SACW | Sept. 21, 2006
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Wed Sep 20 18:36:00 CDT 2006
South Asia Citizens Wire | September 21, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2292
[Interruption Notice: Please note, there will be
no SACW dispatches between 22-24 September, 2006]
[1] Pakistan: Musharrafistan: A client state for
sale to the highest bidder (Mansoor Ijaz)
[2] Pakistan: WAF's long march for equality (Zubeida Mustafa)
[3] Australian law firm brings Bangladesh genocide issue into the world arena
[4] India: Allah Hafiz instead of Khuda Hafiz,
that's the worrying new mantra (Seema Chishti)
[5] India: Terror Trails - Investigations into Malegaon Blasts (Ram Puniyani)
[6] India: The Life and Death of a Mad Bhopali Child
___
[1]
The Wall Street Journal
Commentary
September 19, 2006
MUSHARRAFISTAN
A CLIENT STATE FOR SALE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER
by Mansoor Ijaz
Mr. Ijaz is a New York financier of Pakistani ancestry
Gen. Pervez Musharraf will speak tomorrow at the Clinton Global
Initiative's plenary session on "Urgent Issues and Innovative Solutions"
-- an apt title for a talk by the Pakistani ruler given the urgency and
array of problems he faces at home. Pakistan needs not just innovative
solutions for its difficulties, but a leader with ideas to frame them
and the guts to implement them. Increasingly, Gen. Musharraf does not
appear to be that man.
His Pakistan has become a sad story of contradictions. Islamabad is
propped up by U.S. taxpayer dollars to be the frontline ally in
America's war against extremists, yet Gen. Musharraf has repeatedly
appeased radicals for political gain while al Qaeda leaders actively use
his soil to plan attacks around the world. The British transatlantic
jumbo-jet terror plot last month was a case in point -- Pakistan's
arrests of militants in Karachi, Lahore and along the Afghan border may
have helped expose the plan, but British nationals of Pakistani origin
visited the country to meet al Qaeda co-conspirators and allegedly
issued the "Go" instruction from Pakistani soil.
Another example emerged in late August, when the Musharraf regime signed
a peace treaty with restless tribal chieftains in the northern frontiers
along the border with Afghanistan that effectively ended the hunt for
Osama bin Laden, America's most wanted man. The northern tribal areas
are now left unattended to become a state within the state that offers
haven to the civilized world's worst enemies. The irony could not be
more complete -- America's staunchest ally presides over the breeding
grounds of the very people who seek to kill as many Americans as they
can, while U.S. taxpayers foot the bill.
* * *
There are other disturbing hypocrisies. Gen. Musharraf's regime manages
to pour billions into plutonium processing plants and, soon, into
Chinese nuclear reactors, but cannot find enough money to feed or
educate Pakistan's children -- many of whom are growing up to be
tomorrow's extremists. Rogue elements inside Islamabad's nuclear program
are permitted to arm dangerously unstable governments with nuclear
technology and know-how in pursuit of ill-gotten gains -- and some
misguided notion of an Islamist panacea. But science and math are off
the curriculum at the nation's radicalized, Saudi-funded madrassahs. And
Pakistan's economic potential remains locked in a feudal past, where
land and labor are the bane of corrupt barons who pander to an army that
no longer acts as guardian of the state, but as if it is the state.
Neighborly relations are equally dismal despite recent attempts to shore
them up. Gen. Musharraf continues to court Tehran's mullahs, raising
Washington's ire, in hopes of building an Iran-Pakistan-India gas
pipeline that could fund a revival of the Kashmiris' militant insurgency
against India, and keep his restive Inter-Services Intelligence minders
happy. His peace overtures to New Delhi, including his recent commitment
to restart stalled peace talks at a meeting with Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in
Cuba, ring hollow after evidence seems to prove time and again that
Pakistani soil -- and resources made available from Pakistan -- are
being used to back terrorist attacks against India.
Gen. Musharraf's recent trip to Kabul, made under heavy pressure from
Washington, was little more than an exercise in damage control. A
resurgent Taliban has successfully used its northern Pakistani sanctuary
to launch attacks on Hamid Karzai's government while bringing down U.S.
helicopters with shoulder-fired missiles. Anywhere else, such actions
would be sufficient to disqualify a head of state from remaining in
government.
