SACW | May 18, 2007 | Sri Lanka: long walk for justice . Pakistan: web site on Karachi's Black Saturday / India: democracy at risk; culture vultures; letter to Vajpayee; Release Binayak sen, salwajudams, Punjab religious violence

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | May 18, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2407 - Year 9

[1]  Sri Lanka: CoI - The long walk for justice (Shakuntala Perera)
[2]  Pakistan: A testimonials web site for Karachi's Black Saturday
[3]  Fears for Democracy in India (Martha C. Nussbaum)
[4]  India: Cultures & vultures: wake-up call from Vadodara (Madanjeet Singh)
[5]  Dont Sabotage the India Pakistan Peace Process !
       Letter to Atal Bihari Vajpayee by Yasin Malik, Chairman, Jammu 
Kashmir Liberation Front
[6]  India - Repression in Chattisgarh:
   -   Sign the petition for the release of Dr. Binayak Sen
   -   Sen's arrest an example of repression by Chhattisgarh 
Government, says PUCL
   -   Campaign for Survival and dignity Condemns Arrest of Dr. 
Binayak Sen and Threats To Other Rights Activists
  -   Historian [Ram. Guha] moves Supreme Court of India against Salwa Judum
[7] India: Religious violence in Punjab over Dera Saccha Sauda
    - It's 1978 once more (Bhupinder Brar)
    - Preachers, politics, primordial passions (Editorial, The Hindu)

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[1]


Daily Mirror
May 17, 2007

COI - THE LONG WALK FOR JUSTICE

by Shakuntala Perera

The growing concerns of human rights violations in the country have 
aroused more attention than the Rajapaksa administration finds 
comfortable. The appointment of a Commission with the mandate to mke 
the necessary recommendations has the effect of meeting these 
concerns to a satisfactory degree. But the best possible means of 
convincing the international community must remain with the effective 
implementation of the mandate given.

The administration must be mindful that the most noble of intentions 
would warrant for nothing without effective implementation. Any plan 
to thwart international concerns with the mere appointment of a 
Commission of Inquiry will necessarily fail. It must understand the 
fate of similar interventions by previous governments that precede 
them. It will be difficult to expect greater genorisity in assessing 
its own interventions, given the history.

The numbers doing the rounds internationally are far from impressive. 
The task of simply refuting them by periodic statements will not 
suffice. The government stands to lose too much by any arrogance in 
meeting the negative effects of the ground situation. The argument of 
treating terrorism with terror holds little water in the 
international arena.

The expectations of a democratically elected government are far in 
excess to that of a listed terror group. Foreign aid agencies usually 
have less patience with democratic governments. It becomes imperative 
that the government support its words with a strong plan of action to 
win global confidence. Such confidence has the effect of ensuring 
both aid and support in its fight against terror. Any wrong moves 
could leave the government as alienated as what the LTTE faces today.

The Civil Monitoring Committee on Extra Judicial Killings and 
Disappearances says it had received around 100 complaints of 
disappearances so far. Its' Convenor, Colombo district MP Mano 
Ganeshan accuses an influential section within the government and the 
security apparatus of a hand in the incidents.

He claims that he has the numbers of vehicles and descriptions of the 
people carrying out the abductions.

"People are picked up from public places in the city by armed men who 
travel in white coloured vans. These persons walk in to these places 
call the people by their name, check the identity cards and confirm 
they are taking the right person and take them in casually," he 
claims.

The government can accuse interventions like those of the CMCEJK, but 
the fact remains that their concerns have a ready audience. And no 
amount of accusations against such organizations will help convince 
international concerns otherwise. Unless and until the government is 
able to counter the allegations with facts, it continues its suicidal 
mission.

Although the number of violations varies from NGO to Humanitarian 
agency and Foreign funding agency, the presence of the violations 
can't be denied. Since January 2006, there has been an increase in 
human rights violations and at least 250,000 people reportedly 
internally displaced. The horror stories that come out of the IDP 
camps deserve very serious concern. The negative role of Karuna 
cannot be denied.

In this context the appointment of CoI is significant. The CoI was 
set up in September last year to probe some of the high profile cases 
including the massacre of 17 aid workers of Action Against Hunger; 
the killing of Fr. Jim Brown, the Kebithigollawa bus bombing and the 
assassination of TNA MP Joseph Pararajasingham.

Certainly something to be said of is the refusal by interested 
quarters to give the administration a chance. While the political 
gains of having the CoI in place must remain an immediate concern for 
the government, there is nothing on the ground to say that political 
gains are its only motive. At least, not yet. The government must be 
commended for the selection of the members of the Commission. The 
list suggests a considerable amount of seriousness in approach.

The credibility of the members is not questionable. They have 
impressive track records with nothing to suggest a compromise of 
independence. The fact remains that personally they stand to gain 
nothing they already don't have by virtue of being Members. But the 
most qualified and independent of Commission is still going to have 
little impact without the necessary inputs in place.

The government can show its sincerity to the cause by ensuring that 
the necessary logistical support is in place. The work of the 
Commission will be hampered by the lack of investigators and the 
necessary infrastructure. It is crucial that the government poses no 
threat of interference on the functions of the Commission.

Much will also remain in the support that the Commission gets by way 
of support from the public. Unless sufficient awareness is created 
and the witnesses are encouraged to come before the Commission little 
could be expected to move. This is necessarily the function of the 
government as much as it is of civil society. The government must 
ensure that the environment is made conducive for witnesses to come 
before the Commission without fear.

Amnesty International on Wednesday stressed the need for an 
'effective' witness protection program. "All complainants, witnesses, 
those conducting the investigation and others involved should be 
protected from intimidation," AI South Asia researcher Yolanda Foster 
said.

Welcoming government moves to address immunity, it expressed concern 
that the mandate of the CoI and International Independent Group of 
Eminent Persons (IIGEP) was limited to 16 cases. AI was concerned 
that the CoI was not looking at all HR violations, particularly the 
most recent incidents.

