 
claim that the terrorists opened fire on them 
when surrounded; they killed in "self-defense".

India's criminal justice system, creaking under 
antiquated procedures and delays, rarely succeeds 
in bringing criminals to book. Most of India's 
major cases of hate-crime, religious violence or 
state repression go unpunished. Some 80,000 
people have perished in state killings and 
sub-state violence in Kashmir and the northeast. 
But only a minuscule number of officials have 
been punished.

This has created a culture of impunity, a 
phenomenon observed after the butchery of 
2,000-plus Muslims in western Gujarat state in 
2002.

Lack of hard evidence of the involvement of 
specific groups in violent incidents means that 
everyone engages in speculation. In the present 
case, officials and the media have hinted at the 
involvement of Islamist-extremist groups like 
Lashkar-e-Toiba based in Pakistan, and the 
Students Islamic Movement of India. But no hard 
evidence has emerged.

The political left and the right in India have 
reacted differently to the blasts. The left, 
which supports the government from the outside on 
an agenda of maintaining the country's secular 
character, has counseled restraint and appealed 
to citizens not to overreact.

The right, especially the Hindu-chauvinist 
Bharatiya Janata Party that leads the national 
opposition, has accused the government of 
"ignoring" national security. It demands the 
return of draconian anti-terrorism laws, in 
particular, the notorious Prevention of Terrorism 
Act, which was repealed after numerous instances 
of its abuse came to light.

"Draconian laws can only abridge the citizen's 
fundamental rights and devalue democracy," says 
Vanaik. "That would be tragic, not least because 
stiff restrictions on basic freedoms will only 
brutalize ordinary people and encourage official 
irresponsibility, dereliction of duty and abuse 
of power. Such measures divert attention from the 
far graver damage that state excesses, including 
war and terrorism, can inflict upon the public."

More answers are expected to emerge as India 
comes to terms with the grave tragedy still 
unfolding in Mumbai.


_____


[2]

Dawn
July 13, 2006

FAULT LINES IN LAW-MAKING

by I.A. Rehman

ABOUT a score of laws have been amended through 
extraordinary methods over the last few weeks. 
One measure has been widely hailed and another 
strongly resented while the rest of the changes 
have been received with customary indifference. 
This is something to be regretted because the 
amendments raise substantial doubts about the 
lawmakers' comprehension of the issues before 
them, their methodology and the effect of their 
assumptions about the sections of society sought 
to be extended relief.

At the moment the centre of debate is the 
ordinance promulgated by President General 
Musharraf on July 7, 2006, to amend Section 497 
of the Criminal Procedure Code. The ordinance 
added a proviso to the section to the effect that 
except for terrorism, financial corruption and 
murder, all offences committed by women, 
including offences under the Hudood ordinances, 
had been made bailable.

The noise made by official spokespersons for 
days, both before and after the ordinance was 
issued, gave the impression that the women had 
been favoured with something they had not been 
entitled to earlier. In fact, the law already 
provided for special treatment for women and the 
effort to enhance relief for them had been going 
on for quite some time. As for allowing bail in 
non-bailable cases, the relevant CrPC provision 
deals only with bail in such cases and a great 
many people are released every year under it.

Let us take a look at this provision as it stood before July 7:

"497. When bail may be taken in cases of 
non-bailable offence: (1) When any person accused 
of a non-bailable offence is arrested or detained 
without warrant by an officer-in-charge of a 
police station, or appears or is brought before a 
court, he may be released on bail, but he shall 
not be so released if there appears reasonable 
grounds for believing that he has been guilty of 
an offence punishable with death or imprisonment 
for life or imprisonment for 10 years.

Provided that the court may direct that any 
person under the age of 16 years or any woman or 
any sick or infirm person accused of such an 
offence be released on bail.

Provided further that a person accused of an 
offence as aforesaid shall not be released on 
bail unless the prosecution has been given notice 
to show cause why he should not be so released."

What the new ordinance does is this: The words 
'or any woman' are deleted from the first proviso 
and a new proviso is added that says a woman 
accused of a non-bailable offence shall be 
released on bail as if her offence is bailable. 
However, the bar to bail mentioned in the main 
provision given above will apply to women, and no 
woman will be allowed bail if the court has 
grounds to believe that she has been guilty of an 
offence "relating to terrorism, financial 
corruption and murder" and the offence is 
punishable with death, life imprisonment or jail 
for 10 years. (It is easy to guess the name of 
the famous woman the drafter had in mind while 
putting the words "financial corruption" into the 
amendment, since they did not occur in the 
section earlier.) The new ordinance also offers 
relief to women whose trial does not begin for 
six months for no fault of theirs.

