SACW | May 5-6, 2007 | Sri Lanka: retrogressive move / Bangladesh-Pakistan: Democracy's ills & cures /India: 1857 / Gujarat's encounter killings, Jaipur attack investigation ; VHPA ; Shiv Sena and Laine's book

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | May 5-6, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2400 - Year 9

[1]  Sri Lanka Freedom Party's Breathtaking 
Proposals on Constitutional Reform (Rohan 
Edrisinha)
       + UK: Temple's alleged links to rebels (on BBC)
[2]  Democracy's ills & cures (I. A. Rehman)
[3]  India: Gujarat's shameful 'encounter' killings (Praful Bidwai)
[4]  India: 1857, a year of communal unity (Mridula Mukherjee)
[5]  India: Fact Finding Team Visits Jaipur to 
Investigate Attack on Pastor (Press Release)
[6]  USA: Smear Campaign by Vishwa Hindu Parishad 
Amercia (Press Release by IACP)
[7]  India - Shiv Sena campaign on James Laine : 
The power of books  (Editorial, Economic Times)
[8]  India: Sajjan Kumar and Delhi's 1984 
Anti-Sikh Riots (Letters, Economic and Political 
Weekly)
[9]  Upcoming Events - India:  Gujarat: Muktnad: Anhad Yuva Karwan

____



[1]

groundviews.org
May 5, 2007

THE SRI LANKA FREEDOM PARTY'S BREATHTAKING PROPOSALS ON CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

by Rohan Edrisinha
Faculty of Law, University of Colombo
and Centre for Policy Alternatives

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party has a new approach to 
negotiated settlement. It goes like this in a 
hypothetical negotiation regarding a salary 
dispute between employer and employee. Employees 
ABC earn a salary of Rs 10000 per month and go on 
strike demanding a higher pay. Employer X states 
that he is committed to a negotiated settlement, 
appeals to Employees ABC to return to work, and 
offers them an all inclusive salary of Rs 5000 
per month, less than even their previous salary 
raise which gave them Rs 7500 per month.

The SLFP Proposals to the All Party Conference 
announced on 30 April are as outrageous as the 
offer of the employer in the example cited above. 
Yet it claims that that the proposals are those 
"through which a lasting and honourable solution 
to the ethnic issue (sic) is to be realized." 
Such a astounding claim for a set of proposals 
which are 13th Amendment Minus, Minus, with 
respect to the ethnic conflict and which are 
potentially dangerous for democracy, good 
governance and the existence of independent 
institutions, demonstrates that those responsible 
for the proposals are completely out of touch 
with the realities of constitutional reform for 
conflict resolution, and also unaware or simply 
oblivious to the slow but gradual progress that 
has been made in the constitutional discourse of 
the country relating to the need to create 
mechanisms that are independent and effective in 
the promotion of principles of good governance.

THE UNIT OF DEVOLUTION
The unit of devolution is THE most difficult 
issue to deal with in any negotiated settlement. 
This is because since the 1970s, nearly all Tamil 
political parties have called for the merger of 
the northern and eastern provinces. People may 
disagree on the historical justification for a 
Tamil homeland or the reasons for the change in 
the demographic composition in the east in the 
past hundred odd years, but whether we like it or 
not THE first "article of faith" of the Tamil 
political parties is the merger of the two 
provinces. A solution that can have a chance of 
success must address this issue and not avoid it, 
as the SLFP proposals have done. The merger was 
probably the most discussed aspect of both the 
Indo-Lanka Accord and the Thirteenth Amendment to 
the Constitution. The Thimpu Principles of 1985, 
subscribed to by all Tamil parties, referred to a 
merger as did the Oslo Declaration of 2002. The 
founder of the SLMC, M.H.M Ashraff recognized 
that the merger was the pith and substance of 
Tamil aspirations during the Premadasa All Party 
Conference in the early 1990s and worked closely 
with Tamil parties represented at the conference 
to devise mechanisms to protect the rights of the 
Muslim people within a merged north and east. 
Mangala Moonesinghe realized the complexities 
involved as he spearheaded his select committee 
in 1992, when he asked a group of academics to 
devise a structure for the north east that 
"recognized and did not recognize the merger at 
the same time." The merger was confronted and 
addressed by those responsible for the 
Constitution Bill 2000.

Since a joined north and east is so vital to 
Tamil aspirations, Tamil political leaders have 
favoured a larger unit of devolution. The 
district based District Development Councils of 
the early 1980s never really got off the ground. 
The focus of the unit then moved to provinces in 
the mid 1980s and later to regions in the mid 
1990s. There was therefore a consistent trend 
towards a larger unit of devolution for the past 
25 years. It, of course, must not be forgotten 
that some of the more creative constitutional 
proposals of earlier years proposed a larger unit 
of devolution. The Kandyan Sinhalese in their 
constitutional proposals to the Donoughmore 
Commission in 1927 proposed a federal system of 
government based on 3 regions- a merged north and 
east, the Kandyan provinces and a region 
comprising the joined Western and Southern 
provinces. The Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact of 
1957 referred to regional areas, provided that 
the northern province would form one regional 
area, while the east would be divided into one or 
more regional areas with provision for two or 
more regions to amalgamate beyond provincial 
limits.

Even the members of the All Party Experts 
Committee who did not constitute part of the 
majority group accepted the province as the unit 
of devolution. The minority report of H.L. de 
Silva, Gerald Peiris, Gomin Dayasiri and Manohara 
de Silva, and the separate opinion of M.D.D. 
Peiris and K.H.J. Wijedasa, though unequivocally 
opposed to the merger of the northern and eastern 
provinces accepted the province as the basic unit 
of devolution.

Since the introduction of devolution based on 
provinces in 1987, all the main national leaders 
have accepted the provinces as the basic unit of 
devolution. Presidents Jayawardene and Premadasa, 
Sirimavo Bandaranaike in her DPA Presidential 
manifesto of 1988, President Kumaratunga and the 
SLFP she led in the mid 1990s and until last 
year. The debate has been on whether 
constitutional reform should accept a larger unit 
of devolution than the province for the north and 
east of the country. The SLFP led by President 
Mahinda Rajapakse has in its proposals of 2007, 
proposed devolution to the districts and the 
conversion of the present 25 districts into 30 
smaller districts! It has, therefore gone 
backwards, undermined a twenty five year trend 
and raised serious questions about its capacity 
and understanding of the nature of the ethnic 
conflict, its history and evolution, and 
therefore, the SLFP's competence to lead the 
country to a negotiated settlement.

