SACW | Jan. 27-28, 2008 / Pervez Hoodbhoy : Pakistan's Nuclear assets / India's Hindu Taliban

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Sun Jan 27 18:44:09 CST 2008


South Asia Citizens Wire | January 27-28, 2008 | 
Dispatch No. 2494 - Year 10 running

[1] Pakistan's Nuclear Threat : A state of denial (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
[2] Bangladesh: The media freedom fallacy (Editorial, New Age)
[3] India - Decreasing Freedom of Expression:
   (i) Married to the mob (Rajdeep Sardesai)
   (ii) 'In Hindu culture, nudity is a metaphor 
for purity': M F Husain interview  (Shoma 
Chaudhury)
[4] India: India's Hindu Taliban (Kuldip Nayar)
[5] India : Citizens Paying a Heavy Price of Its 
Security Mania - the case of Aftab Alam Ansari
[6] India: On State Repression in Chhattsgarh and 
Continued Detention of Dr Binayak Sen (citizens 
and groups)
[7] India: Justice Eludes Victims of Gujarat Pogrom of 2002:
    (i) Saluting Bilkis Bano: Reflecting on Gujarat (Ram Puniyani)
    (ii) After Bilkis Bano - Ensure Justice For 
All (Editorial, People's Democracy)
[8] Diaspora: Public Statements by CERAS
   - on ethnic divisions and the signs of an all out war in Sri Lanka
   - on the attack on Christians in Orissa, India by Hindu fundamentalists
[9] Announcements:
   (i) New Publication: Bangladesh, India & Pakistan writers on 1971
   (ii) Public Forum: APRC Committee on 
Power-Sharing Process and Ways Forward (Colombo, 
29 January 2008)
   (iii) D.D.Kosambi Memorial Lecture Series (Bombay, 11-12 February 2008)

______


[1]

International Herald Tribune
January 16, 2008

PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR THREAT
A state of denial

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

A cacophony of protests in Pakistan greeted a 
recent statement by the head of the International 
Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammad ElBaradei. "I fear 
that chaos, or an extremist regime, could take 
root in that country, which has 30 to 40 
warheads," he said. He also expressed fear that 
"nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of 
extremist groups in Pakistan or Afghanistan."

But in Pakistan, few worry. The Strategic Plans 
Division, which is the Pakistani agency 
responsible for handling nuclear weapons, exudes 
confidence that it can safely protect the 
country's "crown jewels." The SPD is a key 
beneficiary of the recently disclosed secret $100 
million grant by the Bush administration, the 
purpose of which is to make Pakistan's nuclear 
weapons safer.

This money has been put to use. Indeed, ever 
since Sept. 11, 2001, there has been a regular 
traffic of Pakistani military officers to and 
from the United States for coaching in nuclear 
safety techniques. While multiple layers of 
secrecy make it hard to judge success, the 
improvement in the SPD's public relations is 
palpable. PowerPoint presentations, guided tours 
of military headquarters and calculated 
expressions of openness have impressed foreign 
visitors.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of a Homeland 
Security and governmental affairs committee, left 
reassured. After a briefing by the SPD's chief, 
Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, Lieberman 
declared in a press conference, "Yes, he did 
allay my fears," and promised to carry that 
message back to Congress.

So, is ElBaradei needlessly alarmed? Of the two 
diametrically opposed opinions, which deserves 
greater credence?

The two men are looking at different things. 
Lieberman was impressed by how well Pakistani 
nuclear handlers have been tutored in the United 
States. ElBaradei, on the other hand, expressed a 
broader concern. He presumably reasoned that 
safety procedures and their associated 
technologies are only as safe as the men who use 
them.

This is the crux of the problem. Pakistan has 
become steadily more radicalized as the influence 
of Islamists increases in its culture and 
society. The deliberate nurturing of jihadism by 
the state has, over 30 years, produced extremism 
inside parts of the military and intelligence. 
Today, some parts are at war with other parts.

This chilling truth is now manifest. A score of 
suicide attacks in the last few weeks, some 
bearing a clear insider signature, have rocked an 
increasingly demoralized military and 
intelligence establishment. For example, an 
unmarked bus of the Inter Services Intelligence 
agency was collecting employees for work early in 
the morning in Rawalpindi when it was boarded by 
a suicide bomber who killed 25 when he blew 
himself up. The ISI had not recovered from this 
shock when, just weeks later, another bus was 
blown up as it entered the service's closely 
guarded secret headquarters.

Elite commandos of the Special Services Group 
have fared no better. Here, the suicide bomber 
was an army man. Still more recently, a group of 
six Pakistani militants, reportedly brainwashed 
by clerics linked to Al Qaeda, was arrested in 
December for plotting suicide attacks against 
military targets. Their leader was revealed to be 
a former army major, Ahsan-ul-Haq, who had 
masterminded the Nov. 1 suicide attack on a 
Pakistan Air Force bus that killed 9 people and 
wounded 40 others in the city of Sargodha, where 
nuclear weapons are said to be stored.

Fearful of more attacks, military officers have 
begun the transition to a new, surprisingly 
modest lifestyle. They have given up wearing 
uniforms except on duty, move in civilian cars 
accompanied by guards in plain clothes, and no 
longer flout their rank in public.

As the rift within widens, many questions pose 
themselves. Can collusion between different 
field-level nuclear commanders - each responsible 
for different parts of the weapon - result in the 
hijacking of one complete weapon? Could jihadist 
outsiders develop links with sympathetic 
custodial insiders?

Many vexing questions concern the weapons 
laboratories and production units. Given the 
sloppy work culture, it is hard to imagine that 
accurate records have been maintained over a 
quarter century of fissile-material production. 
So, can one be certain that small, but 
significant, quantities of highly enriched 
uranium have not made their way out? More 
ominously, religious fervor in these places has 
grown enormously over the last 30 years.

Nevertheless, we Pakistanis live in a state of 
denial. Even as suicide bombings escalate, 
criticism of religious extremists remains taboo. 
The overwhelming majority still attributes recent 
terrorist events - such as the assassination of 
Benazir Bhutto - to the Musharraf government. But 
these delusions will eventually shatter. At some 
point we will surely see that ElBaradei's warning 
makes sense.

Pervez Hoodbhoy is chairman of the department of 
physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad 
and the author of "Islam and Science: Religious 
Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality."


______


[2] Bangladesh:


New Age
January 28, 2008

Editorial
THE MEDIA FREEDOM FALLACY

In an interview on the sidelines of the 
just-concluded annual meeting of the World 
Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland, the chief 
adviser to the military-controlled interim 
government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, claimed that the 
incumbents do not pose any hindrance to media 
freedom in Bangladesh. His claim cannot be any 
farther from truth. As recently as on January 24, 
the media cell of a national intelligence agency 
circulated a written order among the private 
television channels, detailing in unambiguous 
terms what programmes they might air live and 
what programmes they might not, who could be 
invited to talk-shows and who could not, so on 
and so forth. According to an Agence 
France-Presse report, printed on the back page of 
New Age on Sunday, the government banned two live 
political talk-shows of the private television 
channel ETV. ETV officials claim that the 
information ministry handed them 'a written order 
saying that we cannot telecast our live 
talk-shows any more.' Meanwhile, many newspapers 
continue to receive 'advisories' over telephone 
from intelligence agencies. Then, of course, some 
media outlets exercise 'self-censorship,' which, 
again, is a natural reaction to the Emergency 
Powers Rules. If these do not constitute 
hindrance to media freedom in the chief adviser's 
perception, we wonder what would.
    It is neither unwarranted nor unprecedented 
for intelligence agencies to have media cells. In 
fact, we believe such cells can go a long way in 
keeping the government abreast of popular opinion 
about its actions and policies so that it may 
modify its actions and policies in view of the 
public interests and expectations. Regrettably, 
the intelligence agencies have thus far employed 
these cells in a repressive role in their bid to 
force the media outlets into toeing the lines of 
the government. The intelligence agencies under 
the political regimes preceding the interim 
government also resorted to intimidation of the 
media; however, they never went to the extent of 
laying down dos and don's in black and white for 
the media to follow.
    Fakhruddin Ahmed cannot, and should not, take 
refuge in the excuse that he is not or was not 
aware of the workings of the intelligence 
agencies vis-à-vis the media. As the head of 
government, he is expected to be updated of 
whatever action that the intelligence agencies 
take. Besides, he has been informed by senior 
journalists of such intimidation exercises of the 
intelligence agencies on several occasions. It is 
exceedingly disappointing that the chief adviser 
has not only been unable to put an end to such 
unhealthy practices by the intelligence agencies 
but also making inflated claims about absence of 
hindrance to media freedom at international 
forums.
    We would like to remind the chief adviser in 
particular and the incumbents in general that 
ostrich syndrome will not help them in any way 
accomplishing the task of putting the country 
back on the path to democratic governance. We 
would also like to remind him that as an 
economist he should know better than anyone else 
that pervasive development cannot take place in 
an environment where the freedom of expression is 
neither recognised nor nurtured.

