SACW | Sep 11-12, 2006 | Bangladesh crackdown on NGO; Pakistan Media; India: Malegaon / Satyagraha centenary is tokenism

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | September 11-12, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2285

[1]  Bangladesh: Proshika crackdown - Smacks of 
persecution! (Editorial, Daily Star)
[2]  Nepal: Down With Monarchy, Bring On The 
Republic (Baburam Bhattarai  interviewed by 
Bharat Bhushan)
[3]  Pakistan: Limits of Media (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
[4]  India:  A self-belittling blame game (Jawed Naqvi)
[5]  India:  Lessons from Malegaon (Editorial , The Hindu)
[6]  India: Politics and religion don't mix (Kuldip Nayar)
[7]  India: Mocking The Man - Celebrating the 
centenary of satyagraha is sheer tokenism 
(Rudrangshu Mukherjee)
[8]  Upcoming Events: 
  (i)   Ram Puniyani to a lecture on 'Terrorism 
and Imperialism' (Trivandrum, 12 Sept)
(ii) The Gujarat genocide, four years later - 
Talk by Dionne Bunsha (Montreal, 12 Sept)

___


[1] 

The Daily Star
September 12, 2006

Editorial

PROSHIKA CRACKDOWN
SMACKS OF PERSECUTION!
ONE in a right frame of mind cannot but 
characterise the subjection of one of the biggest 
NGO in Bangladesh to mass arrest as an expression 
of persecution mentality. It is difficult for one 
to justify an action of the government that is 
preemptive at its worst, merely on the grounds 
that the said organisation was allegedly 
preparing to send a large number of people to 
participate in the opposition's programme planned 
for next week. It is a repetition of the 
treatment meted out to the NGO in 2004.

The point of contention is in the countrywide 
wholesale arrest of officials of the said 
organisation; and we are not aware that any 
specific charge was communicated to the 
management of the NGO and reportedly no warrant 
of arrest was shown. Such an act is untenable not 
only on legal grounds, the arrest of so many 
officials all over the country of the NGO is 
morally wrong too. After all, it is not a 
political organisation, and the arrests of its 
managerial level officers would certainly result 
in serious disruption in its working. It not only 
demonstrates a highhanded attitude of the 
administration it would also send a very wrong 
signal to the NGOs and the outside world in 
general.

The suggestion that any anti-government stance 
must be put down with a heavy hand does not go 
with the culture of democracy. While no one is 
above the law, no one is below it either. 
Suspicion is not enough ground for what the 
police are doing with the NGO. By all means 
substantiate the allegation if there be any; 
appropriate action under law can be justified 
only if there is evidence that the organisation 
has overstepped its terms of reference. We have 
not been provided that evidence as yet. Till then 
the action of the government will continue to 
remain an unjustifiable act.

o o o

The Daily Star
September 12, 2006

Proshika closes 200 offices as crackdown on
http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/09/12/d6091201033.htm

_____


[2] 

The Telegraph
September 11, 2006

DOWN WITH MONARCHY, BRING ON THE REPUBLIC
TWENTY-TWENTY -BHARAT BHUSHAN

No compromises please

Except for Baburam Bhattarai, Delhi's Jawaharlal 
Nehru University has only produced armchair 
revolutionaries. He first theorized about Nepal's 
development in his PhD thesis and then as a man 
possessed, went on to put his theory into 
practice - through an armed revolution.

Although initially a student of architecture, 
Bhattarai's heart was not in designing buildings. 
Instead, he conceptualized a new Nepal. Today, 
his ideas on development based on regional, 
ethnic and gender equity have been put firmly on 
the national agenda. He is the main ideologue of 
the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

After wielding a gun for 12 years, he argues for 
peace in Nepal now. But as his interview shows, 
he is no wary revolutionary.

Q. Why has the peace process stalled in Nepal?

A. The great April movement was launched on the 
basis of the 12-point understanding between the 
seven-party alliance and the Communist Party of 
Nepal (Maoist). The main agenda was the abolition 
of monarchy and the establishment of a democratic 
republic with a progressive restructuring of 
society. That is why people in their millions 
joined the movement.

But on the very day this movement was stopped, we 
became aware of an implicit design to sideline 
the CPN (M) and forge a new alliance with the 
discredited monarchy. After we reached the 
8-point agreement in June, the foreign forces - 
mainly the Americans - activated themselves. They 
are now making fresh efforts to form an alliance 
between the monarchy and the parliamentary 
parties. Their design is to sideline the CPN (M). 
This is where the talks are held up. But we are 
still trying to see that they move forward.