The ordinance has made it easier for over a 
thousand women to be released on bail and made 
the grant of bail mandatory in many cases in 
future. As such the measure is welcome and the 
relief offered to hundreds of women prisoners is 
substantial.

But was Section 497 the sole cause of women's 
extended distress on coming, or being pushed, 
into conflict with law? As pointed out above, the 
law as it stood before July 7 did admit the 
possibility of bail being granted in non-bailable 
cases and included a special provision favouring 
women of all ages, both healthy and infirm.

The issue was, partly, that women could not avail 
themselves of bail mostly for want of sureties. 
This because in most cases they were poor and 
suffered as a result of the social tradition that 
abandons women accused of Hudood or drug 
offences. Indeed, in many instances those who 
could arrange surety for them (parents, siblings, 
husbands) were the complainants and prosecutors. 
Women also suffered as a result of the 
subordinate judiciary's extreme reluctance to 
allow bail under the unduly sanctified Hudood, 
anti-terrorist or narcotics laws. At the moment 
the state is providing surety for bail. Is it 
feasible to make such arrangements permanent and 
for women across the country?

As regards the Hudood laws, especially the main 
instrument of women's torture, the Zina 
Ordinance, the bail facility may be accepted as a 
mitigating factor but it offers no protection 
against unjustified prosecution, humiliation and 
disruption of normal life that results whenever a 
woman is charged under these patently bad and 
arbitrary laws.

Besides, how does one explain the government's 
failure to act on moves made earlier to 
facilitate the grant of bail to women? The law 
commission had proposed in 2002 an amendment in 
the law to make the grant of bail to women easier.

Then, on November 10, 2003, the government moved 
a bill in the National Assembly - Code of 
Criminal Procedure (Second Amendment) Bill, Bill 
No. 12 of 2003 - to provide for mandatory bail to 
a woman accused of a non-bailable offence 
punishable with less than a 10-year prison 
sentence. The statement of objects said the women 
accused of non-bailable offences and committed to 
prison pending trial "often fall prey to sexual 
harassment and other illegal demands of the 
unscrupulous elements in jail - There are many 
complaints of such happenings in the jails."

This was called the second amendment of 2003 to 
the CrPC because on the same date another bill to 
amend the CrPC had been tabled in the National 
Assembly. It was meant to make the offence of 
rioting under Section 147 and 148 of the PPC 
compoundable if committed along with other 
compoundable offences. This bill was titled Code 
of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill. 
Obviously, the law ministry gave greater 
importance to providing relief to rioters than to 
women in prisons.

Quite obviously, there is need to pay more timely 
attention to the reform proposals made by the law 
and justice commission. Somebody should also be 
answerable for the lopsided priorities in 
legislative work. If a parliament can adopt bills 
favouring the rulers in a matter of days and does 
not proceed with due speed on a bill promising 
relief to women, the inescapable conclusion is 
that display of concern for poor women is merely 
a seasonal fit of politically motivated 
emotionalism.

In addition to the ordinance of July 7, 20 laws 
have been amended vide the Finance Act 2006. Only 
eight of these laws - Profession Tax Limitation 
Act 1941, Public Investments (Financial 
Safeguards) Ordinance 1961, Customs Act 1969, 
Securities and Exchange Ordinance 1969, Finance 
Act 1989, Sales Tax Act 1990, Income Tax 
Ordinance 2001, and Federal Excise Act 2005 - 
fall in the category of tax-related laws which 
alone, it is said, can be changed through a 
finance bill. Eight other laws amended vide the 
latest Finance Act belong to the labour code - 
workmen's Compensation Act 1923, Factories Act 
1934, Industrial and Commercial Establishments 
(Standing Orders) Ordinance 1968, Companies 
Profits (workers' participation) Act 1968, Shops 
and Establishments Ordinance 1969, Minimum Wages 
for Unskilled Workers Ordinance 1969, Workers' 
Welfare Ordinance 1971, and Employees Old Age 
Benefit Institution Act 1976. Three laws deal 
with institutions of different kinds - Price 
Control and Prevention of Profiteering and 
Hoarding Act 1977, Microfinance Institutions 
Ordinance 2001, and Public Procurement Regulatory 
Authority 2002. And the 20th law amended by the 
Finance Act is the unavoidable Criminal Procedure 
Code 1898.

For the present we are concerned with nine 
non-tax measures - the eight labour laws and the 
CrPC. Let us briefly examine what the amendments 
are and how they can be categorised:

1. Criminal Procedure Code: A new section-14-A 
has been added to empower provincial governments 
to appoint special magistrates to try cases of 
violation of price control laws. While ideas such 
as price control and trial of traders who exploit 
the citizens will be welcomed by people groaning 
under spiralling prices, the wisdom of appointing 
special magistrates is not clear.