Pakistan has lost its identity. It is a client state for sale to the
highest bidder for the purpose that suits the moment: to the U.S. after
9/11 as the staging grounds for hunting down terrorists; to Saudi Arabia
since the Iranian revolution so that Wahhabist Islam could flourish next
door to Shiite Iran; and to China as a strategic counterbalance to
India's growing power. While this short-sighted strategy may help ward
off complete state failure, it does not provide fertile ground for
imaginative plans to realize the country's potential. Gen. Musharraf
must stop being all things to all people, and gather the resolve to
tackle what is wrong with Pakistan -- or step down from power. He, or
his successor, needs to do the following, and fast:
End the hypocritical alliance with jihadist parties and Islamist
activists. Pakistan in the 1970s tolerated student-protest movements,
trade unions and serf cooperatives. Political thinking thrived. But Gen.
Musharraf's power grab in October 1999 resulted in the death of
Pakistan's political class and the institutions that sustain democratic
rule. Political necessity and the realities of a post-9/11 world forced
him to make a devil's bargain with religious zealots that destroyed what
was left of Pakistan's polity. Islamists, however, want the "one man,
one vote, one time" version of democracy, not constitutionally assured
electoral continuity.
Pakistan's next leader needs to rebuild the foundations of self-rule by
bringing back debate, permitting protest and reviving analytical
thinking as the cornerstones of a functioning polity. Democratic
institutions and protections are rights and privileges no single man has
the authority to deprive a nation of.
Change the direction of the nuclear program. Pakistan's next leader
needs to radically rethink its nuclear policy. The army has enough bombs
in storage to blow up the world, so why build expensive plutonium plants
that only churn out less detectable, easily transportable bomb-making
material that will force the world to spend excessive resources in
policing an indeterminate threat? Why not make the nuclear program
transparent -- and remote from fanatics -- by inviting international
teams to man its nuclear facilities? That way, Pakistan could soon serve
as a global processing center to handle nuclear materials for a wide
array of countries under a new non-proliferation regime. That is the
path India is likely to choose when its reactors are refurbished under
the new U.S.-India nuclear pact. Safe, civilian nuclear energy available
to Pakistan's citizenry and one day, to the rest of the world, is the
best use of Pakistan's nuclear talents.
Build a real economy that integrates Pakistan into the world. Pakistanis
are a most industrious and intelligent workforce; expatriate income is a
cornerstone of Pakistan's economy. Just witness Dubai's
construction-boom riches flowing into the country unabated. Yet
Pakistan's feudal class has stifled domestic growth and crippled the
economy at home by manipulating industrial output, failing to reinvest
in business and indulging corruption on the grandest of scales.
The next leader needs to formulate an imaginative proposal to wean the
country off the dependencies that define feudal politics, and give the
landowning class a stake in a modern, industrial economy. Land barons
can profit from letting land to large, agrarian multinational businesses
with modern technology that improves productivity, as opposed to taxing
their serfs into oblivion.
Construct real peace, not mirages that mask tension. Pakistan's
neighbors no longer have cause to want to destabilize it, and, in fact,
would prefer a strong and stable country on their borders. India is busy
building a world-class economy; making peace with Pakistan over disputed
Kashmir is an important priority in that effort. Meetings and dialogue
between the leaders of both countries are important, but it's time to
end the talk and walk the walk. Jihadists are not the solution for
Kashmir, a fact that Pakistan's next leader must recognize from the
outset. Wresting Kashmir from India by force is not possible, and
militarily not prudent. Furthermore, a Pakistan at peace with India
would no longer require "strategic depth" by controlling or manipulating
affairs in Afghanistan.
The leader of Pakistan will speak tomorrow about innovative solutions
for urgent issues. Indeed, Pakistan needs imaginative leaders to
formulate creative solutions for its many problems. The world needs a
strong Pakistan that puts its brilliant minds to good use for the
betterment of its people so the country can fulfill its promise. It's
time for Pervez Musharraf to either deliver on that promise -- or step
aside, and let those who can take on the job.
© Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
_____
[2]
Dawn
20 September 2006
WAF'S LONG MARCH FOR EQUALITY
by Zubeida Mustafa
TWENTY-FIVE years ago, Fehmida and Allahbakhsh
were awarded 80 lashes and death by stoning
respectively by a Karachi court under the Hudood
ordinances. In reaction to this savage sentence,
the Women's Action Forum was born to fight
against the oppression of women.
