SACW | Oct. 25, 2006 | Pakistan: Freedom of information; Sri Lanka: war and peace; India: Gujarat riot victims / Madhya Pradesh: Undoing Secular State Administration
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Tue Oct 24 20:15:26 CDT 2006
South Asia Citizens Wire | October 25, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2311 - Year 8
[1] Pakistan: Call for freedom of information -
HRCP consultation (I.A. Rehman)
[2] Sri Lanka: Impressions: war and peace in Mutur (CTMPC)
[3] India - Pakistan : To trust or not to trust (Edit., Kashmir Times)
[4] India - Gujarat: The people of Citizen Nagar (Farah Naqvi)
[5] India: Gujarat riot victims living in "sub-human conditions"
[6] India - Madhya Pradesh: Undoing Secular State Administration
(i) Government Employees in RSS: Hastening The
End of Democratic-Secular India (Shamsul Islam)
(ii) Madhya Pradesh: Sangh in service (A.G. Noorani)
[8] Announcement: Rutgers 2nd Annual Conference on South Asia
____
[1]
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
CALL FOR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
Lahore, October 18: Amendments to the Freedom of
Information Ordinance, repeal of the Official
Secrets Act, and the obligation of the government
to disseminate information proactively, were
termed essential for empowering people,
transparency and accountability, at a
consultation on the right to know at HRCP the
other day.
The discussion highlighted the shortcomings of
the FOI Ordinance 2002, the possibilities of
learning from experiments in the region, and
focused on future strategies for ensuring
government accountability and transparency.
Former senators Farhatullah Babar and Shafqat
Mehmood, Editor of The Nation Mr. Arif Nizami,
Secretary-General of Safma Mr. Imtiaz Alam,
Executive Director of Centre for Civic Education
Mr. Zafarullah Khan, Executive Director of Centre
for Peace and Development Initiatives Mr. Mukhtar
Ahmad, Council Members of HRCP Dr. Mehdi Hassan
and Salima Hashmi, senior journalist Abbas
Rasheed, HRCP Director I.A.Rehman and HRCP
National coordinator Hussain Naqi participated in
the discussion.
The culture of secrecy and the attitudes
prevailing amongst government officials have
curtailed the development of an open society.
There is absolute lack of freedom of information
across the country and those affected by this
include all citizens. While there does exist an
ordinance, the Freedom of Information Ordinance
2002, it is flawed, it makes access to
information extraordinarily difficult and not
many people are aware of its existence.
Information enables people to make informed
decisions and choices and keep tabs on elected
representatives. All citizens, even the poorest
of the poor, pay a range of indirect taxes to the
government. They, therefore, deserve to know how
and where public funds are spent by the
government. This enables citizens to meaningfully
exercise their rights and determine who is
responsible for any violations. The right to
information exists for all citizens and there can
be no justice without any right to know.
There is lack of awareness amongst the public of
the general rights in terms of seeking
information from the government. At the same
time, officials are not sensitized towards their
duty to provide information to those who seek it.
The local government bodies, for example, are
required to display information on boards
regularly.
The environment transcending from the top is not
conducive for developing an open society as it is
enshrined in secrecy. The culture, therefore,
needs to be changed for the law to become
effective as it can not really become operative
in an atmosphere where facts are concealed and
hidden.
The speakers suggested that the struggle for
ensuring right to information for all needs to be
part of a bigger struggle. While the media must
highlight the issue, the civil society must also
lobby with parliamentarians for either evolving a
new law or refining the amended version. There
must be a rule to punish those willfully giving
wrong information to the public and placing
before the parliament.
The participants discussed the national RTI Act
of India that came into effect from October 2005
and provides freedom to every citizen to secure
access to information under the control of public
authorities. The growing demand for
accountability of government officials in India
was stated to be the result of a collective
struggle by several organizations that remained
at the forefront of the struggle since 1996 in
order to get an effective law legislated.
The participants asserted that citizens in the
country need to address issues dealing with the
daily lives of people, including water and
sewerage, just like citizens across Delhi are
using the DRTI Act to seek information on issues
related to their daily lives like road
maintenance, laying water and sewage pipes,
sanitation and ration distribution.
Information offers a short cut to development and
democracy. The Right to Information Act of India
has provided the public with a tool to question
the government. While there is a serious lack of
political will to transform the closed system of
governance in Pakistan, the citizens have also
taken a back seat and accepted it. The citizens
must be committed to and willing to change this
attitude.
I.A.Rehman
Director
____
[2]
IMPRESSIONS: WAR AND PEACE IN MUTUR
by Coalition of Tamils and Muslims for Peace and Coexistence (CTMPC)
October 23, 2006
What have war, ethnic cleansing, inter-ethnic
hostilities done to us? The town of Mutur and
surrounding areas in Mutur district were the site
of intense violence, of acts of ethnic cleansing
carried out by the LTTE and forces of the State,
including bombing, wanton killings and forced
mass displacements and a general air of
indifference by politicians just a month ago.
