SACW #1 | Oct. 17, 2006 | Microcredit - Macro issues; Nuclear North Korea; UK: secularism and womens rights; India: Mangalore violence, spying on e-mail, security paranoia and confiscation of books

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire #1 | October 17, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2303

[1]  Microcredit, Macro Issues  (Walden Bello)
[2]  North Korea does it (M.B.Naqvi)
[3]  UK: Only a fully secular state can protect women's rights (Polly Toynbee)
[4]  India: Mangalore on slow boil (Johnson T A)
[5]  India: Who is reading my mail? (Ajit Balakrishnan)
[6]  India: "Are We Living Under Martial Law" citizens statement on 
confiscation of books

____


[1] 

The Nation
October 14, 2006 (web only)

MICROCREDIT, MACRO ISSUES

by Walden Bello

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus, regarded as 
the father of microcredit, comes at a time when microcredit has 
become something like a religion to many of the powerful, rich and 
famous. Hillary Clinton regularly speaks about going to Bangladesh, 
Yunus's homeland, and being "inspired by the power of these loans to 
enable even the poorest of women to start businesses, lifting their 
families--and their communities--out of poverty."

Like the liberal Clinton, the neocon Paul Wolfowitz, now president of 
the World Bank, has also gotten religion, after a recent trip to the 
Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. With the fervor of the convert, he 
talks about the "transforming power" of microfinance: "I thought 
maybe this was just one successful project in one village, but then I 
went to the next village and it was the same story. That evening, I 
met with more than a hundred women leaders from self-help groups, and 
I realized this program was opening opportunities for poor women and 
their families in an entire state of 75 million people."

There is no doubt that Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist, came up with a 
winning idea that has transformed the lives of many millions of poor 
women, and perhaps for that alone, he deserves the Nobel Prize. But 
Yunus--at least the young Yunus, who did not have the support of 
global institutions when he started out--did not see his Grameen Bank 
as a panacea. Others, like the World Bank and the United Nations, 
elevated it to that status (and, some say, convinced Yunus it was a 
panacea), and microcredit is now presented as a relatively painless 
approach to development. Through its dynamics of collective 
responsibility for repayment by a group of women borrowers, 
microcredit has indeed allowed many poor women to roll back pervasive 
poverty. However, it is mainly the moderately poor rather than the 
very poor who benefit, and not very many can claim they have 
permanently left the instability of poverty. Likewise, not many would 
claim that the degree of self-sufficiency and the ability to send 
children to school afforded by microcredit are indicators of their 
graduating to middle-class prosperity. As economic journalist Gina 
Neff notes, "after 8 years of borrowing, 55% of Grameen households 
still aren't able to meet their basic nutritional needs--so many 
women are using their loans to buy food rather than invest in 
business."

Indeed, one of those who have thoroughly studied the phenomenon, 
Thomas Dichter, says that the idea that microfinance allows its 
recipients to graduate from poverty to entrepreneurship is inflated. 
He sketches out the dynamics of microcredit: "It emerges that the 
clients with the most experience got started using their own 
resources, and though they have not progressed very far--they cannot 
because the market is just too limited--they have enough turnover to 
keep buying and selling, and probably would have with or without the 
microcredit. For them the loans are often diverted to consumption 
since they can use the relatively large lump sum of the loan, a 
luxury they do not come by in their daily turnover." He concludes: 
"Definitely, microcredit has not done what the majority of 
microcredit enthusiasts claim it can do--function as capital aimed at 
increasing the returns to a business activity."

And so the great microcredit paradox that, as Dichter puts it, "the 
poorest people can do little productive with the credit, and the ones 
who can do the most with it are those who don't really need 
microcredit, but larger amounts with different (often longer) credit 
terms."

In other words, microcredit is a great tool as a survival strategy, 
but it is not the key to development, which involves not only massive 
capital-intensive, state-directed investments to build industries but 
also an assault on the structures of inequality such as concentrated 
land ownership that systematically deprive the poor of resources to 
escape poverty. Microcredit schemes end up coexisting with these 
entrenched structures, serving as a safety net for people excluded 
and marginalized by them, but not transforming them. No, Paul 
Wolfowitz, microcredit is not the key to ending poverty among the 75 
million people in Andhra Pradesh. Dream on.

