SACW #1 | Oct. 22-23, 2006 | Pakistan: Islam and Cricket; Gay sex; Sexuality minorities; Homeless in Delhi; Afzal's Hanging & democracy; Mangalore 'Riots'

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - # Pack 1 | October 22-23, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2308

[1]  Pakistan: 'Islamisation' of our cricket team (Editorial, Daily Times)
[2]  India: Gay sex and motorbikes (Peter Singer)
   + India: Rainbow Planet - A coalition working 
for the rights of sexuality minorities
[3]  India: No house for Mr Kumar (Harsh Mander)
[4]  India:  Death Row . . . and Reasons of State
   - What Does Mohammad Afzal Know? (Ali Javed, Tripta Wahi)
   - The Spectral Order of Sacrifice (Vinay Lal)
[5]  Growing Communal Danger in Karnataka:
  (i) India: Mayhem in Mangalore (Yoginder Sikand)
(ii) Mangalore 'Riots' (Nalini Taneja)
(iii) The Dialectics of Communal Conflict in 
Coastal Karnataka (V.Lakshminarayana)


____


[1] 

Daily Times
October 23, 2006

EDITORIAL: 'ISLAMISATION' OF OUR CRICKET TEAM

The new chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board 
(PCB), Dr Nasim Ashraf, has said that he has 
advised his national team to strike a balance 
between religion and cricket: "There is no doubt 
their religious faith is a motivating factor. It 
binds them together, but there should be a 
balance between religion and cricket". He was 
answering a rare query that that the team was 
being "misused" by religious elements.

Dr Ashraf has also told the cricketers that there 
should be no pressure on players who don't pray 
regularly: "I have told Inzamam there should be 
no perception among players that if they don't 
pray, they will not be in the team". Inzamam is 
supposed to have told him that there was no such 
pressure on anyone. The chairman was of the view 
that there was "no connection between maulvism, 
ultra orthodox Muslims, and cricket".

Newspapers have often noted that the 
"Islamisation" of Pakistan's cricket team was 
accomplished by four players: Inzamamul Haq, 
Mohammad Yousuf, Saeed Anwar, and Mushtaq Ahmed. 
In recent years, if the team has started looking 
like a posse of radical Muslim activists who 
treat the sport as a kind of jihad, then the 
proselytising passion of these cricketers is to 
be analysed. The bolt of lightning that struck 
them was nothing original. The old "born again" 
feeling has been there in earlier public icons 
too. Indeed, singers and actors fall for it with 
dull regularity.

The first feeling of inner transformation after a 
great sporting feat was experienced by Fazal 
Mahmood, the Oval hero, who began sporting a 
flowing beard while he was still in police 
service. He was never known as a great civil 
servant - he was hardly on duty by reason of his 
playing the game all year round - but he was 
considered safe in Railway Police. Whoever 
visited him had to listen to not very original 
sermons on the Holy Quran whose verses used to 
decorate the walls of his office.

After Fazal it was another Pakistan skipper, 
Saeed Ahmad, who heard the divine call and began 
growing his beard. He knew that another inner 
city leg spinner, SF Rehman, who nearly made it 
into the national team, had already become an 
imam masjid and was sermonising Lahore's 
population. The heady feeling of talking without 
being interrupted to a crowd of admiring nimazis 
was irresistible. A singer of great talent these 
days does the same thing on a TV channel and goes 
on for hours with his not-so-original and 
intellectually arid but arousing speeches which 
he intersperses with na'at songs.

The big catch for the Islamists was, of course, 
Imran Khan who got the born-again feeling after 
he had won the World Cup for Pakistan. Our 
cricket team should learn from him: it is not 
necessary to keep an unkempt beard that recalls 
the days of WG Grace rather than any modern 
sport. Imran Khan turned to religion after a long 
and brilliant career in the sport and his 
transformation probably came because of a 
spiritual gap he felt in the wake of a playboy's 
life in London earlier. He decided to espouse 
"piety" subsequently but without brandishing a 
beard. He says his prayers but makes a point of 
not being unduly demonstrative about his religion.

There is no doubt that Inzamam has leaned on 
Islam to avoid the distractions confronting him 
during his tours abroad. He was never reported as 
"having a nice time" like some other players in 
the team. He was among the high flyers of 
Pakistan cricket but did not take to their 
dissolute ways. But there are others whose 
"Islamisation" has been worn like a badge. Great 
off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq - the inventor of the 
doosra - has been more "utilitarian" about it.

Muhammad Yousaf's conversion from Christianity 
could have been without the big beard, but he was 
inspired by the collective prayers of the team: 
he probably did not want to be left out. His 
transformation may be genuine but he has touched 
off a wave of copy-cat conversion among Christian 
youths, including in his own family, that are 
becoming embarrassing. Invariably after 
conversion, the boys ask for financial 
maintenance because they have been dispossessed 
by their offended parents. There is evidence of 
coercion too, as reported by Pakistan 's popular 
Christian singer, A Nayyar.

The quaint thing about the born again feeling 
among the Muslims is that after the metamorphosis 
people become anti-West in addition to being 
radical Muslim. So far all the "renewed" fellows 
among us have expressed extreme political 
opinions and have embraced a hard and restrictive 
Islam. That is not to say that our cricketers are 
hardline religious fanatics - they are mostly 
linked to Tablighi Jamaat which is a Deobandi, 
rather ascetic, and avowedly apolitical, 
organisation - but the image they inevitably have 
among those who watch them abroad is pretty close 
to the extremists who appear on videocassettes 
before their suicidal acts.

What is definitely wrong - if it is true - is 
that non-transformed new boys joining the 
cricketers should come under any pressure from a 
team and a captain who conspicuously line up and 
say collective namaz five times a day, often in 
open view. The team is also said to have fasted 
through tough matches in the past. If there is 
even an indirect coercion or strong persuasion in 
favour of such Islamisation in the team, it is 
wrong and must be discouraged. This sort of 
"Islamisation" and non-success also don't go 
together. Too much emphasis on the external or 
ritual aspects of religion lead to a bad taste in 
the mouth when the national team makes stupid 
mistakes and loses matches it was expected to win.