Today, attention has shifted elsewhere, to
Muhamalai, to Habaranna, to Galle and the
continuing tragedy of the armed forces and the
LTTE clashing and killing each other, in which
more people are going to be displaced. We still
do not know about the actual numbers of people
displaced this year. This is a short
impressionistic imprint of a village in Mutur
district today, a village unable to recover,
unable to recuperate in the continuing condition
of war and instability. In this predominantly
Muslim village, whose people want to remain
unidentified, many of the people have come back,
most of them reluctantly, to their houses, broken
apart by bombing and shelling. And they have
taken up residence there, not knowing where else
to go. But they live in fear and loss. They feel
totally helpless.
"War is not outside us, the war and the violence
is inside us. It's in our children's drawings.
Our children draw the story of displacement in
their sketches of that August month, and
subsequent days of bombing and shelling, finding
our friends gone; each one of them is a record of
our history; each carries pictures of the hill of
Kiranthimunai where young Muslim men were
separated from the women by the LTTE so that they
could be massacred. You know all about that. They
draw multi barreled gun, some of them have not
even seen it. They draw pictures of fleeing
people."
What we present about Mutur is not confined to it
only. After the devastating war in the
Trincomalee District in the past few months, the
areas in and around Mutur, including Sampur, have
become a land pock marked with the war that has
swept through it like the ferocious tsunami that
hit the shores of Sri Lanka. But the war has not
just created destruction, it has ripped into the
very fabric of society, normalcy, community
bonding, trust in one another and in one's
neighbours. The situation in this town is
representative of other Tamil and Sinhala
villages overturned by this cruel war, very much
like what happened in April in the towns and
villages of Trincomalee, where one was attacked
from all sides. Yet some aspects are specific to
it too, in this war of very specific targets,
mistrusts, fears. We of course continue to hope,
against all hope. Please do listen to us.
"We live amidst the constant battery of the Multi
(mulit barreled cannon). Just mere artillery
shelling is nothing to us. It's like child's play
now. When the multi pounds from our side, it
uproots the buildings, the buildings take off
into the air, as though they have left our
bodies. It feels like that."
"We are ready to run, take off, any moment. We
feel that as there are no people in Sampur, LTTE
will use our villages to attack the forces from.
The LTTE is in neighbouring Alinagar and other
places. We will be mere cannon fodder. The
Muslims are ranged around the camps of the
forces. If the LTTE attacks the camps, then
that's it. We will be just crushed like ants. We
cannot go through Kiranthimunai, and the terrible
fleeing."
"We cannot forget Kiranthimunai which is now part
of our local history. What happened at
Kiranthimunai is forever in our minds. We walked
all the way to Thoppur. There was no water
anywhere. We dipped the ends of our sarees in
puddles on the way and squeezed the water out.
The cloth was a filter for the mud. This is the
tale we will tell our children."
She does not cry or speak much, this woman who
lost her child in her tummy when she ran miles,
falling, falling on the way.
"Allah gave me this gift of child. But I did not
take care of it properly. People say now, you
could have left the place early, gone to Trinco.
It's through my carelessness that I lost this
child"
" So many pregnant women lost their babies. We
are afraid now to have babies. If we are to run
again?"
A six month pregnant woman cannot feel life in
her tummy. Her husband had disappeared, given up
for dead at the hands of the LTTE. But he appears
one day, with injuries that he does not want to
talk about. In her sorrow of her missing husband,
she had not thought of looking to her own
welfare. In any case there is no gynaecologist ,
nor any facilities in her area. How can she go to
Trinco given the way things are in the area?
"We are numb with no feelings left. We are left
speechless. A Tamil man who fed the fleeing
Muslims,on the way, in a neighbouring village and
who transported some of them in his van was shot
dead by the LTTE for helping the "Sonis" "So, you
are giving soda to the Sonis?" He was asked. His
family seems to have vanished from the place. We
cannot look to any assistance from Tamils, how
can we?"
The people are in shock, feeling depressed with
their state of total helplessness. The tragedy of
Mutur is a very specific tragedy. At the same
time, it is part of the tragedy of war and peace
in Sri Lanka. It's the same story in Sampur when
Tamil women walked hundreds of miles to get to
safe places, with a large number fleeing to
Batticaloa. Trincomalee has become an epicenter
of insecurity and violence. The majority of
refugees fleeing to India are mainly from
Trincomalee, who first cross overland to Mannar
and then crossed illegally to India. Following
the Marvil Aru sluice dispute, Sinhala villagers
from the area fled the place in sheer terror. The
phantom of Kebethigollewa and Welikanda, where
Sinhala border villagers were massacred by the
LTTE, driving them from their homes and villages.
Tamils in the district like the other communities
are caught between the terror of the LTTE and
that of the state. A woman from a camp for
displaced people in a government controlled area,
who had remonstrated with the LTTE for taking
away her 14 year old child for training way back
in March, was told by them, "you can wear these
very same clothes that you are wearing and go and
live among the Sinhalese as a Sinhalathi (Sinhala
woman). How can I do that, what are my means for
doing that?" Everybody knows she would not be
able to find a safe home in the 'Sinhala' areas.
The violence has had a direct impact on relations
between communities with an increased level of
suspicion, tension and even communal violence as
was seen in the riots against Tamils in
Trincomalee Town during the Tamil and Sinhala New
Year. The riots were ironically and cruelly set
off by a bomb in the market place that claimed
victims of all the communities.