OTHER PROPOSALS WHICH IMPACT UPON THE ETHNIC CONFLICT
The SLFP proposals are retrogressive in a number 
of other respects too. There is a vague, 
ambiguous statement that "the supremacy of 
Parliament and the Executive powers (sic) should 
be safeguarded." Does this mean that Parliament 
can legislate on subjects assigned to the 
districts? Does this mean that the Chief 
Ministers of the Districts and the district 
Executive Committees exercise no executive 
powers? To further confuse the issue of the 
distribution of powers, the proposed Grama Sabhas 
(the fourth tier of government?) will exercise 
executive powers. The provision that the Chief 
Minister shall be appointed by the President with 
the concurrence of the District Council is also 
weaker than the provisions presently in place 
with regard to the Chief Minister of the Province 
in that it appears to grant more power to the 
President.

The President is also granted power to take over 
District Councils if HE IS SATISFIED that there 
is a failure of administration. Here too the 
SLFP's constitutional advisors seem oblivious to 
the consensus reached both in India and Sri Lanka 
during the constitutional reform debate 
1995-2000, that granting such subjective powers 
to the President is fraught with danger and is 
open to abuse.

The proposals on language are a step backwards. 
Under the present Constitution, Sinhala is the 
official language and Tamil an official language, 
while English is the link language. The SLFP 
proposals, by stating that Sinhala and Tamil 
shall be the national languages and "the direct 
link between the two communities," presumably 
repudiates the constitutional status given to 
English as the link language. The proposals are 
also silent on the issue of an official 
language/official languages raising concerns 
about the parity of status of Sinhala and Tamil.

THE SECOND CHAMBER
The proposals for a second chamber demonstrate an 
appalling lack of appreciation of the rationale 
for a second chamber in constitutions which 
provide for devolution of power. The rationale is 
to provide for regional representation at the 
centre to protect devolution of power and 
national unity. The SLFP proposals do not achieve 
this objective, are extremely old-fashioned in 
that the second chamber has limited powers and 
has a large number of nominated members, similar 
to the ineffective Senate that existed in Ceylon 
under the Soulbury Constitution, and will not 
facilitate power sharing at the centre as claimed 
by the proposals.

The proposals provide for a 75 member Senate consisting of
a) 25 members appointed after a parliamentary 
election based on the votes polled by political 
parties, with a cut off point, presumably to 
favour the bigger parties;
b) The 30 district chief ministers;
c) 20 persons appointed by the President.

The composition of the Senate will most likely 
result in weak representation for minority ethnic 
groups, not facilitate the appointment of 
articulate and capable Senators who can 
contribute to the deliberative functions of a 
national legislature, and most dangerous of all, 
provide another forum for presidential patronage. 
To provide for more than a quarter of members to 
be nominated by the country's main political 
actor is, in a twenty first century second 
chamber, mindboggling!

The proposals are not even clear with respect to 
the law making powers of the Senate. The 
proposals limit the power of the Senate in 
relation to not only money Bills, but also 
"matters" affecting national security and 
emergency powers. It is not clear whether other 
Bills have to be passed by the Senate before they 
are enacted into law as the proposals merely 
require "scrutiny and consideration" of Bills by 
the Senate, not approval. The proposals on the 
Senate clearly have an antiquated 1940/50 
Soulbury ethos about them.

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
The proposals under the heading, Forms of 
Government, are again vague and suggest that the 
promise of Mahinda Chinthanaya, to abolish the 
executive presidency, may be conveniently 
forgotten. The proposals affirm a belief in the 
restoration of a parliamentary form of 
government. But then they propose an "indigenous" 
parliamentary executive "having given thought to 
the experiences and traditions of the past"!! 
Furthermore if a consensus to abolish the 
executive presidency cannot be found, the 
executive presidency will continue!!!(Contra 
Mahinda Chinthanaya).
We await a more detailed description of the most 
creative part of the SLFP proposals- an 
indigenous cabinet system based on the 
experiences and traditions of the past!

The proposals on local government reform are 
detailed and confusing. Instead of strengthening 
the third tier of government, they split the 
third tier into two, hardly refer to the crucial 
questions of empowerment, revenue raising powers, 
accountability and checks on increasing central 
government encroachment on local government 
powers and seem more interested in 
nomenclature-grama sabhas, grama seva wasam and 
grama rajaya.

GOOD GOVERNANCE
The SLFP proposals seem to accept the permanent 
emasculation of the Seventeenth Amendment to the 
Constitution. The Seventeenth Amendment was 
introduced to ensure that important institutions 
are independent, depoliticized and not 
constituted by governments in power. Appointments 
to the judiciary, police, public service, the 
Human Rights Commission, Elections Commission and 
other institutions required to act in a 
non-partisan manner were to made under the terms 
of the Seventeenth Amendment. Since 2006, the 
Seventeenth Amendment has been flagrantly 
violated and persons appointed to these 
responsible positions in direct violation of both 
the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

It is significant that there is no mention 
whatsoever of the Seventeenth Amendment or any of 
its mechanisms in the SLFP Proposals. Indeed many 
of the institutions proposed which one would 
expect to have some degree of independence do not 
specify appointment processes to foster 
independence. For example the SLFP proposes two 
Commissions on Land and Water. Both Commissions 
will consist of permanent members to be appointed 
by the central government with district members 
"to be attached where aspects of land and water 
touches (sic) a district/s," to be nominated by 
the relevant District Chief Minister. Such a 
process of selection declares the proposal, 
naively, will enable members of the Commission to 
act independently and free from political 
pressures! The proposed District Ethnic Ombudsman 
will be appointed by the Minister of Justice in 
consultation with the President.

The existing constitutional mechanisms to promote 
independence and multiparty consensus are 
rejected by the SLFP proposals and instead 
mechanisms which it claims will foster 
independence but which experiences from our 
recent past, clearly demonstrate, will promote 
partisanship and political expediency have been 
proposed instead.

The proposals on Fundamental Rights and Human 
Rights contain nothing of substance or 
significance.

CONCLUSION
The SLFP proposals for constitutional reform 2007 
must surely be the most retrogressive set of 
proposals made by any political party, 
organization or group in the last twenty five 
years. They fail to address the core issues both 
in relation to peace and democracy, and in the 
area of constitutional reform for conflict 
resolution offer to the Tamil people and their 
political leadership less than what they already 
have and less than what was offered in the past 
twenty five years. It is almost as if the SLFP's 
constitutional advisors were in a Rip Van Winkle 
slumber for twenty five years before they drafted 
the proposals. But what is more distressing is 
that the Tamil separatists must be chuckling with 
glee. The proposals will provide them with the 
ammunition they need to demonstrate to the Tamil 
people and the international community, that the 
main political party in the government of Sri 
Lanka lacks the understanding, capacity, empathy 
and commitment to accommodate reasonable Tamil 
aspirations and work towards a negotiated 
political settlement with justice for all 
communities within a united Sri Lanka.

o o o o

[See also this report on LTTE funding li,ks with UK based Hindu temple ]

BBC News
3 May 2007

TEMPLE'S ALLEGED LINKS TO REBELS

by Negendram Seevaratnam

Mr Seevaratnam has been suspended during the inquiry
A document leaked to BBC London has revealed that 
a Hindu temple in south London may have possible 
links to a rebel organisation.