Perhaps one of the reasons there is such enthusiasm for microcredit 
in establishment circles these days is that it is a market-based 
mechanism that has enjoyed some success where other market-based 
programs have crashed. Structural-adjustment programs promoting trade 
liberalization, deregulation and privatization have brought greater 
poverty and inequality to most parts of the developing world over the 
last quarter century, and have made economic stagnation a permanent 
condition. Many of the same institutions that pushed and are 
continuing to push these failed macro programs (sometimes under new 
labels like "Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers"), like the World 
Bank, are often the same institutions pushing microcredit programs. 
Viewed broadly, microcredit can be seen as the safety net for 
millions of people destabilized by the large-scale macro-failures 
engendered by structural adjustment.

There have been gains in poverty reduction in a few places--like 
China, where, contrary to the myth, state-directed macro policies, 
not microcredit, have been central to lifting an estimated 120 
million Chinese from poverty.

So probably the best way we can honor Muhammad Yunus is to say, Yes, 
he deserves the Nobel Prize for helping so many women cope with 
poverty. His boosters discredit this great honor and engage in 
hyperbole when they claim he has invented a new compassionate form of 
capitalism--social capitalism, or "social entrepreneurship"--that 
will be the magic bullet to end poverty and promote development.


_____


[2] 

South Asians Against Nukes List
16 October 2006


NORTH KOREA DOES IT

by M.B.Naqvi

On eighth October, North Korea test exploded a nuclear device. From 
now on North Korea is to be treated as a nuclear capable power. It is 
a portentous development in Asian politics. Asia was already 
experiencing barely hidden inter-se hostile diplomacy by great 
powers, led by the US and emergent China. This looks likely to become 
more hostile and frenetic. For, the way Americans are likely to 
encourage Japan to militarise, China will be alienated. It needs 
being said that Asian peoples will not be involved; the struggle is 
among great military powers for the control and domination of Asia's 
vast resources.

Japan claims to be the most threatened by the military capabilities 
of North Korea - an area that had been in Japanese occupation until 
the Second World War and where anti-Japanese sentiment is alive. The 
threat inherent in this post explosion situation is likely to be 
perceived differently by different countries. For the US, it 
punctures its vast prestige and influence; it will no longer be able 
to do just about anything; the deterrent power it had stands degraded 
somewhat. China's regret and disapproval, though genuine, is more for 
the record. Even Pakistan and India have made their disapproval 
known, though it is a sin that they had themselves committed only 8 
years ago.

South Korea's official establishment is formally among those who feel 
to be in danger from North Korea's nuclear capability, though this 
alienation from North Korea is far less among the people in the 
South, who appear to set more store on pan-Korean Nationalism. No one 
else in Asia, except anti-nuclear campaigners, will feel threatened 
by North Korea's Bomb. After all, North Korea is a small country that 
is not inimical to most Asian countries. All its militancy is 
directed at Japan that had mistreated it so badly in the past that 
its scars are still visible. It has not forgotten the war in 1950s 
the US led against it for purely cold war reasons. It is friendly to 
Russia and China for historical reasons; they had also come to its 
aid in 1950s.

What threat most Asians will feel is the Japanese reaction to it - 
and to a smaller extent South Korea's. These two powers might opt for 
building their own atomic weapons. South Korea's behaviour in atomic 
research had raised the hackles of IAEA experts at one stage. But the 
matter was somehow resolved, even if it was not hushed up. North 
Korea having gone nuclear, the common people in the South are not 
likely to become too anti-DPRK. But all that will assume a different 
aspect if Japan is persuaded to change its peace constitution - that 
outlaws war for Japan - and become an atomic power. Then, the people 
of the South - who share the anti-Japanese sentiment with their 
Northern brethren may more easily acquiesce in South Korea's own 
Bomb. Proliferation is inherent in the situation anyhow.