The tragedy of Mutur is not purely a tragedy of
one town or district. Mutur a predominantly
Muslim town has Tamils too. 17 aid workers
(mostly Tamil, with one Muslim) were allegedly
massacred by members of the armed personnel in
Mutur town at the height of the war. With LTTE's
acts of ethnic cleansing toward the Muslims,
Tamils in Mutur feel beleagured and lost. There
is a shortage of Tamil speaking doctors in the
area, but Tamil doctors are scared to go to Mutur
district, fearing danger from the armed forces
and perhaps reprisals from Muslims in the area,
though this is not so strongly articulated.
While the destruction of lives is one of the
tragedies of the war, the greater tragedy is that
of how communities, who have not merely
co-existed, but had communed together and been
interdependent, both in times of well-being and
adversity, have been cleft apart. The other
tragic irony is that the conditions of war have
actually not left any of the communities in the
east untouched, and all three communities have
been affected by both the LTTE and the armed
forces. This very vicious war that has and
continues to divide people according to ethnic
lines, has deliberately tried to pit people
against each other. At the same time, the
conditions of war and the modus operandi of the
LTTE and the state, bind the people in one common
thread of suffering that all marginalized feel..
A Tamil woman from Mutur district said, the army
would stay here for 10 or 15 days. After that? Is
it war again? This could have been a Muslim
woman, a Sinhala woman. When a Sinhala woman in
Kantale displaced from the Marvil aru area says,
I will go back if the artillery battery stops, it
could have been stated by a Tamil woman too. Even
in the face of increasing communal suspicions
against the other community, there is a
realization that one's own security is tied to
that of the other. For a number of Mutur Muslims,
until their Tamil neighbours return, there can be
no return of 'normalcy.'
The impact of violence on the people is at
multiple levels. But media and political focus is
on statistics- how many killed, how many
displaced or on particular incidents which
captures the attention of the media and the
general public. There is something beyond the
direct victims of the violence - an affect
population. Nobody asks how many cannot sleep at
night in their own homes (where the house is
still standing?) and how many have to find refuge
in numbers in one house or in a public building
in their own community; how many cannot farm,
fish or trade out of fear or security
restrictions; how many are in debt as a direct
result of the violence, destruction and
displacement or simply because they cannot
withdraw money from banks as the banks do not
have money (in Jaffna and Killinochchi); how many
patients who cannot get their regular doses of
medication for diabetes, cancer or any such
disease; how many are traumatized?
In this continuing state of instability and
uncertainty, one cannot move on. This is perhaps
the most debilitating state of existence for the
majority of people here: They, we, cannot move on
beyond the state of war. For they are surrounded
by war; it can resume any time. People who speak
for peace or war for peace cannot remain silent
in the face of this. Both the LTTE and the
Government have by their actions further
ethnicized this conflict, forcing the civilians
to become part of the war efforts. In this war of
ethnicity, the people have been given short
shrift, their needs, fears and aspirations
unheeded to. Their voices unheard.
____
[3]
Kashmir Times
25 October 2006
Editorial
TO TRUST OR NOT TO TRUST
YEARS OF SUSPICION AND MISTRUST HAVE LED US NOWHERE
By suggesting 'self rule' for Jammu and Kashmir,
and by taking the initiative in proposing a joint
mechanism for facing the challenge of terrorism,
hand-in-hand with India, President Musharraf has
once again lobbed the ball into India's court,
and has left Indian leadership divided and
confabulating over how to react to his proposals.
Some suggest that the time has come for New Delhi
to trust the Pak president, and to give a fair
trial to his suggestions, while others are almost
congenitally suspicious about his motives, and
advise caution over camaraderie. The foremost
among the non-Congress leaders to openly support
a positive response to Musharraf's proposals is
Mufti Mohammad Syed, the ex-CM of J&K. He is
leaving for New York on the 28th to attend the
61st session of the UN General Assembly, and
before that he has extended to the prime minister
the courtesy of meeting and discussing with him
the present situation in the state and its
possible solution. Reportedly, he has strongly
pleaded for for the state, and for allowing
nearly 2000 young Kashmiris waiting just across
the LoC a safe passage to their homes in the
valley to let them start a new life afresh. By
'self rule', which the PDP has owned as their
party creed, they mean some thing a little
different from what the NC means by 'greater
autonomy'. If for the latter autonomy means a
return to the pre-1953 days, lock stock and
barrel, for the PDP 'self rule' means something
more. They expect the same form of self rule on
both the sides of the LoC as well as for each
region of the state.
While men, like Mufti, are prepared to go whole
hog to give Musharraf a chance to live up to his
word and to help in finding a solution to the
Kashmir problem, National Security Adviser (NSA),
MK Narayanan, has repeatedly asserted that Pak
sincerity in working out the joint effort against
terror would be tested once or twice on the
touch-stone of some specific incidents, and the
joint mechanism would be scraped if sincere Pak
cooperation is found wanting. What he thus
asserts is common expectation, and no one
seriously suggests that India should seek their
cooperation and share its secrets with Pakistan
even when their response to its sincerity is
found inadequate. But, why unnecessarily utter
words of suspicion and distrust on the eve of the
effort at starting a new era of trust and
cooperation? No one normally tells a wedding
partner that the other partner is likely to prove
adulterous. Expressions of doubts and warnings
are never considered conducive to what is
expected to be a happy union. Besides, MK
Naryanan is just an official of the UPA
government, however high and sensitive his post
may be. Apparently, it is none of his business to
warn people of the shoals that the joint effort
envisaged at Havana is likely to run, after the
prime minister and the Pak president had decided
openly to put their trust in each other. It seems
he has been given too much of a latitude, and is
making the fullest possible use of it. After all,
when the two leaders decided to sign an agreement
at Havana they, apparently, decided to give a
fair trial to what appeared possible and
desirable. There is nothing irrevocable about the
Havana agreement, and if the proposed joint
mechanism does not work satisfactorily on a
couple of occasions India will be free to walk
out of it. Heavens will not crash if the expected
joint investigation does not work smoothly or
satisfactorily, and the situation will not be
worse. Then why not give trust a chance, after
years of suspicion and confrontation have led us
nowhere but to a bloody wilderness?