The Armulmihu Hindu temple in Tooting has had its 
assets frozen pending an investigation into 
alleged links with the UK banned Tamil Tigers.

The temple's founder has been suspended during the investigation.

However temple members fear children in Sri Lanka 
who rely on their aid will die as a result of the 
ban.

If I am not associated, how can I disassociate?
Negendram Seevaratnam, the temple's founder

Organisers say the temple raises nearly £500,000 
each year, some of which goes to help orphans in 
Sri Lanka following the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

But the government has suspended the temple's 
founder, Negendram Seevaratnam, because it 
alleges he failed to disassociate himself from 
the banned group.

Mr Seevaratnam said: "When you say 'disassociate 
yourself', there's a presumption that I was 
already associated. Now if I am not associated, 
how can I disassociate?"

The Tamil Tigers have been a banned organisation 
in the UK since 2001 because of what UK 
authorities believe are its links to terrorism.

The Tigers are fighting for a separate homeland 
in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

Ministers said they would not comment on the 
investigation into the Hindu temple as it was 
ongoing.

______


[2]

Dawn
May 04, 2007

DEMOCRACY'S ILLS & CURES

by I. A. Rehman

RECENT developments in Bangladesh offer much food 
for thought to students of politics, especially 
those who are still not prepared to abandon the 
democratic system. Not even in South Asia.

The melodrama scripted by the self-perpetuating 
caretaker regime, when it condemned two former 
primer ministers and leaders of the two largest 
parties to exile, was based on an illegality of a 
most bizarre variety and was bound to end in a 
farce. Apart from the fact that the begums were 
awarded a punishment without a judicial verdict 
against them, no law allowed the regime authority 
to banish a citizen or to disallow one's return 
to one's home country. Forcing a citizen into 
exile is just not possible, except for legally 
sustainable extradition to face criminal charges 
abroad.

Reliance on 'precedents' from the history of 
Pakistan was futile. The Pakistan regimes of 1958 
and 1999 had no legal authority to exile Iskander 
Mirza and the Sharif family. The former was 
dethroned by his erstwhile protégé and fellow 
conspirator and, preferring discretion over 
valour, he accepted banishment instead of 
suffering under his supplanter.

Likewise, the Sharifs could not be sent into 
exile under any normal law. They were dispatched 
to Saudi Arabia under an extra-constitutional 
bargain. The Saudis' plea for clemency to the 
ousted prime minister was accepted subject to 
their readiness to provide him and family lodging 
and board. Even otherwise it is difficult to 
prove their exile is involuntary, although 
attempts by the regime to show that the Sharifs 
agreed to banishment have not been conclusive. 
The government may indeed have chosen to keep an 
unlawful deal under wraps.

If the quick about-turn by the Bangladesh 
military puts an end to the theory that political 
rivals can be thrown aside by summarily exiling 
them, some good may again have resulted from 
evil. The episode will, however, be remembered - 
firstly, as yet another manifestation of military 
establishments' boundless arrogance if they are 
offered evidence of public approval of their 
unlawful edicts, secondly, it offers hope to 
politicians who do not wholly alienate their 
people.

But the Dhaka regime's operation 'Exile the 
Women' is only a minor sub-plot in the main play 
that has for its theme democracy's ills and the 
various prescriptions for its recovery. These 
ills have bedevilled almost all countries that 
emerged from colonial subjugation after the 
Second World War, but at the moment we are 
concerned only with South Asia.

A brief review of South Asia's history over the 
past six decades would suggest that the 
democratic system accepted as an accompaniment to 
independence has faced the following problems:

* The founding fathers of the new South Asian 
states adopted a narrow definition of democracy, 
choosing to govern in the name of the people 
without involving them in the process of 
governance. That undermined the rulers' capacity 
to meet the challenges of diversity, except to 
some extent in the case of India, though there 
too without empowering the masses. There the 
dominant elite that had led the fight for 
independence remained united and thus saved the 
democratic edifice from collapsing. Elsewhere, 
the comparable elites split and the states chose 
to rely on extra-democratic props, such as belief 
(e.g., Pakistan and Sri Lanka) or 
authoritarianism (e.g., Pakistan and, later on, 
Bangladesh).

* Bad governance quickly eroded the political 
goodwill gathered by parties/leaders during the 
freedom struggle. Their alienation from the 
people was aggravated by their tendency to invoke 
undemocratic means, such as poll-rigging or 
constitutional immunity to beat off the 
challengers, and to suppress political opposition 
mostly by foul means, and their indulgence in 
visible corruption. The masses, who in any case 
had experienced little of democracy, were 
frustrated to such an extent that they could be 
persuaded to hail any destroyer of the democratic 
system if elementary conditions of law and order 
were secured. (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and to some 
extent Sri Lanka).

Political parties / leaders forced out of office 
before completing their term became impatient to 
make up their losses (caused by ouster from 
power) and were more intolerant of political 
dissent, thus generating a cycle of changes 
through extra-constitutional means. In Pakistan, 
all parties in power have given priority to the 
decimation of the opposition. In Bangladesh the 
last BNP government had so huge a majority that 
it could, in the words of a perceptive 
journalist, afford to be democratic. But it made 
as much a mess as a Pakistan government had made 
of its heavy mandate.* Political parties/leaders 
who found themselves unequal to the demands of 
multiparty democracy sought refuge in theories of 
one-party rule and, in the process, rendered 
their own parties redundant. No political 
apparatus could qualify as democratic in the 
absence of dynamic political parties. (Pakistan 
and Bangladesh in the seventies)

The consensus that the democratic system has not 
worked, at least not as well as the people 
expected, has led to several curative proposals. 
These have included: preparation of devices to 
bring governance in harmony with the genius and 
culture of the people; open military rule; 
military rule under a civilian mask; installation 
of caretaker regimes to hold fair elections and 
ensure smooth transition from one elected 
government to another; and legislation to make 
political parties democratic and responsible. 
None of these recipes has been fully effective.

Pakistan began by abandoning democracy as 
generally understood in favour of a democracy 
conditioned by belief when it adopted the 
Objectives Resolution. In Bangladesh a similar 
deviation, though not grounded in belief, took 
the form of BAKSAL.