One thing can be said about Japanese reaction to North Korean Bomb. A 
certain amount of commonsense and a sense of proportion needs to be 
deployed: North Korea is no real threat to Japan. Japan is in fact a 
great military power as it is; it spends each year over $ 40 billion 
on defence. It is nearly equal to what India and Pakistan spend on 
defence together. True, it does not have nuclear weapons. But in most 
other departments it should be treated as a great military power. And 
making atomic weapons will require only political decision and a few 
months. Can North Korea mount an invasion of Japan? no matter how 
many nuclear weapons it can manage to fabricate? The very idea of it 
is ridiculous. North Koreans' perceived threats to their own security 
should explain its behaviour; it has reasons to fear the US-Japan 
military alliance. It is still formally in a state of war with the US.

As soon as there is the prospect of Japan going nuclear becomes 
closer, there will be real turmoil throughout Asia. Japan's conduct 
in the 20th Century, beginning with defeating Imperial Russia and 
occupying Korean areas and going on to invade China are a painful 
memory for most Asians. It occupied nearly all of Southeast Asia 
during Second World War and it was knocking at the doors of India. No 
Asian has forgotten that experience. Japan's going nuclear will be a 
cat among pigeons. Strongest reaction will that be from China, though 
other Southeast Asians' fright ought not to be forgotten. Japanese 
Bomb will broadly recreate the later 1930s' Asia.

Who can forget the US has already an alliance - a series of 
inter-connecting treaties with Australasian and Asian powers - that 
spans from South Korea through Japan, Taiwan to Australia and several 
other arrangements with South East Asian countries and has the effect 
of a military alignment that only needs an enemy after the Soviets 
died and China became a semi capitalist country. But this grand line 
up exists. India can be said to be a part of US power system; Indians 
and Americans are jointly patrolling the Straits of Malacca already. 
Pakistan also qualifies for this honour but for its greater relevance 
to Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics - and also perhaps its 
close relations with China take away something from its 
pro-Americanness. 

In this context, the moralistic deprecation of nuclear proliferation 
by those who not only have nuclear weapons but greatly benefit from 
the importance and influence these weapons yield is disgusting. All 
major powers today are nuclear capable (except Japan) but want to 
limit the spreading of such weapons to others. There is a lot of 
self-serving moralistic rhetoric against proliferation that actually 
aims to preserve their monopoly or semi-monopoly now. It does not 
behove India, Pakistan or Israel to preach abstinence to others after 
committing this cardinal sin themselves. If nuclear weapons are bad 
for humanity, let them be outlawed in toto; why limit them to the P5 
and any other gate crasher?

The fact cannot be ignored that possession of nuclear weapons is 
thought to be a sufficient deterrent to being aggressed against. 
North Korea will perhaps feel safe against an American-led invasion 
by threatening to nuke American troops in South Korea or in Japan. 
Well, that is the accepted wisdom, though it may not apply in every 
situation - as it scarcely does in the case of Indo-Pakistan 
standoff. But so long as great powers gain benefits by virtue of 
being nuclear capable, there will be strong temptation by all 
threatened states to go nuclear. That is how the nuclear club 
strength stands at nine.

Proliferation is aided by reason. International relations are not 
based on sweet reasonableness or morality or international law. What 
counts is military (especial also nukes') power. The stronger you are 
you get better terms. The US has shown, more clearly after the 
disappearance of the Soviets, that you can dominate the whole world 
by virtue of possessing overwhelming military power, based on nukes 
and the panapoly of scientific and technological means of keeping 
everyone under surveillance. All your economic shortcomings can be 
rectified if you have the power to impose upon weaker states with 
resources.

Few can expect the ninth entry into this exclusive club to be the 
last. The way the world works also shows how to become powerful and 
get your way in your own neighbourhood by possessing atomic weapons 
and the means of delivering them. It is sad. If a change from this 
sordid power politics is desired, the thing to do is to outlaw 
nuclear weapons and keep them outlawed by force of public opinion.



_____


[3]

The Guardian
October 17, 2006

ONLY A FULLY SECULAR STATE CAN PROTECT WOMEN'S RIGHTS

It is astonishing that a Labour government has managed to lead the 
country into this religious quagmire

Polly Toynbee

This has been a real test of Labour politicians. It is the first time 
in years that there has been a hard choice about women's rights - and 
many failed miserably. Here is a conflict between two principles - 
respect for a religious minority and respect for women's equality. 
For a host of reasons, some honest, some cowardly, an alarming number 
of leading Labour voices got it badly wrong. But from the top, only 
silence. Over religion, segregation and education, Tony Blair has led 
his party badly astray through his own religiosity and by 
misunderstanding the effect of personal "choice".