Considering the opposition that Musharraf is
facing at home from the Jehadi elements and their
attacks on him in person it is fair enough to
assume that he is sincere in fighting the
religio-terrorist organisations. Did he not put
Hafiz Saed under house arrest till he was set
free by their supreme court? He may not succeed
in taming those wild elements or even in forcing
his ISI and investigating agencies into
cooperating with India. Then, our effort will
fail, like many similar efforts made in the past.
But, right now, why not give him a helping hand
and a chance? If the effort succeeds both gain,
if not none will lose any thing but a chance. Our
experiment with trust will not leave any one a
loser.
_____
[4]
Indian Express
October 25, 2006
THE PEOPLE OF CITIZEN NAGAR
by Farah Naqvi
Gujarat's displaced Muslim families still await
justice. Hopefully, the forthcoming report of the
National Commission for Minorities will frontpage
their plight
For four and a half years the internally
displaced Muslims of Gujarat have braved the
forgetfulness of a nation. Kicked out of burnt
homes and shops, attacked by neighbours, too
terrorised to return, over 5,000 Muslim families
have lived, hidden from view, in 50-odd
resettlement colonies, sliding into sickness and
slow death. But now, their truth is being told.
The National Commission for Minorities not only
visited these colonies recently, but has made
public its intent to act. Finally, there could be
hope that these Muslims who have existed in the
twilight zone of no man's land, will be allowed
to reclaim their place as citizens; their
sub-human conditions of survival judged against
India's constitutional promise to protect the
rights of its minorities to live with dignity.
Spread across the districts of Panchmahals,
Dahod, Sabarkantha, Anand, and in the cities of
Ahmedabad and Vadodara, the colonies are like
festering sores in the body politic. And the
gangrene they have spread is the forced
alienation and ghettoisation of a community. Not
a single colony was constructed by the Gujarat
government. Nor did the government allocate any
land for their construction. Survey the signposts
at the entrance to each colony and examine the
list of organisations who have housed, clothed,
and kept alive the Muslims who survived 2002 -
Jamiat Ulema e Hind, Gujarat Sarvjanik Welfare
Trust, United Economic Forum, Islamic Relief
Committee. Each, with few exceptions, is a Muslim
organisation and the message sent out by the
Gujarat government is clear - when Muslims are in
trouble it's not our job to bail them out. Leave
it to other Muslims to come to their aid. This
kind of blatant discriminatory abdication of
state responsibility spells disaster for the
future of a secular democracy. A course
correction is long overdue.
The colonies themselves are shabby cubbyholes. A
single 120 sq feet room generally houses an
entire family. But even as NGOs have tried to
provide shelter, they simply do not have the
resources to provide everything else. So there is
nothing. No electricity, water, sewage, health
centres, schools, approach roads, street
lighting, no BPL ration cards, no alternative
source of livelihood, nothing. All that the
Gujarat government did was to declare relief
camps closed in July 2002 and stop all aid,
leaving thousands of internally displaced people
to fend for themselves. Every subsequent attempt
to make the state government aware of the needs
of these colonies has been stymied and blocked.
One camp organiser in Halol, Mehboob Bhai,
visited the Gujarat Electricity Board (GEB) over
40 times over a period of six months before the
Halol colony (of 201 houses) got electricity
meters. But GEB did not so much as subsidise the
electricity infrastructure. Even that the local
NGOs had to do. In Modasa taluka (District
Sabarkantha) 62 displaced families lived in
tents, braving the rain and winter cold, for over
four years. It was as late as 2005 that Janvikas,
an Ahmedabad based NGO, encountered these
survivors, and hurriedly constructed a colony
into which they have moved just six months ago.
In other colonies, local Muslim leaders have been
harassed, slapped with false charges and even
arrested. Their crime - they made too much noise,
demanded too many entitlements from the state.
Displacement has meant pauperisation, robbing
people of their traditional sources of
livelihood. Many residents in these colonies once
lived a better life. They were cattle traders and
petty shopkeepers. Some of them owned tiny retail
businesses, and had acquired small items of
household comfort. Now they are all reduced to
doing daily wage labour to survive. There has
been no restitution, compensation or reparation
by the state for its failure to protect their
lives and property. Meet them, visit their homes,
and look into their eyes, and you understand what
the experience of violent pauperisation does to
people; what it means to go from three square
meals a day to one uncertain meal. This is the
death toll that we forget to count, the death
that comes slowly, with shrinking stomachs, low
immunity and disease.