Both experiments are taking their toll of 
democratic norms, to a hugely greater degree in 
Pakistan than in Bangladesh. In both countries 
however, the military has been assuming the role 
of superior political theorists, authors of 
constitutions, and the final arbiters of what is 
in the national interest and what is not. 
Military interventions have thoroughly muddied 
the democratic stream in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The first military ruler of Pakistan was the last 
man in uniform to realise the danger of the 
military's involvement with politics. He quickly 
gave his regime a civilian face and tried to be a 
new father of the nation with a new gospel of 
basic democracy. He failed on all counts.

The second military ruler was too busy in 
planning for East Bengal's independence to alter 
his predecessor's scheme of controlled democracy.

Realising that military rule was subject to the 
law of diminishing returns, Pakistan's third 
military ruler increased the military's role in 
governance besides suppressing political parties 
and uplifting the religio-political groups. The 
last military ruler further reduced the 
civilian-political role in governance. Similar 
graphs can be drawn for Bangladesh under its two 
long-serving military rulers.

These military interventions have pushed Pakistan 
and Bangladesh much farther away from democracy 
than could be accomplished by all the politicians 
put together, including those who merely provided 
the entrenched establishment a short-life facade. 
No elaborate discussion is needed to prove that 
military or military-led rules have not succeed 
in restoring a sick democracy to health and the 
alternative models of governance advanced by them 
do not deserve the label of palatable 
alternatives.

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have emphasised the 
role of caretaker regimes for holding elections. 
Such regimes set up in Pakistan in 1990, 1993 and 
1996 were not accepted as completely 
non-partisan. And the latest phase of 
Bangladesh's travail began when a determined 
effort was made to manipulate the installation of 
a regime's favourites as neutral caretakers. The 
principal lesson from these experiments is that a 
constitutional provision for elections under a 
neutral authority alone cannot guarantee fair 
polls unless the establishment can be persuaded 
to allow the first step towards democracy to be 
taken without its interference.

The contribution towards democratic governance 
made by Pakistan's Political Parties Order is 
notional. What can be gained by asking political 
parties to draft their constitutions, hold 
elections and render accounts if they are not 
allowed to conduct political activity? What 
platform a political party should carve for 
itself, what should bind the followers of a party 
together, and how a party can retain its 
following during inter-election periods cannot be 
regulated by law. This can only be achieved 
through regular political work.

If the remedies prescribed by three generations 
of healers have not enabled a large part of South 
Asia's population to taste democracy, what can be 
done? The only points of consensus are : (i) that 
there is no point in wasting time on efforts to 
find alternative models; and (ii) that corruption 
in politics cannot be dealt with through 
deviations from democratic functioning.

Besides, governance has suffered as a result of 
depoliticisation of society. There are no 
quick-fix solutions. The Bangladesh polity is 
young and normal politics could enable it to 
regain its balance within a short period. 
Pakistan is a chronic patient of the disease of 
authoritarianism and its recovery will take 
longer.

The essential ingredients of an effective mixture 
for it include: commitment to democracy as it is 
understood in the world, free political activity, 
promotion of a revolution in political parties 
from below, a consensus to shut the back door to 
power, respect for the principle of division of 
power, and institutionalised framework for civil 
society's interaction with the state. All these 
are raw ideas and practice alone will season them 
and reveal their genuineness and efficacy.

_____


[3]

The News
May 5, 2007

GUJARAT'S SHAMEFUL 'ENCOUNTER' KILLINGS

by Praful Bidwai
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is 
aresearcher and peace and human-rights activist 
based in Delhi

From time to time, the Indian public is offered 
traumatic evidence that not all's well with its 
greatest gain -- democracy. The latest instance 
is the Gujarat government's chilling admission in 
the Supreme Court that its police killed a man 
(Sohrabuddin Shaikh) in cold blood in November 
2005 and passed it off as an "encounter" with a 
Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist.

The Modi government, notorious for its scant 
respect for legality, had no choice but to admit 
to the disgraceful killing once its own senior 
police officers investigated the case and 
concluded that three elite Indian Police Service 
officers, including D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian 
and Dinesh M N, were guilty of the crime.

Some other gruesome facts have since come to 
light. The same policemen also killed Shaikh's 
wife Kausar Bi and police informer Tulsiram 
Prajapati. The motive was to destroy evidence by 
physically eliminating witnesses to Shaikh's 
detention and interrogation. This only increases 
the officers' culpability.

Kausar Bi was reportedly raped and then poisoned 
to death. She was cremated in Vanzara's presence 
and her ashes scattered over his farm. 
Prajapati's killing took place barely three weeks 
after Inspector-General Geeta Johri had concluded 
that Shaikh had been killed in a staged 
"encounter".

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which rules in 
Gujarat, has tried to brazen out the episode by 
claiming that Shaikh had 60 cases pending against 
him. However, Shaikh was never accused of 
terrorism. Nor does Indian law permit 
extra-judicial killings, no matter how grave the 
crime.

Yet, the Gujarat government demands credit for 
arresting the three IPS officers. It wants to 
resist a central police inquiry into the episode. 
It's a measure of the moral and political depths 
to which the BJP has sunk that it should advance 
such arguments. If the BJP thinks that it can 
take shelter behind "patriotism" for fighting 
"terrorism", it's profoundly mistaken. People 
know that patriotism is the last refuge of the 
scoundrel.

The episode raises several disturbing issues. It 
points to the continuing vitiation of Gujarat's 
political climate, five years after Independent 
India's worst state-aided butchery of Muslims. It 
exposes the extreme criminalisation and 
communalisation of its top police officers, which 
alone explains why Vanzara became a celebrity as 
an "encounter specialist" and enjoyed impunity 
from scrutiny. And it reveals a nexus between 
anti-terrorist operations and perverse forms of 
"patriotism".

Vanzara was a highly politicised officer close to 
both Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 
Home Minister Amit Shah. Vanzara could commit any 
number of crimes, including using faked Andhra 
Pradesh car number-plates, abducting Shaikh and 
Kausar Bi from a Hyderabad-Sangli bus, taking 
them to Ahmedabad, and using a stolen motorcycle 
to stage an "encounter". Each step had illegality 
writ large on it.

Vanzara is responsible for 13 "encounter" 
killings -- faked on the specious ground that 
"terrorists" were plotting to kill Modi. Vanzara 
obviously took special delight in murdering 
people and in boasting that "the [Modi] 
government is ours", and that "there will be no 
evidenceŠ to ever nail us because I am smarter 
than the human rights people."

Vanzara was "well-connected" all the way to the 
top. He even got his brother, a forest department 
officer, posted to the state Human Rights 
Commission, so no complaints against him would 
see the light of day.