CoI Chairman Justice Nissanka Udalagama told the BBC Sandeshaya the 
Commission hoped to establish victim and witness protection units as 
witnesses were reluctant to come forward to give evidence. To date 
only 12 witnesses have come before the commission. This speaks 
volumes of a situation needing the administration's immediate 
attention.

Justice Udalagama pointed out that a Victim and Witness Assistance 
and Protection Unit and a scheme to provide assistance and protection 
to all victims and witnesses had been established. He explained that 
while a general scheme of assistance and protection would be the 
entitlement of all victims and witnesses, persons who faced 
particular vulnerabilities and threats, would be entitled to certain 
special measures of assistance and protection.

The country's records of witnesses being intimidated and threatened 
against coming before similar Commissions. We can't feign ignorance 
of the fate that has befallen some witness who had attempted their 
hand at justice. The meagre 4% of convictions is an effective tool to 
asses and understand the need to create a more witness friendly 
environment.

This becomes crucial where witnesses need to come out of the North 
and the East. The defence administration also has a greater 
responsibility to ensure that the victims are not victimized a second 
time in seeking justice. All room for harassment of such witnesses 
must be removed before the Commission can expect to obtain the 
success it is expected to. Mere rhetoric hasn't the capacity to move 
people living in fear and little faith in the system to come out and 
risk their lives.

The government's approach to the Witness Protection program is 
however not wholly undesirable. The extent of commitment goes all the 
way up to providing any affected persons travel abroad to safer 
destinations. A number of private organizations with the capacity to 
provide such protection in host countries are also reportedly in 
place. In that context the government has shown considerable maturity 
of approach.

But time is going to be the Commission's biggest obstacle. It has 
less than three months to complete the investigations. Appointed in 
August last year, the CoI has 12 months to submit the 
recommendations. This poses a considerable amount of pressure on the 
CoI. How practically or humanly possible it will be to actually carry 
out the investigations by the stipulated time frame will be a serious 
concern.

Certainly, the bad track record of similar Commissions under 
successive administrations cannot be held against this government. 
But the fate of such commissions like the Truth Commission appointed 
by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga would leave many concerned. 
Months of hard work by the Commissioners who came up with an 
impressive set of recommendations is gathering dust. The failure by 
the Kumaratunga administration to implement the recommendations is 
the most recent example of what could easily be the fate of the CoI.


______


[2]  [Information received via Beena Sarwar]

o o o

A TESTIMONIALS WEBSITE FOR KARACHI'S BLACK SATURDAY
http://512karachi.com/

______


[3]

  http://chronicle.com
The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 17, 2007
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 53, Issue 37, Page B6

FEARS FOR DEMOCRACY IN INDIA

by Martha C. Nussbaum

[. . . ]

While Americans have focused on President Bush's "war on terror," 
Iraq, and the Middle East, democracy has been under siege in another 
part of the world. India - the most populous of all democracies, and 
a country whose Constitution protects human rights even more 
comprehensively than our own - has been in crisis. Until the spring 
of 2004, its parliamentary government was increasingly controlled by 
right-wing Hindu extremists who condoned and in some cases actively 
supported violence against minority groups, especially Muslims.

What has been happening in India is a serious threat to the future of 
democracy in the world. The fact that it has yet to make it onto the 
radar screen of most Americans is evidence of the way in which 
terrorism and the war on Iraq have distracted us from events and 
issues of fundamental significance. If we really want to understand 
the impact of religious nationalism on democratic values, India 
currently provides a deeply troubling example, and one without which 
any understanding of the more general phenomenon is dangerously 
incomplete. It also provides an example of how democracy can survive 
the assault of religious extremism.

In May 2004, the voters of India went to the polls in large numbers. 
Contrary to all predictions, they gave the Hindu right a resounding 
defeat. Many right-wing political groups and the social organizations 
allied with them remain extremely powerful, however. The rule of law 
and democracy has shown impressive strength and resilience, but the 
future is unclear.

The case of Gujarat is a lens through which to conduct a critical 
examination of the influential thesis of the "clash of 
civilizations," made famous by the political scientist Samuel P. 
Huntington. His picture of the world as riven between democratic 
Western values and an aggressive Muslim monolith does nothing to help 
us understand today's India, where, I shall argue, the violent values 
of the Hindu right are imports from European fascism of the 1930s, 
and where the third-largest Muslim population in the world lives as 
peaceful democratic citizens, despite severe poverty and other 
inequalities.

The real "clash of civilizations" is not between "Islam" and "the 
West," but instead within virtually all modern nations - between 
people who are prepared to live on terms of equal respect with others 
who are different, and those who seek the protection of homogeneity 
and the domination of a single "pure" religious and ethnic tradition. 
At a deeper level, as Gandhi claimed, it is a clash within the 
individual self, between the urge to dominate and defile the other 
and a willingness to live respectfully on terms of compassion and 
equality, with all the vulnerability that such a life entails.

[. . .] .
FULL TEXT AT:
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/05/fears-for-democracy-in-india.html
http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/spip.php?article102


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[4]

The Hindu
May 18, 2007

CULTURES & VULTURES: WAKE-UP CALL FROM VADODARA

by Madanjeet Singh

These `fundoos,' self-appointed custodians of Indian culture, may 
start chipping away at temple murals, breaking down monuments, and 
eventually targeting the temples at Khajuraho, Konarak, and 
Bhubaneswar - until they succeed in effacing the rich Indian culture 
of art, image, and narrative, to conform to their own one-track, 
fascist vision of what Indian civilisation is.