Launched by seventeen women in Karachi, WAF has
grown into an amorphous, non-hierarchical
umbrella body of national dimensions that brings
together numerous organisations - at times over
20 in number - seeking justice for women.
Regrettably, as Anis Haroon, a founder member,
observed at the 25th anniversary celebration in
Karachi last week, the problems they had set out
to resolve in 1981 continue to haunt the women of
this country even today.
Ironically, at that point in time when WAF was
commemorating the two and a half decades of its
existence, the government of another general in
uniform was busy hobnobbing with the religious
parties to decide the fate of the same ordinances
that have been responsible for serious
miscarriage of justice for thousands of innocent
women who have suffered protracted incarceration.
As we now know, the government's manoeuvrings in
Islamabad last week, which were projected as an
effort to save the Women's Protection Bill, only
helped to throw this piece of legislation into
cold storage. The fact is that the government's
policy of seeking the approval of the MMA for the
proposed bill amounted to giving a new lease on
life to the Hudood ordinances that had given
birth to the Women's Action Forum in the first
place.
Initially organised as a body to struggle for
women's rights and lobby for the repeal of the
unjust and discriminatory laws that were being
enacted in quick succession by the Zia regime,
WAF emerged as a powerful pressure group. It
challenged the government's anti-woman policies
and made its voice heard against the law of
evidence and the Qisas and Diyat laws. It also
began taking up various issues of concern to
women, ranging from their exclusion from
spectator sports to their poor status in the
health, education and employment sectors. In the
process, WAF also worked to create public
awareness about women's rights and create
consciousness in a large number of them that
changed their perception of their own role in
society and gave a boost to their self-esteem.
WAF's contribution in giving birth to a nascent
women's movement in the country has been widely -
though grudgingly - acknowledged by many. Its
impact on national life manifested itself in
another way, though this has not been so widely
recognised. The Women's Action Forum radicalised
the politics of dissent at a time when General
Ziaul Haq ruled the country with an iron fist.
His was the darkest period in the history of
Pakistan when repressive laws were enacted to
curb the freedoms of the citizens. Censorship
silenced the press. Brutal punishments such as
whipping and flogging, the threats of stoning and
the amputation of limbs terrorised the people
into abject submission.
Not many summed up the courage to challenge the
government's writ. The state institutions such as
the judiciary had already fallen in line and the
few individual judges who refused to conform with
the military dictator's wishes were edged out. It
was the judiciary that was used to execute an
elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. His
party was paralysed and his wife and daughter
were first thrown into prison and then sent into
exile. In this scenario, which could have led to
widespread despair and despondency, WAF was the
only organisation that kept people's sights
trained on the light at the end of the tunnel.
It may not have been as a result of calculated
deliberation, but WAF's success in mobilising
women and bringing them out on the streets (even
though in modest numbers) and collecting
thousands of signatures proved to be a catalyst
for politics when the political process was all
but dead. Women defied martial law regulations to
demonstrate their anger at the discriminatory and
anti-women policies of the Zia regime. They broke
the ice and soon enough liberal-minded men who
supported the struggle for women's rights and
human rights joined hands with WAF.
Initially there was an intense debate in WAF
about the causes it should espouse. Since it had
started as a body fighting for the repeal of the
Hudood ordinances - which by implication amounted
to a struggle for women's rights - it was felt
that WAF's role should be that of a champion of
women's rights. In their book Women of Pakistan:
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? Khawar Mumtaz
and Farida Shaheed observe, "... the public
became suddenly interested in the political
potential of WAF ... [it] was approached by trade
unions, politicians and intellectuals who all
offered advice on how WAF could be more
effective. WAF was urged to form links with
various other organisations and groups and work
for the restoration of democracy. When WAF
refused to act on this advice and continued to
confine itself to women's issues, the level of
criticism increased. WAF was accused of playing
into the government's hands by diverting
attention from the more serious and basic problem
of martial law versus democracy."
Though WAF chose to be non-political in its
structure and functioning and maintained its
distance from the political parties, it gradually
began adopting a position on issues that did not
fall exclusively within the purview of the
women's question. This can be attributed to the
close link between women's problems and politics
which cannot be de-linked. This was evident at
WAF's anniversary celebration last week where two
women activists - one a labour leader from
Balochistan and the other from the Pakistan
Fisherfolk's Forum - spoke of problems that were
purely of a political nature.