2. Workmen's Compensation Act: Workers with 
higher wages made entitled to compensation, that 
is, the number of beneficiaries raised.

3. Factories Act: Working hours in factories 
increased and working hours for women also 
increased. Change termed anti-labour.

4. Standing Orders: Contract worker included in 
the definition of workman. Positive change.

5. Companies Profits Act: Changes in definition 
of 'workers', relaxation of condition of payment 
of interest and penalty by an employer who 
defaults on creation of a trust, enhancement in 
paid-up capital and assets for companies to pay 
profit share to workers, and changes in 
categories of workers for entitlement to share in 
profits. A mixed bag.

6. Shops and Establishment Ordinance: Provides 
for non-day weekly rest to each worker and fixes 
weekly holiday for establishments, raises 
overtime hours per year from 150 to 624 for 
adults and from 100 to 165 for young persons (14 
to 17 years old), excludes piece-rate workers 
from payment of overtime, and limits working 
hours upto 12 hours a day.

7. Minimum Wages Act: Raises minimum wage for 
unskilled workers from Rs 3,000 to 4,000 per 
month. A welcome move.

8. Workers Welfare Fund: Largely technical changes.

9. EOBI: Minimum pension rate revised.

Most of the changes noted above are unlikely to 
invite adverse comments except for the increase 
in working hours. On this point trade unions have 
already launched a vigorous campaign.

Under an amendment to the Factory Act (Section 
38) the spread of duty has been extended from 
10.5 hours to 12 hours per day in ordinary 
factories and from 11.5 hours to 12 hours per day 
in seasonal factories. No justification can be 
advanced for this increase. Traditionally the 
trend in labour legislation has been to reduce 
the working hours for factory workers. For 
instance, in 1946, when a number of progressive 
labour measures were adopted the spread of duty 
hours was reduced from 13 hours to 10.5 to 11.5 
hours per day for ordinary factories, and 
seasonal factories respectively. Now we find a 
movement in the opposite direction.

Similarly, the amendment in the Shops and 
Establishment Law increases the period of 
overtime for adults four-fold from 150 hours in a 
year to 624 hours and by more than 50 percent for 
children. This can only be described as a 
prescription for turning factories and other 
commercial establishments into sweat shops.

Further, the extension in working hours for women 
cannot be defended. The condition of provision of 
transport by employers for requiring women to 
work up to 10 clock at night is meaningless in an 
environment marked by absence of control and 
inspection and where employers are free to throw 
workers out at the slightest pretext.

More objectionable than the contents of the 
amendments is the manner of making them. It has 
been vigorously argued, and with substantial 
justification, that the Finance Bill cannot be 
made a vehicle for legislation which bears no 
nexus with taxation. Backdoor tampering with laws 
can under no circumstances be condoned.

Nobody has been told why the amendments are 
considered necessary. In case of labour 
legislation, the bypassing of the system of 
tripartite consultation is always reprehensible. 
If the Criminal Procedure Code can be amended 
through the Finance Bill the government can bring 
all the changes in this code and the Penal Code 
and the anti-terrorism laws without going through 
the hassle of debate in the houses of parliament. 
The quick fix method employed in the instant case 
circumvents the need for public debate as well. 
Where the call of law-reform institutions is not 
heeded, parliament is deprived of its right to 
debate legislative proposals, and the public is 
completely excluded, such fault lines in 
lawmaking can make any state liable to be 
indicted for bad governance.

_____


[3]

The Telegraph
July 13, 2006

OF MANY PASTS
The 1857 celebrations raise questions Indians must confront

by Shahid Amin
(The author is professor of history, University of Delhi)

Such are the pulls of appropriating History for 
the Nation that amidst a busy July schedule - 
interim report of the oversight committee, 
negotiations with the IAEA, keeping the allies 
and tomato prices from going over the top - the 
prime minister will find time on July 13 to chair 
a 68-member committee to commemorate 150 years of 
1857. That's a lot of Indians - former prime 
ministers, politicians, satraps, bureaucrats, and 
some historians to boot. One may be proven wrong, 
but most of them, including the two historians 
who have declined, would not be entirely 
comfortable distinguishing a barkandaz from a 
tilanga sepoy, or be familiar with say the ballad 
of Kunwar Singh of Shahabad or the shikasta 
script of rebel communication. One could even 
wager that some of them might even falter 
reciting little more than the refrain "Khub lari 
mardaniŠ Jhansi wali raniŠ" Yet a group of 
ministers has gone ahead and cleared Rs 150 crore 
of public money for a major commemoration, 
beginning, we are told, August 2007. And there 
lies the rub, for what dreams have propelled the 
August inaugurationŠ we know.

