SACW | Jan. 5-6, 2007

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | January 5-6, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2344 - Year 8

[1]  Bangladesh: Dance of the scorpions (Rehman Sobhan)
[2]  '[Indo-US] Deal will dismantle anti-nuke treaties':  (Noam Chomsky)
[3]  Sri Lanka: Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel? (Rohini Hensman)
[4]  India: BJP, Ayodhya and 1857 (J Sri Raman)
[5]  India: Blasts Galore - Communalism 2006 (Ram Puniyani)
[6]  India: How Yogi Adityanath Wants To Do a Modi ? (Subhash Gatade)
[7]  India - Pakistan: Suspicion and  deep distrust in the 
officialdom (Bharat Bhushan)

____


[1]


The Daily Star
January 06, 2007

DANCE OF THE SCORPIONS

by Rehman Sobhan

The decision of the Grand Alliance to boycott and resist the holding 
of the January 22 elections to the Jatyo Sangshad has put the two 
alliances directly on the path of confrontation. This denouement 
conjures up images of two scorpions who when they fight precede their 
battle by a ritual dance before they sting each other to death. Are 
we witnessing such a dance of death where the ultimate casualty will 
be the democratic process? Let us briefly review the role of the 
players in this macabre dance to which the nation bears mute witness.

The ostensible lead player in the dance appears to be the chief 
adviser of the caretaker government, President Iajuddin Ahmed. He has 
been from the moment he assumed office through what is perceived as a 
constitutional coup, the target of the 14 Party Alliance. The ongoing 
demand of the Grand Alliance that the president step down from his 
role as chief advisor, or at least conduct himself in a non-partisan 
manner, appears to mistake the dancer for the choreographer. This 
means that all attempts by the Grand Alliance and our development 
partners to periodically pressure the chief adviser to change his 
steps, were, from the outset, exercises in futility.

The key party to the performance of the chief adviser and hence the 
CTG was and remains the leadership of the 4 Party Alliance. The 
underlying motivations of this alliance remain unclear. In their 
public postures they project a firm confidence that they can win an 
election. They attribute the demands of their opponents for changes 
in the conduct of the CTG as motivated by a need to avoid elections. 
If they were so confident that they could win a free and fair 
election, they should have gone out of their way to ensure that the 
Grand Alliance participated by accommodating their demands for a 
non-partisan chief adviser and chief election commissioner.

Once Justice Hasan stepped down, the 4 Party Alliance could have 
agreed to have the surviving chief justice preceding Hasan, Justice 
Mahmudul Amin Chowdhury, as chief adviser. They could have further 
advised the president to induct a generally respected and acceptable 
person such as the former cabinet secretary under the 4 Party 
Alliance government, Sadat Hossain, as chief election commissioner. 
Faced with such a positive political response from the 4 Party 
Alliance, the 14 Party Alliance would have had no option but to go to 
the polls and to stand by the results, even if this meant a victory 
for the 4 Party Alliance.

Rather than accommodate its opponents, the 4 Party Alliance appears 
to have gone out of its way to provoke the Grand Alliance. The latest 
provocation of instigating the revival of the corruption case against 
HM Ershad, just when the leaders of the Grand Alliance had decided to 
go for elections on January 22, in spite of the unevenness of the 
playing field, appears mind boggling for its pointlessness. From the 
moment the 14 Party Alliance accepted the president as chief adviser, 
and then went on to accept the watered down "package" agreement 
negotiated by the 4 Advisers it was apparent that the alliance, or at 
least its leadership, were keen to contest elections even on an 
unlevel playing field. It was also evident that this leadership was 
under great pressure from many of their associates to boycott the 
elections. Under the circumstances, everything should have been done 
by the 4 Party Alliance to strengthen the hands of the leadership of 
the 14 Party Alliance to stand by their original decision to contest 
the elections.

 From their responses the 4 Party Alliance appear to suggest that they 
remain indifferent as to whether the Grand Alliance participates in 
the election. In the light of recent developments, the 4 Party 
Alliance appear to believe that they can compel the CTG to hold an 
election even without the Grand Alliance. They presume that the CTG 
will be able to withstand resistance to the polls from the supporters 
of the Grand Alliance, through the use of the law enforcement 
machinery and the army, backed by local protection of the polling 
centres of their own party cadres. The 4 Party Alliance may possibly 
believe that however limited be the voter turn-out or strong the 
degree of resistance, once such a poll is held and votes them back to 
power, they would be able to deal with any further challenges on the 
ground.

Whether this scenario follows as planned so that the CTG does carry 
through an election and the elected government can then suppress all 
challenges to its authority, remains to be seen. However, what is 
more relevant is the credibility of an election held with a massive 
deployment of armed might of the law enforcement agencies, involving 
resistance and loss of life, and the subsequent legitimacy of a 
regime which would hold office as a result of an election boycotted 
by some of the major political parties.

The notion that a regime with such a questionable mandate could then 
resort to the level of wholesale repression needed to stay in power 
would be even more challengeable. Such a regime would need to keep in 
mind that apart from the internal challenge to such a regime, the 
international community would have severe reservations in not just 
recognizing the outcome of a flawed election but would hardly remain 
silent through the acts of repression which would follow.

Of course, flawed elections and/or repression have been tolerated in 
the past, as in Myanmar or Zimbabwe, though both regimes have 
acquired "outcast" status in the international community and remain 
cut off from most sources of development assistance. It is quite 
possible that the international community may bow to ground realities 
in Bangladesh and after administering a few ritual slaps on the wrist 
of such a regime, however distasteful its origins, would resume 
business as usual. I cannot speak here for the international 
community but perhaps some of our resident envoys may speak up on the 
reaction of their respective governments to such a one-sided election 
and its possible repressive aftermath.

Now that Bangladesh is a less aid-dependent economy, the sanctions at 
the disposal of our development partners remain weak. The one weapon 
that the international community does have at its disposal is their 
control over the levers of UN peace-keeping operations. Our armed 
forces are today one of the world's largest contributors to such 
operations and have justifiably earned an excellent international 
reputation for their performance in the field. The armed forces and 
the whole nation attach great value to this role, which is not 
without considerable material benefit to the national economy as well 
as to the peace-keepers. If our armed forces, who have already been 
deployed in the field, are put into the unenviable position of 
repressing their own citizens, first in response to resistance to the 
election, and then to cope with challenges on the ground to the 
"elected" regime, this would be potentially detrimental to their 
image in the eyes of the international community.

