SACW | Nov.17, 2006

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 17, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2316 - Year 8


[1]  Pakistan:  
       (i) And now Talibanisation (Editorial, Dawn)
      (ii) Who manipulates polls? (I. A. Rehman)
[2]  India:  Moriarty Versus Nepal's Maoists (J. Sri Raman)
[3]  India:  India Social Forum Turns Focus on New Issues (Praful Bidwai)
[4]  India:  Our Fractured Conscience (Dilip Simeon)
[5]  India: Stand at ease (Editorial, Times of India)
[6]  India: RSS run Schools: Indoctrinating in Sectarianism (Ram Puniyani)
[7]  Upcoming Event: Eqbal Ahmad Distinguished Lecture (Islamabad, 18 
November 2006)

____


[1] 

(i)

Dawn
November 16, 2006
Editorial

AND NOW TALIBANISATION

THERE'S nothing even remotely moderate or enlightening about 
Talibanisation -- a euphemism for the enforcement of radical 
interpretation of religion -- that is continuing in parts of the 
Frontier province. Groups of so-called 'local' Taliban are going 
around stopping women from stepping out of the house, and shutting 
down girls' schools, civil society organisations' and NGOs' offices 
even in the settled areas, not far from Peshawar. The zealots have 
also distributed pamphlets warning the 'errant' men of horrible 
consequences if they did not stop their women from going to work or 
their girls to schools and colleges. This is happening right under 
the nose of the MMA government which on Monday passed the 
controversial Hasba bill aimed at enforcing Islamic tenets through a 
moral police guided by the ombudsman. All this, while real issues 
confronting the people have taken a back seat in a province where 40 
per cent of the population does not have access to drinking water. A 
worsening law and order situation and the Frontier's social 
indicators are tell-tale reminders of the province's 
underdevelopment. According to the government's own statistics, only 
14 per cent of rural women are literate; mortality rate among 
children under the age of five is 117 per 1,000; unemployment runs as 
high as 27 per cent; many seriously ill women die before ever 
reaching a hospital; the school dropout rate for girl students is 
among the highest in the country. Traditionally, women voters have 
been held back from using their right of franchise or even that of 
acquiring a national identity card.

Against this dismal background, it is amazing that the MMA government 
should be placing its emphasis only on improving an utterly 
impoverished people's morality; the bigoted view of the emerging 
'local' Taliban in the same area is even a bigger cause for concern. 
The MMA government's blinkered view of priorities and the parallel, 
illegal process of Talibanisation now underway will further curtail 
women's rights and lower their status in society. Such moves have no 
basis in the Constitution of Pakistan and must be stopped forthwith 
by the relevant authority, be it the federal government or the 
Supreme Court.

o o o

(ii)

Dawn
November 16, 2006

WHO MANIPULATES POLLS?
by I. A. Rehman

THE favourite joke in the authoritarians' club in Islamabad last week 
was that the Supreme Court Bar Association had requested the army to 
organise the election of its office-bearers. The self-gratifying 
rings of laughter the joke caused is a measure of the comfort those 
responsible for messing up the SCBA election have provided to the 
anti-democratic lobby in the country. The oligarchs have been quick 
to refurbish several of their arguments fashioned to mock rule by 
elected representatives.

First, the lawyers' entitlement to talk democracy to authoritarian 
rulers has suffered devaluation because their highest organisation, 
supposedly led by the most brilliant among them, has been found 
incapable of holding its own election untainted by allegations of 
manipulation.

Secondly, if the distinguished practitioners of law can try to 
manipulate what is required to be a democratic election, free and 
fair, it only confirms what the advocates of authoritarianism have 
maintained - that, in Field Marshal Ayub Khan's famous words, 
democracy does not suit the genius of the Pakistani people.

And, finally, the SCBA affair confirms civil society's imbecility and 
underlines the military's role as the sole messiah in the land.

It is, however, clear and to the credit of the lawyer community that 
it has been resisting authoritarian rulers' pressures and 
blandishments for almost half a century. Leaving their key role in 
the subcontinent's freedom struggle aside, they were among the first 
groups to challenge the disruption of democratic rule in 1958. There 
were times, for instance during the darkest days of Gen Zia's 
dictatorship, when bar associations were alone in giving voice to the 
democratic aspirations of the people.

After ceaseless coaxing and cajoling by the establishment, today's 
bar associations may not be considered eligible to wear the mantle of 
their forerunners who had faced guns in the streets of Karachi and 
Lahore and elsewhere, but their denigrators will be well advised to 
defer their victory celebrations. The lawyers, on the whole, still 
have a lot of fight left in them.

While generalising the SCBA election debacle in terms of a national 
characteristic, one is confronted with evidence of disrespect for 
democratic elections shown by a variety of organisations, especially 
the political parties. All authoritarian wielders of state power have 
derived pleasure from lambasting political parties for their failure 
to structure themselves on democratic lines. A superficial reading of 
Pakistan's political history is likely to result in the indictment of 
most of the party outfits on this count.