Saeed Anwar, Mushtaq Ahmad and Saqlain Mushtaq 
declined in their form rather steeply after 
growing their beards and making pious statements 
in the media. Shahid Afridi is following in their 
footsteps. Has "Islam" anything to do with their 
bad performance? No. The sportsman and his 
character irreducibly remains the same whether he 
demonstrates his religion or not. The issue is 
not about being religious. That is an individual 
choice. It is about flaunting it in a manner that 
seems to threaten some and pressure others to 
follow suit. The team must be talked to about the 
image the world has of men with unkempt beards 
and black marks on their foreheads. The team must 
build a good image for itself, if for nothing 
else than for the sake of gaining a neutral crowd 
watching the game. *

____


[2]

The Guardian
October 21, 2006

GAY SEX AND MOTORBIKES

If an activity brings satisfaction to those who 
take part in it and harms no one, it can't be 
immoral

Peter Singer

In recent years the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada 
and Spain have recognised marriages between 
people of the same sex. Several other countries 
recognise civil unions with similar legal effect. 
An even wider range of countries have laws 
against discrimination on the basis of a person's 
sexual orientation, in areas such as housing and 
employment. Yet in the world's largest democracy, 
India, sex between two men remains a crime 
punishable, according to statute, by imprisonment 
for life.

India is not, of course, the only nation to 
retain severe punishments for homosexuality. In 
some Islamic nations - Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia 
and Yemen, for instance - sodomy is a crime for 
which the maximum penalty is death. But the 
retention of such laws is easier to understand in 
countries that incorporate religious teachings 
into criminal law than in a secular democracy 
like India.

Anyone who has visited India and seen the 
sexually explicit temple carvings there will know 
that the Hindu tradition has a less prudish 
attitude to sex than Christianity. India's 
prohibition of homosexuality dates to 1861, when 
the British ruled the subcontinent and imposed 
Victorian morality upon it. It is ironic that 
Britain long ago repealed its own similar 
prohibition.

Fortunately prohibition of sodomy in India is not 
enforced. Yet it provides a basis for blackmail 
and harassment of homosexuals, and has made it 
more difficult for groups that educate people 
about HIV and Aids. Vikram Seth, the author of A 
Suitable Boy, recently published an open letter 
calling for repeal of the law that makes 
homosexuality a crime. Many notable Indians, 
including the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, have 
given it their support. A challenge to the law is 
before the high court in Delhi.

Around the time when India's prohibition of 
sodomy was enacted, John Stuart Mill was writing 
his celebrated essay On Liberty, in which he put 
forward the principle that: "... the only purpose 
for which power can be rightfully exercised over 
any member of a civilised community, against his 
will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, 
either physical or moral, is not sufficient 
warrant ... Over himself, over his own body and 
mind, the individual is sovereign."

Mill's principle is not universally accepted. The 
20th-century British philosopher of law, HLA 
Hart, argued for a partial version of it. Where 
Mill says that the good of the individual, 
"either physical or moral", is "not sufficient 
warrant" for state interference, Hart says the 
individual's physical good is sufficient warrant, 
if individuals are likely to neglect their own 
best interests and the interference with their 
liberty is slight. For example, the state may 
require us to wear a seatbelt when driving, or a 
helmet when riding a motorcycle.

But Hart sharply distinguished such legal 
paternalism from legal moralism. He rejected the 
prohibition on moral grounds of actions that do 
not lead to physical harm. The state may not, on 
his view, make homosexuality criminal on the 
grounds that it is immoral.

The problem with this is that it is not easy to 
see why legal paternalism is justified but legal 
moralism is not. Defenders of the distinction 
often claim that the state should be neutral 
between competing moral ideals, but is such 
neutrality really possible? If I were a proponent 
of legal moralism, I would argue that it is, 
after all, a moral judgment - albeit a widely 
shared one - that the value of riding my 
motorbike with my hair flowing free is outweighed 
by the risk of head injuries if I crash.

The stronger objection to prohibiting 
homosexuality is to deny the claim that lies at 
its core: that sexual acts between consenting 
people of the same sex are immoral. Sometimes it 
is claimed that homosexuality is "unnatural", and 
even a "perversion of our sexual capacity", which 
supposedly exists for the purpose of 
reproduction. But we might as well say that 
artificial sweeteners "pervert our sense of 
taste," which exists to detect nourishing food. 
We should beware of equating "natural" with 
"good".

Does the fact that homosexual acts cannot lead to 
reproduction make them immoral? That would be a 
particularly bizarre ground for prohibiting 
sodomy in a densely populated country like India, 
which encourages contraception and sterilisation. 
If a form of sexual activity brings satisfaction 
to those who take part in it, and harms no one, 
what can be immoral about it?

The underlying problem with prohibiting 
homosexual acts, then, is not that the state is 
using the law to enforce private morality. It is 
that the law is based on the mistaken view that 
homosexuality is immoral.

· Peter Singer is professor of bioethics at 
Princeton University and the author, with Jim 
Mason, of The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices 
Matter

o o o

*RAINBOW PLANET - A COALITION OF PROGRESSIVE GROUPS WORKING FOR THE
RIGHTS OF SEXUALITY MINORITIES, SEXWORKERS AND PLHA*

Description*

*Rainbow Planet is a coalition of diverse progressive groups from India
working for the rights of sexuality minorities (hijras, kothis,
doubledeckers, lesbians, bisexuals, gays, homosexuals, transgenders and
others oppressed due to their sexual preferences and/or gender expression),
sexworkers (men, women and transgender), and PLHA (People Living with
HIV/AIDS). Our goal is to bring together sexuality minorities, sexworkers
and PLHA to a common platform to build solidarity within them and also with
other social movements.

We came together in a big way from the 16th - 21st of January 2004 to make
our issues visible at the WSF (World Social Forum) 2004 in Mumbai, India. We
had two events that included one panel and a march. In one of the huge hall
meetings with more than 4000 participants there were eloquent and moving
testimonies by working class sexworkers, hijras, kothis, lesbians and PLHA.
Around 2000 people, many of whom were from other social movements, attended
the march. More than a 100,000 stickers were distributed by the Rainbow
Planet which said, 'Judge Not - Support sexual preference' in Telugu,
Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Hindi and English and this was seen to be worn
boldly by thousands of people. Rainbow Planet pushed sexuality issues to
occupy a central space in the WSF 2004.  The notion of a rainbow was
broadened to include sexworkers and PLHA. Rainbow Planet received wide media
coverage from the national and international media.