______


[3]  INDIA: DECREASING ROOM FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ?

(i)

Hindustan Times
January 24, 2008

MARRIED TO THE MOB

by Rajdeep Sardesai

Last Saturday, as India was celebrating a famous 
cricket victory over Australia in Perth, NDTV's 
Ahmedabad office was ransacked by a mob calling 
itself the Hindu Samrajya Sena. The alleged 
provocation: an sms poll on the network that had 
asked viewers to vote for painter M.F. Husain as 
a possible Bharat Ratna. Only a week before that, 
an IBN-7 broadcast van was damaged in Mumbai, 
allegedly by supporters of Raj Thackeray's 
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Their grouse? The 
channel had questioned the manner in which 
Thackeray had supported a group of men accused of 
molestation on New Year's Eve to the Home 
Minister. A few months ago, journalists in Patna 
were attacked after they reported on the possible 
involvement of a Janata Dal United MLA in a 
murder case. Last year, the Star News office in 
Mumbai was badly damaged by another little known 
group, offended by the channel's coverage of a 
Hindu-Muslim marriage. In 2006, a CNN-IBN car was 
burnt outside the Uttar Pradesh assembly by a 
mob, only a day after the channel reported on BSP 
leader Mayawati's disproportionate assets case.

In all the instances, a clear pattern emerges: a 
faceless mob, often belonging to an equally 
unknown  organisation, gets its 15 seconds of 
fame by taking the law into its own hands. 
Violence becomes the substitute for logical 
argument; anonymity provides an alibi and a 
disturbing licence to kill; spurious asmita or 
self-  respect becomes the justification and 
television the soft target. After all, what 
better way to find yourself on prime time TV than 
attacking a television channel's crew? The camera 
lens is the  window to a wider world, reaching 
out to millions of viewers. What better way to 
express yourself than destroy the very instrument 
that could leave you exposed?

If you can't physically touch Husain, then try 
and attack any symbol connected with the artist, 
be it a painting exhibition or an innocuous sms 
poll. If you can't stop Hindu-Muslim marriages, 
then shoot the messenger carrying the story. If 
you can't enter the courtroom to stop the 
judicial process against your leader, allow the 
writ of the mob to prevail over the rule of  law.

The profile of the 'mob' is also familiar. A 
majority of them are young, mostly unemployed, 
desperately seeking an identity and relevance in 
an increasingly chaotic and competitive world. 
Faced with the threat of marginalisation, being 
part of a Sena or a politician's armed militia 
provides an individual with at least a sense of 
'being', an identity that gives some meaning and 
excitement to a life otherwise spent in drudgery 
and deprivation. Do I want to spend the rest of 
my life in a queue for water before sunrise at 
Dharavi, and then an even longer queue for a job? 
Or do I want to be part of a group that promises 
me upward mobility, through a clever mix of money 
and muscle power?

The image of tearing down an Aamir Khan film 
poster seems far more attractive than avoiding 
the pot-holes in the mucky bylanes of the slum 
pocket. Call it ersatz machismo, or simply urban 
anomie, it is so much easier to be married to the 
mob than be engaged to the harsh realities of 
daily living.

Nor is this only the big city phenomenon that it 
perhaps was a few years ago. The original Senas 
might have emerged in the grimy and unforgiving 
cauldron of Mumbai's backstreets, but they have 
now spread their web across the country. What 
started off as groups seeking a political 
identity - like the Shiv Sena - are now 
re-inventing themselves as the morality police, 
guardians of a so-called cultural 'purity', based 
largely on a growing conflict between 'them' and 
'us' at different levels of society, between 
conflicting notions of social conservatism, 
religious identity and rapid westernisation. 
Then, whether it is a group that threatens women 
without headscarves in Srinagar, or young couples 
in a park in Meerut, or those wearing jeans in a 
Chennai college, it is clear that there is a 
growing geographical spread to the culture of 
moral absolutism through the use of violence and 
intimidation.

The real culprits though are not the faceless 
mob. Much like the TV camera, they are, in a 
sense, the soft targets. The actual 
responsibility must lie with the law enforcers, 
those who are supposed to ensure respect and 
adherence to the rule of law. How, for example, 
does one explain that the same Gujarat government 
that gets tough with farmers who don't pay their 
electricity dues, cannot act against those who 
ransack art exhibitions in Vadodara or even dare 
to enter the Sabarmati ashram and assault Narmada 
Bachao Andolan activists inside the Mahatma's 
abode of  non-violence? How does one explain that 
the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra, which 
gets tough against bar dancers, chooses to turn a 
blind eye to the destruction of valuable archival 
material in a prestigious library in Pune by the 
so-called Sambhaji brigade? What can one expect 
from successive governments in UP and Bihar that 
openly side with criminal elements? Mayawati can 
demand the highest security for herself, but is 
she willing to provide any security to those who 
are routinely targeted by the political gangsters 
of UP? Nitish Kumar may have done a shade better 
after he arrested his MLA Anant Singh for 
assaulting journalists, but did he have the moral 
or political courage to remove him from the party 
despite his long criminal track record?

The fact is that the 'faceless' mobs are often an 
extension of the ruling clique, deriving their 
authority and even legitimacy from the support 
and protection they are provided by the police 
and political system. A policeman in a majority 
of the states who chooses to act independently 
runs the risk of offending his political bosses, 
and being transferred or suspended with immediate 
effect. Police reforms exist on paper: in the 
real world, whether it be a constable or an IPS 
officer, there is little security of tenure or 
insulation from political interference. UP is 
again only the worst example: in the last eight 
months, Mayawati has transferred around 400 
senior officers.

The media, too, aren't blameless. How many times 
are we willing to stand unitedly against 
political intimidation of various forms? The 
occasional dharna or indignant statement in 
support of press freedom is only a camouflage for 
a genuine failing to take a collective approach 
against the targeting of the media. News 
organisations will report when their own 
interests are compromised. But how many of us 
take a principled stand when, say, a channel in 
the North-east is pulled off the air, when a 
competitor is singled out, or when a Tehelka was 
harassed into virtual extinction by the 
government in power? And what of those of us 
within the media who feed on images of 
orchestrated vigilantism and mob violence 
designed for the camera? Are we ready to be 
confronted with a serious credibility check that 
we so desperately need to strengthen our case in 
the face of the growing physical and financial 
threats?