The former recounted the opposition she had faced
from the feudals in her area when she sought
re-election because of her contributions to the
masses in her constituency. The latter spoke of
the travails of the fisherfolk (mainly men) who
were not granted licences by the government and
were picked up and thrown into Indian prisons
when they inadvertently strayed into Indian
waters.
Given this thrust, it is not surprising that of
the eight resolutions adopted at the anniversary
function, six were of a general nature. Thus the
demand for the repeal of the Hudood ordinances -
endorsed very vociferously by the audience - and
an end to practices like swara, vani, karo kari
and so on focused on women. But WAF also
condemned the new labour laws, demanded an end to
the military action in Balochistan, called for
provincial autonomy, resolved to strengthen
movements for the protection of people's
livelihood and build forces to counter and defeat
the forces of globalisation, and opposed violence
in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Palestine, Lebanon
and all regions facing militarist aggression.
It is now more than obvious that WAF's major
contribution has been integrating the women's
problem with political issues - a connection that
has come to be realised all over the world. Given
the fact that women constitute nearly half of the
population in every society and the growing
recognition of their substantial, though
invisible, role in the economy and social
development of a people, it is natural that the
woman's perspective has assumed greater
importance. But if WAF is to survive, it will
have to keep its distance from political parties,
many of which would love to have it enter their
fold.
_____
[3]
South Asian News-Feature Service
September 18, 2006
AUSTRALIAN LAW FIRM BRINGS BANGLADESH GENOCIDE ISSUE INTO THE WORLD ARENA
SAN-Feature Service : Raymond Solaiman &
Associates, an Australian Law firm, has
announced that it will lodge a formal
communication in the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva
against the Governments of Bangladesh, India,
Pakistan and USA for failing to stop selective
and systematic genocide in East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh) during 1971, for failing to prosecute
the persons responsible for those genocides.
On Saturday, September 9, the law firm announced
A communication was initiated on 7 September
2006 from our office with the office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Judicial Committee to examine the failure of the
states namely Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and USA
to prosecute the persons responsible for
genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity,
conspiracy against peace, conspiracy to wage war
on unarmed civilians at the time of 1971 in
former East Pakistan.
The Communication claims that the above mentioned
state parties are in a breach of Articles 6 & 7
of Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,
Article 6 of International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, Articles 4, 5, 6 & 8 of
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide and the whole of Convention
on the non-applicability of statutory limitations
to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It is now up to the committee to examine the
admissibility of the communication. Once it is
accepted for filing, the respective state parties
will be invited to defend the admissibility of
the communication. If those state parties fail to
establish its non-admissibility, the committee
will then invite our office to make a final
submission on the matter and then again invite
the state parties to respond. It will then be on
the judicial committee to decide whether the
above mentioned state parties are actually in
breach of those international laws and will allow
hem three months time to inform the office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
what actions they have taken to rectify the
breach.
If this proceeding is successful, the most likely
outcome would be, all respective state parties
would have to take all necessary actions
including adopting Genocide conventions into
their own domestic law and prosecute the persons
responsible for war crimes and genocide during
1971. If they do it, it will be marked as a black
incident in history.
However, it will be possible to use the term war
criminals for those alleged persons under
international law and nations around the world
would use their own immigration law to restrict
those people's international movement. It will
also be possible that those responsible persons
would never qualify to stand for public
representations.---SAN-Feature Service/ Courtesy
: Vinnomot
_____
[4]
Indian Express
September 05, 2006
ALLAH HAFIZ INSTEAD OF KHUDA HAFIZ, THAT'S THE WORRYING NEW MANTRA
Seema Chishti
Mumbai, September 4: On the phone, from his
fluent English and the number of times he uses
"like" mid-sentence, you would think Zaid Patel
is a college kid. When you meet him, though, this
28-year-old looks older than his years. In his
white kurta-pyjama, cap, a beard, and the weight
of his visiting card that reads, President,
Islamic Information Centre.
Two years ago, this Commerce graduate from
Mumbai's Burhani College, set up this centre in
Andheri which arranges "Islamic programmes" for
both "brothers and sisters," runs a free library
of books and VCDs on Islam and offers free Arabic
classes.
"I was an apolitical Muslim, scared to ask
questions," Patel says until he met one Dr Zakir.