The response of the CTG and BNP and its allies to the course of 
future events hangs, in no small measure, on the intentions and 
capability of the Grand Alliance. From the outset the 14 Party 
Alliance has continued to give confused signals of its intentions, 
culminating in its bizarre and unprincipled compact which challenged 
its historic commitment to secular politics.

The 14 Party Alliance's initial outright rejection of Justice Hasan 
as the chief adviser, in the light of their experience with the 
current chief adviser, may be viewed by their own ranks as a 
strategic error. After all, would he have been quite as partisan as 
the incumbent chief adviser? Once the president carried through his 
constitutional coup, the 14 Party Alliance continued to vacillate on 
whether to challenge the legitimacy of the chief adviser or to go 
along with various negotiated "package" deals offering piecemeal 
concessions. The latest offer of the leave of Zakaria but the 
retention of Mudabbir was part of the dance of the seven veils 
enacted by the chief adviser to tantalize the Grand Alliance into the 
elections. The dance may have indeed served its purpose had the 
gratuitous provocation of seeking to bar HM Ershad from contesting 
the elections not served the role of one provocation too many to be 
tolerated by the Grand Alliance.

Now that the Grand Alliance has decided to boycott the January 22 
polls they have to reckon whether they can generate enough strength 
at the local level in every constituency to frustrate the holding of 
the poll or at least make voter participation very difficult. 
Mobilization at the constituency level would be very crucial to their 
strategy of challenging the polls. All the prospective candidates of 
the Grand Alliance, who have now withdrawn their nominations, will 
have a vested interest in ensuring that no election takes place in 
their constituency. All such candidates would feel compelled to 
challenge any sort of legitimacy being vested on the 4 Party Alliance 
candidates through the January 22 polls which would establish their 
power and control over patronage in the constituency over the next 
five years.

The Grand Alliance would further expect that large numbers of voters, 
not just their party supporters, would be hesitant to vote in a one 
sided election, as was the case in February 1996 when most people 
simply kept away from the polls. However, the BNP and its allies 
would certainly aim to vote and would defend their right to vote. In 
challenging the poll, the Grand Alliance would have to reckon on the 
degree of repression they would have to face from the law enforcement 
agencies and possibly the army who would be mandated by the president 
to ensure that the polls were carried through. Finally, as and when 
the polls are completed and the 4 Party Alliance take over power, the 
Grand Alliance would have to realistically evaluate their capacity to 
withstand massive repression whilst mobilizing a much broader 
constituency of citizens to join them in challenging the legitimacy 
of a flawed poll.

In responding to the prospect of a one-sided election all citizens 
and civil society itself will have to decide what role they will 
play. Will they accept an election result which does not involve all 
the principal parties? Will they be silent spectators to the 
resultant confrontation between the principal alliances or will they 
come forward to assert their democratic rights?

In asserting their position civil society will no doubt be keeping an 
eye on what will be done by the other players in the drama such as 
the armed forces and the international community. The citizens of 
Bangladesh will eventually have to decide whether democracy in 
Bangladesh is a spectator sport or it is sufficiently important for 
them to come forward to ensure that they are served by a government 
which truly reflects their freely given vote.

In the final analysis, a major conflict, with prospects of violent 
confrontations, will damage both the alliances since neither of the 
protagonists can be sure where this dance will end and what 
consequences it will have for either of them or for our democratic 
process. Can the two principal alliances step out of the circle where 
they are engaged in their fatal dance of destruction and seek the 
path of statesmanship?

There is a universal demand across the country for a free, fair and 
peaceful election held under a non-partisan CTG. Neither 
constitutional niceties nor partisan politics should be allowed to 
frustrate this deeply felt demand. Can civil society play any role in 
this process of sustaining our democratic institutions or will they 
remain silent witnesses as the lights across the land go out one by 
one?

Prof Rehman Sobhan is Chairman, Centre for Policy Dialogue.

_____


[2]


The Times of India
6 January, 2007

Q&A:'DEAL WILL DISMANTLE ANTI-NUKE TREATIES'

Noam Chomsky believes that the Indo-US nuclear deal essentially hurt 
all treaties geared to dismantle nuclear weapons. In an e-mail 
interview, he tells Prashanth G N that the threat to human survival 
is increasing:

What happens to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in the wake of 
approval of the Indo-US July 18 agreement both in India and the US?

The agreement, if implemented, will be a serious blow to the NPT, and 
the network of treaties and international regimes in which it is 
embedded, some of which have already been dismantled by the Bush 
administration.

As discussed by Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on 
Nuclear Arms Control, the agreement would effectively rescind the 
principles on export of nuclear materials and missiles and undermine 
the instruments by which they are administered (the Nuclear Suppliers 
Group and Missile Techno-logy Control Regime).

What are these principles?

  The principles are 'country neutral'. If one country violates them, 
others can too, and very likely will. When the world's most powerful 
state openly consigns them to the rubbish heap, we can expect others 
to follow suit.

That began to happen once China moved to establish similar relations 
with India, and to a lesser degree, Pakistan. More may well follow, 
making the world a more dangerous place with each step.

The NPT was always under pressure but seems more after the July 18 agreement...

The NPT was already in serious danger after the virtual collapse of 
the 2005 five-year review conference, and the Bush administration's 
stand that it is not bound by Article VI of the NPT, which requires 
the nuclear states to undertake 'good-faith' efforts to eliminate 
nuclear weapons, a legally binding obligation.

Recent votes at the UN disarmament committee (First Committee) reveal 
how the system is being further dismantled.

  The US continues to vote alone against efforts to reserve space for 
peaceful uses, and is proceeding with militarisation of space, 
ultimately weaponisation, which will surely elicit retaliatory 
measures from potential targets, increasing the threat to survival.

How will the world nuclear order get affected?