The Muslim League, which continues to claim undue credit for 
achieving Pakistan, did not have faith in the regular enrolment of 
its members or the election of its office-bearers at various levels 
beyond nominal record-keeping and ritualistic proceedings described 
as party elections. Even a formal recognition of the principle of 
party elections was given up after independence.

Most of the parties launched to challenge the Muslim League during 
the first decade of independence could not grow out of their 
formative, pre-party-election phases. The 1958 putsch ended the age 
of old-style political parties. A new political culture was 
introduced in the country with the formation of the Muslim League 
(Convention) when the system of undemocratic functioning of political 
parties under a facade of intra-party elections was formalised.

The Convention League had nothing to do with democratic functioning 
and, therefore, made much of intra-party elections, although everyone 
knew that all party offices were filed by nomination by the supremo 
on the advice of a small coterie. Around the same time the system of 
buying a seat in the national or provincial council of the party was 
started. Anyone who could enroll a certain number of members and 
deposit Rs100,000 or so in the party coffers as their fee 
automatically became a member of the council. This led to 
trivialisation of the member-enrolment process.

A large number of people who had Rs100,000 to spare went on an 
enrolment spree and many a commentator wondered whether the official 
League's membership could exceed the country's population. The search 
for names to be put on membership forms often ended in the telephone 
book or the retailers' lists of customers. This was manipulation of 
party elections on a massive scale.

The election manipulation virus quickly spread to many parties. One 
of the standard tricks was to control the distribution of membership 
forms. Persons suspected of designs to upset a party's predetermined 
choice of office-bearers were simply not given packs of membership 
forms. Over time the art of fixing party elections was greatly 
improved.

Over the last three decades or so, political parties have fallen into 
the legal trap devised by the establishment. They have tended to 
endorse the official view that political parties need only a party 
constitution, a register of membership, and a report of recently held 
intra-party election to justify themselves.

Originally, the 1973 Constitution required political parties only to 
disclose the source of their funding. Then, the Zia regime election 
commission decided to allow party symbols only to parties that had a 
constitution, a membership register, and a list of office-bearers. 
More recently, the Political Parties Order made intra-party elections 
a legal obligation. After the 17th amendment, the scheme of 
regulating political parties has been put into the Constitution.

The current practice is centred on meeting the requirements of the 
Constitution and the law. On the eve of a general election, political 
parties take out copies of their constitutions, update lists of their 
members, draw up lists of office-bearers, deposit these documents 
with the election commission and thus become legal entities and, as 
such, entitled to nominate candidates in elections under a common 
symbol. This small facility provided by the state has made political 
parties oblivious to the loss of quite a few entitlements.

Everybody knows that these documents can be prepared by a single 
person after a few hours of light labour. As regards intra-party 
elections, quite a few political parties have been reporting the 
matter in a few words: "At a meeting of the party the following 
office-bearers were elected..." Some parties have started making 
considerable noise about their membership campaigns and schedules for 
the elections of office-bearers. A recent example was provided by the 
party now in power - the Pakistan Muslim League (Q). Several 
gladiators had announced their resolve to promote democratic norms by 
seeking election to the offices of party president and general 
secretary (both national and provincial). In the end, thanks to Gen 
Musharraf's intervention, these offices were filled without any 
contest.

The defenders of the authoritarian dispensation cite the record of 
political parties, briefly recalled above, to proclaim that political 
parties' lack of respect for internal democracy, which is confined to 
intra-party elections, has given rise to a tradition of electoral 
manipulation.

Not only they but the public in general ignore the role the state has 
played in promoting this process. A little reflection will bring out 
the fact that governments are more responsible than any civil society 
institution, including political parties, for the formation of a 
mindset that justifies poll rigging.

We surely have had throughout our electoral history candidates and 
their promoters who have tried to win elections through foul and 
unfair means - casting of bogus votes, impersonation, buying or 
elimination of polling officials, blocking the stamping of ballot 
papers and booth capturing. Since most candidates indulge in such 
practices, it is generally believed that the advantage a candidate 
acquires at a polling station, where he is all-powerful, could be 
cancelled at another where some other candidate may be all-powerful.

These malpractices are rarely decisive. A decisive manipulation of 
polls, called rigging, can only be done by the custodians of power; 
it was the establishment that started the organised rigging of 
elections and throughout the past five decades, the rigging of polls 
has been the rule.

The first elections after independence (and on the basis of adult 
franchise) were held in 1951 when provincial assemblies in the 
country's western wing were elected. None of these elections was 
fair. The instruments of rigging were: expulsion of opposition 
candidates from their home districts; preventing candidates from 
filing nomination papers; use of district officers, especially those 
belonging to the police, to garner votes and organise 
pro-establishment polling; and finally, manipulating the vote count.