Q. What are the Maoists willing to do to ensure 
free and fair elections to the Constituent 
Assembly?

A. We were the first to raise the demand for a 
Constituent Assembly. But the parliamentary 
parties, the monarchy and the Indian forces were 
against this. Today it has been accepted as the 
national agenda. When the political agenda 
belongs to the CPN (M), then we should have a 
leading role in its implementation. Without our 
participation, there can be no Constituent 
Assembly and there can be no free and fair 
elections. But these forces - both internal and 
external - are trying to keep the Maoists out of 
political power. When there is a contradiction 
between the policy and the leadership, then the 
policy does not get implemented.

Q. Your adversaries claim that you have little 
faith in pluralism. Anybody who differs with you 
is criticized and attacked; your trade unions are 
busting existing trade unions. Does this generate 
any confidence about your belief in pluralism?

A. That is not true. People are trying to create 
an excuse to keep the CPN (M) out of the interim 
government and to not hold the Constituent 
Assembly elections. After the ban on our 
organization has been lifted, there is a big 
upsurge in our favour. People from other trade 
unions have been joining our union. This is their 
natural democratic right. You can't blame us if 
their cadre are deserting the political parties.

Q. Why are you trying to resolve issues in the 
interim constitution which should be left for the 
Constituent Assembly? The fate of the monarchy 
was to be decided by the Constituent Assembly, 
but you want to it be decided now. Are you doing 
this because you are not sure of getting a 
majority in the Constituent Assembly and want to 
seal controversial issues in advance?

A. This is another big lie. The reality is that 
the seven-party alliance which formed this 
government is trying to institutionalize 
ceremonial monarchy. All sorts of nonsensical 
resolutions are being adopted by the parliament. 
These people are trying to legitimize monarchy by 
adopting succession laws and making cosmetic 
changes in the monarchy to deceive the people. 
They are not authorized by anyone to pass these 
ridiculous laws. If they are going by the mandate 
of the peoples' movement, then they should go for 
a democratic republic right away. If not, they 
should stop all this nonsense in the parliament 
and go for the Constituent Assembly.

Q. Which specific issues should be settled in the interim constitution?

A. First, the interim position of the king has to 
be made clear. Second, an interim security 
mechanism should be evolved so that the Nepal 
Army cannot interfere with elections. We are also 
ready to manage our army and our weapons. Third, 
the restored parliament, which does not represent 
the mandate of the people, has to be dissolved 
and replaced with an interim legislature with 
representation from the seven-party alliance, the 
CPN(M) and civil society.

And fourth, the mode of election and 
representation in the Constituent Assembly has to 
be decided. We have to create a modality so that 
the oppressed regions, nationalities, women, 
Madhesis and Dalits can be properly represented 
in it. We should also decide whether to have a 
first-past-the-post system or proportional 
representation.

Q. The management of weapons of the two armies is 
only a part of the process of creating the right 
atmosphere for the Constituent Assembly 
elections. What about intimidation by your cadre 
even without weapons?

A. You must understand the reality. The main 
fight has been with the mo- narchy, buttressed by 
the Royal Nepal Army, whose name has now been 
changed. The main danger to free and fair 
elections is the Nepal Army and not the People's 
Liberation Army. The PLA has been fighting for a 
Constituent Assembly. The Nepal Army, which has 
been fighting against it, is the main danger. I 
fail to understand why people are not raising the 
question the other way around.

Q. What should be the sequencing of arms management?

A. This has been made clear in the 12-point 
understanding and the 8-point agreement that both 
the armies - the Nepal Army and the PLA - would 
be kept in separate barracks and the UN would 
monitor them. After the election, both the armies 
would be merged and a new national army would be 
created.

Q. What are the specific pre-conditions that 
should be met before you agree to arms management?

A. The whole thing should be decided as a 
political package. This is a political insurgency 
against a feudal and autocratic monarchy. Apart 
from arms management, the creation of an interim 
legislature, the creation of an interim 
government and the election to the Constituent 
Assembly should be decided as a package.

Q. The political process cannot begin unless the 
technical issue of arms management is settled. So 
why are you overloading a technical issue with 
political goals?

A. This goes against the understanding and 
agreement with the parliamentary parties. These 
are inter-related issues. You can't pick one 
issue at a time and settle it. This has not 
happened with any insurgency anywhere. Nor will 
it happen in Nepal.

Q. A summit level talk has been proposed within 
the next few days. Are you confident that gaps 
with the political parties will be bridged?