SECULAR ARTISTS, writers, painters, dramatists, and film directors 
have increasingly become the main targets of both Hindu and Muslim 
fundamentalists (who are nicknamed `fundoos' by the writer Githa 
Hariharan). Arrest warrants were issued against Richard Gere, who has 
been doing sterling work in the HIV-AIDS campaign in India, and 
Shilpa Shetty for a public kiss, because a magistrate in Jaipur 
decided that the kiss was "sexually erotic." It is estimated that 27 
million such cases are pending in India's courts. The custodians of 
morality seem blissfully unaware that temples and shrines all over 
India depict sacred "sexually erotic" masterpieces of Indian 
sculptures, also seen in several temples in Rajasthan. Traditional 
Indian art content is essentially secular - spiritual ideas emerged 
as corollaries to philosophical speculation. In the Nyaya-Sutras, the 
overwhelming focus is on rational and scientific thinking and 
analysis, on human understanding of natural phenomena and physical 
processes occurring in nature.

 From the 8th century onwards, the Indian temple has incorporated 
secular images of musicians, dancers, acrobats, and romantic couples. 
After the 10th century, erotic themes begin to make their mark. 
Sensuality and sexual interaction is displayed without inhibition in 
places of worship. This might be shocking and scandalous to 
puritanically minded members of the lower judiciary - but what it 
shows is that in that period of Indian history tantric ideas on the 
compatibility of human sexuality with human spirituality entered the 
mainstream. Erotic desires were not considered to be antagonistic to 
spiritual liberation; they were treated instead as an important 
component of salvation. The most intimate and personal of human 
interactions, normally shrouded behind a veil of secrecy, were now 
sculpted in stone - decrying fundamentalism and demonstrating that 
Indian religion and morality were based not on worldly denial but 
instead on an unabashed acceptance of essential human urges.

These motifs of rich multicultural tradition, both sacred and 
secular, are beautifully recreated in the images of the Hindu 
goddesses Saraswati, Durga, and Draupadi that M.F. Husain painted in 
1996. The Hindutva Parivar vultures pounced on the greatest of 
contemporary Indian artists, because the goddesses were shown without 
clothes. The vultures offered large sums of money to anyone who would 
behead the artist, gouge his eyes, and chop off his hands. Another 
masterpiece depicting a scene from the Ramayana, titled `Sita 
Rescued,' offended the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal 
activists because the painting shows Sita riding on Hanuman's tail. 
They ransacked the artist's Mumbai home in 1998. Criminal complaints 
were filed against Husain in Indore and Rajkot courts, alleging that 
the painter had "hurt the sentiments of Indians." His failure to 
respond to court summons even led to an order from a Hardwar court to 
attach his property in Mumbai.

Isn't it strange that the fundoos are offended by Husain's 
surrealistic representation of Sita riding on Hanuman's tail, but can 
applaud the Alice in Wonderland fairytale the BJP's deputy leader in 
the Lok Sabha, Rajnath Singh, solemnly narrated in the Lok Sabha? The 
learned parliamentarian said that the solid underwater rocks in the 
Indian Ocean provided ample proof that the Ram Sethu bridge, over 
which Hanuman crossed from India to Lanka, was constructed by his 
army of brilliant monkey engineers, thousands of years ago during the 
Ramayana period.

Emboldened by the central government's constitutional inability to 
intervene in BJP-run States, Hindutva fanatics have started harassing 
even young students in prestigious art institutions. On May 9, 2007, 
a Vadodara-based BJP leader, who was accompanied by a gang of 
ruffians, stormed into the Faculty of Fine Arts of the M.S. 
University of Baroda, where an exhibition of fine arts was on view in 
connection with annual exams. The storm-troopers abused and 
manhandled S. Chandramohan, a recipient of the Gujarat Lalit Kala 
Academy Award, 2005-06, for painting `obscene' figures with some 
religious motifs and, shockingly, he was taken into custody by the 
Baroda police and jailed. The hooligans roamed freely, abusing 
artists, students, and faculty members, including the In-charge Dean 
of Faculty, Professor Shivaji Panikkar - the respected author and 
editor of Saptamatrka Worship and Sculptures, 1997; Twentieth-Century 
Indian Sculpture, 2002; Towards a New Art History: Studies in Indian 
Art, 2003, among others. Professor Panikkar was suspended by the 
University authorities.

It is sad that, for whatever reasons, the secular government of India 
seems paralysed, unable to protect the human rights of artists, 
writers, filmmakers, scholars, and other cultural practitioners. The 
fundoos have arrogated to themselves the role of lawmakers, judges, 
and executioners of people whom they accuse of blasphemy. Among the 
victims is the writer and journalist, Taslima Nasrin, a 2004 laureate 
of UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and 
Non-Violence. She is threatened by an Indian Taliban, Taqi Raza Khan, 
the head of the All India Ibtehad Council, who wants her beheaded 
(qatal) and has publicly offered Rs.5,00,000 to anyone who would 
carry out the execution because of her secular views. The bigots also 
passed a resolution to oust Nasreen from India "for her crime in 
attacking the Islamic Shariah laws."

By contrast, Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government and 
cultural leaders in Germany nipped in the bud threats posed by the 
Islamic fundamentalists last year, which prevented the performance of 
Mozart's Idomeneo by the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. The stalling of the 
performance had provoked a barrage of criticism and the director in 
charge of the opera house, opened in 1912, was accused of bowing to 
intimidation instead of defending cultural expression. The play is 
about Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, who exacts a cruel 
allegiance. But in this production by the noted director Hans 
Neuenfels, one of the last scenes shows the protagonist presenting 
the severed heads of several religious figures - not only Poseidon, 
but also Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad. The opera was rescheduled after 
Home Minister Schauble warned the Muslim leaders that they must abide 
by the German Constitution and the principles of a democratic 
society. He condemned the Islamic Shariah, laws, making clear the 
limits of the state's tolerance. "I can promise you this," he said. 
"Anyone who calls me an infidel will be in for a fight."