Patel was only 15 then but he says Zakir
convinced him about the connection between logic,
science and the Quran. "Many centuries ago, the
Quran had foreseen science as we know it today,"
he says, "and it offers answers to all problems
around." He quotes chapter and verse as he argues
his case even if it's the need for the hijaab
("it's pragmatic," he says, "read Chapter 33,
Verse 59").
So how does this square with the current debate
over the need for reforms in the religion? Patel
evades a direct answer. As a follower of the Ahle
Hadees school (which essentially says that all
debate or interpretation of the Quran must end
and Islamic jurisprudence be based on valid
teachings and actions of the Prophet), he is
motivated about what he believes in and is
fighting his corner till you tire. "Those who
spread terror in the name of Islam are simply
un-Islamic," he says. "What is needed is a
revival of the true fundamentals of Islam."
No one has chronicled the extent of this
"revivalism" but interviews with several Muslim
clerics, teachers and professionals, suggest that
Zaid Patel isn't alone.
Whether a sense of persecution leads to
revivalism or if the revivalism has led to the
community being further marginalised is a
difficult question. But they admit that there are
some disturbing straws in the wind.
For one, several middle-aged and young Muslims,
like Zaid, are now increasingly ending meetings
by saying Allah Hafiz, as opposed to Khuda Hafiz,
(Khuda is the generic God, in Persian, Allah the
specific Arabic word.) The significance is more
than semantic.
In recent times, a lot of the "back to the
basics" argument in Islam (in the subcontinent at
least) can be encapsulated in the march of the
phrase "Allah hafiz". Says Firoz Batatawala, a
garment exporter from Jogeshwari - the same
neighbourhood that was home to the dozen who were
detained in Amsterdam - and also member of the
World Sufi Council: "This is Saudi-isation of
Indian Islam. It's on the rise as more people are
going to Saudi Arabia for work, their children
are employed there, and they think all that is
being practiced there, the Sunni Wahhabi Islam,
is a purer form of Islam, something quite alien
to the form of Islam that came to Kashmir, or
even western India, through trade, the more
inclusive way. God has 999 names in Islam. Shall
we now say Rahim-Hafiz?"
But this Gulf diaspora couldn't be the only reason.
A certain sense of siege has also played on the
Muslim psyche to force the community to become
overly defensive - and insular. No one knew that
flamboyant film director Mahesh Bhatt's mother
was a Shia Muslim until the destruction of the
Babri Masjid. Today, his cellphone ringtone is
his film Gangster's song Ya Ali.
"I did this because it reminds me of my mother's
constant refrain. The sense of persecution that
Muslims experience is what compelled me to assert
my Muslim dimension and make a film based on my
parents' inter-communal marriage (Zakhm)."
But there are others who don't buy this
explanation. Says Javed Anand of Communalism
Combat: "Non-Muslims had taken to Khuda Hafiz.
This should have been allowed to be. Why change
it? Many problems in fighting the stereotype
about Muslims has been the closeness of the
community basically due to the clerics'
unwillingness to debate, look beyond."
Nowhere is this unwillingness to look beyond more
evident than on the grounds of Shuklaji Road
which houses the Jamia Qadriya Ashrafi Madrasa,
home to over 100 adolescent boys, most of them
poor and orphaned. Set up in 1996, it offers
courses such as Alim Fazil, Hafiz and Qari and
the virtues of the Quran. The day begins with
early morning fajir prayers and is then clocked
according to namaaz timings. The only break in
the evening "is for those who wish to play a bit
of cricket", says Shakeel Ahmed Ashrafi, the
khadim (worker) here. The Naazim or Director,
Mohammed Umar Sufi, says: "The Quran has it all,
ibadat (prayer), rozi-roti (bread and butter)
issues, behaviour, it is the perfect book, duniya
ka nichor hai isme (the essence of everything is
here)".
But isn't this disorienting for young men growing
up in Mumbai in 2006 who may wish to be part of
the world outside, a world of jobs and job
interviews. The retort is quick: "Why do you
think the Quran does not allow for well-rounded
students?"
The students here aren't allowed to watch TV or
to interact with girls or even watch a movie.
Eighteen year-old Abdul Qadir is an ace student,
he has spent two years here and says the Quran
has taught him all he needs to know about
contemporary times. He doesn't appear enthused
about either Shah Rukh Khan or Irfan Pathan -
otherwise popular, especially with young Muslims
- and says that he couldn't care less. "Why
should they be our role models?"