A. If the main political parties - particularly 
G.P. Koirala and his party - stick to the 
12-point understanding and the 8-point agreement, 
then a solution can be found. If they back out 
and attempt a new alliance with the monarchy 
under pressure from the Americans, then it would 
be difficult to find a solution. But we are fully 
committed to finding a peaceful solution.

Q. Are you trying to marginalize the seven-party 
leaders if they don't keep to their commitment by 
threatening to launch another mass movement?

A. We don't want to marginalize anybody and no 
one can manipulate the people. We believe in the 
supremacy of the masses. But the present 
government is going against the mandate of the 
people and is losing ground. We are worried for 
them. If they ignore that mandate and compromise 
with the monarchy, then they will marginalize 
themselves.

Q. What happens if this peace process does not succeed?

A. We earnestly hope that it does. The people 
want both peace and change in Nepal. We are a 
poor country and we want faster and equitable 
development. We can't afford to prolong this 
conflict forever. So we will do our best to make 
the peace process a success. But in case foreign 
forces play mischief and instigate the rulers 
here, the process will not succeed. Then we will 
have to go through another mass movement to 
complete this democratic revolution. We are 
preparing for that too.


_____


[3]

The Citizen! - Newsletter of the Helpline Trust                             


Dear All,

Last night (6th September) I tested the limits of 
media freedom. Geo TV asked me to be one of the 
guests for a live program on Defence Day when our 
glorious army had the greatest victory of all 
history. General Omer and Air Marshal Sheikh from 
Karachi, and me plus a wimpy ex-ambassador, Tariq 
Fatimi, from Islamabad. Well, they all prattled 
on about the importance of 1965, power, strength, 
etc. until I get my first chance to speak or, 
rather, launch a broadside. So I went into 1971, 
Kargil, and the fact that this glorious army has 
been throwing bombs and machine gunning the 
Pakistani population in places like Balochistan 
and Waziristan, and the only war it has won has 
been against our own people. The anchor 
(Chughtai) kept interrupting me but I fended him 
off until it appeared useless and then I threw 
off the microphone and walked off. The link to 
Karachi, where the anchor was based with the two 
military men, mysteriously broke so I do not know 
whether this walkout was visible. Actually, I 
have no idea of how much I said was heard, even 
though it was a live program because at home our 
TV does not work. Anyhow, I reached the elevator 
outside and a bunch of Geo people came to 
persuade me that I should return and complete 
what I had been saying. They said they liked very 
much what I was saying and they hate the army. So 
I did go back. The anchorman eventually returned 
to me and asked me about the economy. So I 
launched a second broadside about the army having 
eaten Pakistan out of
the house, having become real estate sharks, 
forcibly capturing industries. I ended by saying 
that fauj ka kam mulk ka difah karma hai, cheenee 
aur dalia banana nahin hai - yeh ploton aur 
murrabon ka karobar chor dain. He cut me off once 
again and launched into panegyrics of the great 
sacrifices of the army! So there you have it. 
This country lives in terror of its occupiers and 
murderers of our people. Unless we get rid of 
this parasitic entity known as the Pakistan Army, 
we are all done for. Whether the ISI comes 
knocking at my door today or not, the truth had 
to be said.  Pervez

-----------
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Professor of Physics
Quaid-e-Azam University
Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.

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[4]

Dawn
September 11, 2006

A SELF-BELITTLING BLAME GAME
by Jawed Naqvi

INDIAN participants at international seminars on 
terrorism resent being assigned a regional role 
in the global campaign to thwart the menace. They 
believe the world makes an avoidable distinction 
between the countless terror attacks that have 
unsettled India for decades and those that 
galvanised the rest of the international 
community to wage a global campaign against the 
perpetrators of Sept 11 for example.

Seen from the record of official statements that 
follow big or small attacks in India, the 
establishment in New Delhi looks as culpable as 
the international community in India's 
insignificant role in the global war on 
terrorism. In other words India's obsessive 
finger-pointing at President Musharraf and his 
generals for every violent incident at home gives 
the world an excuse to label New Delhi's 
headaches as essentially Pakistan-focused.

This is more or less what several international 
commentators, including The Economist also 
implied in the aftermath of July's Bombay blasts. 
The British magazine even pitched for a solution 
to the Kashmir tangle to prevent future attacks 
in India, an idea that is difficult for the 
Indian establishment to accept. Thus even if 
blaming Pakistan for its problems with organised 
violence is rooted in verifiable facts the net 
result for the Indian interlocutors at 
international seminars is that they only get to 
be seen as Pakistan-centric and thus, of little 
use to the strategies needed to fight the scourge 
in Europe and Afghanistan, the two rising 
theatres of the intractable war.