In silent protest, on May 11, 2007, a number of Chandramohan's fellow 
students organised an outstanding exhibition at the Faculty of Fine 
Arts, Baroda, representing images drawn from across 2500 years of 
Indian art. These included the Gudimallam Shiva, "perhaps the 
earliest known Shiva image, which combines the lingam with an 
anthropomorphic form of the deity; a Kushan mukha-linga or masked 
lingam; Lajja-gouris from Ellora and Orissa, resplendent in their 
fecund nakedness; erotic statuary from Modhera, Konark and Khajuraho; 
as well as Raga-mala paintings from Rajasthan. All these images, 
which rank among the finest produced through the centuries in the 
subcontinent, celebrate the sensuous and the passionate dimensions of 
existence - which, in the Hindu world-view, are inseparably twinned 
with the austere and the contemplative" (to quote the art critic and 
journalist, Ranjit Hoskote).

With Professor Panikkar courageously ignoring the threats of the 
Hindutva goons and the university establishment's orders to close the 
exhibition, the university authorities ordered the exhibition hall to 
be sealed. The presence of the erotic at the centre of Hindu sacred 
art offended the Hindu identity of the fundoos as the Islamic 
identity of the Taliban gangsters was threatened when they 
systematically blew up with dynamite the colossal fifth-century 
Bamiyan Buddha idols in Afghanistan. The destruction of the Bamiyan 
Buddha sculptures by the Taliban is as abominable a crime against 
culture as the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya by Hindutva 
fanatics. Damaging the tangible and oral heritage of humanity and 
falsifying history books to further religious or ideological agenda 
are all criminal violations of human rights. As with the early 
Christian churches in Europe, which were built over hundreds of pagan 
shrines of Sun worshippers, archaeological evidence shows that at the 
site where the Sangh Parivar demolished the Babri Masjid, there might 
have been a Buddhist stupa, which in turn was built over the sacred 
shrines of earlier ethnographic, indigenous, tribal, or proto-Indic 
communities.

The secular India of Jawaharlal Nehru will come to grief if it treats 
as an isolated incident the ugly assault on the artists working at 
the Faculty of Fine Arts of the M.S. University of Baroda. It must 
recall what happened elsewhere, including Nazi Germany, when book 
burning and throwing works of art into the fire were tolerated by 
society. Vadodara is a serious wake up call and unless the fundoos 
are stopped now from barging into the fragile and sensitive 
glasshouses of artistic freedom and creativity, nothing will stop 
them. These self-appointed custodians of Indian culture may start 
chipping away at temple murals, breaking down monuments, whitewashing 
wall paintings, and burning manuscripts and folios, and eventually 
targeting the temples of Khajuraho, Konarak, Bhubaneswar, and many 
others as the Kakathiya temples of Palampet - until they succeed in 
effacing the rich Indian culture of art, image and narrative, to 
conform to their own one-track, fascist vision of what Indian 
civilisation is.

(Madanjeet Singh, founder of the South Asia Foundation, is a UNESCO 
Goodwill Ambassador.)

______


[5]

LETTER TO ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE WRITTEN BY YASIN MALIK, CHAIRMAN, 
JAMMU KASHMIR LIBERATION FRONT

The Hindu
May 9, 2007

OPEN LETTER

Fmr. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

Dear Atalji,

In public life, from time to time, it becomes necessary to 
communicate one's perceptions, concerns and apprehensions to others 
in public life on the pressing issues of our time in an open and 
frank manner. It is in this long tradition of public communication 
between individuals and in a spirit of honesty and frankness, that I 
address your good self through this open letter.

Of recent, I have observed with much distress that your good self 
along with your colleagues, through your public comments, might have 
started adopting a changed approach towards the ongoing peace process 
on Kashmir. In this regards, I refer here to the letters that you and 
Shri Advani have recently written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh 
raising public doubts and expressing disapproval. Then again, we have 
all observed Mr. Jaswant Singh's vitriolic disruption in the Rajya 
Sabha yesterday calling in to question Prime Minister Manmohan 
Singh's moves on the peace process and raising alarms about its 
direction.

No doubt, there is room for critique and discourse on the Peace 
Process. In fact, it is necessary and mandated. I too have very 
sobering and unaddressed concerns, which I would like to address 
herein - as a freedom-loving Kashmiri whose people have sacrificed 
and suffered and whose fate is directly to be determined by the 
direction and outcome that the peace process eventually will take. 
Kashmiris are still yet to be included in the peace process.

But my worry regarding the approach that you and your colleagues seem 
to be taking is that, at a time when visionary and courageous steps 
to further the peace process are already lacking from the present 
government in Delhi and are badly needed at this time, your behaviour 
as a leading opposition party of India may further curtail or 
decrease the possibility of such a necessary move to ensure that the 
peace process leads to a just resolution of the Kashmir Issue. As a 
seasoned and experienced statesman, you are well aware of how 
difficult it is to exercise political will and take visionary steps 
and, most importantly, how challenging the follow-through is to 
ensure. As the leading opposition party of India, the choices that 
you and your colleagues make have a direct bearing on the agility of 
the present government in Delhi to move forward in bold ways. You 
have an important role and great responsibility as opposition to 
build political will for the weighty decisions yet to be made on the 
peace process.

It is a fact, the present government in Delhi is yet to take the bold 
and decisive initiative to seize the present moment and move it 
towards a good faith public peace process that is institutionalized 
and includes all stakeholders in India, Pakistan, and the people of 
Kashmir - who are the primary party concerned. As leader of the 
leading opposition party in India you have a great opportunity to 
shape the course of events. I fear that domestic politics and a 
return to short-sided parochialism within India may once again be 
entering into the dynamic surrounding the Kashmir Issue. If so, it 
will be at a great cost to the people of South Asia who deserve a 
just and lasting peace for their future. From all sides, within 
India, Pakistan and Kashmir, we must not allow the present 
opportunity to be lost to the dynamics of domestic politics and the 
trivial diktats of playing to the gallery.

For this reason and with deep humility, I would like to encourage you 
to articulate, urge and support the type of visionary and bold move 
that is needed today from the present government in Delhi to ensure 
that the ongoing peace process moves forward, becomes 
institutionalized and inclusive and gains in seriousness. I have no 
reason to believe that such high expectations of statesmanship and of 
a constructive engagement are misplaced. I say this, with full 
awareness of your contribution and investment of time, thinking and 
exercise of political will towards the achievement of a resolution of 
the Kashmir Issue. Being deeply involved in the events surrounding 
Kashmir, I have myself experienced it first-hand and I am a witness 
to it.