It is the dream of annexing the events of 1857 to 
our freedom from Britain almost to the month. But 
though crucial for 1942 and again 1947, August 
was not a particularly good month for us Indians 
in 1857, especially in Delhi, which fell to the 
vengeful firangis soon afterwards. If true, the 
August inauguration to the celebrations of 1857 
raises an important question that we who people 
this nation - historians, politicians, public - 
face about our pasts. As elsewhere, so in India, 
school books, street-names, and jubilee 
celebrations - all seek to construct a sense of 
an uncluttered national past. Opposition to the 
idea of a national-plural is common to most 
nationalists, for it disorders a national past 
which is simultaneously considered historical and 
singular. Swimming against the tide enables us to 
ask a different set of questions: is there 
something inherent in the ways of nation-states 
that makes it difficult for citizens to relate to 
history outside a mainstream, accredited version 
of the past - the national past? Can we at all 
remember without commemorating? Can we recollect 
without celebrating, recall without avenging? Why 
are national histories thought of invariably as 
time-resistant capsules buried for ever, and in 
constant play at the same time?

San-sattavan! In northern India, this incomplete 
chronological slice, sans the century, 
encapsulates in its pithiness the many things 
that went into the making of that Great Event. 
San-sattavan can only be 1857; it can not be 
1957, or even 1757, though in some contemporary 
prophesies, British rule was to end within a 
hundred years of the battle of Plassey. Be that 
as it may, 'san sattavan' stands resplendent in 
perhaps the most well-known poem on the Ghadar by 
Subhadra Kumari Chauhan: "Chamak uthi san 
sattavan mein, woh talwar purani thi." The sword 
unleashed to push out the firangis, had not been 
moulded in or wrested from colonial armouries; it 
was the very old sword of an 'aged Bharat' which, 
rejuvenated, had now stood up to claim this 
equally old land for itself ("burhe Bharat mein 
aayi phir-se nai jawani thi").

Let's stay a bit longer with the stirring opening 
stanza of this epic poem on 1857, on which we 
will have a surfeit of songs, dramas, marches, 
exhibitions in the year to come. Let's recall 
that this great nationalist poem places the 
'value of lost independence' and 'the resolve to 
throw the firangi out' in every Indian heart. And 
yet the Bharat of 1857 is already old, 90 years 
before the birth of the Indian nation-state. 
Let's now cut to a folk song about Jhansi-wali 
Rani, popular in district Etawah and its environs 
in Uttar Pradesh before the more famous Chauhan 
version that has been bequeathed to us as a 
nation: "O, the Rani of Jhansi, well fought the 
brave one/ All the soldiers were fed with sweets; 
she herself had treacle and rice/Š Leaving 
morcha, she ran to the lashkar, where she 
searched for but found no water, O! The Rani of 
Jhansi well fought the brave one." Here in a 
local folk song, to be sung in the Dadra vein, we 
sure find the Rani's sacrifice and valour, but no 
intimations of a well-entrenched and reactivated 
sense of Indian nationalism.

To adapt the opening sentence of Anna Karenina: 
all nations are new, but each claims its 
antiquity in its own way. This is clearly in 
evidence in the spirit behind the forthcoming 
official celebrations of 1857, as it is in that 
famous nationalist poem on Rani Jhansi by 
Subhadra Chauhan. It is a feature of nationalist 
consciousness, that the nation whose 'making' 
requires large doses of energy, action and 
sacrifice, that very nation is made available to 
us fully-formed - like a mannequin in a shopping 
window - merely awaiting a change of 
(nationalist) attire.

Only an informed public debate can stem the 
wastage of money and effort on mere 
window-dressing: the sprucing up of an 1857 
structure at one place, the gouging out of a 
colonial memorial stone at another, ersatz 
purabiya sipahis knocking at the Rajghat gate of 
the Red Fort, Big B daring you to go 50-50 or 
phone a friend on a mega-Ghadar quiz, the launch 
of a desi fizz-drink with the spirit of 1857 
bottled evanescently in it.

