SACW | Sept. 21, 2006

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.

_____

[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 Dal’s 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 citizen’s 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
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.