When it comes to something as basic as women hidden from view behind 
religious veils, is it really so hard to say this is a bad practice? 
Because some racists may jump on the bandwagon to attack Muslims, 
that's no reason to pretend veils are OK. Meanwhile, Labour has given 
away yet more state education to all the religions - 42 of the first 
100 expensive academies gifted to Christian groups, seven new Muslim 
schools, with 150 in the pipeline. Why, in this least religious of 
nations?

The veil turns women into things. It was shocking to find on the 
streets of Kabul that invisible women behind burkas are not treated 
with special respect. On the contrary, they are pushed and shoved off 
pavements by men, jostled aside as if almost subhuman without the 
face-to-face contact that recognises common humanity.

The classroom assistant in a Church of England school in Kirklees 
removed her veil for a job interview, but now expects to go veiled in 
corridors or whenever she might meet a man. What does that say to 
children about the role of women as victims and men as aggressors? Of 
course it should be banned in all places of education, and the 
community cohesion minister is the right person to say so. The veil 
is profoundly divisive - and deliberately designed to be.

No one need be a Muslim to understand the ideology of the veil, 
because covering and controlling women has been a near-universal 
practice in Christian societies and in most cultures and religions 
the world over. Western women have struggled hard to escape, but not 
long ago women here were treated as chattels and temptresses, to be 
owned by men and kept out of men's way, to be chaperoned, hidden, 
powerless under compulsory rules of "modesty". Women's bodies have 
been the battle flag of religions, whether it's churching their 
uncleanness, the Pope forcing them to have babies, the Qur'an 
allowing wife-beating, Hindu suttee, Chinese foot-binding and all the 
rest.

Jack Straw questioned the veil when he found it was not fading out, 
but increasing in his constituency. No one would ban it in the 
street: where would fashion dictatorship end? But between teachers 
and pupils, or public officials and their clients, the state should 
not allow the hiding of women. No citizen's face can be indecent 
because of gender.

Prescott, Hewitt, Kelly, Hain and others failed the test, saying it 
was women's "choice": can they really believe that's the whole story? 
Here is an uneasy blend of nervousness about racism and fear of 
already angry Muslims. It was left to Harriet Harman to make the 
unequivocal case for women's rights: "If you want equality, you have 
to be in society, not hidden away from it," she said. "The veil is an 
obstacle to women's participation on equal terms in society." No 
nonsense about choice. It took feminist leaders like her to fight for 
women's rights, often against a majority of oppressed women who at 
first "chose" to think them outlandish and unfeminine.

Harman is astute about the way choice is culturally determined: do 
women really choose the female roles societies assign them? She is 
not alone in meeting Muslim woman who are appalled that their own 
daughters might adopt the veil as a political gesture. It's a danger 
to other women's "choice" if all "good" Muslims are forced to prove 
their faith by submission. Linda Riordan, the Halifax MP, says she 
talks to many veiled Muslim constituents who feel oppressed by it; 
it's not their choice at all. "And when I see women driving in veils, 
I am horrified at the danger."

There is only one answer: a completely secular state. It is 
astonishing that a Labour government has led the country into such a 
morass. Things are far worse than they were 10 years ago. Labour 
stood by as Blair gave religion more political influence, leaving 
one-third of all state schools under religious control.

Alan Johnson, the education secretary, has been allowed to make only 
a small improvement to today's education bill, obliging new religious 
schools to offer 25% of places to children outside the faith. (He and 
many ministers would probably phase out all religious state schools - 
but no chance under Blair.)

Meanwhile, segregation gets worse, with a third of schools now 
religious. The Young Foundation's study, The New East End, warns that 
in Tower Hamlets white parents have taken over four church secondary 
schools, making them virtually all white, so neighbouring secular 
schools have become 90% Bangladeshi. Church schools aid segregation: 
the Institute for Research in Integrated Strategies finds that the 
number of children taking free school meals at C of E and Catholic 
schools is lower than the average in an area. That means nearby 
schools take more, magnifying the difference. Selection is the secret 
"ethos" of church schools. Everyone knows it - I have just met an 
Enfield taxi driver whose wife goes to church to get their child into 
a church school. Is that choice?