Perhaps, we are victims of this age of 
instantaneous television images, where this 
hour's story is the next bulletin's history. 
Indeed, within hours of the attack in Ahmedabad, 
all TV channels were gleefully celebrating the 
'chak de' spirit with half-crazed crowds in 
different corners of the country. Maybe the 
muscular hyper-nationalism on display is only a 
flip side of the mob fury that is waiting to 
erupt on the streets. Maybe some of the manic 
faces painted in tricolour have also been part of 
the crowds that have attacked the media in the 
past. Maybe we just can't tell the difference 
between the good, the bad and the ugly any longer.

o o o

(ii)

Tehelka Magazine,
Vol 5, Issue 4, Dated Feb 02, 2008

'IN HINDU CULTURE, NUDITY IS A METAPHOR FOR PURITY'

Maqbool Fida Husain tells SHOMA CHAUDHURY why his 
faith in India's secular and tolerant traditions 
remains undiminished

Husain saheb, what do you feel about the fundamentalist attacks against you?
I'm not really perturbed by all this. India is a 
democracy, everyone is entitled to their views. I 
only wish people would air their views through 
debate rather than violence.The media comes to me 
looking - almost hoping - for strong statements, 
but I am actually very optimistic about India. I 
see this as just a moment in time. For 5,000 
years, our work has been going on with such 
force, this is just a minor hiccough. I am 
certain the younger generation will get fed up of 
the fundamentalist, conservative mood in the 
country and change things. I didn't want to leave 
my home. At the same time, it's not even as if I 
want the conservative element to be pushed out of 
society. We are all part of a large family and 
when a child breaks something at home, you don't 
throw him out, you try and explain things to him. 
Yeh aapas ka mamla hai. (This is a family 
matter.) Those opposed to my art just do not 
understand it. Or have never seen it.

Why don't you come back to India and take on the fight?
As things stand, I cannot come back. No one has 
exiled me; I cameaway myself because I am an old 
man and vulnerable to physical danger. It's not 
just the cases. If I came back, given the mood 
they have created, someone could just push or 
assault me on the street, and I would not be able 
to defend myself. The only way I can come back to 
India, perhaps, is if the BJP comes to power at 
the Centre. Or maybe, Mayawati. This government 
has no spine. Their hands are tied. They think if 
they speak out or take action, they will be 
accused of appeasement. The irony is, out of 
power, the BJP uses issues like this to fan its 
votebank. In power, they would probably control 
their extreme brigades to look respectable and 
secular! (laughs) These are the ironies of India. 
Actually, it is for the courts to sort this out. 
The allegation that my work is obscene or hurts 
religious sentiment can never stand merit in a 
court. Perhaps, if someone filed a counter public 
interest litigationŠ It is not my place to do so.

Why did you apologise for your art? You know more 
about Hindu iconography and the shastras than the 
goons who deface your work.
Never. I have never apologised for my art. I 
stand by it totally. What I said was that I have 
painted my canvases - including those of gods and 
goddesses- with deep love and conviction, and in 
celebration. If in doing that, I have hurt 
anyone's feelings, I am sorry. That is all. I do 
not love art less, I love humanity more. India is 
a completely unique country. Liberal. Diverse. 
There is nothing like it in the world. This mood 
in the country is just a historical process. For 
me, India means a celebration of life. You cannot 
find that same quality anywhere in the world.

Could you talk about how your exposure and love 
for Hindu iconography and culture began.
As a child, in Pandharpur, and later, Indore, I 
was enchanted by the Ram Lila. My friend, 
Mankeshwar, and I were always acting it out. The 
Ramayana is such a rich, powerful story, as Dr 
Rajagopalachari says, its myth has become a 
reality. But I really began to study spiritual 
texts when I was 19. Because of what I had been 
through, because I lost my mother, because I was 
sent away, I used to have terrible nightmares 
when I was about 14 or 15. All of this stopped 
when I was 19. I had a guru called Mohammad 
Ishaq- I studied the holy texts with him for two 
years. I also read and discussed the Gita and 
Upanishads and Puranas with Mankeshwar, who had 
become an ascetic by then. After he left for the 
Himalayas, I carried on studying for years 
afterwards. All this made me completely calm. I 
have never had dreams or nightmares ever again. 
Later, in Hyderabad, in 1968, Dr Ram Manohar 
Lohia suggested I paint the Ramayana. I was 
completely broke, but I painted 150 canvases over 
eight years. I read both the Valmiki and Tulsidas 
Ramayana (the first is much more sensual) and 
invited priests from Benaras to clarify and 
discuss the nuances with me. When I was doing 
this, some conservative Muslims told me, why 
don't you paint on Islamic themes? I said, does 
Islam have the same tolerance? If you get even 
the calligraphy wrong, they can tear down a 
screen. I've painted hundreds of Ganeshas in my 
lifetime - it is such a delightful form. I always 
paint a Ganesha before I begin on any large work. 
I also love the iconography of Shiva. The Nataraj 
- one of the most complex forms in the world - 
has evolved over thousands of years and, almost 
like an Einstein equation, it is the result of 
deep philosophical and mathematical calculations 
about the nature of the cosmos and physical 
reality. When my daughter, Raeesa wanted to get 
married, she did not want any ceremonies, so I 
drew a card announcing her marriage and sent it 
to relatives across the world. On the card, I had 
painted Parvati sitting on Shiva's thigh, with 
his hand on her breast - the first marriage in 
the cosmos. Nudity, in Hindu culture, is a 
metaphor for purity. Would I insult that which I 
feel so close to? I come from the Suleimani 
community, a sub-sect of the Shias, and we have 
many affinities with Hindus, including the idea 
of reincarnation. As cultures, it is Judaism and 
Christianity that are emotionally more distant. 
But it is impossible to discuss all this with 
those who oppose me. Talk to them about 
Khajuraho, they will tell you its sculpture was 
built to encourage population growth and has 
outgrown its utility! (laughs) It is people in 
the villages who understand the sensual, living, 
evolving nature of Hindu gods. They just put 
orange paint on a rock, and it comes to stand for 
Hanuman.

In what terms would you like your paintings to be spoken of and remembered?
I never wanted to be clever, esoteric, abstract. 
I wanted to make simple statements. I wanted my 
canvases to have a story. I wanted my art to talk 
to people. In 1948, I exhibited my work publicly 
for the first time in the Bombay Arts Society 
show. I had already been painting and practising 
for years. Now in those paintings, I took the 
classical images of the Gupta bronzes - the 
tribhanga form; the sensuous and erotic colours 
of Pahari paintings - its deep maroons, blacks, 
haldi; and the nine rasas. I wanted my format to 
be classical, yet retain the innocence of the 
folk. Souza came and asked me excitedly, from 
where have you got this? I didn't tell him, I 
said, you go search it. This is what lies at the 
heart of the artistic enterprise.
It is in picking from what has gone before. In 
India, there have been so many high periods - 
Tanjore, Chola, GuptaŠ Centuries of seeing lie 
behind that. You cannot reinvent the wheel - your 
individuality, your creative eye lies in what you 
pick. The other thing is to find one's own rhythm 
and calculation: Where exactly do you place a 
line on an empty canvas? Where exactly do you 
place the dot? How much yellow should I use, how 
much red. If I use 1mm of red, should the blue be 
a half millimeter or more? An artist's voice lies 
in this calculation, this maths. To find your 
style and language takes 60-70 years of 
continuous work.

Which among your paintings do you consider the 
most significant, your equivalent of Picasso's 
Guernica?
'Between the Spider and the Lamp' (1956). I feel 
happy with the structure of that grouping - there 
is a kind of mystery about what the five women 
are talking about. Stories perhaps even unknown 
to themselves. There is something in the 
precarious way the woman is holding the spider on 
a delicate thread. A fear. I rarely draw eyes, I 
don't want to use eyes because to give someone 
eyes is to define and identify the person. I 
prefer to make the body expressive. To understand 
hand expression, I had observed Rodin's 
sculptures - 'Men of Calais'. To that I brought a 
knowledge of classical mudras. So much is made of 
culture and tradition in India, yet 60 years 
after Independence, art students are still made 
to study the body from Greek art. Dr Kumaraswamy 
does not even find mention. In colleges, you 
learn about Shakespeare and Keats, Kalidas does 
not find mention. This is why there is no pehchan 
in India, no recognition of what is Indian. 
Things are so farcical that years ago when the 
Benaras Hindu University honoured Subbulakshmi, 
JRD Tata, Mother Teresa and me, we were given red 
caps and cloaks! (laughs) This was the seat of 
Hindu learning! The custodian of Bharatiya 
sanskriti! Is there anything that you find 
obscene in the world? Bad behaviour. That is all.