Any tear in the fragile fabric of arms control agreements invites 
further dismantling of them. If India receives authorisation from the 
world-dominant power to go nuclear on its own, that can only 
encourage others to do the same, increasing the threat to human 
survival which is at stake.

Will the West now recognise India as a nuclear power?

Washington's decision to take this new step towards dismantling the 
international arms-control regime was quite openly motivated by 
commercial interests. The US military industry generally sees India 
as a huge potential market, and the same is true of the nuclear 
industry and others.


_____


[3]

The Lanka Academic
January 2, 2007

IS THERE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?

by Rohini Hensman

After a seemingly endless series of events that made all decent Sri 
Lankans hang their heads in shame, there is at last something to make 
us feel proud of our country. The majority report of the panel set up 
to advise the All Party Representative Committee is impressive not 
only in its thoroughness and professionalism, but also in its ability 
to suggest creative solutions to the problems that have plagued us 
for so long.

Of course it is, as yet, only a draft; it would need to be revised in 
consultation with the people most affected by the measures it 
proposes before it can be finalised. With respect to the North-East, 
for example, an option would have to be chosen and fine-tuned through 
discussion with the people currently living in that part of the 
country, as well as refugees and Internally Displaced People 
(including the Muslims who were driven from the North over sixteen 
years ago) who wish to return to their homes there. And the proposed 
Bill of Rights would have to be elaborated to guarantee that the 
human rights and civil liberties of people of all communities are 
protected in all parts of the country.

However, even in its present form, with the points in the Annexure on 
protection of human rights, humanitarian measures, and promoting the 
use of Tamil as an official language with immediate effect, the 
document could be presented to the public for discussion. If the 
government were to accept it as the basis for a solution to the 
long-standing grievances of the Tamil-speaking minority in the 
country, the LTTE would be wiped out politically in a few years, as 
it would then be obvious to everyone that it has nothing to offer 
Tamils in Sri Lanka. The UNP has indicated that it would support the 
government in this course of action, making it completely viable. The 
war could be ended, peace and prosperity could ensue. But will the 
President and government head towards the light? Or will they turn 
round and head back into the tunnel?

The Significance of the Majority Report

The importance of this report, authored by six Sinhalese, four Tamils 
and one Muslim, is immense. It proves that the war that has plagued 
our country for decades is NOT a war between Sinhalese and Tamils. It 
proves that where there is a commitment to democracy, people of all 
communities can work together for a common cause. It shows that the 
primary struggle is one between democracy and fascism, and then there 
is a secondary struggle between Sinhala fascists and Tamil fascists. 
While the latter are locked in struggle against each other, they are 
united in their attempts to sabotage a democratic solution.

The LTTE's stand on the proposal was made known to us in advance, 
with Prabakaran's overt declaration of war and reiteration of 
commitment to the goal of Tamil Eelam in his Heroes' Day speech. No 
surprises there: a democratic solution could never be palatable to 
Tamil fascists! If the TNA had been part of the APRC, it would no 
doubt have echoed the Supremo's rejection of the panel's proposals.

On the other side, rejection by the JHU, JVP and MEP was also 
entirely predictable. The concept of 'equality' - the bedrock of 
democracy - is alien to the stalwarts who lead these parties. In 
their view, people from minority communities simply have to accept 
whatever indignities the so-called 'majority' inflicts on them. They 
would be prepared to reject the proposals - and thereby boost the 
credibility of the LTTE by providing yet more evidence that Tamils 
can never receive justice in a united Sri Lanka - rather than concede 
basic democratic rights to Tamils in a united Sri Lanka. They would 
prefer to send thousands of Sinhalese to their deaths in a protracted 
war rather than accept the idea of living peacefully with Tamils who 
have equal rights.

Thus the Sinhala fascists gang up with the Tamil fascists when it 
comes to rejecting democracy. Yet they represent the Sinhalese people 
as little as the LTTE represents Tamils. If the government has the 
courage to call their bluff by explaining the proposals of the 
majority report to the public, supporting them and inviting a public 
debate on them, fascistic elements among the Sinhalese would be 
exposed for what they are and marginalised. If the President has the 
integrity to recognise that these proposals embody the maximum 
devolution in a united Sri Lanka that he was calling for, there would 
be light at the end of the tunnel. On the other hand, if there are 
attempts to dilute the proposals in accordance with the prejudices of 
the Sinhala chauvinists, Tamil chauvinists will be seen as being 
perfectly justified in rejecting them, and the war will go on.

Some people have suggested that the majority report is unacceptable 
because the TNA, JVP, JHU and MEP reject it. Have they stopped to 
consider what kind of proposal would be acceptable to all these 
parties? Prabakaran has never wavered from the goal of a separate 
state of Tamil Eelam under totalitarian LTTE rule, even going so far 
as to contradict the late Balasingham when he agreed to a federal 
solution. And Prabakaran's writ rules the LTTE, just as the LTTE's 
writ rules the TNA. Obviously such a solution would be rejected out 
of hand by the Sinhala nationalists, but it would also upset moderate 
Sinhalese, Muslims, and, indeed, Tamils. On the other side, the 
minimal devolution and Sinhala supremacist goals of the Sinhala 
nationalists would obviously be rejected out of hand by the LTTE and 
TNA, but would also upset moderate Tamils, Muslims, and, indeed, 
Sinhalese.

In other words, the idea that there is any solution whatsoever which 
would be acceptable to the extremists on both sides is mere wishful 
thinking. To search for it would be like looking for the pot of gold 
at the end of the rainbow: IT CANNOT BE FOUND BECAUSE IT DOESN'T 
EXIST. Therefore the only hope of a solution lies in marginalising 
extremists on both sides and concentrating on trying to satisfy the 
democratic aspirations of moderates from all communities. This is 
what the majority report of the expert panel does so successfully.

Whether it is accepted or rejected, we owe a debt of gratitude to the 
authors of the majority report. Crafting solutions to age-old 
problems requires imagination, standing up for democracy against the 
prevailing currents of authoritarianism requires courage, and they 
have displayed both. They have shown that a peaceful, multi-ethnic, 
united Sri Lanka is not a mere pipe-dream, but a possibility within 
our grasp. If the government and President decide to throw away that 
possibility, they will be responsible for the ensuing bloodshed.