The difficulty in replicating these manoeuvres in the eastern wing 
forced the establishment to put off the election there till 1954 and 
even then the "needful" could not be done.

The elections held during 1960-69 were brazen-facedly rigged. They 
were neither free nor fair, nor even based on democratic premises. 
The very first general election that was held in 1970 is usually 
described as free and fair. What is meant is that the government did 
not interfere with the polling though its pre-poll interference with 
the electoral process could not be denied. The government had been 
persuaded to grant the people this unprecedented favour because it 
was convinced that a fair polling would yield the result-- a National 
Assembly divided into small factions-- that it desired.

In all elections held after 1970, the degree of rigging of polls has 
depended on the establishment-favoured party's need of "extra votes" 
or "extra seats", that is, votes and seats in addition to what it can 
win without direct official manipulation. Thus, it can be asserted 
with confidence that the state establishment has been responsible for 
introducing poll-rigging in Pakistan and for nourishing a mindset 
favourable to this evil practice.

Much can be said against Pakistan's political parties, and the worst 
ones always are the parties opposed to the establishment at any given 
time, but they cannot be assailed as the principal accused in 
connection with electoral rigging. Indeed, something can be said in 
mitigation of the charge of avoiding legitimate intra-party election 
that is levelled against some of them.

The most critical problem in Pakistan politics has been the denial of 
the people's right to change a government through constitutional 
means. All such changes throughout the country's history have been 
made through undemocratic means - dismissal of duly elected 
governments, confrontation in the streets, or extra-constitutional 
deals with power-brokers. Democratic politics has depended on 
multi-party coalitions and one-point agendas. This as well as 
restrictions on political activity have made political parties avoid 
and often dread intra-party elections.

Today's political parties have been shaped by the authoritarian 
regimes' policy of keeping political leaders alive without allowing 
the right to political activity. If normal political activity had 
been allowed questions such as intra-party elections could have been 
resolved.

It is also necessary to remember that democracy is sustained by 
culture and not by law alone. In older democracies, the requisite 
political culture began evolving before the states were democratised. 
In new and upstart democracies (such as Pakistan) where democratic 
political structures were foisted upon societies that were unfamiliar 
with democratic culture, it was the duty of the state to guide the 
people towards the required cultural values. And the state failed. It 
has been one of the most critical of Pakistan's failures.

As for the joke at SCBA's expense, government agencies are the last 
bodies to be trusted for fair elections. This theory will be tested 
again in 2007, and chances of its being proved wrong are, 
unfortunately, getting dimmer day by day.


_____


[2] 

truthout.org
15 November 2006

MORIARTY VERSUS NEPAL'S MAOISTS
by J. Sri Raman

     "Maoists would get very few votes if elections are held in the 
present context." This is not a line from any media prognosis of the 
outcome of a poll in Nepal, limping back to peace. Nor is it a quote 
from any politician in the Himalayan state, whose people have high 
stakes in the success of the promised first post-monarchy election to 
decide Nepal's future.

     Surprising as it may seem, that public pronouncement on the poll 
prospects of a particular political party of the country came from 
the official representative a foreign power. US Ambassador to Nepal 
James Francis Moriarty made the statement a couple of weeks ago, but 
it is all the more relevant to recall it now as his host-country 
prepares to make history.

     Moriarty himself, of course, made history of a dubious kind with 
the statement that no one would normally expect of a diplomat. Have 
we heard any foreign representative in Washington publicly predicting 
the fortunes of the rival parties in the US Congressional polls? The 
statement, made in a meeting with journalists and intellectuals in 
New Delhi, would have once been considered an indecorous show of 
interest or involvement in the internal affairs of the concerned 
country for even a super-power's envoy to evince.

     Many in Nepal saw the statement as a stern warning against moves 
aimed at getting the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), or the CPNM, 
into the country's interim government now under the Seven-Party 
Alliance (SPA), headed by the Nepali Congress of Prime Minister 
Girija Prasad Koirala. It was SPA-CPNM unity that made possible the 
popular overthrow of King Gyanendra and his hated monarchy last 
April. The reinforcement of the unity through power-sharing was 
expected to lead to stable democracy and national reconciliation in a 
land where civil war had raged for a decade, taking a dreadful toll 
in human lives and suffering.

     It was not only surprising but also significant that only the 
Maoist leadership has taken exception to the statement, with the 
Koirala government preferring to keep its own counsel in the matter. 
Similarly significant was the fact that only the CPNM - and the 
Indian Left - objected to Moriarty's declaration at a public forum in 
Kathmandu in July that induction of the Maoists into an interim 
government - without the rebels first giving up their arms and also, 
less precisely, "renouncing the politics of violence and terror" - 
would have serious consequences, including a cutoff in US assistance 
to Nepal.