The contrast with the centennial of the Ghadar in 
1957 is instructive. A lot of us midnight's 
children were too young to recollect the hoopla, 
but the long-term gains for historical 
understanding and democratizing access to the 
events of 1857 still continue to be felt. Two 
noted scholars, very different in orientation, 
produced two different accounts of those times; a 
considerable amount of primary source material, 
largely from official records, was published, 
notably the five volumes of Freedom Struggle in 
Uttar Pradesh by the indefatigable S.A.A. Rizvi, 
distributed gratis till the Eighties to bona fide 
scholars. This has encouraged a whole crop of 
histories of the Ghadar in different districts 
and regions written in the medium-sized 
university towns in North India. Other material 
connected with the late-19th-century freedom 
struggle was brought out, for instance, for 
Maharashtra, or lies unpublished in provincial 
archives. And all this was made possible by 
advanced planning, and hard work by those adept, 
by training, to delve into and narrate the past.

It would be said that commemoration is too 
serious (or political) a business to be left to 
historians: poets, publicists, politicians, 
playwrights all must contribute. It may well be 
that historians have to cease being just 
whistle-blowers in such matters, telling others 
where they have got their facts wrong. They must 
be concerned not just with what happened in times 
past, but equally with how memory, indeed state 
memorialization, plays on the certitude of facts. 
The new multimedia exhibition at Tees Janvari 
Marg is an eye opener about how non-official 
collaboration between historians, Gandhians and 
IT-savvy graphic and sound artists can infuse 
excitement into a hoary and usually unimaginative 
presentation of the ideas and legacy of Mahatma 
Gandhi.

The prime minister will be well advised to try 
and get the 1857 committee to bankroll a similar 
venture for that Great Uprising, hangama, 
insurgency and effervescence, aggregation and 
disorder, plebeian anger and state-terror, 
regional groupings and wider alliances, atavistic 
proclamations and radical stirrings, all on 
display for us to make sense, warts and all. To 
hang the story of the Ghadar by a single thread 
would amount to hanging its myriad rebels twice 
over.


_____


[4]


"Fissile materials in South Asia and the 
implications of the U.S.-India nuclear deal"
by Z. Mian, A.H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman, and M.V. Ramana

is available on the IPFM website at
http://www.fissilematerials.org/southasia.pdf

_____


[5]

People's Democracy
July 9, 2006

PIPE BOMB BLAST IN NANDED
Police, Media Cover Up RSS Role
by Subhash Gatade

Much has been written about the Jihadi terrorism 
unleashed by groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammad, 
Lashkar-e-Taiba and others. It was only last 
month that there was a large haul of arms from 
some of their cells in Maharashtra. The attack on 
RSS headquarters, allegedly by activists 
belonging to one such organisation, was also 
widely reported.

It is surprising that while terrorism of the 
Jihadi variety, which rather tends to stigmatise 
the whole community, gets tremendous coverage, 
with print and electronic media vying with each 
other to present the latest 'scoops,' similar 
actions by the Hindu extremist groups are not 
even found worthy of mention.

The Nanded bomb blasts displaying clear 
involvement of activists of the Sangh Parivar, 
when a centre for manufacturing bombs was 
unearthed at an RSS activist's house, is a case 
in point. The accidental bomb blast killed two of 
its activists also.

While a deeper communal conspiracy could be 
averted, the ongoing investigations point 
accusing finger at the involvement of such Hindu 
extremists in earlier cases of bomb blasts in the 
same region.

WHY RSS PLAYED DOWN THE ATTACK

Why did the RSS decide to play down the attack on 
its headquarters in Nagpur, allegedly by 
terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba? If 
the newsperson's version is to be believed, 
former RSS spokesman Ram Madhav merely condemned 
the attack and praised the police for quick 
action. Sudarshan, the present supremo of the 
organisation, appealed to RSS volunteers not to 
get provoked.

No appeal for bandh. No appeal for any agitation. 
Remember the contrast when terrorist had attacked 
Ayodhya, or for that matter Varanasi, and how the 
whole fire-spitting gang was out in the streets.

And this despite the fact that the Jihadi 
terrorists, as they are known in the common 
parlance, have upped their ante in this part of 
Maharashtra. It was only last month that the 
Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had nabbed three 
militants belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) 
on the Manmad-Aurangabad road with a large cache 
of arms and had also recovered arms and RDX in 
Malegaon.

Is it because the Parivar felt that, whatever 
might be their wishes, the plan may turn out to 
be a damp squib, making it evident to its 
adversaries that the countdown has already 
started for this eighty years old organisation? 
Or is it because the Parivar felt that any demand 
to look deeper into the particular case might 
accelerate a process which is already underway 
but whose ramifications might add to the 
discomfort of this cultural organisation (!) 
itself? Perhaps the statement the Maharashtra 
deputy chief minister R R Patil made to the media 
that the police had information about a terrorist 
plan to attack the RSS headquarters more than 
seven months ago and had duly informed the Sangh 
people in advance, had an inkling of what lies in 
store before the RSS:

"The deputy chief minister also said police have 
collected vital clues that link the Nanded blast 
held some months ago, with the Parbhani blast 
earlier this year. Patil said the possibility of 
Hindu extremists being responsible for the two 
blasts cannot be ruled out (DNA, June 1, 2006).