Towards the Sunlight? Or Back into the Darkness?

The President has expressed concern that the JVP could stir up 
trouble in the South if the majority report is accepted. It is almost 
certain that they would try to do so, but if the government were to 
wage an awareness-raising campaign to educate the Sinhala-speaking 
public on the significance of the report and the dire consequences of 
rejecting it, the JVP would not succeed in their undemocratic agenda.

The Sinhala and Tamil fascists have no regard for human life or 
welfare; they will go on fighting regardless of the sorrow and 
destruction they cause all around them. Unfortunately we cannot pack 
them off to a desert island to continue their war until death do them 
part, but we CAN marginalise them politically by choosing democracy. 
That is what the people of Sri Lanka must put pressure on their 
leaders to do.

_____


[4]


Daily Times
January 05, 2007

HUM HINDUSTANI: BJP, AYODHYA AND 1857
by J Sri Raman

On the eve of the landmark anniversary of 1857 as well as of Assembly 
elections in India's most populous State of Uttar Pradesh, the party 
has raised Ayodha again. It has done so in tones of belligerence 
abandoned ever since the BJP put it on 'the back burner' to keep a 
Vajpayee-headed coalition in power

Thanks to the futurists in the media, we, the television-watching and 
newspaper-reading public of India, know what to expect in 2007. We 
know, for example, that, in the world of films, it will be a riveting 
year of remakes and, in fashion, one of over-long necklaces. None of 
the curtain-raisers and crystal-gazers, however, has talked of the 
coming year as one that will mark a major historical memory for the 
country.

The year will witness the 150th anniversary of what colonial 
chroniclers called the Sepoy Mutiny and the subcontinent's historians 
prefer to consider the First War of Independence. There are special 
reasons for us all now to recall 1857 - and for some of us to deny 
its striking relevance to important issues of today.

A notable feature of the First War of Independence was that the 
rebels of all classes and all religious communities consciously 
adopted the last of the Mughals as their common leader, as their 
counter to the colonial rulers. By proclaiming Bahadur Shah 'Zafar', 
the poet-king, as Shahenshah-e-Hind, the Emperor of India, on May 11, 
1857, they proclaimed an anti-colonial Hindu-Muslim unity that 
horrified the British.

Clearly, any serious commemoration of the event runs counter to the 
campaign and designs of those pursuing politics of communal 
mobilisation. Memories of 1857 cannot be welcome to those who have 
consciously adopted the first of the Mughals as a common hate object 
for their constituency and who presided over Babri Masjid's 
demolition in 1992.

Discussing the meaning of that crowning moment of 1857 a century 
later, Marxian PC Joshi wrote: "It was a stroke of instinctive genius 
on the part of the insurgent sepoys of Meerut when they crossed the 
Jamuna and liberated...the...capital of our ancient country and 
crowned the disinherited heir of Akbar, Bahadur Shah....The 
revolutionary significance of this event was universally accepted and 
has been characterised by Charles Ball in the following words: 'The 
Meerut sepoys in a moment found a leader, a flag and a cause'."

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its far-right 'family' 
('parivar'), too, thought of the Ayodhya movement, culminating in the 
demolition, as a stroke of genius. The party and the 'parivar' were 
supposed to have found a promising leader and a politically 
profitable cause. History, however, did not repeat itself even as a 
farce this time.

The party did make impressive gains in the next general election, but 
the utility of the issue proved to be one of diminishing returns. As 
for the leader thrown up by the movement, Lal Krishna Advani had to 
yield place to Atal Bihari Vajpayee once the party needed to share 
power with Ayodhya-unfriendly allies. Ayodhya then became a cross for 
Advani to carry.

All it did for him was to defeat his attempt to acquire a 
Vajpayee-like visage of 'moderation' after a visit to Mohammed Ali 
Jinnah's mausoleum in Pakistan. Lying low for a while, after losing 
the party president's post to once far less fancied Rajnath Singh, 
Advani recently announced a higher political ambition. Talking to a 
TV channel, he argued that, under India's Westminster-model 
democracy, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lower House of 
Parliament (like him) was the prime ministerial candidate, and not 
the president of the main opposition party, if it is returned to 
power.

This pointed to an inner-party struggle, and Ayodhya was bound to 
figure in any factional bout in the BJP.

On the eve of the landmark anniversary of 1857 as well as of Assembly 
elections in India's most populous State of Uttar Pradesh, the party 
has raised Ayodha again. It has done so in tones of belligerence 
abandoned ever since the BJP put it on 'the back burner' to keep a 
Vajpayee-headed coalition in power. At a meeting in December of the 
party's national executive in Lucknow, Rajnath Singh donned Advani's 
discarded mantle and violated the city's famed decorum to dare 
political opponents to rebuild what the most rabid members of the 
'parivar' have described as a demolished 'edifice of secularism'.

Singh's lieutenants, including former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh 
whose administration looked discreetly away as the demolition squad 
danced on the mosque's dome, carried the campaign further. They 
projected the demolition as a kind of pre-emptive strike against a 
dangerous Islamic terrorism. Those who waited for wise disapproval of 
such wild talk from the 'moderate' Vajpayee - which usually comes 
after a lapse of days to let the communal damage be done - are still 
waiting.

Will 1857 prevail over 1992? The people of India will, hopefully, 
provide a positive answer in 2007.

The writer is a journalist based in Chennai, India. A peace activist, 
he is also the author of a sheaf of poems titled 'At Gunpoint'


______


[5]

Issues in Secular Politics
Jan 2007  I

BLASTS GALORE:
COMMUNALISM 2006

by Ram Puniyani

Elections in two major state assemblies are due shortly. The 
electoral wing of RSS, BJP is gearing up to face the elections. Its 
national image is very low, the major reasons for its poor image and 
low morale have been the debacle at the Lok Sabha elections, Advani's 
'secular Jinnah' pronouncement, the murder of its major leader Pramod 
Mahjan by his own brother for mysterious reasons, and the failure of 
many of its communal campaigns to take off properly. But that's just 
one side of the story. The deeper communalization of middle classes, 
the cooption of Adivasis and dalits into Hindutva fold the intense 
communalization of media and state apparatus all over and more so in 
BJP ruled states is posing a major threat to the democratic values, 
minority rights and to the very existence of democratic polity in the 
country. The forthcoming elections in Gujarat are posing a stiff 
challenge to secular elements, with Modi firmly entrenched in the 
seat of power and the weak opposition, the Congress, in Gujarat.