Vanzara comes from a dirt-poor semi-nomadic 
tribal family. He was supported by his village 
neighbours -- 60 per cent of them Muslim -- 
through school. But he soon morphed into a 
viciously communal, crafty operator. He now owns 
a 20-room three-storeyed mansion, and reportedly 
has investments exceeding Rs150 crores. His is a 
pathologically disturbed personality.

Yet, there's no way that Vanzara could have 
indulged in fake encounter killings without 
Modi's active support and collusion. Various 
anti-terrorism police outfits can operate in 
India the way they do only because of support 
from the highest quarters, including access to 
huge amounts of money, with which to fund 
"special" operations and patronise informants.

Typically, such informants are hardened criminals 
keen to settle scores with their rivals. They 
exert a deeply corrosive influence on the police. 
Often, the line of demarcation between the police 
and criminals gets blurred.

Anti-terrorist police, citing "secrecy", defy all 
accountability and become a law unto themselves. 
That's the story of countless "encounter 
specialists" -- from Maharashtra (Praful Bhonsle 
and Daya Shetty), Delhi (Rajbir Singh), and 
elsewhere, who have all been disgraced because of 
corruption and resort to extortion and 
intimidation.

But a difference sets Vanzara aside. This is his 
repeated claim to deshbhakti, love for the 
nation, and the depiction of gory killings as 
"patriotic acts". Indeed, Vanzara turned 
deshbhakti into a synonym for fake encounters. He 
would commandeer official vehicles, saying he 
needed them for deshbhakti. He attached a sacred 
or mystical significance to his murderous 
ventures.

The link between murder and an odious concept of 
nationalism constitutes the most frightening 
aspect of Vanzara's operations. This concept of 
nationalism separates the nation from, indeed 
opposes it to, society and human rights. It 
justifies the snuffing out of life on mere 
suspicion, sometimes not even that.

Surely, Vanzara knew that most of those whom he 
killed in "encounters" were not terrorists. 
Typically, they only possessed primitive 
country-made kattas and tamanchas.

It would be a huge surprise if Vanzara didn't 
concoct "plots" targeted at killing Modi -- to 
curry favour with his political boss. Vanzara 
certainly threatened many POTA detainees with 
"encounter deaths" unless they signed 
confessional statements. This was convincingly 
established by two families from Gujarat during a 
citizens' hearing on POTA, which I attended two 
years ago.

Vanzara and those who shielded, mollycoddled or 
encouraged him, must be given exemplary 
punishment. They must be prosecuted by officers 
of high integrity for direct and constructive 
responsibility. It's not enough to punish the 
police alone; their political masters too must be 
brought to book. The prosecution must establish 
their communal bias, and secure severe punishment 
for it.

Indian courts must condemn the deshbhakti 
proposition and enunciate a clear legal doctrine, 
which criminalises the equation of patriotism 
with murder. Far too many crimes have been 
committed against innocent citizens in our part 
of the world in the name of the nation, or for 
reasons of state.

These monstrous practices must end. Tolerance for 
them is utterly unworthy of a society that 
aspires to democracy. Democracy loses its meaning 
if the most basic right, the right to life, is 
jeopardised.

A corollary of this is the abrogation of 
obnoxious laws like the Armed Forces (Special 
Powers) Act and Disturbed Areas Act, which not 
only permit security forces to kill suspects, but 
also exempt them from prosecution.

India has seen horrifying examples of such abuse 
in Kashmir. This is now becoming evident in the 
Northeast, and increasingly, in anti-Naxal 
operations in the heart of India, staged by shady 
state-supported outfits like Salwa Judum in 
Chattisgarh.

A final word. Gujarat has witnessed 21 
"encounter" killings in the past three years. It 
is high time the Supreme Court and National Human 
Rights Commission ordered high-level inquiries 
into these, and returned to the virtually 
abandoned task of ensuring justice for the 
long-suffering victims of the Gujarat carnage.

They must stipulate a code of conduct for 
"anti-terrorist operations", and outlaw any abuse 
of state power. Nothing else will meet the ends 
of justice.

_____


[4]

Indian Express
May 04, 2007

1857, A YEAR OF COMMUNAL UNITY

by Mridula Mukherjee

  What is it about 1857 that is still relevant to 
us? The story begins with the mutiny in the 
Bengal Army of the East India Company. The first 
incidents took place at Berhampore and 
Barrackpore in March, and Mangal Pandey became 
the first martyr, when he was executed for 
refusing to use the new Enfield rifle and calling 
upon his fellow soldiers to rise in revolt. The 
message of rebellion spread from cantonment to 
cantonment, and on the morning of May 11, the 
sepoys from Meerut, who had killed their European 
officers and risen in revolt the previous day, 
entered Delhi. They asked Bahadur Shah II to take 
over the leadership of the revolt. With this one 
act, the mutiny was transformed into a 
revolutionary war.

Bahadur Shah, who had been living as a pensioner 
of the British, though initially reluctant, soon 
agreed to be the symbolic leader of the revolt. 
He was proclaimed the Emperor of India and wrote 
letters to all the rulers and chiefs of India to 
join a confederacy of Indian states to overthrow 
and replace the British regime. The revolt spread 
like wildfire across Awadh and Rohilkhand, the 
Doab and Bundelkhand, East Punjab (present-day 
Haryana), Central India and Bihar. Peasants, 
zamindars, taluqdars, maulvis and pundits, 
artisans, day labourers, all were to be found in 
the ranks of the rebels. The immediate cause of 
the mutiny was the introduction of cartridges 
greased with the fat of beef and pork, one 
repugnant to Hindus and the other to Muslims, 
which had to be opened by biting before loading.

The spontaneous support among large sections 
showed that discontent with British rule was 
widespread. It seemed that the British had 
successfully alienated many different groups and 
classes of Indian society. The largest support 
came from the peasants (soldiers also being 
peasants in uniform), who were victims of 
ever-increasing revenue and rent demands and 
caught in the web of debt. The British had also 
annoyed the taluqdars of Avadh by usurping their 
rights over land, as they had the royal family 
and the courtiers and their dependants by 
usurping the kingdom. The extinction of many 
royal and feudal families, big and small, in the 
previous decades had caused great hardship to 
many who were patronised by them: musicians, 
artists, poets, maulvis, pundits, astrologers, 
religious figures, artisans, palace servants, 
craftsmen, and the like.

It is not surprising that the leadership of the 
revolt came primarily from feudal chiefs, such as 
Nana Saheb, a descendant of the peshwa, who drove 
the British out of Kanpur, his deputies Tantia 
Tope and Azimullah, Hazrat Mahal, the Begum of 
Avadh, Kunwar Singh, a ruined zamindar of 
Jagdishpur near Arrah. The most prominent in this 
category was Lakshmibai, the young Rani of Jhansi.