But for four and half years, these families have
not allowed themselves to lose hope. One of the
resettlement colonies in Ahmedabad is located at
the base of one of the city's largest garbage
dumps. A dark hovel reeking with the smell of
sewage waste that surrounds it, with nothing,
except damp rooms and disenfranchised people. And
yet, in perhaps their last desperate attempt to
reclaim their space in the Indian nation, the
people here have chosen to call it Citizen Nagar.
The article has been co-authored with Gagan
Sethi. The writers have formally sought the NCM's
intervention in the matter of displaced Gujarat
riot victims
_____
[5]
The Hindu
Oct 24, 2006
Gujarat riot victims living in "sub-human conditions"
Special Correspondent
State not facilitating their return: National Commission for Minorities
# Inmates do not have rudimentary civic amenities
# "Overwhelming" number without ration cards
NEW DELHI: Four-and-a-half years after the
carnage of 2002, over 5,000 displaced families
belonging to the minority community continue to
live in camps in "sub-human conditions" because
the Gujarat Government "is not fulfilling its
constitutional responsibility" to create an
atmosphere that would enable them to return home.
This is the key finding of the National
Commission for Minorities (NCM) after a five-day
visit to 17 of the 46 camps that are now the
makeshift homes of the families. While the State
Government stated that the inmates of the camps
were living there voluntarily, the NCM in its
report said: "In view of the overwhelming
evidence to the contrary, the Commission finds
this viewpoint untenable and evasive of a
government's basic responsibility."
According to NCM member Zoya Hasan, the
abdication of State responsibility in the
post-violence situation is just as bad if not
worse than its turning a Nelson's eye to the
carnage in 2002. "While the Gujarat Government is
refusing to recognise their displacement, it also
seems that the nation has forgotten what happened
in 2002."
Acting on a complaint from an Ahmedabad-based
non-government organisation about the condition
of 5,307 families displaced in the 2002 riots,
the NCM team visited the camps between October 13
and 17.
During their visits, members found that inmates
lived without the most rudimentary civic
amenities like potable water, sanitation,
streetlights, schools, primary health centres and
approach roads.
Besides, "an overwhelming" number of families did
not have ration cards. Requests for below poverty
line cards have been repeatedly turned down.
As a result, many families were unable to obtain
foodgrains, cereals and kerosene at subsidised
rates. The Commission found this had increased
their hardship, as most displaced families were
reduced to working for daily wages after losing
their means of livelihood.
Though State Government officials escorted the
Commission members to these camps, the
establishment remained unmoved by the living
conditions there.
Most of the camps were located on land bought by
NGOs or donated by wealthy Muslims. Many inmates
were key witnesses in major legal cases.
"They live in constant fear and terrible
deprivation, yet they have not lost their faith
in the State," the report said.
_____
[7]
Indian Express
October 25, 2006
Editorial
Image and justice
Why can't Modi see that rehabilitating riot
victims serves even his own interests?
Narendra Modi's attempted make-over may have
appeared persuasive. Over the last several
months, a series of photo-ops have framed the
Gujarat chief minister as the tech-savvy,
investment-friendly man in a hurry to develop
Gujarat, already one of India's most enterprising
states. The leader who revels in organising
investor extravaganzas and inaugurating projects
with catchy names. The administrator impatient
with bureaucratic red tape. A chief minister at
home with big reforms that scare government
leaders in other states. But the Rs 19.1 crore
that the Modi government has returned to the
Centre as money unspent on rehabilitating the
over 5,000 Muslim families affected by the 2002
riots, who are still leading marooned lives in
makeshift camps according to the findings of the
National Commission for Minorities, is a terse
reminder. Forward-looking nations cannot afford
short memories. If India wants to move on from
Gujarat 2002, Modi's efforts to recraft his image
- howsoever genuine each specific exertion might
be - must not blunt the pressure on him to
address the continuing injustice in his state,
four years later.
This could even be a reminder that Modi might
want to heed in his own political interest. He
must know that there are serious limits to the
politics he has patented so far. While hard
Hindutva of the minority-bashing sort may have
delivered massive political returns in Gujarat,
it is a clear drag on any ambitions to make a
place on the national stage. Gujarat's specific
socio-political history has made it hospitable to
Moditva in a particular moment. But if Modi has
ambitions that go beyond that moment in that
state, he will have to do much more than flaunt
administrative acumen and talk FDI. He will have
to address the basic needs of those living
degraded lives in the state's relief camps. And
create the conditions for those who live there to
go back to their homes.
In the last instance, the justice undone in
Gujarat is not about Modi's political prospects.
It is about the robustness or lack of it at the
heart of India's constitutional democracy. Both
political and civil society, therefore, must
remain vigilant against the onset of forgetting.
_____
[6]
(i)
Communalism Watch
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2006/10/government-employees-in-rss-hastening.html
o o o
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES IN RSS: HASTENING THE END OF DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR INDIA
by Shamsul Islam (The Milli Gazette, 16-31 October 2006)
None can beat the RSS in its nefarious attempts
to undo a democratic-secular India from within.