It was evident from a newspaper report in Lokmat 
(May 24, 2006) datelined Aurangabad that the 
minister meant what he said:

"The police commissioner Uddhav Kamble informed 
the media that the police is investigating the 
interconnections between the Nanded pipe bomb 
blasts done by Bajrang Dal activists and the bomb 
blasts in Aurangabad in 2001 and 2002.

"There was a bomb blast near Ganesh temple in 
Nageshwarwadi in Aurangabad on 18th May 2001. 
When the case was still being investigated there 
was another bomb blast near VHP office in Nirala 
market on 17th November 2002 followed by a bomb 
blast near Mahadev temple in Khadkeshwar. Pipe 
bombs had been used in Nirala market and 
Khadkeshwar bomb blasts. It is worth noting that 
the month old bomb blast in Nanded was also 
triggered by a pipe bomb. It was revealed that 
activists of the Bajrang Dal were making pipe 
bombs in the house.

"Looking at the similarities between the Nanded 
bomb blast and the two bomb blasts in Aurangabad, 
the interconnections between the two are being 
investigated (translated from Marathi).
WHAT HAPPENED  IN NANDED

After all, what is so significant about the 
Nanded bomb blasts to have compelled the Sangh 
Parivar, which calls itself a character-building 
organisation, to run for cover? Perhaps a recap 
of the Nanded bomb blasts is in order to put the 
matter straight.

It is now more than three months that Nanded, a 
Maharashtra town described as being communally 
sensitive, witnessed a bomb explosion (April 6, 
2006) in a house belonging to an old activist of 
RSS. To be precise, it was the time when L K 
Advani's (now abandoned) Bharat Suraksha Yatra 
was to enter the state of Maharashtra. The 
initial investigations done by the police made it 
very clear that the deceased and the injured 
belonged to Bajrang Dal, an RSS affiliated 
outfit. Looking at the minute details, one could 
infer that serious plans were afoot to foment 
communal tension in the area by taking advantage 
of the simmering tensions between the Sikhs and 
the Muslims. A raid on the house of one of the 
deceased recovered dresses and caps normally worn 
by Muslims in the area and also some maps of 
mosques in nearby districts. One of the accused, 
Rahul, confessed to having made bombs earlier.

The idea was that RSS men, wearing those dresses, 
would attack some mosques and gurudwaras and 
instigate a riot. The expectation was that the 
community under attack would retaliate and a 
full-scale riot would ensue. The idea was to 
leave behind such explosives of one kind or 
another as could cause maximum damage to the 
places hit. The making of the bombs in a house 
owned by an old RSS hack, who dealt in 
firecrackers, also seemed rather perfect.

Nanded happens to be a place of pilgrimage for 
the Sikhs as it was the place of samadhi of Guru 
Gobind Singh. This habitation of around a million 
people (5 lakh Hindus, 2 lakh Muslims or one lakh 
Sikhs) was already reeling under communal tension 
then when the blast occurred. The alleged 
elopement of a Sikh girl with a Muslim boy had 
put both the communities at loggerheads. 
Retrospectively, one can say that the accidental 
bomb explosion rather saved a broad section of 
the population from a riot or riot-like 
situation, at least for the time being. It 
alerted the administration to take extra 
precautions so that any volatile situation won't 
turn ugly.

It needs be noted that the Marathwada region of 
Maharashtra has a history of mysterious attacks 
on religious minorities. It was only two and a 
half years ago that miscreants on motorcycles had 
fired at a crowd offering Friday prayers in 
nearby Parbhani. Then the whole of Marathwada 
went up in flames by the evening. To date the 
police have not apprehended the criminals who 
fired at a religious congregation.

A report (available on www.pucl.org), brought out 
by a fact finding team of PUCL, Nagpur, and 
Secular Citizens Forum, which visited the city on 
April 22, and met many ordinary citizens as well 
as representatives of the administration, made 
clear a few pertinent points which need special 
mention. To quote,

1) Bomb blast at the house of the RSS activist at 
Nanded was not reported in any newspaper outside 
Nanded. Even the administration at Nanded 
prevailed upon the city media not to write about 
the incident anymore.