Another kind of leadership came from soldiers 
such as Bakht Khan, a subedar of the British army 
who rebelled in Bareilly and came to Delhi on 
July 2, 1857, with his soldiers and exercised 
effective power, while Bahadur Shah remained the 
nominal leader. It was most likely under his 
influence that Bahadur Shah set up a court of 
administration consisting of ten members, four to 
be nominated by the king and six by the army. 
This attempt at creating an institutional 
structure was, however, shortlived, as mutual 
jealousies among rebel leaders and lack of unity 
led to the recapture of Delhi by the British, and 
the departure of Bakht Khan for Lucknow on 
September 19, 1857. The fall of Delhi demoralised 
the rebels, though resistance continued for 
almost another year.

Perhaps the most important feature of the great 
revolt which is relevant for us today was its 
naturally non-communal character. Neither among 
the ordinary rebels nor among the leaders was 
religious origin an issue. Hindus and Muslims 
were well-represented at the levels of the rebels 
as well as the leadership. The Bengal Army 
consisted of Hindus and Muslims, and even though 
the mutiny began on the issue of greased 
cartridges, rebel soldiers overcame their 
religious reservations for the sake of the cause 
and used the same cartridges and rifles they had 
earlier rejected. All the rebels, Hindu and 
Muslim, recognised Bahadur Shah, a Muslim, as 
their emperor. Of Nana Saheb's two loyal 
deputies, one was a Muslim and one a Hindu. Rani 
Lakshmibai of Jhansi captured Gwalior with the 
help of her loyal Afghan guards and died on the 
battlefield along with her life-long companion, a 
Muslim girl.

Mutual respect for religious sentiments was also 
a hallmark of the age. Reviving the tradition 
started by the Mughal Emperor Akbar, wherever 
rebels won power, they banned cow-slaughter out 
of respect for Hindu sentiments. In Delhi, on the 
occasion of Id-ul Zuha at the end of July 1857, 
the rebel regime banned the slaughter of cows, 
oxen and buffaloes. What needs to be understood 
is that Indian society had not yet been 
communalised by the British policy of divide and 
rule as it was from the last quarter of the 19th 
century, and therefore there was no need for a 
self-conscious effort to create communal unity. 
The behaviour of Hindus and Muslims in the revolt 
of 1857 was a reflection of the non-communal 
nature of pre-colonial Indian society.

The writer is director, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library


______


[5] 


GUJARAT LIKE SITUATION MIGHT PREVAIL IN THE BJP 
RULED STATE OF RAJASTHAN; RSS HAS INFILTRATED 
ADMINISTRATIVE AND LAW AND ORDER MACHINERY

Fact Finding Team Visits Jaipur to Investigate 
Televised Attack on Christian Ministry

New Delhi, May 4, 2007

A national-level Fact Finding Team of several 
human rights organizations has expressed concern 
at the penetration of the Rajasthan 
administrative and justice delivery systems by 
active workers of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak 
Sangh. This has delayed a thorough investigation 
of the attack on local independent Pastor Walter 
Massey on 29 April 2007 in his house a crowded 
city area.

The main assailant, Veerendra Singh, is an 
employee of the state government, and a member of 
the Sangh Parivar, police have admitted. He has 
since been suspended from government service. 
Veerendra Singh and several other assailants, 
whose faces were seen in TV Today coverage of the 
attack, have so far evaded the police. Five 
persons arrested on suspicion of their 
involvement have been denied bail by a city 
magistrate who noted that two dozen lawyers loyal 
to the Sangh refused to allow the defence lawyer 
to argue, and instead intimidated the public 
prosecutor and a human rights lawyer.

The chaotic scenes in the court were also 
witnessed by the Fact Finding Team. The team 
later interviewed the Human Rights lawyer Mr. 
Ajai K Jain and his colleagues Mr. Ratnu and 
Advocate Kamlesh Kumbhakar. They also met with 
Mr. A S Gill, Director General of the State 
Police, Superintendent of Police Mr. Anil 
Panilwal, relatives of Pastor Masih, and 
functionaries of the People's Union for Civil 
Liberties led by Ms Kavita Srivastava.

The Fact Finding Team, organized by the All India 
Christian Council (aicc) and Rajasthan's Sadbhav 
Morcha (Brotherhood Front), consisted of: Dr. 
John Dayal, Member of National Integration 
Council, General Secretary of the All India 
Christian Council and President of the All India 
Catholic Union; Dr. Abraham Mathai, Vice Chairman 
of Maharashtra Minority Commission and Genera 
Secretary of Maharashtra aicc; Ms. Teesta 
Seetalvad, General Secretary of Citizens for 
Justice and Peace; Rev. Madhu Chandra, Regional 
Secretary of aicc; Sister Mary Scaria, Supreme 
Court lawyer; Mrs. Tehmina Arora, General 
Secretary of the Christian Legal Association 
(CLA); Ms. Lanshinglui Rongmei, Joint Secretary 
of CLA. Mr. Manoj George of CLA accompanied the 
team as its counsel. Local PUCL general Secretary 
Ms Kavita Srivastava and several prominent 
activists assisted the Fact Finding Team in its 
work.
The Fact Finding Team is expected to publish its 
report by Monday. It will submit copies to the 
Prime Minister, the State Chief Minister, and the 
Union Minister for Minority Affairs and the 
Chairman of the National Commission for 
Minorities.

Preliminary findings of the act Fact Finding Team 
point to major lapses in the manner in which the 
nationally televised assault on the Pastor in his 
rented house was formally registered by the 
Jaipur Police in its First Information Report. It 
took the news of the Fact Finding Team coming to 
Jaipur and the agitation by the local community 
before police added to the FIR additional 
criminal charges for spreading hatred between 
communities and desecrating the Holy Bible.
Even later, policemen sought to pin the blame on 
the Pastor Masih, repeatedly asking the injured 
man about his alleged foreign funding. Director 
General of Police Mr. A. S. Gill admitted to the 
Fact Finding Team that there are reports of 
increasing number attacks on Christians in the 
state, though he denied any lapses on the part of 
the police. He assured the team that steps have 
been taken to arrest all the culprits behind the 
attack. At a press conference later at the city 
Press Club, Ms. Setalvad, Dr. Dayal, Dr. Mathai 
and Sister Scaria told the media that Pastor 
Walter Massey, his wife Joyce, and seven year old 
daughter are in physical and psychological trauma 
from the attack. Dr Dayal called for a proper 
Medical examination of Pastor Walter Massey, his 
wife, and daughter.
While Pastor Massey has visible swelling on his 
limbs and face, his wife and daughter still 
shudder when asked about the brutalization of the 
Pastor which they witnessed. The Pastor and his 
family must also be given financial compensation 
by the State on the pattern of compensation given 
to the injured of communal violence in Gujarat 
and other parts of the country.