The blasts in Nanded, Mumbai, Malegaon and the 'encounter' near RSS 
head office in Nagpur, were the events which left a different mark on 
the political canvass of the country. Nanded was one instance of the 
bomb blasts where the clear hand of RSS progeny, Bajrang Dal, could 
be seen and was even investigated partly. But for reasons best known 
to the political masters and the communalized police apparatus, which 
develops weak knees while implicating communal elements, the matters 
rested there only. The vertical and horizontal connections of these 
were not drawn out. The Nanded blasts in Maharashtra (April 7, 2006) 
were underplayed, probably deliberately, to give the escape route to 
RSS and its progeny, which has by now good bit of sympathizers in 
those wearing Khaki.
The Nanded blast was followed by an encounter near the RSS head 
office in Nagpur, of the alleged terrorists, from Pakistan. A 
citizen's inquiry committee headed by the retired high court judge 
(http://www.pluralindia.com/articles.php'id=122) demonstrated 
competently the holes in the police version, but the state Govt. 
preferred to ignore the clear cut weaknesses in the story put out by 
the police. The deeper truth behind these incidents may never come 
out. The Mumbai blasts of July were followed by the blasts in 
Malegaon (Maharashtra), where the blasts took place near a Kabristan 
killing around 38 Muslims. In this case again the 'usual suspects' 
made the job of investigation easy. Despite strong protests from 
minority community and by social activist's matters rest there only 
and more and more elements from minority community have been put 
behind bars with even the slightest suspicion.
By now, two set of procedures and legal systems are coming into 
operation in practice. The one is for the majority community and 
another for those belonging to hapless minorities. The latter can be 
picked up for even the smallest of suspicions, and the judgments in 
those cases do look different. Probably we are on way to the RSS 
ideologue M.S. Golwalkars, formulation that minorities will have to 
live at the mercy of majority (i.e. its self proclaimed 
representative, the RSS).

Who knows this may be their way of paying tribute to this Hindutva 
ideologue whose birth centenary is being celebrated this year. 
Golwalkar, who never took part in freedom movement, who upheld the 
laws of Manu and who was jailed in the aftermath of Gandhi murder for 
his role in spreading hatred, due to which the nation lost Father of 
Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. His blunt formulations eulogizing German 
Nazism, his concept of Hindu Rashtra and his treatment of minorities 
is so 'forthright' that during the current times when RSS still needs 
the democratic set up to capture power and to put forward an 
acceptable democratic face, his book 'We or Our Nationhood defined', 
which has all his blunt formulations, is being disowned by his own 
followers.

The BJP ruled states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan are 
imposing RSS agenda in a very overt way. Singing of Vandematram, the 
tampering with the school books to project the RSS ideology is in 
full flow. The controversy around Vandematram is being kept alive 
despite the fact it is a national song and not National anthem, 
despite the fact that singing even a National anthem is not 
compulsory, despite knowing the fact that it has been used more as a 
war cry during episodes of sectarian violence by the communal 
elements in the pre independence period. The state of the 
implementation of law and norms in BJP ruled states is abysmal with 
Muslim and Christian minorities facing flak on every conceivable 
occasion. The attacks on Christian minorities are chronic and 
sustained all around. The Muslim minority is yet to recover from the 
Gujarat carnage. The rehabilitation is no where in site. The legal 
process has hardly delivered any justice to the victims. The state 
Government, whose primary responsibility it is to do the 
rehabilitation work practically washed its hands off and the central 
government is yet to implement a sincere policy towards that.

In many of these states 'Freedom of Religion' bills are being 
contemplated or implemented, despite their being contrary to the 
values of Indian Constitution. Indian constitution guarantees the 
right to preach and propagate one's religion. Despite that these new 
bills dictate that prior permission of authorities is a must and 
already many a Christian missionaries are being beaten up or 
intimidated on the grounds that they are converting. Also, RSS, which 
is the political organization in disguise of culture, is being 
classified as cultural organization deliberately in BJP ruled states, 
opening the gates for civil servants, the supposedly neutral arm of 
the state, to join this organization. Just to remind ourselves this 
organization's aim is to build Hindu nation by overthrowing the 
democratic charter of the state.
Down South, with the BJP joining the Government in Karnataka, the 
issue of Baba Budan Giri Dargah has been brought to the fore. Here 
Hindus and Muslims both have been offering prayers since centuries. 
BJP has been trying to claim that it is essentially a temple, Datta 
Peetham and not a syncretic shrine. Despite the noting in Gazette of 
its syncretic character, BJP has slowly built this issue up as the 
'Ayodhya of the South'. This year the matter got heated up more due 
to the patronage of BJP elements of the Government. Also, Tipu Sultan 
who was ardent Anti British is being denigrated by the BJP 
propaganda. Incidentally, Tipu has an important place amongst the 
major figures from Karnataka; he also laid down his life fighting the 
British.