Plans for the India Social Forum (9th - 13th November, 2006, Delhi)

We propose to organise the following at the ISF (India Social Forum,
www.indiasocialforum.org):

1.       A Panel with 1000 participants, where sexuality minorities,
sexworkers and PLHA from across India will testify about violence, stigma,
discrimination and oppression faced by them, their lived realities and
struggles for justice.

2.       A colorful celebratory march to visibilize sexuality minorities,
sex workers and PLHA struggles and a celebration of being together.

3.       One stall to reach out to diverse groups and movements from all
over India by giving information about Rainbow Planet and its partners. This
will be the contact point for Rainbow Planet at the ISF.

4.       Production and distribution of campaign materials like leaflets,
stickers etc. for mobilization and visibility.

We have already registered these activities at the India Social Forum
website ( www.wsfindia.org). We propose to mobilize 500 sexuality
minorities, sexworkers and PLHA from across India to come and be a part of
Rainbow Planet at the ISF.

Our objective is to visibilize the multiple layers of violence and stigma
that sexual outlaws have faced due to a basic lack of freedom and liberty
regarding sexuality preferences/practices and/or gender expressions. We see
Indian Social Forum as a an opportunity to reach out to other social
movements to build solidarity.

Apart from testifying to the oppression, marginalization and violence,
Rainbow Planet, through the voices and visions of survivors and resistors
will seek to understand and unravel the hidden realities of sexworkers,
sexuality minorities and PLHA, so as to celebrate the survival despite
incredible odds, of subcultures of resistance to dominant notions of
sexuality.

'Rainbow Planet' Concept Note

The struggles of those whose identities place them within the rubric of
sexual outlaws such as sexuality minorities, sex-workers and PLHA has been
slow to coalesce into a socio-political movement. Sexuality-based activism
in India still remains a fledgling, a newcomer when compared to well
established and widely recognized social movements found among workers,
farmers, adivasis, dalits, women, displaced peoples etc. Currently, there is
not a unified, All-India platform for sexuality rights activism.

Various social activist groups have questioned sexuality rights movements'
'legitimacy' and this makes it very difficult for such a movement to find
space in the mainstream rights discourse. The role that sexuality rights
movements play within the context of other marginalized peoples' struggles
remains unclear. While some spaces have opened out, we are still too often
dismissed as advocating a personal choice or a lifestyle at best or a
perversion at worst. Sexuality rights are still seen as a privileged, upper
class issue that does not affect the working class. There is also a refusal
to acknowledge the States' repressive and regressive role in perpetrating
injustice against sexual outlaws, as huge majorities believe that the State
has to mandatorily enforce morality in order to safeguard hetero-patriarchal
societal systems.

Sexuality has not found a legitimate space in the same way that class,
caste, gender, race, ecology, and many others have in human rights
discourse. In this context, Rainbow Planet is being organized to clearly
articulate sexuality rights as a critical component of building solidarity
among marginalized peoples' movements. Much too often, sexuality becomes the
basis for the entrenched and pervasive violence which is often unrecognized,
under-reported and marginalized.   By staunchly denying legitimacy to the
struggles and aspirations of sexuality minorities, sexworkers and PLHA, our
society condones human rights violations.

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) penalizes non-procreative sex, as
a result of which sexuality minorities are criminalised. IPC 377 along with
social stigma forms the structural basis for state and non-state actors to
perpetrate human rights violations against sexuality minorities. Sexuality
minorities were tolerated in India, before the imposition of IPC 377 by the
British, based on their Judeo-Christian values. Indian Government continues
to support the continuation of IPC 377 in Delhi High Court, while the
National AIDS Control Organisation (a governmental agency) advocates against
the enforcement of IPC 377 on the grounds that it impedes effective HIV/AIDS
interventions among MSM (Men who have Sex with Men).

Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA) is based on the erroneous premise that
there is no such thing as voluntary sex work and punishes poor people
(mostly) whose livelihoods are based on sex work. The intended purpose of
the law is to prevent trafficking into sexwork, however it becomes a tool to
harass, abuse, extort and torture sexworkers across India. Although sexual
services have constant demand and is tolerated within the margins of
society, it is stigmatized and condemned at the same time. Like
homosexual/bisexual men and transgenders (M2F) sexworkers are highly
vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Many NGOs are providing HIV/AIDS services to
sexworkers in India with funding from USAID. USAID makes it mandatory for
all its fund recipients, to sign an anti-prostitution pledge i.e. not
supporting the rights of sexworkers. Currently, Indian Government is
proposing to amend ITPA, which seeks to penalize clients of sexworkers.
Passage of such an amendment will be catastrophic as far as the livelihoods
of sexworkers and their dependants are concerned. Urgent need is to
recognise sexwork as legitimate work/profession.

According to NACO, India is home for more than 5 million PLHA, a large
portion of whom are sexuality minorities and sexworkers. More than 500000 of
them are in need of ART (Anti-Retroviral Treatment) for their survival at
this point of time. Indian Government is providing free ART to less than
35000 people as of now. Not providing free ART to the remaining 465000+
people is nothing but mass murder. Indian Government is allowing most PLHA
to perish by supporting multinational pharmaceutical companies to profit
using newly amended patents act. Unfair patent regimes (TRIPS agreement)
under WTO has forced countries in the Global South to grant patents to
multinational pharmaceutical companies for long periods, using which they
can sell their medicines at any price, i.e. kill people for profits. PLHA
are dying, as they can't afford life-saving Anti Retro-Viral drugs due to
the liberalization, privitisation and globalisation policies of the Indian
Government.

  Objectives of Rainbow Planet

·         To ensure recognition of sexuality rights struggles as legitimate
human rights struggles through the voices of sexuality minorities,
sexworkers, and PLHA

·         Strengthen regional and national alliances among individuals and
groups working on sexuality minorities, sexworkers and PLHA issues in order
to work for more effective action and advocacy.

·         Formulate concrete and relevant actions and campaigns at the
regional, national and international levels that formulate long-term
sustainable strategies.

·         To dialogue, link and build solidarity with other movements to
receive and give support to each other's causes.

·         Advocate for and share widely the issues, concerns and
opportunities related to the core theme from the perspective of the victims,
survivors and resistors of the violence of stigmatization, discrimination
and a judgmental attitude.