As Christian hypocrisy keeps poor children out, others demand their 
own religious schools. The Leicester Islamic Academy turns state 
school next year, but the duty to accept 25% non-Muslims may not 
trouble it much. The principal said on The Moral Maze that all girls 
must wear the school uniform, both the hijab and the head-to-toe 
jilbab. Not much choice there. The Commission for Racial Equality 
says trust schools and parental choice are leading to parents 
choosing schools of their own ethnicity.

Will the next Labour leader be brave enough to confront growing 
segregation? If so, start by ending all religious state education. It 
would be popular: a Guardian/ICM poll finds 64% of voters think "the 
government should not be funding faith schools of any kind". 
Desegregating schools is a matter of fairness: Muslims have the 
poorest communities with the worst schools, and are in danger of 
increasing isolation and anger. The veil is another totem of that 
danger.

_____


[4]

Indian Express
17 October 2006

MANGALORE ON SLOW BOIL
by Johnson T A

Recent riots here showed up the communal undercurrents that mark this 
district and its politics, threatening to sweep away the promise of 
prosperity

  The prosperous Karnataka coastal district of Mangalore - generally 
referred to as a place where there's a ready smile on every face - 
has a few scars to show for the communal tension that lurks below the 
surface of life in the district. Most visibly, the 1998 Surathkal 
riots when eight people were killed. But, in fact, before the recent 
round of rioting between October 4 and 7, in which two persons were 
killed, there have also been hundreds of minor skirmishes between 
Hindus and Muslims in the district.

Mangalore holds a special place of pride in Karnataka. It's as 
progressive as Bangalore, with much cleaner air. Its people are 
highly literate, industrious, and inclined towards business and 
finance - thanks to the district's trading history. It's the only 
district in the state accessible by ship, air, road and rail. When IT 
companies think of a second choice location in Karnataka, Mangalore 
is up there with Mysore. IT bellwether Infosys already has a base in 
the district and is expanding while TCS is looking to set up an SEZ. 
Even the Mumbai underworld is known to have a keen interest in 
business in Mangalore.

It's Mangalore's politics and the strong communal undercurrents in 
the politics - since the 1992 Babri demolition - that is threatening 
to sweep the district away from its path to greater prosperity.

Since Babri, Mangalore has become divided on sharply communal lines. 
The BJP's emerged as a strong force constantly gaining territory from 
the Congress. The 2004 elections saw the BJP make a virtual sweep of 
the 11 legislative assembly seats from the district. Mangalore played 
a key role in the BJP's emergence as the single largest party in the 
2004 polls and its current presence in a ruling coalition with the 
Janata Dal Secular.

The politics in the district is now often played out on the 
knife-edge of the divide between Hindus and Muslims. Several new 
flashpoints for communal violence have emerged from the issue of 
transportation of cows in violation of a state law to eve teasing to 
inter-religious relationships.

The deep distrust between Hindus and Muslims has been heightened by 
the perception of the minorities of the local administration's bias 
against them, since the BJP is the partner of the Janata Dal Secular 
in the state coalition government and Mangalore district is under the 
charge of a BJP minister. On the flipside, the mayor of Mangalore 
city is Congress' K Ashraf.

There are complaints that the police force in the district has very 
little representation from the minority community. Also that extreme 
right wing Hindu forces are being given a free hand to romp around 
the Mangalore countryside, stopping illegal cow transportation, 
inter-religious love affairs and settling disputes vigilante style.

"There is a feeling in a section of the youth in Mangalore that they 
can get away with anything. They have a feeling of security, that has 
to change," says Sulaiman. "We have been asking the elders from both 
communities to reign in their youth. This hasn't happened. It's the 
15-25 year olds that have been causing the violence. There's too much 
over reaction on issues like cow transportation,'' says district 
superintendent of police B Dayanand.

"The issue of cow transport and slaughter has been pending for long. 
At a peace committee meeting of both communities held 15 days ago 
there were assurances that some of our concerns will be addressed by 
Muslims themselves that has not happened," RSS worker Madhav Bhandary 
told a peace committee meeting held after the violence.

Though the police were initially caught napping when the recent round 
of violence broke out on Oct 4, the general feeling is that the 
district administration acted effectively to nip the situation.