Often the finger-pointing defies credibility. 
Friday's attack in Malegaonthat killed dozens of 
Muslim devotees at a Shab-i-Barat congregation 
should have put a check on this obsession with 
Pakistan. But this was not to be.

Senior politicians like former premier Vajpayee 
took the view that peace talks with Pakistan 
should be suspended in view of the Malegaon 
blasts. TV anchors were pressing for analyses 
that fitted their view of Pakistan as being 
somehow responsible for the murder of the 
Malegaon Muslims. Weeks before Friday's incident, 
Hindu extremist websites were pointing to 
Malegaon - the Muslim-majority town in 
Maharashtra - where the plot to blow up the 
trains in Bombay was alleged to have been 
hatched. One poisonous message mocked the 
government's soft handling of Muslims.

"The Mohammeds of Mumbai are all good citizens. 
They are Islamic, i.e. peace-loving people. They 
can not harbour any terrorists. That means all 
those thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims (if they 
really exist) are actually living under the 
Arabian SeaŠ. (and that's why police can never 
find them. Now I see.) The police said yesterday 
that "the blasts were planned in Malegaon". 
Strange coincidence that Malegaon has 60 per cent 
Muslim population and Central government reports 
estimate another 2,50,000 Bangladeshis in 
Malegaon and rest of Maharashtra."

Perhaps Mr Vajpayee and like-minded people in the 
media should glean a few hard facts from the 
Malegaon story as it has been analysed by 
independent and unbiased journalists. One such 
analysis was published in The Hindu on Saturday.

The Hindu's story begins in April, when Hindu 
extremists of the Bajrang Dal - Naresh Raj 
Kondwar and Himanshu Phanse - were killed while 
attempting to fabricate an improvised explosive 
device along with their fellow extremists Maruti 
Wagh, Rahul Pande, and Ramraj Guptewar. 
Investigators later recovered a second bomb from 
the Nanded home where the bomb-making exercise 
was under way, and evidence that the extremists 
had struck before.

Maharashtra Police found that Kondwar and Phanse 
were the key figures in the April 2006 bombing of 
a mosque at Parbhani, in which 25 people were 
injured. Bajrang Dal operatives linked to the 
Nanded terror cell are believed to have carried 
out the bombing of mosques at Purna and Jalna in 
April 2003. Eighteen people sustained injuries in 
these twin attacks.

What disturbed the Maharashtra Police most about 
the Nanded explosion, though, was that it 
demonstrated the Bajrang Dal's growing 
bomb-making capabilities. In an interview to the 
magazine Communalism Combat earlier this year, 
K.P. Raghuvanshi, Joint Commissioner of Police, 
Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, admitted that 
the Nanded incident could have "frightening 
repercussions."

Despite police concerns, the Maharashtra 
Government has been reluctant to take on the 
Bajrang Da, says The Hindu. It fears this would 
provide political capital to organisations such 
as the Shiv Sena. Although Mr. Raghuvanshi acidly 
noted that the bombs were "not being manufactured 
for a puja," the Congress-Nationalist Congress 
Party Government refused to consider proscribing 
the Bajrang Dal.

"Politics underpins this paralysis," the 
newspaper said. Both the Congress and the NCP 
have run a successful campaign of poaching 
directed at middle level Shiv Sena leaders, and 
believe that action which might be considered 
'anti-Hindu' would give the religious Right a new 
lease of life. At the same time, the decaying 
Hindu far Right sees Muslim terrorism, and the 
widespread anxieties it has generated through 
India, as a means of stemming the secular tide.

Each mosque bombing is, in this vision, an act 
through which the frayed political legitimacy of 
groups such as the Bajrang Dal will be restored. 
Just how capable Hindu fundamentalist groups are 
of executing such a project is unclear, for 
already stretched police forces have paid little 
attention to the emerging threat. If a Hindu 
fundamentalist group did carry out the Malegaon 
attack, it would demonstrate a significant 
increase in their capabilities.

In its balanced analysis, The Hindu cautioned 
against any hasty conclusions to run away with. 
Muslim terror groups too have demonstrated their 
willingness to stage large-scale attacks against 
shrines and mosques in West Asia, Pakistan, and 
even Jammu and Kashmir, in the hope of securing 
their political objectives, it said.

Malegaon was once known for its flourishing 
power-loom industry. But recession and a long 
history of riots have made the town one of the 
most communally fragile places in Maharashtra. 
Along with Bhiwandi and Thane, Malegaon has been 
declared an ultra-sensitive zone by the 
Maharashtra Government.