______


[4]

Dawn
25 January 2008

INDIA'S HINDU TALIBAN

by Kuldip Nayar

"WILL you arrest anybody and identify him by any 
name that suits your case?" a judge asked the 
police while setting Aftab Alam Ansari free. He 
was imprisoned on suspicion that he was involved 
in the serial blasts at the courts in Lucknow 
some two years ago.

He is an electrician working at Kolkata in the 
government's power corporation. He was picked up 
from there. The UP police chief described him as 
'a hard core' belonging to the 
Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami. Sheepishly, the police 
have admitted that it was a case of 'mistaken 
identity'.

What Aftab went through in jail is something too 
familiar in the subcontinent to be repeated. I do 
not know whether he is suing the authorities for 
his illegal detention. But this is a case which 
some NGO should take up to demand not only 
compensation for him but also punishment for 
those who misused the law. It has become a 
practice with the police to arrest anyone without 
even a semblance of evidence to allay the 
people's fear in the wake of a blast.

One more example of the police getting away with 
'false testimony' has come to the fore. This is 
the Bilkis Bano case in Gujarat. Eleven people 
who raped her and killed 14 of her relatives, 
including her three-year-old daughter, have been 
sentenced to life imprisonment. At last some 
persons have been punished, thanks to the 
persistence of Bilkis and Teesta Setalvad, a 
human rights activist, supported by the media. 
Yet, five policemen have been acquitted. Bilkis 
wants to pursue their case of 'false testimony'.

The case had to be heard outside Gujarat because 
of pressures within the state. Yet the main 
culprit, state chief minister Narendra Modi, who 
had planned the ethnic cleansing and had it 
carried out, moves around freely because there is 
no 'legal proof'" against him. The Nanavati 
Commission appointed to find out those 
responsible for the carnage has been sitting for 
the last five years; it is still examining 
witnesses.

Modi, without any qualms of conscience, had the 
audacity to talk about the centre's failure to 
curb terrorism when he was touring Tamil Nadu and 
Maharashtra. What happened in Gujarat was 
something more terrible than terrorism. British 
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced 
financial help and his government's support for 
concerted action against terrorism. He wants 
Pakistan to be part of the drive.

But he should know that terrorism is only a 
symptom, not the disease. Fundamentalism has very 
much to do with it. The terrorism witnessed in 
Gujarat was the work of Hindu fundamentalists. 
Without curbing them or their counterparts among 
Muslims, there can be little progress on this 
front.

Gujarat continues to be in the grip of Hindu 
Taliban. Sainiks destroyed the NDTV office at 
Ahmedabad a few days ago because the channel 
reported M.F. Hussain, a world famous painter, as 
one among the people's choice for the Bharat 
Ratna, the highest civilian award. The land of 
Modi has such a pathological hatred for Muslims 
that there is no question of taking action 
against the culprits because they are the warp 
and woof of the state's Hindutva apparatus.

There has been no word of explanation, much less 
condemnation, from the BJP spokesman, Ravi 
Shankar Prasad, otherwise an urbane person. When 
the entire structure of his party, the BJP, has 
been built upon anti-Muslim sentiments, its youth 
followers, the sainiks, are only instruments of 
terror and tyranny, at the beck and call of the 
party.

The same sainiks or their type broke glass at the 
NDTV office in Bhopal. This is the capital of the 
BJP-run Madhya Pradesh. It is assumed that no 
action will be taken against them. True, it is a 
minor incident compared to the Ahmedabad one. 
What the nation must realise is that Germany was 
not taken over by the Nazis in one day. They 
nibbled at the country ideologically and socially.

People would shrug their shoulders saying that 
the NDTV incident did not hurt them. The Nazis 
too did not take on all the people at one go. 
Only one set of them was attacked first. Left 
aside, the other sections asked themselves why 
they should raise their voice when they had not 
been touched. Ultimately, when the Nazis came for 
the last set of people, there was nobody left to 
speak out.

The Muslims accused in the Godhra train arson 
case have been denied even a fair hearing and 
have been deprived of basic freedoms. In all 
there were 135 accused in the incident. The last 
bail order was granted by the Gujarat high court 
on October 30, 2004. The court has not heard any 
bail application since. Many serious 
discrepancies in the arrests, including some 
glaring inconsistencies, have been pointed out to 
the state which simply refuses to address the 
concerns.

Compared to the Hindu Taliban, the Muslim Taliban 
may be less active. But they are very much there. 
They demonstrated against the Godrejs, a house of 
industrialists, recently because they had hosted 
Salman Rushdie, the author of Satanic Verses. The 
demonstrators demanded a boycott of the goods 
produced by them.

Not many Muslims were associated with the 
hooligans. But then nobody in the community dared 
to speak against them. People were simply afraid 
of what the fundamentalists might do to them. In 
fact, the fear they instill in the general public 
is their weapon. They have already silenced the 
government of India in the case of Taslima 
Nasreen, the Bangladeshi author who has been 
installed in a house in Delhi, isolating her from 
the outside world. She has protested against the 
'house arrest' but neither the government nor the 
Muslim community is sensitive to her freedom.

I do not know why New Delhi is soft on 
fundamentalists. The example of Pakistan is 
before us. There was a time when the madressahs 
and maulvis did not pose any danger. Religious 
parties would never cross double digits in 
elections to the provincial and national 
assemblies. The madressahs went on brainwashing 
the youth studying there. Thousands of them are 
now an integral part of Pakistani society. The 
government did not lift a finger against them.

Now that they have begun to challenge the state, 
the army has been deployed to curb them. Several 
suicide attacks on the military have demoralised 
the army as have beheadings of security officials.

Still, the terrorists have come to occupy a large 
bit of Pakistan's territory. Waziristan is under 
their command. President Pervez Musharraf has 
tried to convince Europe that the terrorists have 
been nearly ousted from the country. Very few 
believe him. That is his and Pakistan's tragedy. 
His credibility is zero.

The writer is a leading journalist based in New Delhi.

______


[5]  India : Citizens Paying a Heavy Price of Its Security Mania

The Telegraph
18 January 2008

'I WAS WHIPPED WITH A BELT UNTIL I SCREAMED'

Aftab Alam Ansari, the Calcuttan who spent over 
20 days in captivity because of a police blunder 
that made him a suspected explosives courier, was 
released on Thursday from a Lucknow jail. The 
26-year-old CESC employee spoke to Tapas 
Chakraborty of The Telegraph.

The account of his ordeal in detention is 
reproduced below as he narrated it, not in 
chronological order.

In a small room inside the Special Task Force 
(STF) detention centre of Mahanagar (in Lucknow), 
I was told to look straight at two police 
officers and admit that I was Mukhtar alias Raju, 
a wanted terrorist.

I said I was a simple mazdoor in CESC in 
Calcutta. I repeatedly refused to accept the 
allegation that I was an aatankwadi (terrorist).

Suddenly, one officer began reeling off instances 
of blasts in which I apparently had a hand. He 
blamed me for the deaths of many innocent people 
in Uttar Pradesh. I said I didn't know what he 
was saying.

Then he slapped me so hard twice that my head 
reeled from the impact for some time. But I was 
unmoved in the chair.

The officer shouted at the top of his voice: "Sab 
aatankwadi hi kahate hai ki woh beguna hai."(All 
terrorists say they are innocent). I again said I 
was not a terrorist.

The officer flew into a rage. Suddenly, he 
whipped out his belt and began beating me until I 
screamed in pain.

This must have happened on December 31, the day 
after I was brought from Calcutta. But I had no 
way of knowing the time as the torture chamber 
had no access to daylight and my watch had been 
taken off in Calcutta itself. When I reached 
Lucknow, the Rs 500 I had and my mobile phone 
were also taken away.

Trip from Calcutta

On the morning of December 29 - two days after I 
was picked up in Calcutta - Uttar Pradesh police 
tied my hands with a rope and kept me in the rear 
seat of a Tavera bound for Lucknow from Calcutta. 
My face was hooded with a piece of red cloth.