This Hindutva brigade, knowing fully well that
the politics of Hindutva is not acceptable to
this country, continues evolving newest foul
methods of communalizing the democratic-secular
constitutional set-up. The latest in this series
has been the August 27, 2006, official communiqué
of the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh led by a
seasoned RSS cadre, Shivraj Singh Chauhan,
allowing state government employees open
participation in the activities of the RSS
including its 'shakhas'. Interestingly, the RSS
cadres have been ruling states of Gujarat,
Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh but no such
announcement were made for these states. This
blatant announcement has jolted even Congress
Party from its slumber towards the pitfalls of
the Hindutva game plan. Protesting against the
move, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to the
President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, demanding
his intervention to stop the MP government from
putting into action its above order. Sonia Gandhi
in her letter to the President petitioned that
the MP government move was not only "illegal and
unconstitutional" but also would result into
"religious prejudices and passions and polarizing
the society".1
If Congress is serious in its protestation and
takes the fight to the logical conclusion, this
country can at least begin the process of putting
a stop to the anti-national activities of the RSS
and its gang. The issue is not only of saving
government employees from getting communalized by
coming in contact with the RSS but exposing an
organization which stands for Hindu separatism
and complete demolition of a democratic and
secular India. The RSS led Gujarat government had
come out with the same kind of communiqué in the
year 2000 but due to the intervention of the then
President of the India Republic, KR Narayanan,
the order was reversed. Unfortunately, neither
Congress nor the secular camp carried this fight
to the logical end which would have resulted in
proving that the RSS is antithetical to all those
principles and institutions on which
secular-democratic India rests.
The BJP chief, Rajnath Singh who happens to be a
senior RSS cadre himself, while defending the
order of the MP government said: "As far as RSS
is concerned, it is the world's largest
socio-cultural body and there should be no ban on
participating in its activities."2 It is
pertinent for the security and existence of our
democracy to compare the MP government's
communiqué and its defence by the RSS gang with
the essentials of secular-democratic polity of
our country. A perusal of the comparison will
make it abundantly clear how MP government's
order poses a very serious danger to our
constitutional set-up.
Is RSS a non-political organization?
We must compare the RSS claim that it is a
cultural-social organization and has nothing to
do with politics with the following two
statements of M. S. Golwalkar, who headed the RSS
after the death of the founder of the RSS, KB
Hedgewar, and is considered the greatest
ideologue of the organization till date. The
first statement tells us about the kind of
personnel who are sent to manipulate politics and
what is expected of them by the RSS. While
delivering a speech on March 16, 1954, in Sindi,
Wardha, he said,
"If we say that we are part of the organization
and accept its discipline then selectiveness has
no place in life. Do what is told. If told to
play kabaddi, play kabaddi; told to hold meeting
then meeting --.For instance some of our friends
were told to go and work for politics that does
not mean that they have great interest or
inspiration for it. They don't die for politics
like fish without water. If they are told to
withdraw from politics then also there is no
objection. Their discretion is just not required"3
The second statement is also very significant and reads:
We know this also that some of our Swayamsevaks
[cadres] work in politics. There they have to
organize according to the needs of work public
meetings, processions etc., have to raise
slogans. All these things have no place in our
work. However, the actor should portray the
character accepted to the best of his capability.
But sometimes Swayamsevaks go beyond the role
assigned to an actor as they develop
over-zealousness in their hearts, to the extent
that they become useless for this work. This is
not good.4
We find here Guru Golwalkar referring to the
Swayamsevaks loaned to political offshoot as
'nat' or performers who are meant to dance to the
tunes of the RSS. This fact should not be missed
here that Golwalkar's above design of controlling
the political arm was elaborated in March 1960
almost nine years after the establishment of
Jansangh (the forerunner of the BJP) in 1951.
The RSS has strong political ambitions and
designs is further corroborated by a publication
of the RSS. The central publication house of the
RSS, the Suruchi Prakashan, Jhandewalan, New
Delhi, published, Param Vaibhav Ke Path Par
(1997) which gave details of more than 40
organizations created by the RSS for different
tasks. The BJP as a political organization
figures prominently in it at number 3, with the
ABVP, Hindu Jagaran Manch, Vishva Hindu Parishad,
Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and Sanskar Bharti etc.
The preface of the book itself declares that
"without the knowledge of the different kinds of
activities of the Sawyamsevaks (the volunteers of
the RSS) the introduction of the RSS is
incomplete. Keeping this in mind it has been
attempted in this book to produce the brief
information about the diverse activities of the
Sawyamsevaks. This book covers the organizational
status till 1996 --We believe that this book will
prove to be of use for those who want to
understand the RSS with the Swyamsevaks"5
RSS stands for building a Hindu state
Sadly, the whole debate on the MP government's
communiqué is kept revolving round the fact
whether RSS is a political or non-political
organization. A far more serious issue is being
skirted that is to investigate into the evil
philosophical designs of the RSS about India. For
instance, if government employees are allowed to
join RSS 'shakhas' it would be mandatory for them
to recite following Prarthana (prayer) and
Pratigya (oath), the recitation of which is must
in each 'shakha'.
Prarthana:
Affectionate Motherland, I eternally bow to you/O
Land of Hindus, you have reared me in comfort/O
Sacred Land, the Great Creator of Good, may this
body of mine be dedicated to you/I again and
again bow before You/O God almighty, we the
integral part of the Hindu Rashtra salute you in
reverence/For Your cause have we girded up our
loins/Give us Your Blessings for its
accomplishment.6
Pratigya:
Before the all powerful God and my ancestors, I
most solemnly take this oath, that I become a
member of the RSS in order to achieve all round
greatness of Bharatvarsha by fostering the growth
of my sacred Hindu religion, Hindu society, and
Hindu culture. I shall perform the work of the
Sangh honestly, disinterestedly, with my heart
and soul, and I shall adhere to this goal all my
life. Bharat Mata Ki Jai.7
Thus the government employees will not be
faithful to a secular India, as it exists as a
legal entity today but would be committed to
subvert it into a Hindu theocratic state.