·         Provide a forum for sexworkers, sexuality minorities and PLHA from
different regions of the India to share, reflect and have a deeper
understanding of the phenomenon of stigma and discrimination in different
contexts.



_____


[3] 

Hindustan Times
October 22, 2006

NO HOUSE FOR MR KUMAR

by Harsh Mander

His mother delivered him under a plastic sheet, 
in a dusty makeshift tent strung on land adjacent 
to a construction site at the Indira Gandhi 
International Airport in Delhi, where his parents 
laboured for many years. He does not know the 
date he came into this world. "We workers do not 
write our histories," he smiles sardonically. For 
his school certificate, his father chose as his 
date of birth Independence Day. So officially, 
Pramod Kumar was born on August 15, 1974.A few 
months later, his parents returned to their 
native village in Bhagalpur in Bihar. It was home 
for them, but as landless agricultural workers, 
there was rarely work. So, every few months, his 
father would take a fresh loan from the local 
moneylender and disappear to the city for several 
months at a stretch.Now with three sons and one 
daughter, Pramod's mother stopped travelling with 
his father. As his father aged, he also lost the 
spirit to bear the rigours of long, lonely 
passages to distant work sites. Instead, first 
Pramod's elder brother and then Pramod dropped 
out of the village school and made the same 
journey to Delhi that their parents had so often 
in their lives, so that they and their families 
could survive.Pramod was then 10 years old. His 
first job was as helper to a mason on the 
Mehrauli-Gurgaon road. His first wages in 1984 
were Rs 11 and some paise a day. Survival, once 
again, was stretched for him precariously under a 
soiled plastic sheet, where he was to live for 
another 10 years. The worst months, he recalls, 
more than even the biting cold of winter, were 
those of the monsoon deluge. They would have to 
wade for days in their hovels in slushy water, 
and had to mount their stove on a string cot so 
that they could cook. He lived among others from 
his village, who took care of the growing boy. He 
loved to study and carried his school books with 
him from the village.Each year, he would return 
for the annual examinations, his teachers 
overlooking his absence from classes. Eventually, 
he passed his ninth class. In time, he joined an 
electrician as his apprentice. He learnt how to 
wire newly-constructed homes; the hours were 
long, the work dangerous for a novice, but the 
money was better. His wages mounted rapidly to Rs 
28, and eventually to Rs 88. He was now able to 
set aside money to send home to his ageing 
parents in the village.On one of his visits to 
Bhagalpur, his parents wed him to a young girl 
from near his village. When Pramod brought his 
bride to Delhi, he was unwilling to subject her 
to his harsh life under a tent, so he bought a 
piece of land from a contractor he had worked for 
in Patparganj in East Delhi. It was a low-lying 
bog clogged with slime, sewerage drained from 
surrounding areas, mosquitoes and dense shrubs, 
behind the high-rise apartment buildings where he 
was employed to lay the electrical lines. Pramod, 
his young wife and others who were illegally sold 
the land by the contractor toiled for months to 
clear and level the land. The contractor gave 
them bricks and tin sheets to fabricate their 
tiny, tenuous homes.Eventually, 430 shanties came 
up. There was no water supply or drinking water. 
They collected plastic carriers of water from a 
leaking pipe two kilometres away, and the only 
toilet available to them was the continuously 
shrinking open spaces around. "Who could we 
complain to?" Pramod asked bitterly. "The 
contractor? He would have simply packed us off 
and then what would have become of us?"When their 
first daughter was born, Pramod resolved that 
they could not live like this forever. A 
contractor recruited him for employment in Dubai, 
where he worked for eight years. His employer 
took his passport from him as soon as he arrived 
at the airport, and he worked almost all his 
waking hours. He never enjoyed his years in 
Dubai. "It was not like being in your own 
country." But he saved enough to send money both 
to his parents in the village, and his wife in 
the slum in East Delhi. He visited his home every 
few years, and each time, left his wife pregnant. 
He has three daughters and a boy.When he finally 
returned to India, he found that globalisation 
had driven out most of the small building 
contractors. Foreign companies employed only 
people with formal degrees, something that Pramod 
could never acquire despite his love of books. 
He, therefore, resolved that he would educate all 
his children in English medium schools, whatever 
it cost him. The fees in Bal Nikunj Public School 
are Rs 200 every month, but he feels that the 
school is better than those run by the 
government, "where children can barely write 
their names".I asked Pramod's little son what he 
learnt in school. He thought for a while before 
he replied, "Achi batein!" (Good things!)The 
residents of the high-rise buildings which they 
had toiled to build, and where their wives and 
sisters washed dishes and floors, decided that 
they no longer wanted a slum in their midst. They 
filed a complaint in the court against violation 
of 'green belt' regulations, and the court ruled 
against the slum residents without hearing 
them.The night of February 23, 2006, a head 
constable informed them that demolitions would 
start the next morning. They huddled helplessly 
in their homes and soon after dawn, bulldozers 
appeared. The roads were blocked on both sides. 
People desperately retrieved what they could in 
the blur of an hour - TV sets, some boxes of 
clothes, loved toys - but the rest was crushed 
under the relentless advance of dozers.They 
desolately lived under the open sky for the next 
two months. Some like Pramod then moved into tiny 
rented tenements that they could ill afford. The 
court that had ordered demolitions had not found 
it fit to instruct rehabilitation. Many 
demonstrations and gheraos of the officers of the 
Delhi Development Authority finally yielded the 
reluctant offer of undeveloped plots in 20-km 
distant Bawana, but only if they made a 
down-payment of Rs 5,000. Even this offer was 
made to only 92 of the 430 resident families 
deemed by the officials to be 'eligible'. Of 
these, 48 families took loans from moneylenders 
at 10 per cent interest per month, to pay the 
authorities. For the rest, including Pramod, the 
only prospect seems homelessness.Pramod took me 
to see the site where their homes had stood 
barely months earlier. Around the plot, a wall 
had been constructed. Through a small gap, he 
pointed out a madhumalati shrub. "That is 
precisely where my home stood," he said. "I had 
bought the madhumalati for Rs 25. It soon grew 
all across the roof of our home. It gave such a 
beautiful fragrance at night; it was the envy of 
the entire colony. It was crushed under the 
bulldozers, but revived in the monsoon. It stands 
there alone. My heart breaks whenever I look at 
it."