     The official US backing for the breakthrough now made in Nepal 
must be seen against this background of attempted blackmail. Moriarty 
has left little doubt about the frightening fragility of his 
far-from-unconditional support for the process initiated by an 
SPA-Maoist agreement on November 8. The agreement has sorted out the 
problem of managing and monitoring the arms of the Maoists and the 
erstwhile Royal Nepal Army under United Nations supervision. It has 
worked out a calendar for creation of a new republic of Nepal, 
envisaging the broader interim government by December 1 and the 
adoption of a new constitution by mid-2007.

     Even while the agreement was on the anvil, Moriarty gave more 
than a hint of his response to it by saying that the US attitude to 
the Maoists in peacefully shared power will be similar to its 
approach to the Hamas in post-election Palestine. The announcement of 
the agreement did not receive his unreserved greeting. While 
welcoming the pact, the US embassy stated: "The agreement must 
diminish the fear of violence, intimidation, and extortion that the 
people of Nepal have endured over the past 11 years. In this regard, 
effective monitoring that includes penalties for violators will prove 
essential."

     None too veiled is the threat against the Maoists, from whom 
alone Moriarty expects such violations, despite the deadlier record 
of the Royal Nepal Army against human rights. An embassy spokesperson 
reiterated the point of the statement, aimed at keeping the power dry 
against Maoists in power and during the proposed polls, by telling 
the Kathmandu Post on Monday that the Maoists would stay on the US 
list of terrorist organizations "even if they join the government."

     Nepal's Maoists entered this long list nearly five years ago. 
Former US secretary of state Colin Powell visited Nepal in January 
2002, and told his hosts: "You have a Maoist insurgency that's trying 
to overthrow the government, and this really is the kind of thing 
that we are fighting against throughout the world." US arms sales to 
famished Nepal and consultations between US military officers and 
their Nepali counterparts followed.

     Moriarty elaborated on the theme in August 2005. Adopting a tone 
of endearing interference, he told an elite audience in Kathmandu: 
"Today, in the spirit of the long friendship Nepal and the United 
States have enjoyed, I want to talk about two concepts that I think 
are absolutely vital for Nepal at this point in its history: 
democracy and reconciliation. Before I do so, however, I would like 
to explain why my country, the United States, has the temerity to 
speak out on issues such as this."

     The explanation for the "temerity" was terse and to the point: 
"In his second inaugural address, President George W. Bush declared 
that the United States 'will persistently clarify the choice before 
every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, 
which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right.'" The 
"moral" role of the Bush administration in the making and unmaking of 
regimes is what Moriarty is upholding in his crusade against the 
Maoists in the mountain state. Neither Bush nor Moriarty is likely to 
reconsider the role merely because of US Congressional poll results.

     The explanation is not going to put at ease the people of Nepal, 
as they await the further unfolding of the peace-and-democracy 
process.

    

_____


[3]

Inter Press Service
November 14, 2006

INDIA SOCIAL FORUM TURNS FOCUS ON NEW ISSUES
by Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI, Nov 14 (IPS) - What do you call a five-day-long gathering 
of 50,000 people, which features more than 350 panels, conferences, 
seminars and workshops on a range of social, political and cultural 
issues, along with film festivals, musical and dramatic events, and 
colourful marches by diverse groups dancing for different causes?

Is it a carnival, jamboree or an extravaganza which does not serve 
much of a purpose except for promoting bonhomie among like-minded 
people? Or is it an important space for discussion and debate for 
civil society movements as they struggle to evolve alternatives to 
corporate-led globalisation and build a strong enough thrust to bring 
about social and political change in the long-term interests of 
underprivileged people?

Going by the experience of many participants of the India Social 
Forum (ISF) held in Delhi Nov. 9-13, the answer would seem to be a 
mixture of the two.

''There is simply no doubt that participating in the Forum with its 
festive atmosphere and its staggering variety is an ennobling 
experience for most activists, despite all its limitations," says 
Dunu Roy, director of Hazards Centre, a Delhi-based non-governmental 
organisation (NGO) which works on livelihood issues of the poor.

The ISF is part of the Word Social Forum process that began in Porto 
Alegre in Brazil in 2001. The WSF was conceived as a direct challenge 
and ideological-political counter to the World Economic Forum, a 
gathering of the world's 1,000 biggest corporations, government 
leaders and business consultants, held annually in Davos, Switzerland.

The WSF grew organically out of struggles in both the global South 
and North against neo-liberal globalisation and its iniquitous and 
skewed consequences. It was preceded in 1999 by dramatic protests in 
Seattle, Washington, against the World Trade Organisation, and fired 
by new Southern mobilisations. These included the Workers' Party in 
Brazil, the Zapatista uprising in Mexico, the anti-Narmada dam 
struggle in India, and the Ogoni people's movement against oil 
multinationals in Nigeria.

For its 2004 event, the WSF shifted its venue to Mumbai. India also 
hosted an Asian Social Forum in Hyderabad in 2003, which proved a 
huge success, drawing three times the original estimated 
participation of 10,000. Mumbai attracted 130,000 delegates and 
featured some 1,400 conferences and seminars.

