SACW | April 28-29, 2008 / US subversion in Nepal / Bangladesh: rights and democracy / Justice in Kashmir / India: pseudo-science ; women prisoner's rights; Goa; Naxals

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | April 28-29, 2008 | 
Dispatch No. 2508 - Year 10 running

[1] U.S. subverting Nepal poll mandate (Siddharth Varadarajan)
[2] Bangladesh: women, equal rights and obscurantism (Syed Badrul Ahsan)
   - Stop religion-based politics and use of mosques for political purposes
   - Restoring Democracy in Bangladesh (ICG Asia, Report No. 151)
[3] India / Kashmir: "There can be no 
reconciliation without justice" - Angana 
Chatterji (Shazia Khan) 
[4] India: Falling back on pseudo-science? (Praful Bidwai)
[5] India: Communalism in Goa: Just say no! (Editorial, Herald)
[6] India: Stop Evicting Displaced People (Human rights watch)
   - Talk to Naxalites, says govt panel (Akshaya Mukul)
   - Memories of a Naxalite Friend (Jyoti Punwani)
[7] India: The wide gap between theory and 
practice vis-à-vis women prisoner's rights (Grace 
Pelly)
[8] India - Gujarat: Sexual harassment panel. What's that? ask govt depts

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[1]

26 April 2008
The Hindu

U.S. SUBVERTING NEPAL POLL MANDATE

by Siddharth Varadarajan

KATHMANDU: After first "congratulating the people 
of Nepal on their historic Constitutional 
Assembly election," the United States is now 
seeking to subvert the electorate's mandate by 
lobbying against the Maoists heading the next 
coalition government.

According to political and diplomatic sources, 
the U.S. ambassador in Kathmandu, Nancy Powell, 
is "actively pushing" the idea that Girija Prasad 
Koirala should continue as Prime Minister.

Under the interim constitution, all major 
decisions, including the appointment or removal 
of the Prime Minister, must be taken by 
consensus, failing which by a two-thirds 
majority. With the encouragement of the 
Americans, a section of the Nepali Congress (NC) 
leadership is now citing this provision to argue 
that the Maoists will first have to oust Mr. 
Koirala before they can stake a claim to the top 
post.

"Suicidal for party"

The American suggestion which one NC leader in an 
interview to The Hindu described as "suicidal for 
the party" runs counter to the belief of Indian 
and other diplomats here that a Maoist-led 
government is inevitable given the scale of their 
victory.

The CA consists of 601 seats, 575 of which are 
elected. Of these, the Maoists have 220, or 38.2 
per cent, the NC only 110 and the Unified 
Marxist-Leninists (UML) 103. The four Madhesi 
parties have 85 seats between them. A further 26 
seats will be filled by nomination on a pro rata 
basis.

In the current coalition based on the "interim 
legislature," the NC, with 40 per cent of the 
seats, has not just the prime ministership but 
also the defence, home and finance portfolios. In 
line with this practice, Prachanda, chairman of 
the Nepali Maoists, says his party will now head 
the coalition government and keep the three top 
ministries to itself.

Though some observers feel the "GPK as PM" line 
is meant to pressure the Maoists into yielding at 
least one top portfolio to the NC or UML in an 
eventual coalition government, there is a fear 
that the proposal will take on a life of its own 
as other players who feel threatened by the 
Maoists such as the Palace and Army brass - latch 
on to it.

Last week, the entire debate within the NC was 
over whether the party should join the coalition 
led by the Maoists or not. But when the Central 
Working Committee of the NC met on Thursday to 
take stock of the party's defeat, senior leaders 
openly challenged the Maoists' right to lead the 
government.

Second 'proposal'

A second 'proposal' that is being floated to 
prevent the Maoists from forming a stable 
government is an amendment to the interim 
constitution to allow the Prime Minister to be 
removed by simple majority as a condition for 
allowing Maoist leader Prachanda to become PM.

Since the Maoists will have more than one-third 
of the seats in the CA, the argument goes, there 
will be no check should they refuse to hold 
elections again. The Maoist leadership rejects 
these arguments.

"When the interim constitution itself spells out 
the lifespan of the CA and mandates fresh 
elections within a maximum period of two years 
and six months, where is the question of the 
Maoists delaying elections?" Mr. Prachanda told 
The Hindu. "Would any of these proposals or 
formulas have been made if the NC or UML had been 
in our position?" he asked. "That is the true 
test of how valid these proposals are."

The Maoists fear the new emphasis on the 
"politics of numbers" will vitiate the consensual 
spirit that the CA needs to write Nepal's new 
constitution.

Mr. Prachanda says the electorate's mandate is 
for a coalition government led by the Maoists. 
"This is a time when all the parties have to work 
together the Maoists, the NC, UML, the [Madhesi 
Janadhikar] Forum and others."

Role for Koirala

Asked what role he envisaged for Mr. Koirala, Mr. 
Prachanda said the "guardianship" of the NC 
leader had been crucial in pushing the peace 
process and ensuring that elections to the CA 
were held properly. "At the same time, he has 
repeatedly said he wants to retire from active 
politics and this must also be respected. And 
yet, we feel some way must be found for him to 
continue to play the role of a guardian. My view 
is that given his age and his own sentiments, the 
proper way to honour him would not be to insist 
on his involvement in the government or 
day-to-day politics. We have to find another way 
of honouring him. But if he wants, we are 
open-minded on this," said Mr. Prachanda. "I told 
him we are prepared to talk about this."