I was given a cup of tea before the car sped off. 
A meal later in Varanasi, I reached Lucknow on 
December 30 afternoon. I was driven straight to 
the detention centre.

During the next two days of my stay at the 
detention centre, I was put through gruelling 
interrogation sessions. I kept requesting them to 
get back to my office, my employer and my 
neighbours to investigate about me but they 
refused to budge.

Marriage, a code?

The officers asked me why I had gone to Gorakhpur 
in March last year and then in May-June last 
year. I said I had gone to get married in 
Gorakhpur. One officer asked me if "getting 
married" was a code word for getting serial 
blasts carried out in a city. I looked puzzled.

On December 31, the STF brought two other 
suspects - Mohammad Khalid and Mohammad Tariq 
Qazmi. They were asked to look at me and tell the 
police if they recognised me. They said they had 
never seen me before. He is not the Mukhtar we 
spoke of, they kept repeating.

I never touched any firearm in my 26 years of 
life. I dread the sight of blood. I am so scared 
of violence that I often avoid Muharram 
processions in my locality where 
self-flagellation causes wounds.

On January 2, I was taken to a court. In the 
courtroom, I was accused of ripping Varanasi 
apart with serial blasts, ferrying RDX into Uttar 
Pradesh and setting off explosions in courts. I 
was also blamed for the triple blasts of 
Gorakhpur on May 22.

Nightmare in cell

I was then sent to judicial custody. I was dumped 
in Cell No. 5 in the high-security barracks and I 
fell ill in the evening. I had a cellmate called 
Arif. He never told me why he was being kept in 
prison. I began to vomit late that evening. I was 
asked to lie on the elevated concrete bed where 
jail officials spread a blanket.

As I lay down, I could see the faces of my wife 
Shafana, who I married on March 13 last year, my 
sister, my mother and my brother. I am the only 
earning member of my house. What will happen to 
my family if I am forced to live in jail all my 
life? I could hear a chorus of voices calling me 
aatankwadi.

I was having these terrible spells of nightmares 
for some hours. Then a doctor came to the cell 
and gave me some medicine. Soon, I fell asleep.

In the 8-foot-by-8-foot dank, depressing room, I 
often had this thought: Am I destined to die 
here? I grew quite an unkempt beard and stank of 
body odour. I could not bathe in cold water.

The first shock

How did I become a jailbird? My days in hell 
began on December 27 when, along with a friend 
who I fondly call Balle, I had gone to Shyambazar 
in Calcutta to buy some essential items for my 
Cossipore home.

On my way back from the market by a bus, my 
friend got down at Chitpur. After a while, I got 
a call from a stranger who asked where I was and 
when I would return home. I told him I was on a 
bus and on my way to Chiriamore. It was 1.30pm.

Half an hour later, when I got down at Chiriamore 
and was about to cross the road, six 
plainclothesmen stopped me and shoved me into a 
car.

I was told that I was "Mukhtar alias Raju alias 
Bangladeshi". My vehement denials increased their 
suspicion. I was produced the next day before the 
Alipore sub-divisional judicial magistrate's 
court and handed over to Uttar Pradesh police.

In the jail, I was given bread made of coarse 
wheat flour, rice full of stone chips and a 
tasteless vegetable. On January 3, I had acute 
diarrhoea for which I was given medicine. My 
urine had turned yellow and I had no appetite. No 
one was allowed to meet me. I was not given the 
half-hour recess outside the cell that 
undertrials are entitled to.

Ray of hope

On January 8, the STF brought me back to the 
detention centre. This time, I found a new 
investigating officer, S.N. Shukla, who replaced 
C.N. Sinha. Shukla went through my case diary.

He did not ask me many questions except why I 
visited Gorakhpur so often. I said my wife was 
from Gorakhpur. Besides, I hail from Golabazar 
(near Gorakhpur).

He asked me how a call was made to a blast 
suspect from my mobile number. I said a stranger 
used my phone to call up his relative in 
Gorakhpur on March 6, 2007, when I was on my way 
to Gorakhpur from Calcutta on the eve of my 
marriage.

On the afternoon of January 8, the same officer 
met me and said: "I have nothing against you. You 
will go back to Calcutta soon."

Day of freedom

Since January 8, I was counting my days to 
freedom. In the morning today (Thursday), I was 
given a cup of tea and two slices of bread. Told 
that I would be released, I did not have the 
patience to eat the bread. I had the tea.

At 10.30am, when I saw my mother waiting for me 
at the jail gate, I ran up to her, hugged her and 
began to cry.

The jail employees were smiling at me, and a group of journalists was waiting.

I am still wearing the same sky-blue denim 
trousers and a grey T-shirt that I had on when I 
left home in Calcutta on December 27. I lost 
about a kilo in jail.

But I am happy to return to this new world as 
Aftab Alam Ansari, not as Mukhtar, not as Raju, 
not as BangladeshiŠ

______


[6]

STATEMENT OF CONCERNED CITIZENS AND PEOPLE'S 
ORGANIZATONS ON STATE REPRESSION IN CHHATTSGARH 
AND CONTINUED DETENTION OF DR BINAYAK SEN


A group of former bureaucrats, academicians, 
lawyers and social activists visited Chhattisgarh 
from 18 - 22 January 2008 in connection with the 
prolonged incarceration of Dr Binayak Sen. The 
team met the Governor and Director General of 
Police and also met Dr Binayak Sen in the central 
prison at Raipur. Some members of the group also 
visited areas in the districts of Bastar, 
Dantewada and Bijapur.

In the light of the information gathered, the 
team is of the opinion that  the charges filed 
against Dr Sen under the IPC, CrPC and the 
Chhattisgarh Public Safety Act (CPSA) are 
unwarranted and unconstitutional. The CPSA 
enables the government to interpret the rendering 
of simple humanitarian acts as unlawful The Act 
defines "unlawful activity" so broadly that every 
act of vigilant citizenship can be construed as 
unlawful and anti-national. Thus it is clear that 
Dr Sen is being targeted in his capacity as 
General Secretary of People's Union for Civil 
Liberties, Chhattishgarh. The reports produced by 
the PUCL have highlighted the anti-constitutional 
violence legitimized by the state through the 
Salwa Judum campaign.

It seems that the government is determined to 
destroy the human rights movement in the state. 
In this process, the government is eliminating 
the possibility of a strong civil society that 
can act like a middle ground between Naxalites 
and the government. Dr Sen represents a voice 
that is critical of the anti-people policies of 
the government, but his work is in the field of 
health, education and providing succor to the 
poor and tribal people under distress. He has 
been running clinics in the remote areas where 
the official medical facilities haven't reached. 
It is ironic that on the one hand the government 
is planning to compel medical graduates to sign a 
bond to serve in rural areas, while on the other, 
it actively victimizes committed individuals such 
as Dr Sen who have voluntarily dedicated their 
lives to serving the neediest.

It may be noted that the Indian Social Science 
Congress at its annual convention held in Mumbai 
in December 2007, felicitated Dr Sen with a 
citation honouring him as a committed Gandhian.

In a meeting with the group inside the jail the 
team was shocked to learn that Dr Sen is deprived 
of basic amenities and assistance due to 
under-trials. He does not have access newspapers 
of his choice, only to one highly censored Hindi 
daily. His request to be allowed to use his 
professional skills as a medical doctor for the 
benefit of a vastly over-crowded jail has been 
refused. He is not permitted to walk in the area 
where other prisoners are allowed. He has lost 20 
kilos and the team is seriously concerned about 
his health and well-being.

The team learnt with concern that at the hearing 
on January 17th when the court was to decide 
whether charges were to be framed against Dr Sen, 
he was not physically produced in court. Senior 
jail officials offered the flimsy excuse that 
they did not have enough guards to accompany Dr 
Sen. However, since the police could not have 
known in advance that Dr Sen would not be 
discharged by the court, his not being produced 
on that day is a serious matter.

The team also met the Director General of Police 
(Prisons) and requested him to ensure that Dr 
Sen's rights as an under-trial are protected. The 
DGP assured the team that these circumstances 
would be rectified.