The ISF in the Indian capital was organised at three levels: issues 
specific to India, themes shared with neighbouring countries, and 
international issues.

Among the India-specific conferences and seminars, some issues 
figured prominently, including India's experience of jobless growth 
under the so-called "8 percent miracle"; new forms of labour 
servitude; dispossession under capitalist accumulation; displacement 
of vast numbers from city centres, villages and forests; growing 
failure of the justice delivery system with its pro-rich bias; 
continuing exploitation of women, the fight against casteism and 
defence of the rights of the Dalits (former Untouchables) and 
Adivasis (indigenous people).

The international themes that attracted large numbers of activists 
were: heightened exploitation of the Global South by multinational 
capital backed by international financial institutions; WTO vs. fair 
trade; rising Southern debt; the coercive prying open of Southern 
economies; increasing loss of democratic control over economic life 
in both the North and the South; privatisation of water, electricity 
and forests; global warming and the responsibility of states to 
reverse it; growing movements for rights and entitlements in 
healthcare, education and women's empowerment in the face of stiff 
opposition from corporates and governments.

"If I were to highlight the big new issues that attracted the most 
attention and energy, I would make a relatively short list", says 
Prafulla Samantara, an Orissa-based activist who works for the Lok 
Shakti Abhiyan (people's power campaign). "On top comes the issue of 
land, or its grabbing by powerful and predatory interests, aided by 
governments and the courts, to set up Special Economic Zones for 
export production and to 'beautify' city centres and make them 
hospitable to global capital. Next come labour issues, especially the 
growing unorganised sector and new methods of struggle."

''And only slightly less important," adds Samantara, are "questions 
like militarisation and nuclearisation of South Asia, the need for 
global nuclear disarmament, the fight for justice in trade, food 
security, opposition to privatisation, especially in water and power."

One distinctive feature of the ISF was the prominence given to 
climate change and carbon trading, in which India has emerged as an 
unrivalled Third World leader. Indian companies are trying to make 
billions by offering projects under the so-called Clean Development 
Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. They can sell carbon credits to 
large Northern corporations, which buy them to evade their own 
responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"The whole business is totally fraudulent," said Larry Lohmann, 
author of a new volume, "Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on 
Climate Change, Privatisation and Power" in the Development Dialogue 
journal. Lohmann interacted with a number of grassroots activists at 
the ISF and said that the forces that are dispossessing the tribals 
of India today are the same ones which uprooted the small farmers in 
Europe through "enclosures" 250 years ago.

"Carbon trading evades the central issue of drastically cutting 
greenhouse gas emissions to arrest global warming", holds Lohmann. 
"It will seriously aggravate the climate crisis while further 
enriching corporate interests."

The ISF also further advanced interaction between India's organised 
Left parties and civil society that began in 2003. Many Left leaders 
participated in the Forum and shared their experiences and views. 
"Their interaction accorded recognition to the importance of relating 
to several movements which the Left did not start, but which it 
supports," says D. Thankappan of the New Trade Union Initiative, 
based in Mumbai.

"These include the campaign for a rural employment guarantee scheme 
for 100 days of work for every poor family in one-third of the 
country, initiatives to organise informal sector workers, and 
mobilisation against the expulsion and dispossession of poor people 
from many cities. It is a healthy sign that the Left now relates 
positively to such movements and to civil society."

However, many activists are critical of the ISF. "It is too flaky and 
unstructured," says Ashok Choudhury of the National Forum of Forest 
Workers. "So it doesn't really lead to adequate action-oriented 
dialogue between activists. Sometimes, it doesn't make even a clear 
diagnosis of problems and there is very little attempt to build 
solidarity groups."

Many others also say that the Forum is so open a space that anything 
can fall through it without leading to real coordination on strategy, 
planning, or action. "Most of the issues that the ISF took up already 
exist in the space of real activism on the ground," says Roy. "The 
ISF didn't add anything really new to their analysis."

There are other questions too. Should activists be spending so much 
time and energy in organising such events at the expense of 
grassroots work? How do genuine people's movements and Left-wing 
groups guard against "NGO-isation"? "There are no clear answers yet," 
says Choudhury. "But at least these issues are being raised within a 
generally constructive approach that sees the (limited) worth of the 
Social Forum process.''


_____


[4]

The Telegraph, Calcutta
Nov 7, 2006

OUR FRACTURED CONSCIENCE
by Dilip Simeon

Is it of the very essence of truth to be impotent and of the very 
essence of power to be deceitful? And what kind of reality does truth 
possess if it is powerless in the public realm? : Hannah Arendt, in 
Truth and Politics

Public opinion is now debating the death penalty awarded to Afzal 
Guru in connection with the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. The 
debate is becoming a shouting match, but is an opportunity for us to 
think about the phenomenon of virtuous murder, of which judicial 
executions no less than political killings are a part.