The major issue which rattled up the communal forces at national 
level was the appointment of Sachar committee to prepare a picture of 
socio-economic conditions of Muslim minority. This had come up twenty 
five years after Gopal Singh committee, formed for similar purpose. 
Incidentally that report was not implemented. The RSS combine, 
particularly BJP, opposed the efforts of Sachar committee to gather 
the status of employment about Muslims in army. The report as such 
confirms the fears that despite RSS combines' propaganda that Muslims 
are being appeased; as a matter of fact they are being discriminated 
against. Today large section of the 13.4% Muslims are at the bottom 
of socio economic ladder, under represented in jobs, marginalized in 
bank loans, way behind in educational acquisitions, and witnessing a 
constant decline in political representations. Not to forget, they 
are over represented in jails. It is no wonder! Low socio-economic 
status is supplemented by the anti Muslim bias of state apparatus 
which operates against them as it is broadly gripped by anti Minority 
myths. Prime Minister and the present Government seems to have taken 
up the report seriously and PM went on to state that this deprived 
minority has the 'first claim' on resources. The idea was to convey 
that the community has been pushed to the brink as far as different 
indices of development are concerned, and so needs special nursing of 
its secular interests. But BJP saw in this the 'golden' opportunity 
to lambaste the Government for its minority appeasement. The long 
overdue affirmative action for this community is being presented as 
being a communal move. This criticism of BJP shows the total lack of 
democratic humane values needed for social growth. That by leaving 
one major component of society behind, we are bound to suffer in the 
long term, is of no concern to the practitioners of communal politics.

Afzal Guru, who was put behind the bars in the case of attack on 
Parliament on 13th December 2001, was awarded death sentence by the 
apex court. The primary investigation done in this case is faulty and 
a lot of this is based on the confession of Guru himself. That the 
confession was extracted under extreme torture goes without saying. A 
media trial of Guru was also conducted by the police. All the courts 
trying him, exonerated him of the charges under POTA, and did point 
out that he was not part of any terrorist out fit, but retained the 
death sentence primarily because of the of his confession. He was 
also not given adequate legal assistance. One of the reasons for 
awarding the death sentence is to quench the 'collective conscience' 
of the nation! That speaks volumes about the nature of the judgment. 
The hanging of Maqbool Butt in 1984 had triggered the intensification 
of militancy in Kashmir. Surely this hanging based on the weak case 
will have adverse impact on the peace process in Kashmir. But 
meanwhile RSS combine is going hammer and tongs, demanding the 
hanging of Guru and they are all out to make the communal currency 
out of this. Today President is having two set of petitions on his 
table, one requesting clemency and retrial, and other baying for the 
blood of this Kashmiri.

Two significant but under projected reports which were released 
during 2006 and went unnoticed were the one by the India People's 
Tribunal (IPT) on Communalism in Orissa and the other by the 
Secretary General of UN, of an initiative called Alliance of 
Civilizations. The IPT in Orissa under the leadership of Retired 
Chief Justice of Kerala High Court Justice Usha found that the rights 
of minorities are being violated with impunity in Orissa. The RSS 
combine organizations; Bajarang Dal, VHP and Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram 
are intimidating them and spreading hate against them with state 
acting as the onlooker. The major themes on which the assault is 
being sustained relates to the bogey of conversions by Christian 
missionaries and the anti National character of Muslim minorities. 
The state of affairs has been termed as very alarming by the tribunal 
requiring the intervention of Central Government and the National 
Human rights commission. These minorities are living under fear and 
the basic norm on which the democracy sustains, the security of 
minorities is being violated with impunity. The tribunal urges for 
the restoration of communal peace through affirmative interventions.
Communal poison in India draws a lot from the worldwide propagation 
of 'Clash of Civilizations' by the power that is and the acts of 
attacks against the countries where the large population is Muslim. 
UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was a helpless witness when the US 
launched aggressions after aggression on the West Asian countries, 
Iraq, Afghanistan and than again Iraq, killing close to a million 
people and destroying the region. Kofi Annan saw the bypassing of 
United Nations when this entire rampage was being conducted under the 
banner of Clash of Civilizations. The High level initiative with 
representatives from various countries has put out a brilliant report 
(http://www.unaoc.org/repository/report.htm), which points out that 
there is essentially an alliance between different civilizations, 
which are not hierarchical but supplementary to each other. The 
inference is that any attempt to demonize Islam, civilization in 
Muslim countries is basically motivated by politics and has nothing 
to do with the norms of civilization or religion as such. The report 
urges the powers and people around the World to stand up to the 
positive heritage of civilizations and to restore the amity between 
people cutting across all the countries, religions and regions. One 
knows that UN has very limited appeal as it has been emasculated by 
the global bully. Even its moral appeal is not heeded to by the 
possessor of brute power, as it does not command any battalions. Will 
the conscience of the humanity rise to bypass the might of US to 
restore the humane values, which global human society have been 
developing over a period of centuries and have currently come under 
the cloud due to the politics adorning the cloak of religious 
identity that remains a million dollar question.

As the year comes to the end the Kangaroo court set up by the 
occupation army in Iraq gave death penalty to Saddam Hussein. This is 
the last ditch attempt by US to save its face in the light of debacle 
of its West Asia policy to control the oil wealth in the World. This 
mighty nation is playing the villain to the global peace, being the 
biggest violator of human rights. While Saddam a tyrant, was helped 
all through by Western powers in his policies of war against Iran, 
atrocities against Shias and Kurds, the present judicial 
assassination of Saddam, murder by proxy, is likely to worsen the 
communal strife and intensify the strife in Iraq, and the bogus claim 
of bringing Democracy to Iraq will remain a hollow claim only as 
neither can democracy be imported nor can it be imposed from the top.
The year 2007 is likely to see the return of hard core Hindutva and 
Ram Temple on the agenda of BJPs' electoral appeal. As such also BJP 
is more comfortable with identity issues as they have bigger emotive 
appeal. The issues related to the secular interests of communities 
don't cut much ice with their scheme of things. It remains to be seen 
as to how much successful this will be in wooing the voters to the 
BJP kitty of votes. It is desperately trying to create more Ayodhya 
models like in Bhopal, Kamaal Maula Masjid or in Karnataka Baba Budan 
Giri Dargah. It is bent to use terrorism, Afzal Guru case also for 
frightening the voters into its fold. The propaganda is shaping in 
such a way that sections of population do get swayed by these make 
believe issues, as such the place of such issues is very limited as 
far as livelihood is concerned. But creating a fear consolidates the 
communities, it is likely to give some benefits to BJP electoral 
campaign.

The optimism for the future of democratic values lies in the rising 
resistance to the assertions of sectarianism, amongst a section of 
people who are becoming more aware of the threat posed by the 
communal fascism. Various secular action groups, peace activists and 
minority rights groups are making their presence felt through their 
campaigns and deliberations. A good deal of literature against these 
threats is coming into circulation. This and the visible campaigns 
against injustice, through diverse activities will surly work towards 
a society with amity and peace as the core values.