During the visit of the team to the jail, media 
people present to cover the visit of the team 
were harassed by the jail authorities. The camera 
of one media person was confiscated and another 
was detained at the jail offices. The team also 
complained to the DGP against the high handedness 
of the jail authorities and condemned the attack 
on the right of the media to gather information.

During the visit to the districts mentioned 
above, the team talked to several people and met 
with officials.  It is evident that the 
government in its haste to industrialize the 
state and exploit the mineral resources is 
aggressively trampling on the rights of the 
people. Their right to informed and democratic 
consent to the official plans for mega 
development, and all safeguards for environmental 
protection and democratic decision-making and 
autonomy available to the gram sabhas under the 
Panchayat (Extension to Schedules Areas) Act, 
have been violated. In some areas repression of 
most brutal forms on any kind dissent has been 
used.
When the team met the Governor, they impressed on 
him his responsibility to use his powers under 
Schedule V to ensure the protection of rights of 
tribal people and bring about democratic 
functioning in the state.

Dr Sen had consistently raised these concerns, 
and it clear that he is being victimized for 
alerting the official agencies to the plight of 
the poor. Thus we urge the Government of 
Chhattisgarh to immediately release him 
unconditionally and withdraw all charges against 
him.

Amit Bhaduri, Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University
Delhi

Medha Patkar, social activist, National Alliance of
People's Movements

Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay Awardee

Arvind Kejriwal, Magsaysay Awardee

Manoranjan Mohanty, retired Professor (Delhi
University)

Uma Chakravarty, retired Professor (Delhi University)

Gabriele Dietrich, Madurai University and National
Alliance of People's Movements

Madhu Bhaduri, former Ambassador

V S Krishna, Human Rights Forum, Andhra Pradesh

Vrinda Grover, Advocate, Delhi

Nivedita Menon, Delhi University

Gopal Iyer, Professor, Panjab University, Chandigarh

Manish Sisodia, media activist

Ravi Hemadri, The Other Media, Delhi

Swati, Parivartan

Santosh, Parivartan

Santosh Jha, Parivartan

Om Prakash, Delhi University

Mukta Srivastava
National Alliance of People's Movements


______


[7] JUSTICE ELUDES VICTIMS OF GUJARAT POGROM OF 2002:

(i)

SALUTING BILKIS BANO: REFLECTING ON GUJARAT

by Ram Puniyani (25 January 2008)

After a long time one has come across the 
delivery of justice in the cases pertaining to 
Gujarat carnage. Bilkis Bano, a pregnant young 
woman was gang raped and her family was wiped out 
in the Gujarat carnage, which was engineered on 
the pretext of Godhra train burning. Despite all 
the obstacles posed by Gujarat police and state, 
finally her tormentors have been held guilty (18 
th Jan 2008) and given the punishment. Even in 
this the involved police personnel and doctors 
have got away despite their complicity in the 
crime. All in all despite this lacuna, it is a 
heartening respite in the prevailing dismal 
scenario. One recalls that there are thousands of 
cases which have neither been properly registered 
nor are being pursued despite the best efforts of 
social and legal activists in Gujarat.

In this case it the grit, determination and 
strength of the victim, Bilkis bano, and the 
support of civil rights group which supported 
her, are crucial factors in getting the justice. 
The justice in this case stands out as a small 
ray of respite, in the gloomy scenario of 
Gujarat, where by now justice for minorities is 
conspicuous by its absence.

This case also brings to our notice that while 
this underbelly of Gujarat is visible to those 
who care, for a section of people all over, 
Gujarat is being presented as a model state under 
the efficient leadership of Narendra Modi. It is 
under his patronage and leadership that the state 
had witnessed the carnage. This carnage, the 
worst in recent memory, fractured the whole 
Gujarat society along religious lines. The post 
violence obligations of state were turned into 
further means of intimidation and marginalization 
of minorities, who by now have been made to bend 
their knees if they have to live in Gujarat. The 
all round boycott, marginalization and 
gheotttization of Muslim minorities has reached 
levels which are unprecedented in India so far 
and all this has been projected as a successful 
experiment of Hindu Rashtra.

Same Modi who led the carnage and post carnage 
humiliation of minorities with extreme cruelty 
romped home to electoral victory, which is being 
celebrated far and wide, by a section of people 
and section of media. His victory has given 
signal of revival of the aggressive designs for 
Hindu nation. Narendra Modi is emerging as the 
sole leader of BJP, endowed with appeal to a 
section of middle classes. He is being upheld as 
the brave man, with 56 inch chest, a lion, an 
honest, efficient, incorruptible man, but while 
his chest is visible his blood soaked hands are 
hidden. His fan following is peaking to new 
heights. A section of media is also projecting 
him as the hope of the future. Incidentally he 
has been named as the Prime Ministerial candidate 
of the future by RSS, the patriarch of communal 
fascist politics in India.

It is important to look at Modi's role as the 
charismatic leader of a party BJP, which is 
wedded to Hindu Rashtra, a Hindu fascist state, 
is on the upswing. He seems to be fitting the 
bill of an authoritarian leader perfectly. 
India's well known post modern social scientist 
Ashish Nandy after interviewing him said that 
Modi is a classic fascist personality. A bit of a 
peep into his personal life is important for 
understanding what his persona means. He 
abandoned his wife long ago and is a full time 
RSS prachrak. As per the usual norms of a 
pracharak has been living a life cut off from 
family ties. This fact of his breaking the family 
ties is also being glorified. In the ideology of 
RSS family ties for a Pracharak are regarded as a 
drag for achieving the goals of Sangh (RSS).

From all accounts he is an autocrat who is using 
democratic space to grab the power to abolish 
democratic space itself. Keshubhai Patel the 
previous chief minister described Modi's rule as 
mini emergency. Most of the decisions from top to 
bottom are taken by him alone. Modi has been 
boasting that he neither takes money nor lets 
others do the corruption. This authoritarian 
control on corruption is flimsy as the opaqueness 
of such an administration leads to levels of 
corruptions which are too big in proportions, 
like control of the whole state machinery by big 
industrialists and business houses. Transparency 
is the key to eradication of corruption, but in 
Modi's scheme of things, since the affairs are 
controlled exclusively from top, transparency has 
no place as such. Lot of these traits are similar 
to what were seen in Hitler's Germany.

Gujarat is being ruled by BJP form last several 
years. With Modi coming to the helm of affairs, 
the section of affluent middle class is too happy 
as its interests are safe and secure at the cost 
of interests of poor dalit, adivasis and 
minorities. This section of middle class which is 
very dominant, has global connections, and can 
smell dollars, is rising in other parts of the 
country as well. The response which Modi got in 
Chennai or the type of hype which was created 
around him in Mumbai for his rally (January 23, 
2008) signifies that the new middle class, cozy 
in its privileges and scared of the rise of 
dalits and poorer sections of society is eager to 
welcome him as the messiah. It is another matter 
that these material interests of this section, 
the base of 'Shining India', are couched in the 
language of protection of Hindu religion.

The biggest success of RSS propaganda work is 
that over a period of years, it has succeeded in 
promoting the ideas of social status quo, 
conservatism in outlook, and total opposition to 
any affirmative action for weaker section of 
society. Interestingly this politics does talk 
about poor, but in the language of patronage. For 
this politics patronage is dished out as a 
substitute for promotion of their human rights. 
It is no wonder that the language of religion 
which is spoken by Dharmagurus (clergy) has no 
concept of rights; it revolves around the notion 
of duties and respect of traditions. These shri 
shri's, acharyas and bapus are dime a dozen, 
promoting the culture and values which suit the 
material interests of sections of middle classes, 
and political interests of the likes of Modi. 
Needless to say their preaching aims to promote 
traditions which reinforce the secondary status 
of dalits, women and other weaker sections of 
society. With times, RSS politics has succeeded 
in co-opting sections of deprived and minorities, 
and there is a difference between cooption and 
notion of equality.