Today, the people of South Asia are in need of precisely the type of 
visionary steps you have heralded in the past. While events often 
took unpredictable turns, throughout your tenure as Prime Minister 
you have consistently tried to create openings and take bold steps. 
Despite many upsets, you still persisted. From my side, I welcomed 
every instance where there was a serious initiative from India or 
Pakistan and I worked to achieve its success.

I recall your path-breaking bus journey to Lahore in February 1999 
and the address you made to the people of Pakistan at the base of 
Minar-e-Pakistan in which you declared: "It is my dream and wish to 
resolve the Kashmir Issue." A year later, you made another attempt to 
directly engage Hizbul Muajhideen in a cease-fire and talks process 
in the Summer of 2000.

While that collapsed, a few months, later you declared a unilateral 
cease-fire in the Holy Month of Ramadhan and then publicly offered 
talks "under the constitution of Insaniyat". I immediately welcomed 
this move and addressed a press conference in Delhi in which I urged 
you to follow the visionary example set by Yitzhak Rabin in starting 
the Middle East peace process. At that time, I evoked Rabin's words 
to urge you forward: "Maybe my people will misunderstand me today, 
but future generations will judge and know what I have done for them 
to give them a peaceful and prosperous future." For 6 months, you 
directly engaged the then united APHC, under the Chairmanship of Syed 
Ali Shah Geelani, through your team including R. K. Mishra and 
Brajesh Mishra. At the start, R.K. Mishra conveyed the seriousness of 
your government to me and he quoted you, saying: "Before going from 
this world, I wish to resolve the Kashmir Issue." During this period, 
we in APHC had detailed discussions and we gave Geelani our full 
mandate to carry the dialogue forward. During this process I met 
high-ups in the Congress Party, now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and 
then Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Najma Haftullah (now your party 
colleague). We discussed your initiative to open serious dialogue and 
the overall Kashmir Issue in threadbare details for three hours. At 
the end of the meeting, now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked me: 
"What do you expect from us?" I replied simply: "As opposition, 
support Vajpayee fully." Just after 24 hours, a Congress Party 
delegation including Manmohan Singh, Natwar Singh and Arjun Singh met 
you and the Congress Party openly endorsed your initiative to start a 
serious peace process. You may recall that you conveyed your message 
of thanks for my efforts through R. K. Mishra.

Atalji, I would like to recall your reflections during this period 
that you shared with the world from Kumarakom on January 2, 2001 in 
which you firmly committed yourself to finding a durable solution to 
the Kashmir Issue. Your comments that day openly declared the type of 
visionary statesmanship and courage that a solution will require. "We 
shall not traverse solely on the beaten track of the past. Rather, we 
shall be bold and innovative designers of a future architecture of 
peace and prosperity for the entire South Asian region". The people 
of South Asia, and especially the people of Kashmir, still await this 
type of exercise of political will and courage.

You persisted in your attempts to open a peace process on Kashmir and 
despite Kargil you invited President Musharaf for the Agra Summit in 
July 2001. It took two years more, but you were finally able to open 
a sustained peace process on Kashmir which started when you extended 
a historical handshake of friendship to Pakistan and Kashmiris on the 
soil of Kashmir, recalling the words of Kashmiri national poet 
Mehjoor: "Walo a Baghbano, Nau Baharuk Shan Paeda Kar." (Arise, O 
Gardener! And usher in the glory of a new spring.) This move that you 
took in April 2003 was the start of the current peace process.

I, on behalf of the people of Kashmir, responded positively in June 
2003 launching a door-to-door signature campaign to support the peace 
process and involve the people of Kashmir in the decision-making that 
would entail. We evoked the couplet of the same poem of Mehjoor: "Who 
will free you, O 'bulbul', While you bewail in the cage? With your 
hands, work out your own salvation." Under the inspiration of these 
words, 1.5 million Kashmiris with their own hands penned down their 
endorsement for the peace process and demanded their rightful role in 
it. We put forward our efforts to build the momentum for the type of 
inclusive and public peace process that can only lead to a solution. 
We believed then as we believe now that only with direct 
participation of the Kashmiri people can the glory of new era for 
South Asia be ushered in.

On January 1, 2001 I addressed your goodself along with President 
Musharaf in an open New Years Letter urging you to seize the 
opportunity presented by the then SAARC summit in Islamabad and 
appealed you to move forward with the peace process. I would like to 
remind you of my appeal that day: "It is a matter of hope to me that 
I find in your respective public commitments a certain kindred urge 
for peace and a shared appreciation that a peace process on Kashmir 
will require statesmen-like resolve and new creativity. While there 
are extremist on all sides that may oppose such a bold move on your 
parts, I urge both of you to seize this opportunity to now translate 
your visionary words into visionary deeds. Given our firm stand that 
the people of Kashmir can only decide the future of Kashmir we have 
always opposed - and will always oppose - any attempts by India and 
Pakistan to decide Kashmir without the people of Kashmir. However, we 
have decided not to protest at this time with an eye towards giving 
peace a chance and in hopes of encouraging an opening between India 
and Pakistan for a broader peace process. I would like to convey a 
message of earnest support and convey my earnest request that you 
meet and resolve to undertake a peace process that will also 
effectively and meaningfully involve the people of Kashmir in finding 
an agreeable solution to all parties."

It was an act of good faith and expression of high expectations of 
your and President Musharaf's capacity for statesmanship that we, on 
behalf of all Kashmiris, tried to create a conducive atmosphere for a 
breakthrough. Five days later, you undertook an agreement and started 
the composite dialogue that is the basis of the current peace process 
between India and Pakistan. A few month's later, when you left power 
and entered as leader of the opposition, you entrusted Prime Minister 
Manmohan Singh as custodian of all your efforts and legacy to achieve 
a beginning of a sustained peace process on Kashmir.