______


[6]

http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-yogi-adityanath-wants-to-do-modi.html
Communalism Watch
6 January 2006

'defiant' mp, 'pliant' party !

HOW YOGI ADITYANATH WANTS TO DO A MODI ?

by Subhash Gatade

What was common between the itinerary of Ashok Singhal, International 
President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad;   Major General Bharat Keshar 
Singh, President of Vishwa Hindu Mahasangh; the Shankaracharya of 
Puri Nishalananda, Jagadguru Madhwacharya Shri Vishesh Teerth ( 
Udupi), Jagadguru Ramananandacharya Vasudevacharya and Subramaniam 
Swamy during the last week of December. Interestingly all of them 
were part of a three day Virat Hindu Mahasammelan (22-24 th Dec 2006) 
held at Gorakhpur, UP which was formally organised to deliberate on 
the 'Challenges Before Hinduism'.

Ofcourse the way the deliberations unfolded it was clear to even a 
layperson that it had nothing to do with   challenges before Hinduism 
- neither of the spiritual or the temporal kind - rather it was a 
gathering to chalk out a political programme couched in religious 
parlance to further the agenda of Hindutva - the strategy of the 
political Hinduism.

An important feature of this Mahasammelan was that it was organised 
parallel to the National Executive Meeting of the BJP at 
Lucknow.Interestingly while the media was more focussed on the 
deliberations of the National Executive meeting or was busy reporting 
about intraparty squabbles , not many people even deemed it necessary 
to report or comment on this massive gathering of people in the heart 
of Eastern UP which was rather queering the pitch for the new battles 
lying ahead before Hindutva.And the moving force behind this jamboree 
of non-descript Sadhus or Hindutva politicos was a young BJP MP Yogi 
Adityanath from Gorakhpur who also happens to be the anointed 
successor to the Goraksha Peeth based in Gorakhpur itself

The Mahasammelan/congregation not only called for declaration of 
Nepal as 'Hindu State and restoration of monarchy there but   also 
resolved for the construction of a grand temple in Ayodhya, and 
"liberation" of the Kashi and Mathura shrines, ban on cow 
slaughter.It also criticised the Indian Government stand on Nepal and 
said no political party was taking Maoists' activities seriously.It 
also deliberated on the 'pathetic' condition of the Hindus in Nepal 
and the alleged activities of ISI of Pakistan there which was 
supposedly spreading its network to create disturbance in India.

And while the BJP seemed to waver initially on the agenda of 
construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, in its executive meeting, the 
Mahasammelan which was in a sense a show of defiance by its own party 
MP, seemed to focus itself on these very agendas over which the BJP 
seemed to be going soft because of political exigencies.It is a 
different matter that at the end of its meeting the Party itself 
discovered the 'merits' in raising this issue and go whole hog riding 
on a rabid Hindutva agenda.

Question naturally arises whether the 'party with a difference' which 
wears discipline on its sleeves has decided to tail its own 'defiant' 
MP or it is part of a wider gameplan of the Hindutva brigade which 
has seen for itself the 'success' of this model in this part of UP - 
a model which has the potential of making it another 'Hindutva 
laboratory'.

It was a marker of things to come that when Gujarat was burning in 
the aftermath of Godhra with the fire directed at minorities 
Gorakhpur was not far behind. Many parallel instances of terrorizing 
the minorities , razing their houses to ground all under the 
leadership of this 'firebrand' leader had come to light. Loud 
proclamation of turning Gorakhpur into Godhra-Gujarat were also 
heard. In the post-Godhra bandh  a leader of Hindu Mahasabha and 
considered as the right hand man of Yogi in his speech had declared, 
" If only Yogiji permits us we will repay a hundred per each."

Looking at the fact that the media in this part of UP went all out to 
'make' the Mahasammelan a success and the feeble opposition which 
could be gathered to all those hate speeches and gameplans of the 
majoritarian forces, the prospects for a 'Gujarat' like situation 
emerging in this part of the area cannot be ruled out.Not a single 
writeup critical to the whole jamboree was given space in any of the 
local editions of the different newspapers. It is worth noting that 
one such newspapers which is an extension of the business empire of a 
new tycoon, literally had four pages of its supplements brought out 
in saffron colour.

Of course the media which had bent over backwards to please Yogi 
could not be expected to tell the populace that Major General Bharat 
Keshar Singh, the International President of the Vishwa Hindu 
Mahasangh, has been closely associated with King Gyanendra. In fact 
he was badly thrashed by Nepalese people opposed to Monarchy during 
the tumultous days when Nepal was taking a turn to the better. All 
the major newspapers in Nepal had duly printed photographs of the 
incident then when his car had met with an accident because of rash 
driving and he had tried to misbehave with the victims themselves.

The local media was also not expected to expose how Goraksha Peethams 
landed estates in Nepal are also expected to come under scanner under 
the new dispensation. In a yet unconfirmed news it is also learnt 
that a squad of Maoists had duly visited the estates and demanded 
levy from them.

What is so significant about Yogi which has helped make him 
connoiseur of all eyes in the Hindutva brigade despite his formal 
defiance at times. It is clear that Yogi Adityanath who became the 
youngest legislator in the 12 th Lok Sabha at 26 ( 1998) and got 
reelected twice after that has helped change the situation in and 
around Gorakhpur in a qualitative manner. It is the unique nature of 
his intervention which has on the one hand tried to carve out 
alliances cutting across castes lines thru' raising their economic 
demands and on the other hand emerging as a 'Hindutva Robinhood' who 
only could redeem the Hindus of their sufferings has made it possible 
for him to widen base.In this process he has been greatly helped by 
his long association with the Goraksha Peetham.