While maintaining status quo of social 
hierarchies, and suppression of human rights of 
weak is the core agenda of sectarian political 
outfits, irrespective of the race and religion in 
whose name they are unfolded, the same is 
presented in the language of religion or race. 
The same is built around the 'Hate other', 
minorities, and this serves to create hysteria to 
suppress the democratic space. This is precisely 
what Modi has brought in. Through the carnage he 
has broken the values of pluralism and national 
integration. He has instilled the communal 
divides on permanent basis, so now he can talk of 
development. A prominent academic describes Modi 
brand of politics as 'communal body with the mask 
of development'. Modi has projected the interests 
of few industrialists, some NRIs and some 
affluent sections as the development of Gujarat. 
Needless to say here also, as in other parts of 
India, there are farmer's suicides and rising 
poverty of poor and destitution of marginalized, 
running parallel to the 'development' as 
understood in the language of globalization.

Are we witnessing the rise of a Hitler? Hitler 
who crushed democracy under his boots in the name 
of solving the German national problem of Jews, 
Communists and minorities? There is a sense of de 
ja vu in the rise of Modi, more so since he has 
started picking up charisma, more so because now 
the minorities in his state dare not even ask for 
their citizens rights as they know that none 
exists for them unless some one like Bilkis bano, 
assisted by human rights groups, can take it up 
to the highest levels of battles. And other such 
cases are doomed to disappear in to oblivion over 
a period of time. Bilkis bano case is the mirror 
of Gujarat. By its presence it is showing us how 
other cases have been suppressed by the trishuls 
of Modi associates. While he can bloat his chest 
to 56 inches and pose as the temporary savior for 
some, this politics will ultimately break the 
integration of the nation, which has been won the 
hard way by the democratic streams, political 
streams, which fought for nation's independence 
and its values, represented by the likes of 
Bhagat Singh, Gandhi and Ambedkar!


o o o


(ii)

People's Democracy
January 27, 2008

EDITORIAL

After Bilkis Bano - Ensure Justice For All

FINALLY, at least in one case amongst the 
thousands that occurred in the State-sponsored 
communal genocide in Gujarat in 2002, justice 
appears to have been done. The special court in 
Mumbai, designated by the Supreme Court, to 
conduct the trial in some of the most gruesome 
incidents of communal carnage, has sentenced 
eleven out of the twelve guilty to life 
imprisonment in the Bilkis Bano gang rape and 
massacre case. In addition, one police officer 
was sentenced to three years rigorous 
imprisonment on charges of complicity.

In one of the many inhuman atrocities in Gujarat 
in 2002, a pregnant Bilkis Bano was gang raped 
and her child crushed to death. Fourteen members 
of her family, including six women and four 
children, were massacred when they were trying to 
escape their riot-affected village. Bilkis, 
demonstrating a rare determination and fortitude, 
had petitioned the judiciary stating that the 
Gujarat police were hand-in-glove with the 
accused, evidence was being tampered with and 
witnesses were being threatened.

In response to this, the Supreme Court 
transferred the case to a special court in 
Maharashtra from Gujarat. Bilkis deserves all 
praise and support for refusing to succumb to 
threats and rejecting all inducements in doggedly 
pursuing this case.

Though this judgement has come after six cruel 
years of agony and wait, justice nevertheless 
seems to have been finally delivered. In this 
context, several points need to be considered. 
There are several hundreds of pending cases 
relating to the Gujarat carnage. Given the track 
record of the system of delivery of justice in 
our country, particularly in relation to justice 
to the victims of communal riots, it is 
imperative to ensure that justice in the 
remaining cases is delivered at the earliest. 
Apart from delivering justice to the victims and 
punishing the guilty, which is the basic norm in 
any modern civil society, this is imperative to 
generate a sense of confidence amongst the people 
in our justice delivery system. Needless to add, 
the break down of such confidence amongst the 
people is the surest recipe to undermine the 
legality and authority of our parliamentary 
democracy.

The judgement in this particular case proves, 
once again, a very discomforting fact that 
justice to the victims of the communal carnage is 
not possible in the state of Gujarat. The Gujarat 
government had already closed more than 1600 
cases claiming lack of any evidence. It was only 
in 2004 at the express intervention of the 
Supreme Court that these were reopened. Of the 
six specific cases where the apex court had asked 
the CBI to investigate, apart from this case, the 
only other is the Best Bakery massacre case. 
Justice continues to elude the victims of other 
massacres like the Naroda Pataya case. The wife 
and family of the former Congress member of 
parliament, Ehsan Jaffri, continue to knock doors 
seeking justice. Ehsan Jaffri, readers will 
recollect, was set on fire while alive by a mob 
after various parts of his body were chopped off. 
Many of these cases are yet to reach the stage of 
a trial, leave alone judgement in the courts.

There are many other cases which continue to 
remain pending before the courts. 84 of the 
allegedly accused in the Godhra train burning 
case continue to languish in custody with bail 
being denied. This is despite the fact that the 
Central Review Committee on POTA cases had 
decreed in May 2005 that none of the alleged 
offences in this case warranted the invocation of 
POTA. Consequently, the courts were to decide on 
the matters relating to bail for the accused. 
Finally, in February 2007, the Supreme Court 
ruled that these accused could file bail 
applications before it. Yet, to this date, these 
have not been heard.

While these need to be expedited, the real 
challenge facing the judiciary, in fact facing 
the Indian democratic system itself, is to 
demonstrate the promptness and the efficacy of 
the justice delivery system. This will be 
determined by the manner in which the judiciary 
deals with the remaining large number of 
unresolved cases relating to the Gujarat genocide.

It is imperative that the CBI must speed up the 
process of investigation in certain other cases 
under directions from the apex court. It is, 
indeed, a travesty of Indian democracy and its 
justice delivery system that there is little 
faith in the Gujarat state government's 
administration and police on this score. The 
complicity of the State apparatus in protecting 
the guilty and denying justice to the victims is 
being repeatedly demonstrated.

In this context, it is, indeed, ominous that the 
BJP should continuously invoke the refrain that 
it shall turn all states in India into Gujarats. 
The RSS/BJP's `prime minister in the waiting' 
designate has continuously repeated this on every 
possible occasion since his anointment. As it 
rolls out the communal juggernaut in its urge to 
capture power at Delhi in the next general 
elections, the RSS/BJP increasingly portrays the 
Gujarat communal carnage as the assertion of 
`Hindu pride' seeking to negate the fact that 
this remains the most organised communal pogrom 
that undermines the very foundations of secular 
democracy in India. It is clear that in its urge 
to consolidate the Hindu vote bank, the RSS/BJP 
will leave no stone unturned to sharpen communal 
polarisation in the days to come. Alongwith 
ensuring that the justice delivery systems 
delivers, this larger challenge to the secular 
democratic foundations of modern India must be 
met resolutely.

______


[8]


For immediate release 
25th January 2008


CERAS URGES A POLITICAL SOLUTION TO THE 
TAMIL-SINHALA ETHNIC DIVISION IN SRI LANKA AS ALL 
SIGNS POINT TO ALL-OUT WAR


On 3rd  January, the Mahinda Rajapaksa government 
in Sri Lanka unilaterally ended the Cease Fire 
Agreement (CFA) with the Liberation Tigers of 
Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

At the end of November 2007, the government 
arrested 2,700 Tamils living the country's 
capital Colombo, in a night-time swoop. The 
implication is that every Tamil is a potential 
LTTE recruit.

CERAS (South Asia Center, Montreal) considers 
these recent actions of the Sri Lankan government 
very regressive.  Unilaterally ending the 
ceasefire brokered earlier by Norwegian 
mediators, escalating its offensive against the 
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and 
arbitrarily arresting thousands of Tamils 
residing in Colombo is only going to intensify 
the conflict.

The situation has been described by observers as 
"all out war" by the Sri Lankan government.  In 
this armed conflict in which nearly 70,000 lives 
have already been lost, the new offensive by the 
Sri Lankan government will only add to civilian 
losses and not further the goal of a fair and 
mutually acceptable political solution.