When Prime Manmohan Singh and President Musharaf took certain steps 
as Confidence Building Measures, I was afforded an opportunity to 
travel across the LOC, that divided our homeland, and also to visit 
Pakistan. When I met President Musharaf and Prime Minister Shaukat 
Aziz in separate meetings, I put forward certain serious 
recommendations for an inclusive and public peace process. I urged 
that: 1) India and Pakistan must institutionalize the peace, 2) the 
opposition parties in both countries must be formally taken onboard, 
and 3) with utmost effort, I urged self-representation and inclusion 
of the people of Jammu & Kashmir in a good faith negotiation process. 
I also urged that your good self on behalf of the BJP opposition 
along with members of the Communist Party of India, A. B. Bardan and 
Prakash Karat should be invited to Pakistan before Prime Minister 
next visits Pakistan.

In February 2006, I conveyed exactly and precisely the same message 
during my meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. When I 
re-emphasized the recommendation of Kashmiri self-representation and 
inclusion in the process, I was pleased with the response from the 
Prime Minister: "We can not even think to exclude Kashmiris from the 
peace process."

You are directly responsible for the current peace process and the 
credit goes to you for the present opportunities that are yet waiting 
to be seized by the governments of India and Pakistan are its result. 
In 2007, the people of South Asia are still waiting for the type of 
exercise of political will, creativity and courage that you once 
urged. Kashmiris are still hoping and waiting for those bold and off 
the beaten track steps from the two governments.

At this time, the type of statements and signals you and your 
colleagues have been giving are not at all conducive and will not 
help. This peace process is your baby and you can not call it an 
illegitimate child. I still hope that you, along with your 
colleagues, will rise above the pulls and pressures of domestic 
politics in India and play the role of the elder statesman of South 
Asia. If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has declared the current peace 
process "irreversible", then bold steps are inevitably needed - 
sooner rather than later. Knowing your persistence for peace and your 
desire for a solution to the Kashmir Issue, it is not unrealistic for 
me to expect that you will build political will in India and publicly 
urge Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seize this opportunity and move 
forward creatively and boldly with the current peace process.

Yours Sincerely,

Yasin Malik
Chairman, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front
Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir

______


[6]  [All SACW subscribers are invited to sign the online petition 
seeking the release of Dr Binayak Sen]


SIGN THE PETITION FOR THE RELEASE OF DR. BINAYAK SEN
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/petition-sign.cgi?Binayak

o o o

The Hindu
May 18, 2007

SEN'S ARREST AN EXAMPLE OF REPRESSION BY CHHATTISGARH GOVERNMENT, SAYS PUCL

Staff Reporter

Demonstration for his unconditional release organised in New Delhi

- Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

VOICE FOR VOICELESS: Writer and social activist Arundhati Roy 
addressing a press conference held against the arrest of Binayak Sen, 
general secretary, Chhattisgarh PUCL, in New Delhi on Thursday. - 
Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

NEW DELHI : Alleging that fake encounters in the past two years have 
claimed the lives of 155 people in Chhattisgarh, members of the 
People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on Thursday accused the 
State Government of subjecting Adivasis to atrocities under the garb 
of Salwa Judum - a people's movement against terrorism and naxalism 
initiated by the Government in June 2005.

The recent arrest of PUCL member Binayak Sen in Chhattisgarh, they 
said, was an example of the Government's repression on voices that 
drew attention to human rights violations.

Members of the PUCL, who organised a demonstration outside the 
Chhattisgarh Bhavan in the capital on Thursday, have sought Dr. Sen's 
unconditional release.

They accused the Government of "framing" Dr. Sen, a paediatrician and 
the vice-president of the PUCL in Chhattisgarh. He was arrested on 
May 14 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004, and the 
Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005.

Later addressing a press conference, Harish Dhawan of the People's 
Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) said Dr. Sen had been falsely 
implicated.

``The State Government has unleashed terror and the police have not 
yet filed a First Information Report. Threats to PUCL members and Dr. 
Sen had begun two-and-a-half years ago, because we had begun to draw 
attention to the large-scale killings, rapes and human rights 
violation that went unreported."

Condemning the arrest of Dr. Sen, the former Chief Justice of the 
Delhi High Court, Justice Rajinder Sachar, said: "PUCL members are 
committed to non-violence.

``Violence cannot be tolerated; State violence is no less than any 
other violence. POTA's draconian laws have been incorporated in the 
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004."

`Dangerous trend'

Criticising Salwa Judum, noted writer Arundhati Roy said: "What has 
happened to Dr. Sen is what has been happening to the people of 
Chhattisgarh; people who are not heard, who have no voices. It all 
begins with the creation of Salwa Judum. Both the Congress and the 
Bharatiya Janata Party are colluding to create a people's militia and 
using unemployed people as special protection officers. This is a 
dangerous trend... which will result in the society becoming 
militarised."

Advocate Prashant Bhushan accused the Government of orchestrating 
"land grabbing" and repressing the Adivasis who raise their voice 
against this. Joining the PUCL in seeking the release of Dr. Sen were 
members of the PUDR, Medicos Friend Circle, the National Alliance for 
People's Movement, the Socialist Front, Saheli and the Delhi 
Solidarity Group.

o o o

Campaign For Survival And Dignity
National Convenor: Pradip Prabhu, 3, Yezdeh Behram, Kati, Malyan, 
Dahanu Rd. 401602
Delhi Contact: Q-1 Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi 110 016.