Dr Dayal said "The pattern of violence indicates 
a design. The anti-Christian violence is not the 
sort of communal violence recorded between other 
communities. A tiny minority is the target and it 
never retaliates. There is enough evidence 
available in many places for the police to take 
suo motu action against the VHP, Bajrang Dal and 
Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad but no action is taken." 
Dr. Dayal said the community was "disappointed 
that the Chief Minister or any senior Minister 
did not visit the victim's family, nor did any 
one condemn the attack."

Ms. Seetalvad said, "If the Hindutva forces come 
on the streets in the manner they acted in the 
Jaipur court today, that is of great concern for 
the legal system in the state."

Dr. Mathai said, "I condemn the Rajasthan 
Minority Commission for failing to ensure safety 
and protection of Christians in the state. I 
believe Christian members should be listed under 
the coverage of SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities 
Act, 1989 and 1995."

At a public meeting organized by Sadbhav Morcha, 
human rights groups served an ultimatum on the 
BJP government to arrest all the identified 
assailants by Monday, failing which an agitation 
will be launched in Jaipur.. A delegation of the 
State Human Rights and Christian groups will come 
to the national Capital soon to impress on the 
Central government the breakdown in the rule of 
law in Rajasthan and the highly communal 
situation which threatens to break out in a 
Gujarat-like situation. The dates of the "Save 
Rajasthan from the Rise of Fascism" protest rally 
will be announced nest week.

Rajasthan's tribal districts in the Jaipur, 
Udaipur and Ajmer divisions have seen scores of 
incidents of violence against Christians. Most of 
the incidents have gone unreported though the 
police, including Mr. Gill, admit they are aware 
of the rising trend of hatred towards Christians 
sponsored by certain political elements. 
Rajasthan has contributed its share to the over 
80 cases of anti-Christian violence reported from 
various parts of the country since January this 
year. Dr Dayal said he feared there could be more 
violence once the Rajasthan Freedom of Religion 
Bill 2006 becomes law. The Bill has been returned 
to the State Government by the Governor who 
refused to sign the document last year after 
listening to appeals by Christian groups, 
including the aicc.

_______


[6]

SMEAR CAMPAIGN BY VISHWA HINDU PARISHAD AMERCIA

Press Release

by the Indian American Coalition for Pluralism (IACP)

The Indian American Coalition for Pluralism 
(IACP) is shocked to see the campaign of 
prejudice and hate unleashed by extreme Hindu 
groups in America against the visit of a Chief 
Minister of the State of Andhra Pradesh in India 
who is a Christian. Organizations such as the 
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) of America, sister 
organizations of the extreme nationalist 
organizations such as the RSS of India, are 
behind the current campaign in the US, spouting 
intolerance and hate against the religious 
minorities. These self appointed representatives 
of the 80 per cent majority Hindu population in 
Andhra Pradesh have no faith in India's well 
established and vigorous democratic institutions 
for the redresses of their real and imagined 
grievances.

The extreme Hindu groups take full advantage of 
America's liberal democracy and its 
constitutional freedoms in establishing and 
propagating their religion and their places of 
worship. However their counterparts in India 
often funded by the wealth created by their 
brethren in the US and UK, are well known for 
their crushing of precisely those freedoms when 
it comes to India's minorities. From the genocide 
that was unleashed in the state of Gujarat in 
February-March 2002 to almost daily assaults 
against religious workers among minority 
populations and destruction of their property and 
places of worship in various parts of the 
country, these extreme Hindu elements within 
India's population create turmoil and anguish for 
those attempting to merely live out their lives 
in a peaceful manner.

These problems of religious oppression and social 
conflict created in India are not unknown to the 
US State Department and other relevant agencies 
of the US Government. The US Commission on 
International Religious Freedom has noted these 
trends in its annual reports on the state of the 
world religious freedom. The repeated denial of 
an official visa to the US for one of the most 
notorious of these religious bigots, Mr Narendra 
Modi of Gujarat, is an indication that the US 
Government continues to monitor the activities of 
these extreme groups. The Indian American 
Coalition for Pluralism, whose sole mission is to 
foster a pluralistic and tolerant society in 
India that embraces religious and cultural 
diversity in the country, appeals to the State 
Department that the activities of the Hindu 
extreme groups in the US, masquerading as 
educational and religious awareness building 
organizations, should be watched for their 
potential for creating religious and caste based 
social conflict within India. These groups, with 
mother organizations and political arms in India, 
are precisely the entities that the State 
Department and Human Rights Organizations were 
referring to as grave threats to the fabric of 
India's composite culture.

signed: 05/04/2007

George Abraham
Shrikumar Poddar
Saeed Patel
Dr. S. Ubaid
Bernard Malik
Rev. Wilson Joseph
Kannan Srinivasan
Rev. Itty Abraham
Victor Joseph

email: india.plural[AT]gmail.com


______


[7] 

Economic Times
May 02, 2007

Editorial
THE POWER OF BOOKS

The high court might have done the right thing by 
conferring legitimacy on James Laine's 
controversial book about the legendary Maratha 
leader Shivaji. But in all the arguments and 
counter-arguments about whether to outlaw the 
book or not one thing needs to be said in the 
Shiv Sena's favour in its current agitation over 
this contentious piece of research: the 
organisation really believes in the power of 
books.

Elsewhere in the world people might be reading 
less and no author - J K Rowling apart - might 
seem to have much influence to affect the world 
at large. But an obscure work of history by an 
American academic that mentions, just in passing, 
long existing gossip about the Maratha warrior, 
is apparently enough of a threat to get the Sena 
and other Maratha activists out on the streets. 
One can only marvel at the power that such a book 
might seem to possess - or the depths of 
insecurity on the part of the people who protest 
it.

And perhaps they are right. The Shiv Sena, and 
copycat organisations like the Sambhaji Brigade 
that orchestrated the attack on Pune's venerable 
Bhandarkar Institute to protest Laine's book, 
have much to be insecure about. They know that 
the state they are so proud has lost its 
reputation as India's business centre, has seen a 
worsening crisis in agriculture and is facing an 
imminent power blackout.

And the Sena at least knows that while, by the 
normal rules of anti-incumbency, they should be 
getting ready for a return to power, the party is 
in such a disarray that the generally undeserving 
Congress-NCP combo might actually manage to stick 
on.