The writer is the convenor of Aman Biradari, a 
people's campaign for secularism, peace and 
justice

_____


[4]

Alternative India Index - 22 October 2006
http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/article.php3?id_article=30

(Appeared earlier in Outlook on Oct 19, 2006)


APPEAL
What Does Mohammad Afzal Know?
According to the Supreme Court, just six persons 
are involved: the five attackers, and Mohammad 
Afzal. Since the attackers died on the spot, 
Mohammad Afzal is the only living witness to the 
episode, according to the Court.
Ali Javed, Tripta Wahi, The Committee for Inquiry on December 13

19 October, 2006

Prof. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Hon'ble President of India
Rashtrapati Bhawan
New Delhi-110001

Respected Sir,

After the High Court judgment of October 2003 in 
the Parliament attack case, many individuals 
comprising The Committee for Inquiry on December 
13 felt that very serious questions remained 
unanswered. Thus, after studying the judgment and 
the relevant documents carefully, the Committee 
was formed in March 2005 to bring out the truth, 
ensure justice and protect the rights of the 
accused in the parliament attack case. We hold 
that the judgment of the Supreme Court in August 
2005 has vindicated many of the concerns raised 
by us.

The Committee strongly condemns terrorist acts by 
fundamentalist outfits; these are serious attacks 
on civil society and its democratic institutions. 
However, the Committee agrees with Mr. Kofi Annan 
that human rights, along with democracy and 
social justice, are one of the best prophylactics 
against terrorism. The task is not easy, but it 
must be undertaken for democracy to function.

Since its inception, our Committee has been 
following the Parliament attack case with 
diligence. It released a book on the topic, 
December 13: Terror over Democracy, written by 
one of its members. A copy of the book is 
enclosed. We have also released press statements, 
have made several appeals to you and the National 
Human Rights Commission on a variety of grave 
concerns that arise from a close study of the 
case. After the Supreme Court judgment we also 
appealed to the members of Parliament, with 
supporting documents, to institute a 
Parliamentary inquiry into the entire episode. We 
are enclosing some of the relevant 
representations, documents and more recent 
literature for your kind perusal.

In the light of our studies, we strongly object 
to the decision by the Sessions Court that Mohd. 
Afzal, accused in the Parliament attack case, is 
to be hanged on 20 October 2006. The hanging will 
not only be a travesty of justice, it will have 
far-reaching consequences for peace, secular 
fabric of the country and the ability to address 
the menacing problem of terrorism. Our objections 
are as follows.

(A) As to the capital punishment given to Mohd. 
Afzal by the Supreme Court of India, we wish to 
make the following observations:

1. The Court did not find him to be a member of 
any terrorist organization. In fact, he 
surrendered to the Border Security Force in 
Kashmir in 1993 and, as noted by the Courts, he 
had been in regular contact with the security 
agencies since.

2. Mohd. Afzal did not take part in the attack on 
the Parliament of India. Since the Court set 
aside his confession obtained by the police under 
POTA as unreliable, the story of conspiracy 
described therein and relied upon by the High 
Court does not apply to him. Therefore, even if 
the criterion of rarest of rare cases applied to 
the actual attackers and the mastermind(s) of the 
operation whoever they are, it does not apply to 
Mohd. Afzal.

3. Mohd. Afzal had virtually no legal defence in 
the trial court. A junior lawyer was appointed 
amicus by the trial court against the wishes of 
Mohd. Afzal. The lawyer neither engaged in any 
meaningful cross-examination nor produced any 
witnesses in support of his client.

(B) As to whether Mohd. Afzal is guilty of the 
charges, we wish to point out that the judgment 
of the Supreme Court was based entirely on 
circumstantial evidence produced by the Special 
Cell of the Delhi Police. We note the following 
about this agency:

1. As noted, the Supreme Court set aside Mohd. 
Afzal's confession obtained by the Cell. There is 
clear indication in the judgment that the 
confession was secured by force.

2 Earlier, the High Court had observed that the 
Cell had fabricated crucial documents and had 
kept people in illegal confinement to force them 
to sign papers.

3. As various human rights organizations and 
citizen's groups have repeatedly reported to you 
and the National Human Rights Commission, the 
Cell is notorious for illegal arrests and false 
encounters.

We find it to be a travesty of justice that a 
person is found guilty and awarded the capital 
punishment solely on the basis of evidence 
produced by this investigating agency.

(C) Our understanding of the Presidential powers 
under Article 72 of the Constitution of India is 
that, apart from examining the legal soundness of 
the judgment, the President of India is empowered 
to examine extra-judicial circumstances that 
might have adversely influenced the judicial 
proceedings, and over which the judicial 
proceedings have no control. This aspect is fully 
argued in the enclosed article in Economic and 
Political Weekly (October 7 2006).

To take one example out of many, the Supreme 
Court had justly set aside the confessional 
statement of Mohammad Afzal as unreliable. Once 
the Court set it aside, it no longer formed 
evidence against Mohammad Afzal. However, the 
Court did not and can not inquire into the 
extra-judicial significance of its act.

As we have repeatedly pointed out, the 
confessional statement contained the only story 
of the conspiracy and the planning to attack the 
Parliament. This story has been widely publicized 
for over four years as the truth by the media and 
the lower courts. Mohammad Afzal was made to tell 
this story in front of television on 20 December 
2001. Subsequently, a film was made by Zee TV 
based on this story. Since the government did not 
produce any other evidence, we may presume that 
this story also formed the basis of the 
war-effort during 2001-2. Since the Supreme Court 
set aside the confessional statement, the entire 
story falls apart.

Who then masterminded the attack on Parliament? 
On what basis was the country taken close to a 
nuclear war? Who is responsible for this massive 
fabrication? According to the Supreme Court, just 
six persons are involved: the five attackers, and 
Mohammad Afzal. Since the attackers died on the 
spot, Mohammad Afzal is the only living witness 
to the episode, according to the Court. What does 
Mohammad Afzal know? Understandably, the Court 
was not assigned the task of answering these 
questions. However, an examination of these 
issues has direct bearing on the post-judicial 
review of the case. Under Article 72 the 
President of India is empowered to initiate such 
examination.