CAMPAIGN CONDEMNS ARREST OF DR. BINAYAK SEN AND THREATS TO OTHER 
RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

DEMANDS HALT TO SALWA JUDUM AND CORPORATE-DRIVEN STATE REPRESSION IN 
CHATTISGARH

	The Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a federation of 
tribals and forest dwellers' organisations from eleven States, 
condemns in the strongest possible terms the arrest of Dr. Binayak 
Sen, the General Secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties 
(Chattisgarh), and the threats being made regarding arresting Gautam 
Bandhopadhyay, Rashmi Dwivedi and other rights activists in the 
State. This is not merely an effort to cover up the crimes the State 
government has committed in the name of suppressing the Maoists. 
These developments are also part of a much larger agenda, driven by 
the Chattisgarh government's close links to large corporations and 
international capital and aimed at ruthlessly suppressing any 
resistance to the forcible seizure of people's lands and resources.

	Dr. Binayak Sen is known throughout the country for his work 
on health issues and human rights. He, along with his colleagues in 
the PUCL and other courageous activists, has been among the few in 
the State who have been speaking out against the ruthless repression 
unleashed by the Chattisgarh government. His arrest on Monday, May 
14th, was based on the draconian Chattisgarh Public Security Act, 
which permits detention without trial for extended periods and 
criminalises even peaceful dissent. There are considerable fears for 
his safety and his right to a fair trial.

	The arrest was soon followed by public statements by the 
Superintendent of Police and press reports stating that Gautam 
Bandhopadhyay, Rashmi Dwivedi and other rights activists will be the 
next to be charged under the Act. Bandhopadhyay and Dwivedi are also 
members of the People's Union for Civil Liberties and are known for 
their deep involvement in the struggle for land and forest rights. By 
targeting Dr. Sen, Bandhopadhyay and Dwivedi, the Chattisgarh 
government has exposed its ultimate agenda - the brutal repression of 
all democratic, peaceful organisations fighting for people's rights.

	None of this is unfamiliar in the context of Chattisgarh. For 
two years now we have seen a state-sponsored reign of terror in 
Dantewara - the so-called "Salwa Judum movement." In many parts of 
the State, people are being forcibly evicted or relocated from their 
homes in forest and protected areas, in total violation of the 
recently passed Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest 
Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. People fighting to 
prevent their land from being acquired for the Tatas or the Essars 
find their villages surrounded by armed police. Behind these moves is 
a clear corporate agenda of seizing land and mineral resources by 
driving people from their homes and jailing - or killing - those who 
refuse. Targeting dissent is a natural part of this exercise. Using 
Maoist activity as an excuse, the State government intends to 
eliminate all protest.

	Concocted pretexts and false claims of "encouraging violence" 
against personalities like Dr. Binayak Sen are so ludicrous as to be 
laughable. This cannot be allowed to continue. All those who believe 
in democracy in this country have an obligation to stand against the 
Chattisgarh government, and to demand the following:


	The immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen, dropping of 
	charges against him and a halt to any moves to charge Gautam 
	Bandhopadhyay, Rashmi Dwivedi and other activists;

	An immediate halt to the Salwa Judum;

	The repeal of the Chattisgarh Public Security Act;

	A halt to all land acquisition, mining leases, and	other 
industrial expansion in the State until peace is restored and	a 
democratic dialogue takes place on the future of the State and its 
	resources.

On behalf of the Convening Collective


o o o

Indian Express
May 18, 2007

HISTORIAN MOVES SC AGAINST JUDUM

NEW DELHI, MAY 17 : Historian and social activist Ramchandra Guha 
today approached the Supreme Court challenging the Salwa Judum 
movement, which was launched in June 2005 to combat Naxalism in 
Dantewara district of Chhattisgarh.

Following brief arguments, the apex court issued notice to the 
Chhattisgarh Government on the petition which seeks direction to the 
state to refrain from supporting and encouraging the movement. A 
Bench comprising Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and Justice 
R V Raveendran issued notice to the state and directed it to file a 
reply before the next date of hearing.

It was contended by the petitioner that the movement had intensified 
violence. Senior Counsel T Andhirijuna, appearing for the petitioner, 
said: "Far from being a peaceful campaign, Salwa Judum activists are 
armed with guns, lathis, axes, bows and arrows."

"As of January 2007, more than 47,000 people were living in relief 
camps. The condition of these camps are deplorable. Nutrition, 
especially child nutrition, has been badly affected with inmates of 
these camps receiving scant rations," he said. He submitted that the 
residents of the district were forced by the security forces and 
activists of the movement to leave their villages and live in these 
camps. The petitioner also sought an independent inquiry into the 
alleged human rights violations.


______


[7] 

Indian Express
May 18, 2007

IT'S 1978 ONCE MORE

The controversy raging around the Dera Sacha Sauda revives older 
spectres in Punjab. But Punjab has crossed the 1980s. Hasn't it?

by Bhupinder Brar

  History repeats itself, quite often in horrifying ways. I hope 
fervently this does not happen in Punjab yet again. The signs are 
ominous, however, and it already feels like walking on quickly 
thinning ice.

Commentators have been quick in pointing out the parallels that exist 
between the events of the last few days and what had happened in 
1978. On the Baisakhi day that year, followers of the Damdami Taksal 
had clashed with those of the Nirankari sect, leaving many dead on 
the spot, and triggering a process that took thousands of lives over 
the next 15 years.

Nirankaris were then accused of polluting the doctrinal purity and 
cultural traditions of Sikhism. It is the turn of Dera Sacha Sauda 
now to face the same allegations. Interestingly, neither the 
Nirankaris nor the Dera have ever claimed to represent Sikhism. Of 
course, for decades both have drawn into their fold followers of 
diverse backgrounds. Many of these came from Sikh background.

Any social historian of Punjab will tell you this was nothing new. In 
this land of Sufism, various spiritual traditions have not only 
coexisted peacefully but also blended effortlessly. For centuries, 
the people of Punjab sought spiritual solace and guidance by 
visiting, often simultaneously, gurdwaras, temples, dargahs, marhis 
and deras.

These very historians will tell you that this overlap has always 
irked those who gain and maintain political power by manipulating 
social-cultural identities. This was so in colonial Punjab, and this 
has been so since Independence.

