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


_____


[7]  Announcement:



RUTGERS 2ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON SOUTH ASIA

'Being and Becoming: Perspectives on Global South Asia'

You are cordially invited to Rutgers Second Annual Conference on South
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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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For More Information and Complete Conference Schedule:
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