(D) The Parliament attack case is a test case for 
the functioning of civil institutions of India. 
Given the series of omissions and irregularities 
listed above, there is a genuine grievance that 
justice has not been meted out in this case. The 
hanging of Mohd. Afzal will only help perpetuate 
the grievance and further polarize communities. 
Needless to say, it is likely to affect the peace 
process in Kashmir so earnestly undertaken by the 
government. Further, given the gravity of the 
brutal attack on Indian Parliament and that the 
country was taken very near to a nuclear conflict 
with Pakistan, the people of India have a right 
to know what exactly happened, who were the 
masterminds, how the attack was planned and the 
security breached.
We, therefore, appeal to you to not only set 
aside the punishment given to Mohd.Afzal but also 
to facilitate a Parliamentary inquiry into the 
entire episode.

With regards

Ali Javed, Reader, Delhi University
Tripta Wahi, Reader, Delhi University

Convenors

Enclosures:
Copy of December 13: Terror over Democracy
Copy of appeal to the Members of Parliament with supporting documents
Copy of earlier petition to the President on the 
functioning of the Special Cell, Delhi Police
Copy of booklet containing letters from Mohammad Afzal
Copy of article "Should Mohammad Afzal Die?", EPW, 17 September, 2005
Copy of article "Last Chance to Know What Really 
Happened", EPW, 7 October, 2005

o o o

Alternative India Index
22 October 2006
http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/article.php3?id_article=31

THE SPECTRAL ORDER OF SACRIFICE
What sacrificial victims does the nation-state 
relentlessly seek? What is the symbolic register 
of sacrifice demanded by a modern nation-state? 
What sacrifices are demanded by the regime of 
truth, and what truths must be forsaken by the 
regime of sacrifice?

by Vinay Lal (Publshed earlier in Outlook Magazine)


India looks all set to hang Mohammed Afzal, who 
has been sentenced to death for the terrorist 
attack on the Indian Parliament, in the next few 
days. The outcome of a clemency petition from his 
family which is presently before the Indian 
President, APJ Abdul Kalam, is still awaited. As 
in the movies, Afzal may get a last minute 
reprieve, a commutation of his death sentence to 
life imprisonment or a lesser term, a power 
conferred on the President by Article 72 of the 
Indian Constitution. But time is clearly not on 
Afzal's side.

On 13 December 2001, five men sprung from a white 
Ambassador car that had entered the premises of 
the Indian Parliament complex and exchanged 
gunfire with armed guards. Half an hour later, 
all five terrorists were dead, as were nearly 
twice as many security personnel. The incident 
was immediately dubbed India's "9/11", but India, 
notwithstanding the ambitions of its élites and 
the fantasies of its mandarins and powerbrokers, 
who are eager to pounce upon the slightest 
suggestion that the country is headed for 
greatness, is no superpower. It cannot with 
impunity violate the sovereignty of other nations 
and launch air attacks at a 'moment of its 
choosing'; indeed, it cannot do much of anything, 
except lodge diplomatic complaints, or, if it 
wishes to be more theatrical, mass tens of 
thousands of troops on the border. It cannot, in 
one fell swoop, bomb Pakistan into abject 
submission. One immediately knew, once the 
terrorists had been killed and the license to 
unearth a conspiracy against the nation had been 
obtained, that more sacrificial lambs would have 
to be found.

Mohammed Afzal Guru was long ago, to put it 
plainly, a man in the waiting room leading to the 
execution chamber. Afzal is a Kashmiri, and his 
home town of Baramulla has been sharply hit by 
militancy; by his own admission, he once belonged 
to the militant organization JKLF, before 
surrendering to state authorities and endeavoring 
to create a new life for himself and his family. 
For all one knows, Mohammed Afzal may be guilty 
of the crime, for which he has now been condemned 
to death, of aiding the suicide attack on the 
Indian Parliament. Many who are not necessarily 
disposed towards Afzal have nonetheless pleaded 
for his life, some among them primarily because, 
as they rightfully claim, the legal case against 
Afzal is not even remotely close to being 
ironclad. Though the Indian Evidence Act is among 
the most stringent in the world, a forced 
confession was unlawfully used in evidence 
against Afzal. The police officers who extracted 
the confession from Afzal have since been charged 
with corruption, and Afzal was not accorded the 
opportunity of legal representation. However, 
Afzal's conviction has been upheld by the Indian 
Supreme Court, and it is unlikely that President 
Kalam will be moved by these considerations.

The opposition to the Supreme Court's decision of 
those who take a principled ethical stand against 
capital punishment is understandable, but the 
remaining arguments made on Afzal's behalf are 
largely derived from reasons of pragmatism and 
prudence. The state prosecutors admitted, and the 
Supreme Court agrees, that Afzal is not among the 
'masterminds' of the attack. Maulana Masood 
Azhar, the leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, which 
is believed to be the terrorist organization most 
likely to have orchestrated the attack, remains 
free in Pakistan. It is contended that the 
punishment is vastly disproportionate to the 
crime of which Afzal has been convicted, 
considering that he did not even participate in 
the attack. The arguments from realpolitik which 
oppose Afzal's death sentence stress that his 
execution would erode the Indian government's 
already extraordinarily strained credibility in 
Kashmir, and give a boost to those very 
terrorists and secessionists to whom the Indian 
state would like to teach a lesson or two.

The Srinagar Valley has been rocked by 
demonstrators opposed to the imminent execution, 
and the United Jihad Council has warned of 'dire 
consequences' if it is allowed to take place. On 
the realpolitik view, nothing is gained by 
turning Afzal into a martyr: far from serving as 
a deterrent, his execution is likely to be turned 
into a recruiting tool for terrorist and 
secessionist groups in Kashmir, as well as for 
jihadi organizations in Pakistan. Some Muslim 
organizations are likely to trumpet the case as 
the most visible instantiation of the inability 
of a Muslim to get due process of law in a 
non-Muslim state.