Even the winds of change are tentative. Director
Sufi says he is keen to introduce computers,
"some amount of English," and would be delighted
if his boys became doctors, professionals, but
hastens to add: "Hamare mazhab pe aanch nahin
aani chahiye. (Our faith must not be tampered
with)." When asked if this insularity and this
obsession with faith can fuel anger, Sufi says
vehemently "No, in Islam, you are taught to
swallow anger, not go about avenging wrongs."
For poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar, this betrays a
sense of denial. "Huge protests were held here
against the Danish cartoons. If there was so much
concern about besmirching the name of the
Prophet, then why did we not see protests against
the use of Mohammed's name in Jaish-e-Mohammed, a
terrorist outfit? That would have sent the right
signal."
_____
[5]
TERROR TRAILS:
INVESTIGATIONS INTO MALEGAON BLASTS
by Ram Puniyani
Investigating the acts of terrorism and pinpointing
the culprits is not an easy job. With the prejudiced
mindset of the powers that be, it becomes more
shrouded in mystery. When one is looking at the
investigations into Malegaon blasts on 8th September
2006, on the day of Shab-e-Barat, the explosions near
Masjid killing around 40 people, this point becomes
more than obvious. While every other thing is being
highlighted, there is only a small section of media
and popular opinion which will bother to state that
the organizations like Bajrang Dal also need to be
probed and put on the scanner. Bajrang Dal, which has
been making bombs, which has been indulging in
training of its cadres in gun shooting may be involved
in this, does not come out as the probable suspects.
The large section of media and opinion makers dare not
speak this. Even non BJP Governments and non BJP
leaders refrain from referring to RSS affiliates role
in terrorism. By now the mass consciousness has been
doctored in tune with the goals of US at global level
and RSS at local level.
Is there sufficient ground to suspect Bajrang dal? Can
this RSS progeny indulge in such acts? In the
aftermath of Pastor Stains murder, the then Home
Minister L.K. Advani, even in the face of hard
evidence, stated that Bajrang dal people cannot be
part of this murder. After investigations and long
trial Bajrang Dals Dara Singh is now in jail. Bajrang
Dal and even Durga Vahini have been conducting the
arms training on regular basis. On 7th April 2006 at
midnight, a powerful bomb exploded in the house of RSS
sympathizers, killing two Bajrang dal activists. ATS,
chief Raghuvanshi did confirm the same. Despite the
report from ATS, and citizens inquiry reports, the
state Government neither banned nor touched all those
who might have been involved and connected with the
blasts. In our democracy some are criminals because
they are born in a particular religion, and some can
get away with crime because of the privilege of their
birth and association with RSS progeny.
The popular opinion, the mass psychology has been so
doctored that accepting and projecting Muslims as the
culprits has become the norm., and they can rush to
catch hold of hundreds of innocent Muslims, as being
Muslims is good enough of an evidence of their
involvement in crime. The same was witnessed when in
the aftermath of burning of S 6 coach in Sabarmati in
Godhra, Modi could 'find' within half an hour that
International terrorism (read Osama bin Laden) ISI and
local Muslims have burnt the train. The formulation
fitted so well in the indoctrinated popular psyche
that most people bought the version and the genocide
could be launched with ease. By the time truth will
come out, if at all, the goals of the Modi were well
served. It is difficult to explain the lethargic
response of the police and the Govt in the face of the
7th April 2006 blasts in Nanded. Even now, while
headlines galore about Malegaon, restraint is being
exercised in spelling out Bajrang Dal's possible role.
A large section of media is not daring to demand the
arrest, interrogation of the RSS affiliates who are
the guardians of Bajrang Dal.
Also what is sought to be addressed is the superficial
symptom of terrorism; tighten the security, more
checks, more arbitrary powers to the authorities etc.
Most of the acts of terror have underlying agenda.
There are multiple reasons for some taking this insane
path of terror and terrorist groups can be classified
in two broad categories. The first category is of
those which are the outcome of the deeper
dissatisfactions and injustices at social, economic
and political level. The second category is of those
which have been consciously indoctrinated. The Al
Qaeda began as an indoctrinated group, by CIA to fight
against the Afghan occupation by Soviet armies.
Bajrang Dal also falls in the indoctrinated one,
rooted in the RSS combine's ideology of Hindu Rashtra,
which promotes hatred for minorities.