"The police defused the violence very quickly. If they hadn't imposed 
the curfew strongly it could not have been controlled easily," Muslim 
Central Committee leader Hamid Khan said. The BJP district in-charge 
minister Nagaraja Shetty has given an assurance that those guilty for 
the violence will be punished "without politics''.

The Janata Dal Secular, which threw its secular ideology to the wind 
to ally with the BJP in January this year, has blamed the Bajrang Dal 
and SIMI activists for the violence. Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy 
who initially stated that no special inquiry would be necessary apart 
from the police inquiry into the violence is now reportedly under 
pressure from his father and party president H D Devegowda to order a 
state Corps of Detectives inquiry.

The prolonged curfew of the past week has had common people losing 
livelihood, resulting in a demand for a ban on fundamentalist groups 
and bandhs in the district. Peace has returned to Mangalore for the 
time being. People are back to their normal lives. But, simmering 
below the surface is a powder keg of communal emotions.

_____


[5] 

rediff.com
October 13, 2006

INDIA: WHO IS READING MY MAIL?
by Ajit Balakrishnan

"Are you the boss of this company?" demanded the voice on the phone 
on a recent morning. I acknowledged that I was the head of the 
company which ran the email service and asked him who would he be. . .

He identified himself as an inspector in a police station in one of 
our state capitals and complained that he had given a list of email 
accounts to be "tracked" and forwarded to the police, but our staff 
were insisting that he produce the required letter from the state's 
Home Secretary authorising him to make such a request. "This is a 
national security matter," he said. "I can't wait for the Home 
Secretary's letter, please do the needful right away."

Running one of the more popular email services in India puts you in 
that hazy zone between a private sector business and a public 
utility. Millions of ordinary Indian citizens are abandoning the 
traditional inland letter and post card and turning to email. They 
value its instantaneous delivery, the ease of accessing the account, 
and the national and international reach.

Unfortunately, so do conspirators of various hues: religious 
fundamentalist groups, communist insurgents, bank defrauders and even 
straying spouses. Jealous husbands wanting to check their wives' 
email boxes are the easiest to deal with: a form letter spelling out 
the process ('Please file a police complaint and get the police to 
make the request to us to open your wife's email box') normally ends 
the request.

Employers wanting an employee's mailboxes opened after receiving a 
mail threatening exposure are also dealt with easily this way. We 
normally never hear from them again.

Dealing with police requests is another matter. One part of you, as a 
law-abiding citizen, makes you want to comply with the request 
immediately. Another part of you, worrying about the civil rights of 
citizens, makes you insist that the police produce the necessary 
approvals.

We were quite content to play this routine out -- the police 
inspector sending us a list of names and email IDs to track, us 
politely asking for the Home Secretary's authorisation, which would 
come a few weeks later with some names dropped from the original 
list. Till, one day, on the list of names the government wanted 
watched was the name of a nationally known social activist and writer.

We went to a retired eminent judge, less for legal advice and more 
for moral guidance. We sat in silence in his chamber as he carefully 
studied our account of the matter. The early morning light streaming 
in from the window behind him put him in silhouette and lent a 
sepulchral quality to the setting. How many such moral dilemmas he 
must have faced in his long and illustrious career on the nation's 
highest bench, I wondered. Surely he would show us a way.

"Government will cancel your licence if you don't comply with these 
police requests," he said finally. I was astounded. Here was I, 
hoping for a morally and hopefully legally defensible resolution to 
our dilemma and what we were getting was "practical" advice. "Our 
business does not depend on any government licences," I finally 
managed to blurt out.

Seeing the disappointed look on our faces, he leafed through his 
papers again. "You see, the law that governs this kind of case, the 
Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, was enacted with the shadow of the 1857 
'mutiny' still over the Raj government, and is really an instrument 
to control such events rather than to govern the evolution of an 
industry. There is nothing you can do but comply if the request comes 
with the proper authorisation."

As we left his chambers, the issues started to become clearer in my 
mind. For the hundred years from 1885, the year that the British Raj 
introduced the telegraph system in India, it was seen primarily as an 
instrument for keeping colonial control. And I guess from 
Independence till the mid-1990s, the post-colonial government 
continued this perspective and added to this the function of spying 
on political opponents. All that a politician or a bureaucrat had to 
do was call up the posts and telegraphs department and tapping would 
commence unhindered, with no one to raise legal or civil rights 
issues.