The advocates of the death sentence have summoned 
the usual arguments that prevail whenever 
'terrorism' is at issue. They argue that India 
should not, in a word, be a 'soft' state, and it 
should unequivocally convey to militant 
organizations, and to their patron Pakistan, its 
resolute determination to bring to justice the 
perpetrators of terrorist atrocities. Since the 
victims of terrorist attacks are, whether in 
India, the United States, or elsewhere, 
invariably turned into martyrs, the families of 
victims are brought on stage, so to speak, to 
offer the view that appeasement of terrorists 
would be a betrayal of the ideals for which the 
victims gave up their lives. The Indian Supreme 
Court, while upholding the death sentence, 
furnished an argument bearing some family 
resemblance, though couched in a different and 
more anthropological idiom. Describing the 
present case as having 'no parallel in the 
history of the Indian Republic', the court noted 
that the attack had shaken up the entire country 
and was intended to paralyze the government and 
disrupt 'the normal life of the people of India.' 
The Court was thus duty-bound to furnish balm to 
their wounds: in the words of the judgment, 'the 
collective conscience of the society will only be 
satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to 
the offender.' Though the Court set aside Afzal's 
conviction under POTA, and found that no evidence 
had been offered to prove that Afzal was a member 
of any terrorist gang or organization, it 
nonetheless found him guilty of having partaken 
in a criminal conspiracy to shake the very 
foundations of the country by assisting in the 
attack on India's supreme 'sovereign democratic 
institution'.

As the Supreme Court's judgment amply suggests, 
the Parliament Attack case cannot be 
disassociated from the symbolic politics in which 
it is deeply embedded. The attackers exposed the 
vulnerability of a 'sovereign democratic 
institution' of the Republic, and, in a lighter 
vein, they did so by arriving at the Parliament's 
gates in a white Ambassador car, itself one of 
the supreme icons of a capacious, cumbersome, and 
dinosaur-like officialdom. Nandita Haksar, a 
prominent civil rights campaigner and Supreme 
Court lawyer who has made an eloquent plea on 
behalf of the Society for the Protection of 
Detainees' and Prisoners' Rights (SPDPR) to spare 
Afzal's life, has with some justification 
suggested that a wider symbolic politics renders 
a more sympathetic hearing of Afzal's case 
improbable. The 'Hindu fascist forces' braying 
for Afzal's blood, Haksar argues, are 'victims of 
the ideology of the Islamophobia spawned by the 
US war against terrorism.' She further submits 
that the American jury which convicted Zacarias 
Moussaoui of involvement in the terrorist attacks 
of 11 September 2001 showed more compassion than 
Indian courts, and taking into account his 
'unstable childhood and dysfunctional family' 
background, besides his 'hostile relationship 
with his mother', spared Moussaoui his life and 
only committed him to life imprisonment.


That Haksar is grossly mistaken about the 
supposed compassion displayed by an American jury 
towards an alleged hardcore terrorist is a point 
by which we need not be detained, though one 
cannot but question the assumption that the US of 
A, where Mohammed Afzal would in the present 
climate of opinion have been a sitting duck, 
still sets the standards of justice for the world 
to emulate. The present case, the Supreme Court 
judgment states, presents 'a spectacle of rarest 
of rare cases', and that is more than warrant 
enough for summoning, from the recesses of the 
past, another of the 'rarest of rare cases' from 
which perhaps more insight is gained than from 
the conviction of Zacarias Moussaoui. In February 
1949, Nathuram Godse and several others were 
found guilty of a criminal conspiracy that had 
led to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. 
Though Nathuram Godse took sole responsibility 
for the murder, Judge Atma Charan sentenced him 
and fellow conspirator Narayan Apte to death, and 
the assassin's brother, Gopal, and several others 
to varying terms of imprisonment.

Ramdas Gandhi, the Mahatma's third son, was among 
those who pleaded with Nehru that the lives of 
Nathuram and Apte should be spared. Gandhi, it 
was pointed out, was a staunch and inflexible 
opponent of the death penalty. Nehru remained 
unmoved: as he was to write to Ramdas, no lesser 
a person than the 'Father of the Nation' had been 
assassinated, and much as he was inclined to 
accept and honour the teachings of Bapu, his very 
own mentor, the ends of justice would be better 
served by the deaths of Nathuram and Apte. In 
this, the 'rarest of rare cases', the secular 
Nehru had to serve an unspecified will that could 
not be defied. Nehru, we can be certain, would 
have approved of the words that the Supreme Court 
chose to use in upholding Afzal's death sentence: 
"The appellant, who is a surrendered militant and 
who was bent upon repeating the acts of treason 
against the nation, is a menace to the society 
and his life should become extinct.'

Interesting as are the legal issues surrounding 
Afzal's conviction, and compelling as are the 
questions of culpability and responsibility, it 
is clear that Afzal's case now belongs to another 
spectral order. We must thus be asking very 
different questions: What sacrificial victims 
does the nation-state relentlessly seek? What is 
the symbolic register of sacrifice demanded by a 
modern nation-state? What sacrifices are demanded 
by the regime of truth, and what truths must be 
forsaken by the regime of sacrifice? These 
questions do not admit of easy answers, but 
perhaps they may guide us to better reflection 
and action.

Dr Vinay Lal is Associate Professor of History 
and Asian American Studies, UCLA.

_____


[5]  GROWING COMMUNAL DANGER IN KARNATAKA

(i)

Communalism Watch
October 21, 2006

MAYHEM IN MANGALORE

by Yoginder Sikand

Early this month, a series of violent incidents 
rocked Mangalore and several nearby towns and 
villages in coastal Karnataka. Two people were 
killed, dozens injured and property worth several 
lakhs was destroyed. Although a semblance of 
peace has now been restored, tension remains, as 
I discovered after a recent trip to the area 
along with some social activists from Bangalore.
For some years now, Hindutva forces have been 
very active in the Dakshina Kannada district, 
where Mangalore is located. The MP from the area 
and most of the local MLAs are from the BJP. The 
road leading to Mangalore is strewn with saffron 
banners and flags, indicating the presence of 
numerous Hindutva outfits. Economic factors, such 
as competition between Muslim and Hindu traders 
and contradictions between some sections of the 
fishermen community and Muslim traders have been 
used by Hindutva forces to whip up anti-Muslim 
sentiments and consolidate their presence. 
Consequently, relations between Hindus and 
Muslims have been badly affected, an outcome of 
which were what many locals believe were the 
pre-planned riots of early October, in which BJP 
and Bajrang Dal leaders, including some occupying 
top positions in the present Karnataka 
government, are said to have played a leading 
role.
[. . .].

http://communalism.blogspot.com/2006/10/mayhem-in-mangalore.html

o o o

(ii)

Communalism Watch
October 22, 2006
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2006/10/mangalore-riots.html

MANGALORE 'RIOTS'

by Nalini Taneja (People's Democracy - October 22, 2006)

Communalism in Karnataka has been projected in 
the media as isolated acts of violence around 
specific issues, rather than in terms of the 
larger picture. The campaign by the Sangh Parivar 
to turn Bababudangiri into a site exclusively for 
Hindus has got some coverage, but that is about 
all. In recent days there have been reports on 
the communal tension in Mangalore, which has left 
two Muslims dead, and several seriously injured.