Almost 75 per cent of Malegoan's population of 
700,000 is Muslim -- mostly descendant of 
migrants from Uttar Pradesh who came searching 
for jobs in the mills, and refugees from the 
post-Partition riots in Hyderabad. "However, 
industrial recession led first to widespread 
criminalisation among the young -- and then a 
turning to the religious Right in search of 
divine redemption where the state had failed," 
says the paper.

In 1992, the town itself saw large-scale 
violence. Provoked by the demolition of the Babri 
Masjid, the riots reflected the political 
position of Islamists who attributed the 
hardships of Malegaon's Muslims to the Indian 
state's 'Hindu' character. Violence broke out 
again in October 2001, this time after the police 
attacked demonstrators calling for a boycott of 
United States-manufactured goods in the wake of 
its attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

These and similar facts could help analyse a 
horrendous tragedy more objectively than it suits 
the likes of Mr. Vajpayee to admit. Indian 
interlocutors at international seminars would win 
a lot more respect if they presented a forthright 
assessment of the social malaise in India that 
makes it vulnerable to sectarian attacks. A 
distilled analysis along these lines would be a 
unique lesson for the world to glean from India's 
experience. It would be able to see how not one 
but different religious and ethnic groups can 
make a country vulnerable to terror attacks from 
within. Shorn of the self-belittling blame game 
India would then have a serious contribution to 
make to the understanding of the root causes of 
terrorism worldwide.


_____


[5] 

The Hindu
Sep 11, 2006

Editorial

LESSONS FROM MALEGAON

The fact that Friday's terror attack in Malegaon 
did not instantly translate into communal riots 
in that divided and volatile town is no cause for 
euphoria. For the ground realities give little 
cause for reassurance that those who perpetrated 
this atrocity will not succeed in triggering more 
death and destruction. Although not every town 
that has a mix of Hindus and Muslims is 
necessarily a communal tinderbox, there are 
specific reasons for the perception that Malegaon 
is one. At the root of the problem is the 
communal divide combining with the abject neglect 
of infrastructure in a town that once had a 
thriving powerloom industry. Today, the 800,000 
residents of Malegaon have little by way of basic 
services. The absence of medical facilities 
became painfully evident on Friday when the 
grievously wounded had to be sent 55 kilometres 
away to the nearest decent hospital in Dhule. The 
fact that some relatives of blast victims refused 
to accept monetary compensation and instead 
demanded that the government provide civic 
infrastructure reinforces the argument that the 
causes of alienation from the system often lie in 
the lack of provision of such facilities. This 
feeling of neglect by the state emerged as one of 
the factors responsible for violence in several 
parts of Maharashtra in the recent past. A 
Statewide survey mapping violence-affected areas 
in Maharashtra conducted two years ago by the 
Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation, a 
non-governmental organisation, identified 20-odd 
small or big towns and villages, including 
Malegaon. Of these, five had seen serious 
communal riots, and 16 had witnessed communal 
incidents in the preceding two years. Although 
the causes of the outbreak were specific to the 
area, the common concerns that emerged were the 
way local politicians exploited these clashes, 
the perceived partisanship of the police, and the 
belief among the local population that the 
government did not care about their needs.

Malegaon also reminds us of the importance of 
dealing with the past instead of trying to bury 
it. The last major communal clash in this town 
took place in 2001. The Maharashtra Government 
instituted an inquiry commission headed by a 
retired judge of the Bombay High Court, K.N. 
Patil, to look into the causes of the riots. 
Although the report has been ready for some time, 
it is yet to be made public; nor has any action 
been taken. Earlier this year, a bomb-making 
factory was uncovered in Nanded when an explosion 
in a house killed two Bajrang Dal activists. 
There have also been attacks on mosques in 
Parbhani, Purna, and Jalna, which investigators 
believe were carried out by Bajrang Dal 
operatives linked to the Nanded terror cell. The 
challenge has been acknowledged in the 
Maharashtra Legislative Assembly by no less a 
person than Home Minister R. R. Patil. Yet the 
cases have not been pursued with any kind of 
diligence by the State authorities, presumably on 
the reasoning that any action that can be 
depicted as `anti-Hindu' might play into the 
hands of the Shiv Sena and other Hindutva 
organisations. It is imperative that the 
investigation into the terrorist attack at 
Malegaon be even-handed and make a swift 
breakthrough.
_____


[6]


Gulf News
09/09/2006

POLITICS AND RELIGION DON'T MIX

By Kuldip Nayar, Special to Gulf News

Whoever advised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to 
have a meeting with Muslim religious leaders did 
not serve him well. The very idea of a secular 
polity mixing religion with the law and order 
problem has serious repercussions. The Prime 
Minister's meeting has established a court of 
appeal of sorts. Unwittingly, the exercise has 
put the entire Muslim community in the dock while 
Mumbai bomb blasts were the handiwork of only a 
few.