RSS denigrates the National Flag and the Constitution
It is the outcome of its commitment to the
building of Hindu nation that the RSS hates the
Tr-icolour and the Constitution of India, the two
great symbols of our secular-democratic polity.
The RSS since its inception in 1925 has been
demanding that India is a Hindu nation and its
national flag should be Bhagwa Jhanda (saffron
flag) only. When the Constituent Assembly adopted
the Tricolour as the national Flag, the RSS
demanded the hoisting of saffron flag at the
ramparts of Red Fort in Delhi and openly
denigrated the choice of the Tricolour in the
following words:
The people who have come to power by the kick of
fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it
never [sic] be respected and owned by Hindus. The
word three is in itself an evil, and a flag
having three colours will certainly produce a
very bad psychological effect and is injurious to
a country.8
Golwalkar while addressing the Gurupurnima
gathering at the RSS headquarters on July 14,
1946 declared that it was the saffron flag which
in totality represented great Hindu culture and
was the embodiment of God. He further resolved:
"We firmly believe that in the end the whole
nation will bow before this saffron flag."9
How loyal the RSS is to the Constitution of India
can be known by the following statement of
Golwalkar which is being reproduced from Bunch of
Thought, which is not only selection of the
writings of MS Golwalkar but also a Bible of the
RSS cadres.
Our Constitution too is just a cumbersome and
heterogeneous piecing together of various
articles from various Constitutions of Western
countries. It has absolutely nothing which can be
called our own. Is there a single word of
reference in its guiding principles as to what
our national mission is and what our keynote in
life is?No.10
In fact, RSS wanted this Constitution to be
replaced by Manusmriti or Codes of Manu which is
known for its derogatory and inhuman references
to Untouchables and women. When the Constituent
Assembly of India had finalized the Constitution
of India RSS was not happy. It's organ, Organizer
in an editorial on November 30, 1949, complained,
But in our constitution there is no mention of
the unique constitutional development in ancient
Bharat. Manu's Laws were written long before
Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this
day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti
excite the admiration of the world and elicit
spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our
constitutional pundits that means nothing.
There is no doubt that participation of
government employees in the activities of such an
organization which openly decries the national
Flag and the Constitution will only hasten the
end of a democratic-secular India.
ANTI-DEMOCRACY
The RSS, contrary to the principles of democracy,
has been constantly demanding that India be ruled
under a totalitarian regime. Golwalkar while
delivering a speech before 1350 top level cadres
of the RSS at Madras in 1940 declared, "The RSS
inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology
is lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and
every corner of this great land."11 This slogan
of one flag, one leader and one ideology has
directly been borrowed from the programmes of the
Nazi and Fascist Parties of Europe. Thus all
those who will join the RSS bandwagon would
naturally be anti-thetical to a democratic India.
AGAINST FEDERALISM
The RSS is also dead against the federal
structure of the Constitution, again a Basic
Feature of the India polity. This is clear from
the following communication of Golwalkar, which
he sent to the first session of the National
Integration Council in 1961. It read,
Today’s federal form of government not only gives
birth but also nourishes the feelings of
separatism, in a way refuses to recognize the
fact of one nation and destroys it. It must be
completely uprooted, constitution purified and
unitary form of government be established.12
Imagine the bureaucracy who is supposed to be
committed to the federal set-up of India would
work to wreck it as per the wishes of RSS.
Role of RSS in Gandhiji's murder
It is a matter of shame that government employees
in MP are being permitted to participate in the
activities of an organization which was held
responsible for the murder of Father of the
Nation, Mahatma Gandhi by no less a person than
Sardar Patel. Sardar as the first Home Minister
of India, in a letter dated July 18, 1948 to a
prominent leader of Hindu Mahasabha, Shyama
Prasad Mookerjee, wrote:
As regards the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, the
case relating to Gandhiji's murder is sub judice
and I should not like to say anything about the
participation of the two organizations, but our
reports do confirm that, as a result of the
activities of these two bodies, particularly the
former, an atmosphere was created in the country
in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible.
There is no doubt in my mind that the extreme
section of the Hindu Mahasabha was involved in
the conspiracy. The activities of the RSS
constituted a clear threat to the existence of
Government and the State. Our reports show that
those activities, despite the ban, have not died
down. Indeed, as time has marched on, the RSS
circles are becoming more defiant and are
indulging in their subversive activities in an
increasing measure.13
If such are the philosophical commitments and
activities of the RSS how can any patriotic
Indian, what to talk of government employees, be
allowed to participate in the RSS activities? It
is high time that all those organizations and
individuals who have faith in a
secular-democratic India must ask the question
that when Maoists, Khalistanis and Islamists etc.
are routinely declared anti-national as they aim
at subverting the constitutional set-up of India,
why is it that RSS remains out of our scrutiny?