Things have become complicated for the government since then. The new 
technologies of email, SMS text messages and mobile phones today 
carry most communication traffic in India and practically all of it 
is in the private sector. A generation like ours no longer assumes 
that the police's or the Home Ministry's interests are automatically 
the national interest.

We want to make sure that even the police and the Home Ministry 
observe the law in tapping email and phones. Unfortunately, there is 
no law that covers the new technologies and balances civil rights 
with genuine national security needs. Nor is there a clear process 
that tells the new economy industries how to resolve a conflict 
between the two.

How did this specific matter end? We refused to "track" this social 
activist's account and insisted on the Home Secretary's authorisation 
for this list of email IDs. After a few weeks the authorisation 
arrived but the social activist's name had been deleted from it.

And we continue in our unlikely, uncomfortable and legally hazardous 
role as protectors of civil rights.

Ajit Balakrishnan is the founder and chief executive officer, rediff.com.
Comments welcome at ajitb at rediffmail.com



_____


[6] 


Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 13:38:34 +0100 (BST)

call SP Chandrapur to condemn confiscation of books:UPDATE

ARE WE LIVING UNDER MARTIAL LAW

Sunita , owner of Danish Books has been summoned by the Chandrapur 
Police for interrogation today, 16 October 2006 along with Sh. Vijay 
Vairagade, a local social activist and his 16 year old son who is a 
minor. The police claim that they have clinching evidence against 
Sunita which proves beyond doubt that she has Maoist affiliations and 
is indulged in activities which are subversive in nature. However, 
the local thana and the police is not ready to part with any 
information regarding these charges to the lawyers who are there to 
represent Sunita.

It has been claimed by the police that Sunita belongs to Jehanabad of 
Bihar and her first husband was killed in police encounter. They also 
claim that 15% of the literature seized from the stall of the Daanish 
Book is of offensive nature and supports the politics of the Maoists.

To put the record straight Sunita has no connection with Jehanabad. 
Her parental family hails from Naugachiya District of Bihar. Actually 
by establishing a relationship between her and Jehanabad which is 
known for Naxal politics the MH police want to prove that she is also 
a naxalite. The police claim about her first husband being killed in 
police action is also a issue of imagination. Her first husband is a 
known leftist political activist and is based at Patna and very much 
alive. She is now married to Shri Dhruva Narayan, a reputed 
publisher, who has to his credit titles by Noam Chomsky, Samir Amin, 
Tariq Ali and other nationally and internationally reputed authors. 
Sunita has been active in student and women's movements and has 
worked with the National Commission for Women, a statutory body 
constituted by the Government of India for two years. She has also 
worked with Books For Change, a subsidiary of the ActionAid India, an 
international agency .

Sunita is a known publisher and distributor and she visits all major 
book exhibitions and fairs and put up her stall everywhere. As 
publisher and distributor gets calls from all kinds of people and 
they also visit her stalls. Chandrapur being on centre of police 
action against naxal activities in the region, police use their 
extraordinary powers to harass anybody. For last few months they have 
been raiding the houses of social activists and journalists and 
seizing books and implicating them in false criminal cases. According 
to reliable sources, the Chandrapur police intends to book Sunita 
under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

One needs to recall that  yesterday on 15 october,2006 in a shocking 
and bizarre  incident  the Maharashtra Police, Chandrapur had seized 
41 books from the stall of Daanish Books, which were displayed in 
the book exhibition which is held every year on 15-16 October, on 
the occasion of the Deeksha Day celebrations to mark the day when 
Babasaheb Ambedkar embraced Buddhism 50 years ago . The books seized 
by the police for containing dangerous , anti state material include 
books like Marathi translation of the Thoughts of Bhagat Singh, 
Ramdeen Ka Sapna by B.D. Sharma, Jati Vyavastha- Bhartiya Kranti Ki 
Khasiyat by Vaskar Nandy, Monarchy Vs Democracy by Baburam Bhattarai, 
Nepali Samargaatha: Maowadi Janyuddha ka Aankhon Dekha Vivaran (The 
Hindi edition of eminent American Journalist Li Onesto's celebrated 
book Dispatches from the People's War in Nepal, Translated by Anand 
Swarup Varma), Daliton par Badhati Jyadatiya aur Unka Krantikari 
Jawab, Chhapamar Yudhha by Che Guevara and books on Marxism and 
Leninism and people's struggles. Non of the books seized by the 
police is banned or declared offensive by any state agencies.