2) The immediate story that was published in the 
next morning newspapers was that the blast 
occurred due to sudden burst of crackers stored 
in the house as part of the family business. But 
the doubts persisted, since there is normally a 
series of bursts if crackers catch fire and not a 
single powerful blast as had happened in this 
case. Moreover, the house did not catch fire as 
is expected in an accident involving crackers. 
The cracker theory was blasted at 4 p m on April 
7 when the post mortem report was released. It 
revealed that bomb parts were found and extracted 
from the bodies of the dead. The doubt that it 
must have been a bomb blast was further confirmed 
by April 7 night.

3) Suryapratap Gupta, IG of Nanded, confirmed 
that a live pipe bomb was found at the house of 
Laxman Rajkondwar, which was a centre for 
manufacturing bombs and that all the accused were 
connected with the Bajrang Dal. However, the 
police maintained silence on the motive behind 
this bomb manufacturing at Rajkondwar's house, 
about wherefrom they acquired the material for 
making the bombs and whether the perpetrators of 
the crime had nationwide connections.

4) The most worrying fact to have been revealed 
was that the live bomb discovered under the sofa 
was an IED type sophisticated bomb with timer and 
operated through remote control. A supplier of 
chemical material to colleges has been questioned 
in this regard. It is also reported the accused 
had been arrested during the Ayodhya Ram Mandir 
episode.

5) Though the report remained inconclusive due to 
lack of availability of authentic information 
from official sources, it did give strong 
indications that deep communal conspiracies were 
being hatched by the Hindutva forces in the city 
of Nanded. It was the accidental blast of a bomb, 
while in the process of making at the house of a 
prominent RSS activist of the city, that 
implementation of such conspiracies was 
temporarily aborted.

Looking at the hierarchical nature of the Sangh 
Parivar where even the topmost leader of its mass 
political formation has to pay obeisance before 
the Supremo or the power coterie surrounding him, 
it would be incorrect to say that the local 
leaders of the Bajrang Dal or for that matter RSS 
envisaged and implemented the plan themselves. To 
put it straight the centre for manufacturing 
bombs being run at a RSS activists house would 
not have seen the light of the day if the top 
bosses of the Parivar had not given a green 
signal to this 'patriotic' work. The larger 
gameplan which the ringleaders of this group had 
in mind need to be unearthed at the earliest.

As things stand today the administration is 
keeping its mouth shut, but looking at the raids 
on houses of RSS as well as Bajrang Dal activists 
and the feeling of panicky among them one can 
hope that the administration comes out with 
concrete proof of 'conspiracy' and the real 
kingpins of this operation. Looking at the nature 
of crime, which could be averted by sheer chance, 
the administration should not shy away from 
naming the real conspirators. It was not for 
nothing that the local leaders of BJP and Shiv 
Sena became overactive in the aftermath of the 
explosion to 'warn' the administration that it 
does not adopt a vindictive attitude towards its 
workers.

It is for everyone to see that it is not for the 
first time that RSS or its plethora of frontal 
organisations have come under cloud for their not 
so glorious role in precipitating a riot. The 
different judicial commissions of enquiry 
costituted in post-independence times have time 
and again indicted the RSS for its complicity in 
communal riots. A writeup detaling 'A Half 
Century's Gory Record' ( A.G.Noorani, The 
Statesman, January 15, 2000) rightly summarises 
how the role of the RSS was viewed by different 
such commissions : "If the Jaganmohan Reddy 
Commission on the Ahmedabad riots ( 1970) exposed 
the Unified Front tactics of the RSS and its 
political wing, the Jan Sangh, Justice 
Vidyarthi's report on Tellichery riots ( 1971) 
censured the RSS for "rousing up" communal 
feeling and for "preparing the background for the 
disturbances." Justice Jitendra Narain's Report 
on the Jamshedpur riots (1979) censured the RSS 
supremo Deoras personally for the communal 
propaganda that had caused the riots."

Of course the Nanded operation rather had lot of 
similarities with the way it had gone ahead 
during post partition riots. There are enough 
documentary proofs to show its ignoble role 
during  that period. It would be opportune to 
look at the memoirs of a senior civil servant who 
was posted as Chief Secretary of UP in those 
tumultous times to get to know one such instance.

Rajeshwar Dayal, the then chief secretary reveals 
in his memoirs, A Life Of Our Times (1998, Orient 
Longmann) that soon after the partition the 
deputy IGP of the western range, BBL Jaitely 
produced before him two steel trunks. They 
"revealed incontrovertible evidence of a 
dastardly conspiracy to create a communal 
holocaust throughout the western districts. 
"There were accurate maps marking out the Muslim 
localities and habitations...Timely raid 
conducted on the premises of the RSS had brought 
the massive conspiracy to light. The whole plot 
had been concerted under the direction and 
supervision of the Supremo of the Organisation 
himself - both Jaitley and I pressed for the 
immediate arrest of the prime accused M.S. 
Golwalkar". Incidentally the then chief minister 
of UP, G B Pant refused to order the arrest. He 
was arrested only after Gandhi's assasination.