Autonomy

If terrorism is the determining factor, the 
government should have had a meeting with Sikh 
religious leaders when Punjab was burning. 
Similarly, the Nagaland is all Christian. No 
religious leader has been associated with the 
talks on the quantum of autonomy for the Nagas. 
In the past, Manmohan Singh resisted a meeting 
with religious leaders it was to discuss the 
anti-America feeling among the Muslims following 
the visit of US President George W. Bush to 
India. So why did the Prime Minister agree to 
meet them this time? Was it a move to win over 
Muslims?

Manmohan Singh was, however, on the right track 
when he addressed state chief ministers and 
advised them "to treat the community with 
sensitivity". This was long over due. The Muslim 
community is treated indiscriminately and the 
sins of Pakistan still visit them. True, the 
nation has been shocked to find terrorists among 
Indian Muslims because the impression so far has 
been different: they were praised for not 
responding to the Taliban's call for jihad in 
their fight at Afghanistan.

To put the blame on the Muslim community or to 
pick up "Muslim suspects" at random, as it has 
been done after Mumbai blasts, is not to deal 
with the problem squarely. This is, in fact, what 
the Al Qaida wants so that it may recruit from 
the community the innocent who go through untold 
indignities at the hands of police almost daily.

The fact is that there are chinks in our 
pluralistic policy. We must analyse where the 
nation has gone wrong and why some Muslims have 
become so desperate that they have opted to 
become part of the network which they had shunned 
in the past. We should also find out how the 
contamination began and when. Some say it was 
after the demolition of the Babri masjid while 
some attribute it to the happenings in Gujarat.

Both arguments may well be true. I think they are 
contributory factors. The real reason is 
economic. Muslims' share in the cake has been 
very small. They have been left to fend for 
themselves. When the affluent from among them 
left for Pakistan after partition, the artisans, 
craftsmen and the like stayed behind because they 
did not want to leave the land of their 
forefathers. They could not afford education for 
their children. The government did little.

Education

Unfortunately, education was not on the priority 
list of post-independent government. A special 
attention to the minorities was not even 
considered pertinent. I do not know why India's 
first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad 
could not have his way when he reportedly 
proposed some "weightage" for Muslims.

Besides education, there are many other fields 
where Muslims have felt discriminated, 
particularly while finding accommodation. They 
have to live in certain localities where they are 
bound to acquire the ghetto mentality.

Even in the redress of grievances they find 
authorities treating them with disdain. That the 
community has been used as a vote bank is nothing 
new.

This has happened election after election. 
Promises made to them were mere promises. On the 
other hand, the Muslims who were on the defensive 
for nearly four decades have begun to speak up. 
They were held responsible for the partition of 
the country which the majority community felt had 
brought it all ills. But their argument now is 
that two generations had paid the price if that 
was what was sought to be exacted. In any case, 
the youth believes that the "sins of their 
forefathers should not visit them". Why should 
they be denied their due?

Whenever Hindu-Muslim riots have broken out, the 
Muslim community finds that the authorities are 
generally on the side of Hindus and, at some 
places, the police even help them. Many 
commissions have pointed this out in their 
reports but no action has been taken against the 
erring policemen. The Muslim community has every 
right to feel bitter. But the betrayal of the 
country by some of its members is unthinkable. 
Some Hindus also have done so but seldom in the 
name of religion.

The blasts at Varanasi, Bangalore, Delhi and now 
in Mumbai have not only tarnished the image of 
Muslim community but have made the BJP and other 
Sangh parivar members say: "We told you so". The 
RSS efforts to convert pluralistic India into a 
theocratic state get strengthened. The problem 
with the parivar is that it has not yet 
appreciated the pluralistic ethos of the country.

The few Muslim terrorists remind me of Sikh 
terrorists who were able to spoil the peace of 
Punjab for many years. Bhindranwale was a 
symptom, not the disease. Still, the entire 
community suffered terribly.

I want to offer the same advice to the Muslim 
terrorists as I did in the case of Sikh 
terrorists long ago. During my recent trips to 
the US and the UK, I repeated it. The few Muslims 
who have been driven to terrorism because of the 
"circumstances" should realise that the 
government and the country are two separate 
entities. Mistakes of one should not visit the 
other. Governments can be changed through the 
ballot box. But the harm rendered to the country 
is irreparable.