The origin of the one's like the some militants of
Kashmir and the LTTE are rooted in injustices, and
while the one's of North East are rooted in the ethnic
turmoil's. While vociferous debaters talk about
eradicating terrorism by wars, the basic issue is
forgotten. The US war on terror is a decoy to attack
the oil rich zones. The surprise is not that US is
using this terminology, surprise is that this has been
accepted. Can there be a war on terror? Terrorism by
its nature is not a phenomenon which can be easily
identified physically. War can be against physical
entities not abstract phenomenon. The terrorist
outfits are generally working underground, barring the
ones which have state patronage or the one's which the
state dare not ban due to other political reasons. One
can see the heads of states shaking hands and vowing
to join the war against terror, which is very much in
line with what the US-UK axis wants. As such,
terrorism is a symptom, while the imperialist lust for
oil and the agenda of the religion based nation hood,
are the major diseases which are at the root of
problem of terrorism.
______
[6]
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:22:04 +0530
'Help me, brother, I'm going to be killed.'
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A MAD BHOPALI CHILD
SUNIL KUMAR BORN 20 JULY 1971 DIED 26 JULY 2006
SUNIL, FOR MUCH OF YOUR SHORT LIFE, you believed
that people were coming to murder you.
'Nonsense,' we, your friends, would try to
reassure you. 'The sky's blue. We are all here.
You have done no harm to a soul, why should
anyone want to harm you?'
'I guess I'm mad,' you'd say, who could see
nightmares in sunlight and hear voices bellowing
in his head.
Mad? Maybe you were. If so it was hardly surprising.
When you are 13 years old, safely asleep in your
house with your parents, three brothers and four
sisters, you don't expect to be woken by screams.
You don't expect your eyes to be burning and your
lungs on fire, nor to discover that the screaming
is coming from your mum, or that your dad's
yelling 'Quick, everyone, we must get out! Union
Carbide's factory has exploded!'
Nothing in your life has prepared you for what
you now experience. Your family bundles out into
a darkness thickened by something that blinds and
burns. All around you terrified people are
choking, throwing up, moaning in agony. A woman
lies convulsing where yesterday you played
marbles. In the panic-stricken rush to escape you
are wrenched from your parents and swept away to
fall into blackness. You wake on a truck piled
with corpses, bundling you off to a funeral pyre
because the people who found you thought you were
dead.
When you learn of the awful, terrifying,
unbelievable thing that has happened, you return
to Bhopal to look for your family. Alone and
crying, you wander the streets. There are posters
up everywhere showing the faces of bodies as yet
unidentified. On each brow rests a numbered scrap
of paper. This is how you learn that your mum and
dad and five of your brothers and sisters are
dead. What of the other two? You keep searching,
and by a miracle find them, your baby brother of
18 months and your sister of nine, alive. You
bring them to the only home you have, the house
across the road from the Union Carbide factory.
So at 13, mad Sunil, you are the man of the
family, the breadwinner. You find casual jobs as
a day labourer and at night wash glasses at a tea
stall. You keep your little family going and
somehow manage to get yourself to school often
enough to pass the 10th standard.
Mad, are you? For the sake of your little brother
and sister you refuse to give up or be defeated.
You are kind to others and your house becomes a
refuge for kids whose parents beat them. You ask,
'Is it better to have parents who beat you, or no
parents at all?'
Sunil leads an anniversary procession
You learn all you can, dear crazy friend, about
the disaster that took away your family, and you
join with other survivors. You are young but you
take the lead. When neither Union Carbide nor the
authorities give medical help, it's you who lays
the symbolic foundation stone at the
pole-and-thatch health centre the survivors
themselves start, which will soon be ripped down
by the police. You march at every anniversary.
Your voice is heard. Then, dear madman, you are
sent to the USA to give evidence in the Indian
government's case against Union Carbide. You have
never flown before and don't care for the food.
The government lawyers tell you to be brave and
honest and just tell your story.
But neither they nor the government consult you
or the other survivors before they do a deal with
Union Carbide that makes its share price leap for
joy. You are incensed. Off you go on another
world tour against injustice, another month of
telling your tale to whoever will listen in
Ireland, Holland and the UK, which you tour with
Bianca Jagger. You're mixing with famous people,
but you, poor mad bugger, just want to be home in
Bhopal. Instead you find yourself at the Union
Carbide AGM in Houston. In the hotel lobby you
are handing out copies of an environmental report
when you're arrested. Union Carbide, whose gases
entered your house and killed your family,
charges you with criminal trespass. You're thrown
in jail. It takes hundreds of phone calls to the
mayor of Houston before you are released without
charge. At last you can go home.