A certain line of thinking places the roots of political violence in 
poverty and backwardness. A greater part of the explanation may lie 
in the experience of humiliation. The idea of justice is rooted in 
the sense of fairness. Unfair treatment gives rise to anger, which 
shifts towards revenge when it finds no redress. Fairness requires 
that wrong-doings be acknowledged. If the wrong-doers do not accept 
they have done wrong, society may render such acknowledgement to the 
victims. When even this is not forthcoming, violent emotions and 
deeds become probable. Such deeds are seen as crimes by one side and 
as justice by the other. When your anguish is greeted by silence, you 
want to make an explosive noise. Bhagat Singh's bomb in the 
Legislative Assembly was meant to "make the deaf hear". (The risk 
associated with loud noise is deafness on all sides). Where 
communities are pitted against each other, we enter the dark portals 
of collective guilt, innocent victims and faceless avengers, of 
killing as a means of obtaining recompense.

Consider that other ageless phenomenon, the double-standard. Humans 
have been sensitive to the terrible burden that killing imposes upon 
us. Hence we have always asked the Almighty to salve our consciences. 
Our ambivalence is exemplified in the ancient Judaeo-Christian debate 
on the Sixth Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Did God mean Thou 
Shalt Not Murder? Pacifist Christians insist upon the first meaning. 
Crusading Christians require the second. A current of thought in 
India has named Gandhi's assassination Gandhi-vadh, rather than 
hatya. Godse considered his act to be an act of justice. Undoubtedly 
V.D. Savarkar (whose portrait adorns the halls of Parliament) thought 
so too. What ideals do our leaders wish to uphold by honouring a 
chief accused in the Gandhi murder trial?

Afzal didn't kill anyone. If he may be hanged for enabling the attack 
on Parliament, is there not prima-facie evidence of politicians and 
policemen enabling carnages in Delhi and Gujarat in 1984 and 2002? 
How many of them have been brought to justice? The handful of 
convicts are underprivileged persons - the big fish are flourishing. 
In 1987 over 40 Muslims of Meerut were allegedly murdered by the 
Armed Constabulary. The case took eighteen years to come to court, 
with delaying tactics resorted to even by parties that claim to 
defend minority rights. Sometimes the phrase "rule of law" sounds 
farcical. The Indian establishment has regularly suborned the justice 
system to protect a certain class of criminal. Policemen in 
dereliction of duty end up with promotions and enablers of mass 
murder get hailed as heroes. Why is this contempt for human life any 
less culpable than the attack on Parliament?

In modern times, devotion to great causes has acquired a 
quasi-religious fervour, even when the devotees use secular language. 
Albert Camus named our time the age of historical murder. These 
habits of mind cut across the political spectrum. Our tradition of 
militancy includes crusades for self-determination and people's wars 
for classless society. In August 2000, nearly 100 people were killed 
in eight massacres in Kashmir. They included Amarnath pilgrims and 
some members of a Kashmiri Muslim family. Most of them were 
brick-kiln workers from central India and Bihar. (Revolutionaries are 
not very exercised at the annihilation of workers by jehadis of 
either Muslim or Hindu variety). On August 13, 2004, 9 school 
children were killed by the ULFA in Upper Assam. On August 15, the 
CPI-Maoist shot dead nine persons in Andhra Pradesh, including a 
legislator, his son, driver and a municipal employee. On September 
12, 2005 it slit the throats of 17 villagers in Giridih (Jharkhand). 
This February saw 25 tribals dead in a landmine blast in 
Chhattisgarh. Another blast on March 25 killed 13 persons. The 
Maoists apologised for the latter, calling it a mistake. It is such 
'mistakes' that motivate opponents of the death penalty to demand its 
abolition. There were no apologies for 60 people killed in Delhi's 
Sarojini Nagar on October 29, 2005. Nor for the 200 dead and 625 
injured in Mumbai this July.

Every act of violence leaves a lifetime of trauma for its victims, 
some of whom become avengers in their turn. But one senses irony when 
sympathisers of militancy ask for a revocation of the death penalty. 
Do they oppose it in principle or only when one of their own is 
sentenced to death? Why are they silent when militants administer 
death sentences to all and sundry? Does it make any sense to attach 
political threats to appeals for clemency? And can the Hindu 
nationalists understand how the well-wishers of Graham Staines feel 
when they see Dara Singh celebrated as a hero?

The list is endless. The Salwa Judum vigilantes of Chhattisgarh have 
allegedly committed rapes and killings. A recent citizen's report 
documented the vicious activities of this state-supported militia but 
it also noted the Maoist's brutality. Like their opponents they too 
kill without presumption of innocence or chance for appeals for 
mercy. The comrades should think about the impact of their activities 
upon the grand ideal of socialism. They reject the legitimacy of the 
Indian state, but their own political behaviour is highly autocratic. 
Should socialists hold themselves to a higher or a lower standard 
than the system they criticise? Tragically, those who wanted to 
prepare the soil for a just society have now become judge and 
executioner rolled into one - a pure version of tyranny. Along with 
right-wing radicals, their own legitimacy is grounded on nothing more 
substantial than outraged sentiment and a claim to superior 
understanding of Indian reality. Does this give them the right to 
kill anyone they want? India's ruling elites as well their critics 
are playing host to a nihilist element that grows more confident the 
longer the democratic conscience clings to its double standard on 
political murder. The concept of 'collateral damage' is not confined 
to George Bush's dictionary.