Likewise, the Muslim community should realise 
that their grievance is against the government 
which can be changed through the ballot box. Any 
harm to the country is indefensible. As 
Jawaharlal Nehru said, who dies if India lives 
and who lives if India dies? Our forefathers 
sacrificed all to free the country from bondage. 
Now it requires peace and unity for economical 
development. By indulging in killings and 
destruction, we only stall its progress.

Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner 
to the UK and a former Rajya Sabha MP.

_____


[7] 

The Telegraph
September 10, 2006

MOCKING THE MAN
- Celebrating the centenary of satyagraha is sheer tokenism
Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Before the loincloth

Indians love anniversaries so much that they 
invent them. Historians are agreed that there is 
not a shred of evidence to declare September 7, 
2006 to be the centenary of Vande Mataram. But 
someone - nobody is owning responsibility - 
decided that a centenary of Vande Mataram was 
needed, and thus the nation was sent into a tizzy.

Another centenary is about to be celebrated, 
albeit with far less fanfare. Saturday's 
newspapers - or at least some of them - carried 
an advertisement in the name of Gandhi Smriti and 
Darshan Samiti which is an autonomous body under 
the ministry of culture. This advertisement 
announces that September 11, 2006 marks the 
hundred years of satyagraha. The history behind 
this claim needs to be narrated since it is not 
too well known.

On August 22, 1906, the Transvaal Government 
Gazette Extraordinary published a new ordinance 
affecting the lives of Indian settlers in the 
area. By the new ordinance every Indian, Arab and 
Turk of eight years and above entitled to reside 
in the Transvaal would have to register his or 
her name with the Registrar of Asiatics and take 
out a certificate of registration. Failure to 
comply would result in a fine of 100 pounds and 
imprisonment and even deportation. Further, the 
new ordinance gave the police extraordinary 
powers. The police could enter private houses to 
inspect the certificates. They could challenge 
people anywhere and ask them to produce 
certificates. Refusal or failure to produce the 
certificates would be deemed an offence 
punishable by fines or imprisonment.

Gandhi, as a leader of the Indian community in 
South Africa, was convinced that such an 
ordinance would threaten the very existence of 
Indians in the Transvaal. He decided to mobilize 
public opinion against the ordinance. He 
translated the draft ordinance into Gujarati and 
published it in Indian Opinion, the journal he 
had founded in 1904. A conference was held of the 
leading Indians, and it was resolved there to 
agitate publicly against the proposed ordinance. 
Gandhi also met the colonial secretary to present 
the views of the Indian community. The colonial 
secretary replied that these views and 
suggestions would be considered. On September 4, 
the bill was introduced in the assembly.

On September 11 - the date which is being 
commemorated on Monday - a mass meeting of 
Indians was held at Johannesburg at the Jewish 
Empire Theatre. More than three thousand people 
were present at the meeting. The most important 
resolution to be passed in the meeting was the 
one by which those present resolved not to submit 
to the ordinance and to suffer the consequences 
that would follow from such non-compliance. 
Through Gandhi's unique intervention, the 
resolution became a solemn pledge. The message of 
the meeting spread swiftly and in meetings held 
across the region, men and women took pledges of 
resistance.

It is important to underline here that what 
happened in September 1906 was the taking of a 
pledge of resistance. The resistance had not 
started because the law had not been passed. As 
Gandhi was to write in 1908, "An oath was taken 
in September 1906 not to submit to the law. 
Submission to the law was the only issue at that 
time. The regulations made under it in July 1907 
did not then exist." Yet Gandhi dated the 
beginning of what he in 1906 called "passive 
resistance" to the Johannesburg meeting of 
September 11, 1906.

In terms of activity, Gandhi concentrated on the 
legal means to subvert the new ordinance. He 
approached the government with petitions and 
memorials, and led a delegation to London to 
convince the British government to intervene. He 
preferred to exhaust the legal channels even 
though he knew that there was little chance of 
the law being withdrawn.

Gandhi was right in his reading of the situation. 
In March 1907, the ordinance became an act which 
received the royal assent in May. The act would 
come into effect from July 1, and Indians were 
required to register under it by July 31. In 
response, Gandhi established the Passive 
Resistance Association which began to organize 
meetings in the open and to administer oaths to 
resisters.