It is easy to comprehend why Sardar Patel, had in 
a letter to Shyamaprasad Mukherjee on July 1, 
1948 wrote, " The activities of the RSS 
constituted a clear threat to the existence of 
the government and the State".

This happens to be the birth centenary year of 
the Golwalkar. And his followers have made 
elaborate plans to celebrate it. Can it then be 
said that the activists of the Hindutva brigade 
at Nanded just wanted to do 'Golwalkar' in their 
hometown as mark of 'tribute' towards him? Only 
time will be able to divulge the crucial details.

_____


[6] 

Press Trust of India
June 29, 2006

NOTED RATIONALIST EDAMARUKU PASSES AWAY

NEW DELHI: Noted rationalist and senior Malayalam 
journalist Joseph Edamaruku died of a massive 
heart attack here on Thursday.

Edamaruku, the face of rationalist movement in 
Kerala and known for his critical works on holy 
books, died at his residence in Mayur Vihar in 
East Delhi. He was 72.

He is survived by wife Solley and son Sanal 
Edamaruku, who is also a known figure in the 
rationalist circles.

Born on September 7, 1934 in Kerala's Idukki 
district, Edamaruku represents a colourful era of 
rationalist movement in the state and was an 
influential figure for youth.

An avid reader and traveller, he authored 168 
books, both in English and Malayalam relating to 
subjects like religion, philosophy, magic and 
over 2000 essays in a number of Malayalam 
publications.

His main works include 'Christ and Krishna Never 
Lived', 'Quran - A Critical Study' and 'Bhagadvad 
Gita - A Critical Study'. He won the Kerala 
Sahitya Akademi award for his autobiography 'The 
Times that Raised the Tempest'.

The co-founder of rationalist weekly 'Therali', 
he came to Delhi in 1977 and was associated with 
the Kerala Sabdham group of publications. He 
later became its Delhi Bureau Chief.

An staunch campaigner against obscurantism, 
superstitions and blind belief, he was president 
of Indian Rationalist Association from 1995 to 
2005.

Edamaruku, who won the International Atheist 
Award in 1979, was imprisoned in 1970 and in 1975 
during Emergency.

His body will be handed over to AIIMS for medical research as per his will.

_____


[7]

LETTER TO THE EDITOR


D-504 Purvasha
Mayur Vihar 1
Delhi 110091

12 July 2006

What Barkha Dutt writes about the Broadcasting Services
Regulation Bill, 2006 (HindustanTimes.com, 8 July 2006)
is generally acceptable, but this claim is beyond
comprehension: "In my view, many lives may have been
saved had the 1984 Delhi riots taken place in the age
of private television; the scrutiny would have been
just too intense and constant. Just as it was in
Gujarat."

Are we being told that the presence of people reporting
for private television channels made any difference to
Modi and his phalanx of killers, rapists, arsonists? It
did not. Those channels still report from Gujarat, but
does Modi give a damn? He does not. Why should he, when
the channels themselves have forgotten those thousands
who were butchered four years ago, when they do not
trouble to look at the living death of the survivors?

The Bill does spell danger, but the story of the
emperor's new clothes is too old to need intense and
constant scrutiny.

Mukul Dube

_____


[8] 

SEMINAR

Karachi Citizens Forum with its mission "To 
highlight presents and future problems of 
Karachi. To analyze their root causes and to 
strive for their permanent solutions by 
mobilizing people and engaging all stakeholders", 
is holding an important seminar addressed by 
prominent scholars. As a valued contribution in 
transforming Karachi a real haven for its Over 15 
million populace.

Speakers

Rasheed Rizvi: How citizens of mega cities in 
other countries successfully protected their 
rights and what course should Karachi take to 
achieve the same.

Taj Haider: Why various local and provincial 
governments failed to resolve the very basic 
problems of Karachi and what karachities should 
do now.

Arif Hassan: Ways and means to solve the problems 
of Karachi and role of citizens’ forum.

Karamat Ali: How to mobilize people and engaged 
other stakeholders to solve the problems of 
Karachi.

Date: 15th July 2006 (Saturday)
Time: 5:00 P.M
Venue: P.M.A House Garden Road, Karachi

R.S.V.P
0300-2267993
Founding Members
Karachi Citizens’ Forum

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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials 
carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect 
the views of SACW compilers.