Our radicals have changed the world for the worse. From militant 
communalists and nationalists to those who kill for the sake of 
People or Historical Destiny, too many of us believe in the death 
penalty. Those demanding death for Afzal are mobilising relatives of 
the dead policemen. The families deserve our sympathy, but in any 
case Afzal is due for life imprisonment. What good will it do to end 
his life? Policemen may now sympathise with the families of murder 
victims Jessica Lal, Nitish Katara and Priyadarshini Mattoo, all of 
whom have seen their hopes for justice dashed to the ground. (This 
was written before the judgement in the Mattoo case). The main 
suspects in the first two cases are relatives of Congressmen. Jessica 
was shot in clear view of the high and mighty, Priyadarshini murdered 
by someone with lots of friends in the Indian Police Service. Do 
those in charge of our criminal justice system possess a clean 
conscience when it comes to restitution for the victims of killers? 
Restraint and compassion are the best means by which to contain the 
rising tide of political violence. For a system with so much blood on 
its hands, the hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guru would be yet another 
example of its breathtaking hypocrisy.

Speak the truth
Stop the killing

_____


[5]

The Times of India
14 November 2006

Editorial

STAND AT EASE

It's entirely inappropriate for an army commander in Siachen to 
advise journalists that a withdrawal from the glacier will render 
Indian defences weak.

Such decisions are up to the civilian command to make, and only the 
political leadership can determine where Siachen stands in the 
context of India's overall strategic and diplomatic interest.

The peace process has been restarted with Pakistan's foreign 
secretary in New Delhi to hold talks with his Indian counterpart; 
among other things, a date for discussing Siachen will be set.

Siachen is the world's coldest battlefield, and the contest in this 
inhospitable region illustrates well the pitfalls of thinking 
territorially.

The problem springs from this being an undemarcated region in the 
mutually agreed ceasefire line in Kashmir. Indian troops moving to 
control Siachen's heights in 1984 was essentially a pre-emptive move 
it was to deny Pakistani forces from getting there first.

To some extent it's like the farcical retreat ceremony at Wagah, 
where the BSF and Pakistani Rangers attempted to stare each other 
down with ferocious gestures.

  The difference is that Siachen means supplying forces that may be 
stationed at 22,000 feet and experiencing cold of up to -50 celsius.

Siachen operations cost the exchequer Rs 3 crore [30 Million] to Rs 5 
crore [50 Million] a day, as well as the lives of about 600 soldiers 
over two decades, most of whom succumbed to adverse weather 
conditions.

BSF has recently toned down its march at Wagah, tactics that could 
well be replicated in Siachen. New Delhi and Islamabad could jointly 
demarcate a zone of peace along the Siachen glacier where, after a 
certain date, the presence of both Indian and Pakistani troops will 
be considered illegitimate.

This would be irrespective of who held what position before that 
date, and irrespective of how Kashmir is finally settled. The fear on 
the Indian side would be, what happens in case Islamabad reneges on 
its commitments and occupies the area militarily after Indian forces 
leave.

However, the strategic cost of this to New Delhi would be small it's 
not as if Ladakh will fall if Siachen goes while the diplomatic cost 
to Islamabad would be high. New Delhi can make it clear that it sees 
this as a test case of whether Islamabad can be trusted.

It's unlikely that Islamabad would jeopardise the whole peace process 
for the sake of small gains in Siachen.


_____


[6] 

Issues in Secular Politics
Nov. 2006

RSS RUN SCHOOLS: INDOCTRINATING IN SECTARIANISM
by Ram Puniyani

RSS run schools are coming under a scanner, with MHRD minister 
contemplating action against them (Oct 2006). In last three decades 
thousands of schools of different variety have mushroomed, Ekal 
Vidyalaya, Sarswati Shishu Mandirs, and Vidya Bharati, run by RSS 
combine. Those working in the remote interiors realized that 
communalism which was an urban phenomenon so far, now is making 
stronger inroads into rural, Adivasi areas as well. As if well 
planned, a parallel phenomenon of the incidents of sectarian 
violence, have gone up during the same period. Is there any 
correlation between the two? While one awaits the publication of 
Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) report, one also knows 
that already various social activists and academics have analyzed the 
books being taught in Shishu Mandirs and Vidya Bharati. Some of these 
studies/reports were put together by many organizations like Sahmat 
and Communalism Combat amongst others.