A key feature of the Hindutva experiment furthered by Yogi is to 
always keep Muslims in focus and win over the dalits and backwards to 
his side. In order to organise the Dalits against the Muslims he has 
made it a policy to interfere in all small or big quarrels between 
them and endeavour to paint it in communal black. There are no two 
opinions that Yogi has succeeded in instigating anti-Muslim feelings 
from Gorakhpur, Deoria, Siddharthnagar to Baharaich . The 
geographical layout of Gorakhpur has also helped him in this. At one 
end it abuts on Ayodhya and on the other on Nepal. Like the RSS the 
bogey of ISI   training camps on Indo-Nepal border  is also raised by 
Yogi. Every day there is a plethora of propaganda in papers about 
increase in the ISI activities through the madarsas on the Indo-Nepal 
border 'or again 'The clandestine relations between the ISI-Maoist 
.Needless to say all based on figments of their feverish imagination.

October 2005 witnessed a communal flareup in Mau based in Eastern UP 
on the eve of the Durga Pooja celebrations. It saw killing of nine 
innocents apart from the hundreds of wounded people.While the rest of 
the world came to know of the controversial role played by the local 
MLA Mukhtar Ansari during the riots or the lethargy exhibited by the 
law and order machinery while controlling the situation, the 
aggressive role played by Yogi Adityanath was not much talked about.

In their report on the Mau situation after the riots, 'Saajhi Duniya' 
a group of intellectual and social activists rightly noted 
(<http://www.sabrang.com> www.sabrang.com) this fact :.

" Whatever is happening in Purvanchal is occasionally discussed but 
there is no serious initiative to analyse the same. For last one 
decade the aggressive activities of heir of Goraksha Peeth and BJP MP 
Yogi Adityanath to organize Hindus was clearly reflected in the riot 
in Mau. During the last decade the Yogi has made this entire area, 
specially the area known as Gorakhpur during the times of Britishers, 
his laboratory. ...

The maximum influence of the Yogi is in the 7 districts of Gorakhpur 
Division (Gorakhpur, Deoria, Kushinagar, Mahrajganj) and Basti 
Division (Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Siddharthanagar). Now he is 
spreading his wings in Azamgarh Division. Mau is a part of this 
division.

It is really surprising that the 'Yogi Phenomenon' which represents a 
significant addition to the Hindutva arsenal and which has helped 
further   its hate agenda in a 'creative' manner has not received the 
proper attention it deserves.

It has been widely reported how Narendra Modi was the star attraction 
in the National Executive Meeting of BJP. The applause he received 
surpassed even the reaction to Party President Rajnath Singh's 
arrival. One does not know whether Modi knows or not that a serious 
competitor to his 'throne' is slowly emerging in the Parivar itself - 
a competitor who wants to imitate him in making his zone of influence 
the second citadel of Hindutva.


______


[7]

The Telegraph
January 06, 2007

DIPLOMATS MISS GOLF AS INDIA, PAKISTAN BICKER

by Bharat Bhushan

New Delhi, Jan. 5: Is India really ready to trust Pakistan with a 
joint mechanism on Kashmir when it does not even trust the presence 
of its diplomats in Noida and Gurgaon?

The trust deficit between the two countries is so huge that they 
regularly tail each other's diplomats, restrict their movements, 
harass their family members and always seem to be looking for 
opportunities to show who can be more cussed towards the other.

Three months ago, India had indicated to the Pakistan High Commission 
in Delhi that its diplomats could not go to the adjoining towns of 
Gurgaon and Noida. Informally, they were allowed to go there till 
Diwali last year. Soon thereafter, they were told to take permission 
each time they needed to go there.

Pakistani diplomats are members of golf clubs in both Noida and 
Gurgaon. They claim that their families also like to visit the malls 
and the cinemas there. So Pakistan High Commission apparently asked 
the Indian foreign ministry to reconsider its decision or else it 
would also have to take similar action.

When Delhi did not reconsider its decision for nearly three months, 
Pakistan responded by a tit-for-tat measure. It restricted Indian 
diplomats to Islamabad - asking them to henceforth seek permission if 
they wanted to visit the twin city of Rawalpindi or the nearby hill 
station of Murree, where India owns a guesthouse used by its 
diplomatic staff in Islamabad.

The latest round of spy vs spy began in August last year with 
Pakistan declaring Indian visa counsellor Deepak Kaul persona 
non-grata for "indulging in practices incompatible to his status" as 
a diplomat. Kaul was allegedly caught by Pakistan while receiving 
some documents from a Pakistani source in the mid-point restaurant on 
the Islamabad-Lahore Highway.

India responded within hours and expelled the political counsellor in 
the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, Syed Muhammad Rafique Ahmed, 
also for "activities incompatible with his diplomatic status".

Both India and Pakistan regularly post intelligence personnel in 
their respective missions under the garb of diplomats. However, both 
sides usually know the identities of such spooks.

After Kaul's expulsion, India also imposed a new requirement on 
Pakistani diplomats posted in Delhi - it mandated that each time they 
travelled by road to Pakistan they would have to seek prior 
permission. Earlier, the requirement was only to "inform" the foreign 
ministry. Pakistan did the same.

Then followed the Gurgaon and Noida restrictions. India apparently 
said it was willing to allow access to Gurgaon but only if Pakistanis 
allowed Indian diplomats to also travel to Taxila and Hasan Abdal 
(where Gurdwara Panja Sahib is situated) in addition to Rawalpindi 
and Murree.

Islamabad rejected the demand - Taxila is next to Wah Cantonment, 
where its ordnance factories are situated.

India apparently suggested that it might even restrict the Pakistani 
diplomats to the precincts of New Delhi. The Pakistanis pointed out 
that Islamabad also had two parts - Urban Islamabad and Rural 
Islamabad - and that they would retaliate by restricting Indian 
diplomats to urban Islamabad.

Ultimately, the movement of Indian diplomats has been restricted to 
Islamabad (both urban and rural) and that of Pakistani diplomats to 
Delhi (including old Delhi).

All this has happened while intensive back-channel diplomacy was 
going on between the two countries for reaching some sort of working 
formula to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio.

One of the measures being proposed is a joint consultative mechanism 
or even joint management for the two Kashmirs - on the Indian side 
and on the Pakistani side.

The question that is being asked in this context now is: What do such 
proposals mean when we don't trust our diplomats to travel even 40 km 
outside their respective diplomatic missions?

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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), 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.