It is really unfortunate that Hindu Separatism is
yet to be acknowledged as a serious threat to the
Indian democracy despite its terrible
anti-national record. One reason could be as
underlined by a prominent leader of the RSS, "RSS
members are everywhere, including that very party
which is making all these allegations against
RSS. Just scratch their body and you will find
RSS blood inside."14 This statement only shows
how grave is the danger from the Hindutva gang.
If Congress and other secular outfits are serious
about saving secular-democratic India they must
legally and politically confront the RSS gang
with the documents cited above. They also need to
weed out the Hindutva elements from their ranks.
The time is fast running out.
1 Cited in The Hindu, September 29, 2006.
2 Cited in The Statesman, September 29, 2006.
3 MS Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar darshan
(collected works of Golwalkar in Hindi), Bhartiya
Vichar sadhna, Nagpur, Volume 3, p. 33. Hereafter
referred as SGSD.
4 Ibid, Vol 4, pp. 4-5.
5 SD Sapre, Parm Vaibhav ke Path Per, Suruchi, Delhi, 1997, p. 7.
6 Shakha Darshika, Gyan Ganga, Jaipur, 1997, p.1.
7 Ibid, p. 66.
8 'Mystery behind the bhagwa dhwaj' in the RSS
English organ Organizer, August 14, 1947.
9 MS Golwalkar, SGSD, Nagpur, nd., Volume 1, p. 98.
10 MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sandhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 238.
11 SGSD, Vol 1, p. 11.
12 Ibid, Vol 3, p. 128.
13 Letter 64 cited in Sardar Patel: Select
Correspondence19450-1950, Volume 2, Navjivan
Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1977, pp. 276-277.
14 Cited in The Statesman, September 29, 2006.
o o o
(ii)
Communalism Watch
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2006/10/madhya-pradesh-sangh-in-service.html
o o o
Frontline
Oct. 21-Nov. 03, 2006
Controversy
SANGH IN SERVICE
A.G. Noorani
The Madhya Pradesh government's removing the ban
on RSS membership for its employees violates the
Constitution.
[Photo
Caption: CHILDREN IN RSS uniform holding swords
before the start of Vijayadasami functions on
October 2.
by A.M. Faruqui
URL www.hinduonnet.com/fline/images/20061103001508601.jpg]
ON August 27, 2006, the Bharatiya Janata
Party-run Government of Madhya Pradesh made an
order revoking the long established ban on civil
servants' participation in the Rashtriya
Swayamsewak Sangh's (RSS) activities. If this is
allowed to pass muster, there would be nothing to
prevent a government from inducting RSS men into
the civil services. Congress president Sonia
Gandhi has asked President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to
intervene, reminding him that his predecessor,
President K.R. Narayanan, had taken up the matter
with the BJP government at the Centre when, in
January 2000, the BJP government of Gujarat made
a similar order. It was revoked.
The Madhya Pradesh case is far worse. It is
sought to be covered up with brazen falsehood. As
a matter of fact, the State government's order
"only formalised what it [the State government]
has been practising for close to three years. RSS
men have been appointed to several key positions
and all BJP leaders, including Ministers, openly
attend RSS functions" (Milind Ghatwal in The
Indian Express, September 15; emphasis added
throughout). RSS leader Kantilal Chhatar
exclaimed, "What ban? There was no restriction on
taking part in RSS activities. We never felt the
ban. In any case, the RSS inculcates cultural
values."
Formally the ban was imposed in 1981 and was
revived in 2000. But similar laws have long been
in place in several States. Rule 5(1) of the
Madhya Pradesh Civil Service (Classification,
Control and Appeal) Rules of 1966 bars government
employees from becoming members of any political
party or organisation which takes part in
political activities. They are also barred from
participating in political agitations or
fund-raising. The order revoking this ban was
made by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on
August 28, but became known only on September 14.
He issued a one-line order, which simply said
that the ban was not applicable to the RSS. This
alone suffices to render his order
unconstitutional, as being violative of the
constitutional guarantee of equality before the
law embodied in Article 14 of the Constitution.
It is not open to a government to make exceptions
to a ban imposed by law, arbitrarily at its whim;
still less for political reasons.
[. . .]
Ever since Independence, governments at the
Centre and in the States banned members of
certain organisations from recruitment to their
respective services. Additionally, they forbade
personnel of the services from membership of
those bodies. The list was prepared by the Centre
and revised periodically; the last time, in 1986.
Accordingly, the Gujarat Civil Servants Conduct
Rules, 1971, forbade them to have any connection
with the RSS. Among the other 16 organisations on
that list were the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the
Hindu Mahasabha, the Anand Marg, the All-India
Muslim Majlis-e-Mushwawarat, the Sati Pati Creed
and the Mass Movement (Madhok faction). The
Madhya Pradesh Rules were similar.
Sonia Gandhi has rightly sought the President's
intervention. However, it would be perfectly open
to the Opposition parties in Madhya Pradesh or,
for that matter, any citizen to ask the Supreme
Court to quash the Madhya Pradesh government's
order and have the mischief ended once and for
all.
FULL TEXT AT: http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20061103001508600.htm
_____
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'Being and Becoming: Perspectives on Global South Asia'
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Friday, November 10th and Saturday, November 11th
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PRE-CONFERENCE EVENT: Screening of the movie "Punching at the Sun"
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all other events to take place at:
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