It has been noted that "both communities" have 
been active in creating communal tension and then 
the recent violent incidents. Again (as in the 
case of the Israeli attack on Lebanon), a recent 
date is arbitrarily decided to take note of when 
the recent violence 'began'. Obviously then what 
happened in Mangalore from October 4-7, 2006 
appears like a "riot" caused by communal frenzy 
on the part of two warring communities, 
occasioned by the event of transportation of some 
cows for slaughter.

The suspected cow slaughter led to a call for 
bandh, which turned violent as Bajrang Dal 
activists roamed the town, terrorising people, 
forcing the closure of all shops and attacking 
Muslim establishments. Muslim youth retaliated 
the next day, also attacking shops and business 
establishments. The day after, an ambulance was 
intercepted, and its occupants were stabbed, one 
of whom died on the way to hospital. Both sides 
blamed the fundamentalists of the other religious 
group. Looked at in the context of just those 
four days, the incidents appear to be a 'riot' 
indeed.

In actual fact, Mangalore has been on a slow boil 
for sometime now, and violence could have erupted 
here at any point of time, as some discerning 
reports show. For that matter they could have 
erupted similarly in any other town.

Before the recent round of rioting between 
October 4 and 7, there have been hundreds of 
minor provocative actions in the district, caused 
in the main by distinct campaigns undertaken by 
the Sangh Parivar in various parts of the state 
following the demolition of Babri masjid.

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 2004 
elections saw the BJP make a virtual sweep of the 
11 legislative assembly seats from the district. 
(Johnson TA, The Indian Express, October 17).

The appeal issued by the Karnataka Komu Souharda 
Vedike (Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony), a 
coalition of 200 organisations working to stem 
the tide of communalism in Karnataka also clearly 
states: "Ananth Kumar, the BJP MP from Karnataka, 
had declared in 2002 that the Bababudangiri was 
the Ayodhya of the South. Against the backdrop of 
the Gujarat riots in 2002, the implicit reference 
was to transform Karnataka into Gujarat. That 
today has received a boost in Mangalore and 
Dakshin Kannada district and is beginning to turn 
into a horrendous reality. Clear targeting of the 
Muslim community through physical attacks, 
looting of their shops, stoning mosques, 
restaurants and businesses owned by Muslims was 
in evidence throughout. Though curfew was 
imposed, the police refused to intervene in 
several instances, and when they did, Muslims 
were specifically arrested.

The home minister of the state, M P Prakash, 
brushed aside the incidents by saying that 
communal voices exist within the police forces as 
well and there was little that the government 
could do about it. What adds to the alarm is that 
the recent spate of violence follows years of 
communal tension created by the Sangh Parivar in 
the entire coastal belt. Under the excuse of 
upholding the ban on cow slaughter, the Sangh 
Parivar have repeatedly taken the law into their 
hands over the years. They have attacked Muslims, 
stripped them, paraded them naked, beaten them 
up, harassed women and looted their shops - all 
in the name of religion. Despite this history of 
communal tension that existed in the district, 
the police and the state government have not 
taken any serious action. Though cases have been 
filed in police stations, hardly have any 
resulted in the convictions of the accused 
persons further endorsing the communal nature of 
the police."

The appeal has been quoted in such detail to 
underline what has become the pattern and the 
norm.

The Sangh Parivar has been with impunity imposing 
this pattern and norm, which has today 
contributed to the creation of a well organised 
network and structure for the production of 
communal violence that can start its work and put 
a pause to it as and when it likes.

In the light of this complicity and this pattern 
one needs to term these violent incidents in 
words that describe their actual reality. 
Citizens' reports of various communal killings 
through recent years, as well as the painstaking 
research of social scientists like Paul Brass, 
have shown these to be well organised affairs by 
the Sangh Parivar, preceded by hate campaigns 
against Muslims or Christians, as the case may 
be, and acts of continuous small provocations and 
skirmishes which prepare the ground for the 
larger productions of violence. This has been the 
case with Mangalore as well.

Bajrang Dal and Hindu Sena have been running a 
parallel police system of their own, ostensibly 
to punish cow slaughter or conversions, and their 
forms of punishment include killings and 
stabbings, parading the so called offenders naked 
in public, forcing social boycotts and closure of 
business establishments at will-in fact seizing 
on any pretext available. In one instance they 
conjured up and promoted the rumour that Muslims 
had been injecting Hindus with infected needles 
at a village fair in order to cause an epidemic 
of AIDS among Hindus. There is a penetration of 
Hindutva propaganda into rural areas of the 
districts in Karnataka.

The State has to be recognised as complicit in 
this, as its institutional structures, the 
administration, the police, and local leaderships 
of the BJP, and sometimes the Congress, act in 
unison rather than contrary to the will of the 
rioters. The record of the Indian State in 
booking and punishing the guilty must also be 
recognised as complicity of the successive 
governments in emboldening the Hindutva forces. 
If we asked the question in 2002 as to what was L 
K Advani doing as home minister and Atal Behari 
Vajpayee as prime minister when Gujarat happened, 
should we not ask the same today of the UPA 
government?

o o o

(iii)

Communalism Watch
October 22, 2006

THE DIALECTICS OF COMMUNAL CONFLICT IN COASTAL KARNATAKA

by V.Lakshminarayana

Of late, Karnataka has been in the thick of the news
for high level corruption, language chauvinism,
spreading canards about Tippu Sultan and raking up
religious and communal controversies on place of
worship, all by none other than those in power. As
expected the communal fangs of the opportunist JDS-BJP
coalition government at Karnataka are getting
unfolded. [. . .].
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2006/10/dialectics-of-communal-conflict-in.html


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

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.