These reports did point out the dangers posed by the types of books 
being taught in these schools published by RSS combine. That the 
books being taught in these outfits are divisive to the core is 
beyond any shade of doubt. The type of social common sense, which is 
becoming strong in the country all over, and the type of hate which 
communities are developing for each other have come from various 
sources, one of them being the type of books, the type of education 
being given in these chains. One realizes that RSS shakha bauddhiks 
were the progenitors of hate ideology right from 1925. They kept 
working silently, spreading that this is a Hindu nation, Muslims and 
Christians are aliens, secularism is being imposed on 'us' by those 
influenced by Western culture like Nehru, there is a need to keep the 
Muslims and Christians 'in place', we need to restore the glory of 
ancient Hindu India in the exalted position of the World teacher, the 
fountain head of wisdom for the all other countries of the World, as 
we are chosen for the World Mission.

This kept percolating in the society and the indoctrination of 
sections of community started taking place, followed by the 
infiltration of RSS elements in Media and formal education, giving 
the process a further boost. The later stage of this process of 
sectarian indoctrination is through distortion of educational books 
at all the levels and that's what Sarswati Shishu Mandirs are doing.

The reports and analysis of these books so far has revealed that the 
sectarian ideology of Hindu nation, the hate and denigration of other 
religious communities, the upholding of caste and gender hierarchy 
and the glorification repressive ideology of fascism have been 
blatantly propagated through these. These books have listed all the 
Hindu festivals as national festivals, excluding the ones of Sikhs, 
Jain, Buddha, Christian and Muslims. They blatantly propagate that 
Islam spread on the strength of sword, it is a violent religion, and 
lakhs of people have sacrificed their lives to save the attacks on 
Ram temple. There is a subtle attempt to undermining of the acts of 
violence done by RSS swaymsevaks, like Gandhi's date of birth is 
mentioned but his death and how he was murdered by Godse does not 
find any mention. ( L.S.Hardenia, Socialist Secular Bharat Jan 2002) 
Similarly a more detailed study in Communalism Combat, October 1999, 
goes on to show the pattern of distortion of facts, the way 
presentation is slanted to demonize other religious communities is 
elaborated. This is what they have to say about Christianity, "It is 
because of the conspiratorial policies of the followers of this 
religion that India was partitioned. Even today Christian 
missionaries are engaged in fostering anti-national tendencies in 
Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal, Bihar, Kerala, and other regions of 
our country because of which there is a grave danger to the integrity 
of present day India". Muslims and Islam are given a similar 
treatment, "Thousands of opponents of idol worship, the followers of 
Islam, go to the pilgrimage centre of Islamic community at Kaaba to 
worship 'Shivalinga'. In Muslim society, the greatest wish is to have 
a darshan of that black stone (Shivalinga)".  

In one of the questions, children are asked to fill in the blanks 
'rivers of blood' as the means by which Prophet Mohammad spread 
Islam. Meghanad Saha is supposed to have written the history of Hindu 
science, the water of river Ganga, whose pollution is phenomenal, is 
supposed to be so pure that it never gets bad and is pious. The 
obscurantism and sectarianism walk hand in hand in this and they 
boost each other. One of the questions in these books relates to the 
demolition of Babri Masjid, if x number of Kar sevaks can demolish 
the mosque in so many hours how much time will be taken by y number 
of Kar Sevaks. One is reminded of a similar question regarding 
Kalashnikov rifles being put forward by Taliban. It goes without 
saying that institutions like Markazi Maktaba and Madrassas also need 
to be brought under scrutiny for the content of their curriculum and 
similar action needs to be taken against them also if the syllabus 
and books being taught there have divisive content.

The violence in the society rests on the pillars of Hatred of other 
communities, hatred which is deep and takes hysterical proportions 
when incited around temple issue or such one's or other make believe 
incidents. The violence cannot go on without this deep hatred for 
others, without a mindset indoctrinated into hating others. That's 
what these books are doing; supplementing to the work which Shakha 
bauddhik was doing/ is doing. It broadens the scope of its reach far 
and wide and that too starting from an early age. Is it not against 
the national integration? Is it not against the values of Indian 
constitution? There is an urgent need to make public the CABE report 
and to take stern and immediate action against these hate spewing 
factories.


_____


[7] 

Invitation to attend Eqbal Ahmad Distinguished Lecture on Saturday

You are cordially invited to attend this lecture (see below). As a favour,
please do pass on this message to anyone who you fee would be interested
and circulate it on your mailing list, if you have one. Thank you.

SPEAKER: ASMA JEHANGIR (celebrated human rights activist)

TOPIC: PAKISTAN IN TRANSITION - HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY

TIME: 4:00PM, SATURDAY, 18 NOVEMBER, 2006.

VENUE: HOLIDAY INN, MELODY MARKET, ISLAMABAD.

All are welcome. Eqbal Ahmad Foundation. RSVP 2250262, 2824257

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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.