The voices in your head grow louder. They torment
and taunt. By now you know your mind is playing
tricks. You are anxious all the time about being
killed, you don't want to sleep. You fall into
deep depressions and begin to talk of taking your
life. We, your friends, try to joke you out of
it, but privately we are worried.
Sunil in pensive mood, photographed by Raghu Rai
Then, mad Sunil, you find another way to give up
this cruel human world. You run off into the
jungle to live like a free creature. 'I lay on my
belly and drank from a ditch like a dog,' you
tell us when our search parties finally find you.
You cannot find work, but when we open the free
Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal you instantly
volunteer. You're penniless, but refuse to be
paid for your work.
We soon learn that you have a phenomenal memory.
Every day you scan the papers for Bhopal gas
disaster stories and years later can recall the
slightest details. You go to work in the clinic's
medicinal garden and for a time your voices
abate. Such stories they tell of you, like how
one day you pissed in a cobra's hole calling,
'Come out, ohé cobra maharaj!' And when the
enraged reptile erupted from its defiled home,
head raised and hood spread, you sprinted 400
yards to the tamarind tree and never pissed in a
snake's hole again.
Sunil at work in the herb garden
Ah, Sunil brother, the cool and beauty of the
herb garden were not enough to keep the demons
from you. Again you tried to take your life. You
drank rat poison and after we'd had your stomach
pumped, you rang the bastard who through his
tears is writing this and said, 'Hey guess what,
it tasted sweet!'
Dear Sunil, we did our best to get help for you,
but there was little help to be had. Although
some 60,000 Bhopal survivors suffer from
depression, anxiety, memory loss, panic attacks,
insomnia and a host of other psychological
afflictions, the government refuses to accept
mental health problems as a consequence of the
gas disaster. People with mental problems get no
compensation or treatment, in fact they are
ridiculed and dismissed. Today, in all Bhopal's
hospitals, there is only one part-time
psychiatric consultant.
Sunil, when you were still a child, you told a
journalist that those responsible for the death
and suffering in Bhopal should be hanged. Never
have they even been brought to trial and in the
end, the person who was hanged was you. We found
you in your flat, dangling from the ceiling fan.
You left a note saying that when you made the
decision to end your life you were completely in
your senses. You had bathed and dressed in clean
clothes. You, who rarely wore t-shirts, had put
one on especially for this final farewell. It
said NO MORE BHOPALS.
Sunil, we take this as a message from you to the
uncaring world. We think you wanted people to
know how horror, illness and grief continue to
ruin lives in this city, twenty-two years after
the night of terror.
If you were still alive, we could tell you that
on September 27, 2006 your friends all over the
world will plant trees in your memory. The trees
will grow and flower for you all over India, all
over Asia, in Africa, in the UK, France, in USA
and many other places. We are planting two trees
for you : one next to the people's museum on the
disaster "Yaad - e- Haadasaa" which you
inaugurated in December 2005 and one in the
Sambhavna herbal garden where you volunteered,
but not too near the cobra's hole.
Also we could tell you that the Sambhavna Trust
Clinic will open a new mental health department
with full-time counsellors and psychiatrists, so
that others will never again have as little help
as you had.
Sunil, you thought you were mad, but a world
without justice is madder. At least you are now
safe. We scattered your ashes in the flooded
Narmada river, and for your funeral feast we
followed your precise instructions: quarter
bottle of Goa brand whisky, mutton curry from
Dulare's hotel near the bus stand, betel nut,
tobacco and all. Were you there with us? If not,
who was it that in the darkness chuckled, 'I am
no longer afraid of being killed - I am already
dead and fearless.'
Please plant a tree in memory of Sunil on September 27, 2006.
If you would like to help us start and run the
new mental health clinic at Sambhavna, you can
make a donation by visiting
<http://www.bhopal.org/donations/index.html>
http://www.bhopal.org/donations/index.html
Please circulate this email to all friends who may be interested.
--
Ryan Bodanyi
Coordinator, Students for Bhopal
www.studentsforbhopal.org
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
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