Much worse, Punjabi intellectuals and the urban middle classes, 
always in search of professional and commercial spoils, often 
combined with such sectarian leaderships. Long years of political 
indoctrination and rewriting of histories followed, changing the 
self-perceptions of communities. Once the communities began to define 
themselves in such a narrow and divisive fashion, they were also 
ready to be easily manipulated and exploited.

What comes easily to mind in this context is the famous argument made 
by the eminent political scientist, Rajni Kothari. It is true, he 
said, that caste identities dominate Indian politics, but something 
else that is not so readily recognised is equally true: these caste 
identities are neither pristine nor perennial; they are what politics 
has made of them by constantly moulding and manipulating them.

I believe what Kothari said about 'politicisation' of castes equally 
applies to religious identities. Left to themselves, religious 
communities would perhaps find ways of living in peaceable 
coexistence. But they have been drained of that capacity by the 
political forces which work on them.

What are we to make, then, of the relationship between religion and 
politics? This is a question that occupies every thinking Indian but 
it is a question all the more pertinent in a state like Punjab. The 
Akali leadership has always maintained that the two are inseparable. 
How secular can the BJP possibly be in Punjab when their national 
leadership either leads Hindutva forces or, at least, is unable to 
maintain a credible distance from them? The Akali-BJP alliance is 
therefore purely tactical and could prove tenuous in changed 
circumstances. The credentials of the Congress as a secular party 
have also become suspect. Its chief ministers have, in the past, 
tried to prove they are greater Sikhs than the Akalis, and they have 
patronised as well as sought patronage from religious sects and deras.

But there is something that troubles me even more than the 
opportunistic policies of political parties: the growing 
impossibility of practising sarv-dharma-samabhava as the Indian 
version of secularism. Not only does samabhava mean that the state 
give all religions equal regard; it also requires that different 
dharmas have a certain minimum regard for one another.

Such regard did exist once among religious communities. No longer. If 
at one point of time the Muslim League wanted a Pakistan, in more 
recent times the Hindutva forces have tried to turn India into an 
equivalent of Pakistan for the Hindus. We know only too well about 
the political sentiment in Punjab that would very much like an 
equivalent of Pakistan for the Sikhs.

I am not trying to run down our neighbouring country. My intention is 
to draw attention to a particular form of religio-political ideology 
regardless of the particular community or party that practices it. 
The ideology has two components: one, since other communities must, 
of necessity, act in ways that are inimical to us, we must be alert 
as a community and guard against their malefic designs; two, an 
essential part of remaining alert is to watch out amongst ourselves 
for those whose behaviour is suspect, for they might break ranks and 
betray our cause.

The events that led to the massive tragedy and turmoil of the 1980s 
had both these components. It did not take this powerful ideology 
long to sweep aside voices of moderation and sanity. Twenty years 
later, do I hear the cracking of the ground beneath my feet?

The writer is professor of political science, Panjab University, Chandigarh

o o o

The Hindu
May 18, 2007

PREACHERS, POLITICS, PRIMORDIAL PASSIONS

In times less driven by primordial religious passions, Saturday's 
kitsch-laden re-enactment of Guru Gobind Singh's baptism of the first 
Khalsa Sikhs might have provoked nothing but wry humour. Eccentricity 
is, after all, a well-established part of India's religious 
landscape. But the fallout from Saccha Sauda founder Gurmeet Ram 
Rahim Singh's performance - seen by the clerical establishment as 
heretical - has left dozens injured in still-unfolding clashes across 
Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and New Delhi. Indeed the religious fury 
has cut across national frontiers, with diasporic Sikh 
neoconservative websites joining the fray in the hope of revitalising 
their fundamentalist constituency. Many commentators have drawn 
parallels with the 1978 clashes between the Khalsa and the heterodox 
Nirankari sect, which laid the foundations for the decade of 
Khalistan terror. Like the Nirankaris, Mr. Gurmeet Singh's sect 
supports the Congress. It was instrumental in the party's surprising, 
if ultimately pyrrhic, victories in the Shiromani Akali Dal's (SAD) 
south Punjab heartland during the recent Assembly elections. However, 
the fault line this time is not religious. The real battle is over 
that ugly issue most politicians in Punjab like to pretend does not 
exist - caste.

While the Indian media tend to be suffused with images of Punjab's 
prosperity, it is often forgotten that the State is also the site of 
the kinds of caste apartheid that gave birth to the politics of the 
Bahujan Samaj Party's founder, Kanshi Ram. Almost one in three 
residents of Punjab belongs to the Scheduled Castes - the highest 
percentage in India - and atrocities against them have been mounting. 
Ever since the seizure of a shrine at Talhan by upper-caste villagers 
provoked large-scale rioting, there has been a string of violent 
attacks on both Sikh and Hindu Dalits. In response, Dalits have 
increasingly turned from established faiths to new spiritual leaders 
who articulate their anger. In 2001, the spiritual leader Piara Singh 
Bhaniarawala set off a small-scale version of the ongoing violence 
when he released the Bhavsagar Granth, a 2,704 page religious text. 
Suffused with sakhis, or miracle stories, extolling the spiritual 
powers of Mr. Bhaniarawala, the Bhavsagar Granth was intended to 
supplant the Guru Granth Sahib in Dalit Sikh homes. Punjab's 
government unsuccessfully prosecuted Mr. Bhaniarawala but did nothing 
to address his constituency's grievances. Neither did the clerics who 
railed against the preacher. Soon establishment clerics will meet to 
discuss their response to the challenge thrown at them by Mr. Gurmeet 
Singh. The kinds of reflexive responses that can be expected are 
evident in the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee's shocking 
recent decision to expel clean-shaven Sikh students, and those 
sporting short hair, from the schools it runs. It takes little to see 
that such chauvinism strengthens the case of competing 
fundamentalists. Where clerics go, SAD tends to follow. But if Punjab 
is to avert a wider caste conflagration, the State government must 
steer clear of questions of theology - and instead direct its efforts 
at addressing the causes of Dalit anger.


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

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.