They are desperate to do something, but since its 
leaders seem to have lost all ability to 
formulate alternate policies, they can only fall 
back on the bullying and brawling that comes so 
naturally to them. The time is ripe for some 
Mahrashtrian leader to step up and point out that 
an effective leader like Shivaji would have been 
far more interested in concrete action for his 
people than pointless protests. The Sena's game 
would be up, and James Laine's book would be 
peacefully re-consigned to the academic sphere, 
which the high court has justifiably done.

______


[8] 

Economic and Political Weekly
April 28, 2007

Letters

IMPARTIALITY AT STAKE

In November 1984, following the assassination of 
Indira Gandhi, almost 3,000 Sikhs were 
slaughtered and burnt to death in Delhi. 
Witnesses and survivors of these killings 
categorically indicted the Delhi Police and some 
leaders of the Congress (I) for permitting the 
mobs to kill with impunity. Twenty-three years 
later the families of the victims are still 
awaiting justice.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has 
filed an appeal before the Delhi High Court, 
against the acquittal of Congress (I) member of 
Parliament Sajjan Kumar, in a case pertaining to 
the murder of one Nevin Singh, husband of Anwar 
Kaur on November 1, 1984 at Sultanpuri. Senior 
advocate S S Gandhi appeared on behalf of the CBI 
to argue the appeal on March 12, 2007.  It is 
pertinent to draw attention to the fact that the 
same lawyer, S S Gandhi, had appeared on behalf 
of Delhi Police, before the Justice Nanavati 
Commission of Inquiry (1984 Anti-Sikh Riots). All 
the commissions and court judgments relating to 
the large-scale murders of 1984 have pointed to 
the unholy nexus between the Delhi Police and the 
rioting mobs, during the carnage and in the 
investigation of cases. The Nanavati report noted 
that either the police "were negligent in the 
performance of their duties or that they had 
directly or indirectly helped the mobs in their 
violent attacks on the Sikhs" (p183). As many as 
90 Delhi Police officials were indicted for 
lapses by the many inquiries and summary 
dismissal of six senior Delhi Police officers was 
recommended.

While considering the evidence against Sajjan 
Kumar, the Nanavati report specifically states 
that, "There is ample material to show that no 
proper investigation was done by the police even 
in those cases...There is also material to show 
that police did not note down the names of some 
of the assailants who were influential persons. 
One witness has specifically stated that he had 
named Shri Sajjan Kumar as one of the assailants 
yet his name was not noted in his statement by 
the police" (p 161).

Advocate Vrinda Grover had appeared as a witness 
before the Nanavati Commission and shown through 
her study of court judgments that the acquittals 
in the 1984 trials in Delhi were a direct 
consequence of the incompetent, casual and 
partisan investigation by the Delhi Police. She 
stated in her affidavit that "the police had 
functioned not as an agent of the rule of law but 
as an agent of the ruling party". After her 
deposition before the commission she had been 
cross-examined by S S Gandhi, senior advocate on 
behalf of the Delhi Police.  According to Section 
35 of the Advocates Act, 1961, the definition of 
professional misconduct includes "changing 
sides". Having appeared forthe Delhi Police 
before the JusticeNanavati Commission it is 
against professional etiquette and ethics for 
senior advocate S S Gandhi to now represent the 
case of the victims through the state, in the 
Delhi High Court. Although it is Congress MP 
Sajjan Kumar who is being prosecuted by the CBI, 
the negligence of the Delhi Police in 
investigation and recording of witness statements 
would be relevant issues during the appeal. It is 
apprehended that such conflict of interests may 
compromise the prosecution.

We the undersigned appeal that SS Gandhi be 
discharged and the CBI appoint a senior counsel 
of high professional competence and impeccable 
integrity as counsel in the appeal pending in the 
Delhi High Court against Sajjan Kumar.

PUSHKAR RAJ for Peoples Union for
Civil Liberties (PUCL Delhi)
SUDHA BHARDWAJ for Peoples Union for
Civil Liberties (PUCL Chhattisgarh)
NAGRAJ ADVE for Peoples Union for
Democratic Rights (PUDR)
MUKUL SHARMA (Director,
AmnestyInternational India)
UMA CHAKRAVORTY (Historian)
and others (Delhi)


______


[9] EVENTS:


MAY 10-30, 2007 AHMEDABAD- TRAINING OF CULTURAL TROUPES


Dear friends,

     This is in continuation of several 
discussions  (and a meeting) of which some of you 
have been a part , Anhad is initiating a four and 
a half month long campaign in Gujarat: Muktnad: 
Anhad Yuva Karwan

We propose to prepare six cultural teams of not 
more than 8 young people each, who would be 
intellectually equipped to tackle debates, 
discussions around issues related to democracy. 
They will get intensive 20 day training beginning 
May 10, 2007 on all major political and cultural 
issues. Atleast two new street plays will be 
generated during this 20 day period and movement 
songs shared and taught . They will see a large 
number of documentaries and films .They will be 
introduced to the cultural heritage, political 
history and the present conditions in Gujarat. 
They will also be inroduced to the national and 
international scenario . The exact schedule of 
the workshop is being worked out and will be 
available in 2-3 days. A large number of experts 
from Gujarat and other parts of India will 
interact with young people.

The training will take place from May 10-30, 
2007( venue BSC, Amedabad) and 6 teams will be 
flagged off on June 1, 2007.

Anhad is always accused of giving short notices. 
I deeply apologise for that, probably we will 
never improve, so i am not promising to change, 
will try though.

Writing to all of you requestiong support:

1. We are asking young people to commit four and 
half months. 20 days for the worksop and four 
months of travelling. Each team will cover 4 
districts each, spending one month in each 
district. Different groups can send a few 
volunteers who are interested in theatre/ 
intelectual discourse/ travelling/ ready to face 
risks/ and do not have a 10-5 job mental 
framework/ are not bothered by minor ailments/ do 
not have the tendency of being homesick.

2. Time given to this campaign is 100% voluntary. 
If there are groups supporting individuals it is 
upto them.

3. We are asking groups in different districts to 
host the teams when they reach their districts- 
it includes feeding 8 young people + the driver, 
 working out their theatre shows, film 
screenings  and interactions within the districts 
and finding a place for them to sleep at night. 
Will be contacting people individually to work 
this out soon.

4. Anhad is in the process of raising funds for 
the 20 day camp and travel. In case any group has 
a vehicle to offer for 4 months for the travel it 
will be more than welcome and funds too.

The programme promises a lot of learning, political maturity and a lot of fun.

The maximum number of people we can take is 50. 
We are inviting people from within Gujarat as 
well as from other parts of India.

Sincerely
Shabnam Hashmi
079-25500844
Anhad
1914, Karanjwala Building
opp Khanpur Darwaza, Khanpur
Ahmedabad- 380001

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

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