The unilateral action of the Sri Lankan 
government has come in the wake of an 
international crackdown  on the LTTE.  Countries 
like Canada, the USA, India, Malaysia and 25 
member states of the EU have all included the 
LTTE on their list of terrorist organization. 
These actions give the government of Sri Lanka 
the impression that they have the backing of the 
international community in their conflict with 
the LTTE.

In this climate of an escalation of the war and 
growing civilian misery and insecurity, CERAS 
demands that the government of Sri Lanka resume 
the ceasefire. At the same time it calls upon the 
LTTE to end attacks on civilians and seek the 
resumption of a political dialogue to help 
realize the legitimate demands of the Tamil 
population of Sri Lanka.  A military solution is 
not possible. Only a political situation can 
bring peace, put an end to the escalating number 
of lives lost and allow people to live in peace, 
security and dignity.

ceras at insaf.net

-30-

o o o


For immediate release 
25th January 2008



CERAS STRONGLY CONDEMNS THE ATTACK ON CHRISTIANS 
IN ORISSA, INDIA BY HINDU FUNDAMENTALISTS

In the latest of continuing attacks on minorities 
in India, on the eve of Christmas 2007, in the 
eastern Indian state of Orissa, a Hindu 
fundamentalist organization launched a series of 
premeditated attacks. They attacked almost fifty 
churches and other Christian institutions and 
assaulted Christians, killing a number of them.

Despite being widely reported and condemned, this 
religious coercion continues unabated, with Hindu 
fundamentalists continuing to threaten Christians 
in the area with dire consequences unless they 
'reconvert' to Hinduism.

With shades of the anti-Muslim genocide of 2002 
in Gujarat, the local administration offered no 
protection. The Chief Minister of the state, 
Naveen Patnaik, said or did little to counter or 
quell these communal* (and criminal) acts. 
Regrettably, the central government in Delhi, 
despite its strong anti-communal rhetoric, also 
remained a passive observer.

CERAS (South Asia Center, Montreal) strongly 
condemns these attacks on the Christian minority 
in Orissa. It sees a pattern of communal violence 
and threats of violence directed to Muslim and 
Christian minorities in Indian states such as 
Orissa, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. 
The targeting of minorities by Hindu 
fundamentalists must receive the full attention 
and intervention of the government of India. 
CERAS demands that the Government of India take 
urgent action to end continuing communal violence 
and punish the guilty.


-30-

ceras at insaf.net

______



[9] Announcements:

(i)  Publication Announcement:

Fault Lines: Stories of 1971
Ed. Niaz Zaman and Asif Farrukhi
2008
English
University Press Ltd.
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Finally the book is out! Fault Lines: Stories of 
1971 edited by Niaz Zaman and Asif Farrukhi has 
been published by the University Press, Dhaka and 
is being distributed by Oxford University Press 
in Pakistan. Copies are already available in 
Karachi bookstores.

Fault Lines includes 37 stories from Bangladesh 
and Pakistan. It also includes stories written 
in/ from USA, Britain and India related to the 
events of 1971. This is probably the first time 
that stories from both sides of the divide are 
presented together and such a proposition is not 
without difficulties, as the introduction 
highlights. The stories from Pakistan include 
stories written in Urdu, English, Sindhi and 
Punjabi.

The writers whose work is selected include such 
prominent names as Intizar Husain, Masood Ashar, 
Asad Mohammed Khan, Hassan Manzar, Ibrahim 
Jalees, Masood Mufti, Amar Jaleel, Umme Umara, 
Saleem Akhtar, Tariq Rehman, and Ahmed Salim 
among others. The translators include Muhammad 
Salim ur Rahman, Durdana Soomro, Samina Rahman 
and Shah Mohammed Pirzada. The stories from 
Bangladesh include the work of Urdu writers 
Gholam Mohamed and Ahmed Saadi, voices often 
ignored or avoided. One of the most poignant 
stories for me is by Mohan Kalpana, the Sindhi 
writer, who was born in Karachi but migrated to 
India after 1947 and it is from this perspective 
of shifting boundaries that he ahs written his 
story.

Apart from the hard work and trekking down of 
stories, the introduction was particularly 
difficult and painful to write. After much debate 
(some of it rather heated) Niaz Zaman and I 
decided to write our separate versions. We 
understand that this book may rake up painful 
memories on both sides, but we hope that it does 
more than create controversies. We hope that 
there is debate and discussion leading to a 
better understanding of not simply the political 
events but the stories of the people who were 
affected by the events.

As you can imagine this has been a tough going 
but a very interesting one, which has made me 
"read" 1971 again and try to look at it with a 
fresh or different perspective.

_____


(ii) LST FORUM

A WHIMPER AND NOT A BANG?
The All Party Representative Committee on 
Power-Sharing (APRC) Process and Ways Forward

Tuesday 29 January 2008

5pm @

3, Kynsey Terrace

Colombo 08

RSVP Janaki 2691228/2684845

____


(iii) D.D.KOSAMBI MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES
  Organized By Lokavangmaya Gruha & Ramnarain Ruia College

Lokavangmaya Gruha and Ramnarain Ruia College, 
are cordially inviting you for D.D.Kosambi 
Memorial Lecture Series.  We have planned a 2 day 
Lecture Series on 11th and 12th of February 2008, 
in Ramnarain Ruia College Mumbai.Eminent 
Historians like
Prof.Romila Thapar and Prof D.N.Jha would be 
participating in this seminar as speakers.

D.D.Kosambi is well known to the scholars and 
students of Social sciences as the 
historian-indologist who introduced historical 
materialist methods in the study of Indian 
history. Prof.Kosambi's work was instrumental in 
bringing a paradigm shift in the Indian 
historiography from the 'glorified history of 
dynasties to the history of the evolution of 
relations and modes of production thus making it 
people's history. Although DDK was a Marxist and 
his historical analysis is largely influenced by 
Engels he never copied the historical stages of 
development propounded by marx-engels to suit 
Indian history without any 
'archaeological-anthropological-linguistic' 
research. Prof.Kosambi's work always remains 
inspirational for those who seek to analyze 
Indian history through Marxist perspective but 
refuse to be Oms i.e. Official (party line) 
Marxists. As kosambi has pointed out in one of 
his articles rather incisively; Marxism is a 
method of thinking not a substitute to thinking 
Although DDK is a respected figure in academic 
circles people at large (even students of 
history) seem to be unaware of the work and 
thoughts of this legendary mathematician turned 
historian. A Marathi biography of DDK written by 
Prof.C.D.Deshmukh (People's Science Activist) is 
perhaps the only serious effort made to 
popularize DDK's Thought. Hence his initiative is 
intended to spread Prof.Kosambi's thoughts and to 
initiate discussions on historical issues of 
contemporary relevance

So we appeal to you to participate in this 
lecture-series and further this process of the 
'popularization of academic discourse'.

  Lokavangmaya Gruha     Ramnarain Ruia College


Schedule

Day 1    11th February

1st session

11.30 - 13.30 D.D.Kosambi's Contribution to 
Indian Historiography   By- Prof.Romila Thapar

Chair- Prof.Ram Bapat

   2nd session       'Inventing India' Screening 
of 3 Documentaries. by Late  Prof A.N.Das

Day 2    12th February

1st session

  11.00-1.00          Hindu Identity Stereotypes 
versus History   By Prof. Dwijendra Narayan Jha

2nd Session        

2.00-4.00 19th Century Religious Reformers and 
Renaissance in Maharastra By Prof.Umesh Bagade

Chair- Prof. Ashok Chausalkar

Participants,registering at least a week before 
the event would be provided with lunch.
Registration Fees-50 Rs.( For 2 days)

  ( Please Note that Registration is for lunch and 
not a precondition for the participants.)

o o o

[ Contact addresses of Organisers  of the above event:

LOKVANGMAYA GRIHA
Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan,
85,Sayani Road,
Prabhadevi ,Mumbai 400 025.

Ramnarain Ruia College
L. Nappo Road, Matunga, Mumbai 400 019, India
http://www.ruiacollege.edu/ ]

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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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