Indians were asked to boycott the permit offices 
the government had set up in the various Indian 
localities. Volunteers moved from house to house 
urging people not to register. Each and every 
permit office was picketed. Volunteers, with 
badges, were placed on the roads to persuade 
those who were going to register. The volunteers 
were not to use any coercion on those who wanted 
to register. The process allowed volunteers to 
identify the handful who did register. The 
volunteers, led by a captain, were instructed to 
surrender to the police if they were beaten up or 
arrested. Gandhi and the other leaders were 
arrested at the end of December 1907. This was 
Gandhi's first arrest, more than one year after 
September 11, 1906.

Gandhi was thus using the same techniques that he 
would use on a much greater scale in India during 
the mass movements he led in the Twenties and the 
Thirties.

The term satyagraha grew out of the movement. 
Gandhi found the term "passive resistance" 
inadequate to describe the nature of the 
struggle. He wanted a term that conveyed a moral 
force; he wanted an Indian name. A small prize 
was announced in Indian Opinion for the best 
suggestion. Maganlal Gandhi suggested sadagraha 
(firmness in a good cause). Gandhi liked the word 
but he felt it did not capture the idea in its 
totality. He altered it to satyagraha, "the force 
which is born of truth and love or non-violence". 
The term was probably first used sometime in late 
1907 on the pages of Indian Opinion, the journal 
that had become synonymous with satyagraha in 
South Africa.

This narrative events about the beginnings of 
satyagraha creates problems about its 100th 
anniversary. Is it correct to call September 11, 
1906, the birthday of satyagraha since on that 
day only a pledge to resist was taken, the 
satyagraha was not launched? If this logic is 
accepted, should the birth of India's 
independence be pushed back from 1947 to the year 
the Purna Swaraj resolution was adopted?

The other option is to use the date when the 
satyagraha was actually launched, i.e. some time 
in July 1907. Or, as some purists could argue, 
the date on which Gandhi first used the term 
satyagraha as distinct from passive resistance.

These points are more than factual quibbles. The 
bigger issue that needs to addressed is the 
meaninglessness of anniversaries. This is 
specially true for Gandhi, a man who hated 
tokenism. What else is the celebration of an 
anniversary concerning Gandhi but tokenism? India 
as a nation and as a society has turned its back 
in every possible way on the man it has placed on 
the pedestal of father of the nation? How does 
the date of an anniversary matter when the man 
and his message have ceased to matter?

How long are we going to mock a frail man in a loincloth?

_____


[8]  UPCOMING EVENTS

(i)

Save the date for a KCHR event

Dear friend,

Greetings from Kerala Council for Historical Research [KCHR]

We cordially invite you with friends to a Colloquium on 12th Sept, 2006

Prof. Ram Puniyani, renowned social activist and 
thinker, will deliver a lecture on

'Terrorism and Imperialism' 

Venue: KCHR Hall, Vailoppilly Samskrithi Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram

at 11 AM., Tuesday, 12th Sept, 2006

Prof. KN Panikkar Chairman KCHR will preside over the function.

We look forward to your presence

With Warm regards
Director
KCHR 

Ram Puniyani is Professor in Biomedical 
Engineering at the Indian Institute of 
Technology, Powai. Apart from his teaching and 
research activities, he pursues a parallel track 
concerned with issues related to social problems, 
particularly the ones related to preservation of 
democratic and secular ethos in our life.

He also has serious interest in understanding the 
Human Rights of weaker sections of society. He is 
currently head of EKTA, Committee for Communal 
Amity, Mumbai and has been associated with 
different secular initiatives for many years.

He has also been engaged in understanding global 
and local changes, which have resulted in 
communal violence. He is particularly concerned 
with the adverse effects of globalisation and the 
rise of fundamentalism, particularly in India.

Dr. Puniyani has contributed articles to various 
magazines and journals on these themes. He has 
authored three books around these subjects: 
'Fascism of Sangh Parivar', 'The Other Cheek' and 
'Communal Politics: an illustrated primer'.

At present Dr. Puniyani is continuing with his 
endeavour to understand these phenomena with a 
focus on human relationships geared around 
substantive liberty, equality and fraternity.

_____


(ii)

"Living in a State of Terror - The Gujarat genocide, four years later"

Talk by Dionne Bunsha, award-winning journalist from India

Tuesday 12 September, 6pm
Lecock Building, Room 26, McGill University
855 Sherbrooke Street West [Montreal]

Organized by: McGill Centre for Research and 
Teaching on Women (MCRTW), South Asian Women's 
Community Centre (SAWCC), and CERAS (Centre sur 
l'asie du sud).

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

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.