A contingent of nearly 70 armed policemen surrounded the stall of 
Daanish Books this afternoon and remained there for more than three 
hours, making a list of books they wanted to seize. Earlier they made 
a list of more than 200 books. After a long argument Sunita had on 
telephone with the Chandrapur S.P., they removed many books and left 
with 41 books some of which have been mentioned above. They left the 
place after threatening Sunita that she would be arrested as they had 
information that she had Maoist links. When contacted, the S.P. 
assured Sunita that nothing would happen to her and he would 
personally come to see her next morning. But press circle is abuzz 
with rumours that Sunita might be arrested tomorrow as police suspect 
her to be a member of some Maoist outfit.

Friends, Sunita and Daanish Books are a familiar feature of many 
pro-people programmes or events where they put up their stalls 
unfailingly. They are publishers of repute with strong pro-people 
leanings. They publish and display books which are at many times 
critical of the state policies. Is it a crime to publish and display 
such books in a democracy like India? That such an action can be 
taken by the police without any hesitation shows that India is fast 
turning into a police-state and police feels free to indulge in such 
unlawful activities in the name of containing terrorism. They can 
seize books, arrest people and even kill them without any fear of 
public outrage.
We express our solidarity with Sunita and her colleagues at Daanish 
Books and condemn this highhandedness of the Chandrapur Police. We 
demand a statement from the Home Minister, Maharashtra on this 
incident.

This is an appeal to all of you to condemn this highhandedness of 
Chandrapur police and a request to all of you write to the S.P., 
Chandrapur condemning this incident and asking for their apology.

Telephone and Fax numbers of SP and DM of Chandrapur:
SP--Mr. Kadam 07172-255202 Fax: 07172-255800, Mobile: 09822943358
DM--Mr. Sanjay Jaisawal 07172-255300


Apoorvanand, Unv. Of Delhi
Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD
Harsh Mander, AMAN BIRADARI
Ram Puniyani, AISF, Mumbai
Anand swaroop verma, Freelance journalist and writer
Aditya nigam, Fellow, CSDS
Khurshid anwar, ISD
Nivedita Menon, Unv of Delhi
Purushottam Agrawal, JNU
Dilip Simeon, Fellow, Nehru museum amd Teen Murti Library,
Jamal Kidwai, Aman Trust
Charu Gupta, Fellow, Nehru Memorial Library
Mukul Sharma, Amnesty International, India
Vijay Pratap, Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam
Imtiaz Ahmad, JNU
Poorva Bhardwaj, Nirantar
Jaya Mehta, Sandarbh Kendra, Indore, IPTA
Vineet Tiwari, Gen. Secretary, MP Progressive Writers' Association, 
Sandarbh Kendra, IPTA
Nasirruddin haider Khan, Journalist, Lucknow
Arshad Ajamal, Social Activist, Patna
Rupesh, , Social Activist, Patna
Kavita Srivastava, PUCL, Jaipur
Premkrishna Sharma, PUCL, New Delhi
Piya Chatterji
Anil Chaudhary, INSAF
Prabhakar Sinha, PUCL
Vijay Singh, Delhi University
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Rajni Tilak, NACDOR
Harjinder Singh, Hyderabad
Gautam Navlakha
Anil Sadgopal
Hari Lamba
Hari Sharma, SANSAD
D Narasimha Reddy, Hyderabad
Ganesh N Devy, Baroda
Kamla Prashad, National Progressive Writers Association
Tanvir Akhtar, IPTA
Bhanu Bharati, Playwright and threatre director
Alok Rai, Professor, Deptt of English, DU
Arun Kumar, JNU
Subodh Malakar, JNU
Kamal Nayan Kabra, IIPA
Ashok Vajpeyi, Poet
Vishnu Nagar, Poet and Journalist

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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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