______


[2]


The Daily Star
23 April 2008

GROUND REALITIES: BENGALI WOMEN, EQUAL RIGHTS AND OBSCURANTISM

by Syed Badrul Ahsan

THERE are questions you need to ask today about 
the ruckus whipped up by men unhappy about women 
enjoying the same rights as they, in this 
country. And the first question that you need to 
raise, and expect an answer to, relates to the 
equality enshrined in the nation's constitution 
for women. Obviously, if you hold absolute faith 
in democracy and everything that gives it a 
definitive flavour of the modern, you will not 
deny that Bangladesh's women do have a place in 
the political and social scheme of things. The 
constitution may have been tampered with in many 
ways and has, through years of arbitrary 
government, been rendered emasculated at places. 
But one truth it has upheld is the esteem in 
which Bengali women are held, and will be held in 
the times to be. That being so, you go on to the 
next question.

And it is a simple question. If the government of 
the day has been bold enough to make public a 
women development policy, why did it have to take 
two steps backward only because a handful of 
obscurantists are unable, because of their 
blinkered vision, to come to terms with women 
being regarded as part of the human race?

Note the recommendations put across to the 
administration by an ulema committee relating to 
the provisions of the proposed women development 
policy. Each and every recommendation made by the 
committee militates against the moral and 
political values we as a sovereign body of people 
have strenuously tried to uphold in all these 
years since we liberated ourselves from foreign 
rule.

And if you, if we, if the government were to 
treat these recommendations with the seriousness 
they do not deserve, you can be sure that women 
in this country -- your mother, my spouse, your 
sister, my aunt, your woman friend and mine -- 
will steadily be pushed back into an area of 
pitch darkness.

Do not forget that there was once a body of 
wildly parochial men called the Taliban, for whom 
the religion of Islam did not go beyond a certain 
length of beard for men and an all-enveloping, 
stifling dress code for women, in an unfortunate 
country called Afghanistan. And now observe the 
attitude of the ulema committee to women in this 
country. It has suggested that six of the 
provisions in the women development policy be 
scrapped altogether and that fifteen other 
provisions be rephrased.

The rephrasing will, as you may have guessed 
already, render the policy altogether 
meaningless. The acting khatib of Baitul Mukarram 
mosque tells the country that several sections of 
the policy are "very objectionable." Now you 
cannot but raise another question: are those 
aspects of the women development policy 
objectionable because they threaten the impunity 
with which men, guided so long by a motivated 
interpretation of Koranic laws, have so far 
lorded it over their families and communities?

The acting khatib goes one disturbing step 
further when he informs this nation of secular 
citizens that "a woman cannot enjoy rights equal 
to a man's because a woman is not equal to a man 
by birth." That begs the question: how did this 
individual, and others of his kind, draw the 
inference that there is something about the birth 
of women which relegates them to a station below 
that of men? It is a bizarre proposition.

There are men who speak of religion all day long 
and will leave no stone unturned to tell us that 
Islam accords the highest respect to women. That 
is fine, for history remains proof that the 
Prophet of Islam went out of his way to ensure 
that women occupied a place of great honour in 
society.

You try going back to the history of Islam and 
you do not come across a single instance of the 
Prophet ever having pronounced judgment on the 
lowliness of women's birth. Women prayed in the 
mosques with men. They engaged in open dialogue 
with the Prophet. After the death of the Prophet, 
men unable to interpret his sayings consulted his 
wives, whose word was deemed to be final.

So why are these obscurantists around us taking 
upon themselves the responsibility of 
interpreting Islam for us and, in their skewed 
interest, busily going about whipping up hysteria 
about our world coming to an end if our women 
share the same pedestal of rights with our men?

The late khatib of Baitul Mukarram once inflamed 
the passions of his followers by openly 
declaiming that Bangladesh was in crisis because 
it was being dominated by two women. That was a 
silly thing to do, for it obscured the fact that 
many of the problems the country has been facing 
all these decades have had their roots in the 
depredations of some of its unscrupulous male 
ruling classes.

Let us face facts. And the first one of these 
concerns the very constitution of the ulema 
committee itself. Whoever first conceived the 
idea of referring the draft women development 
policy to such a committee, indeed of helping to 
set this committee up, should have known that 
nothing enlightening would emerge from it. And 
nothing has. That is made obvious through the 
emphasis on "just" rights that such a class of 
religious scholars has placed.

You know of justice and you know of equality. 
They have their own nuances and meanings. So why 
mislead people, in this day and age, through 
inventing a meaningless term and calling it "just 
rights?" But look at the issue in a deeper way. 
Advocating "just rights" is but another way of 
trying to maintain the entrenched, backward 
tradition, which has, so long, kept Bangladesh's 
women pinned to the ground, mud and all.

Recall all the ugly tales of men unable to 
contain their anger when Grameen and Brac 
initially undertook a campaign of women's 
empowerment in the villages. The bigots thought 
it was a bad idea, because the bigots have long 
looked down on women, placing them at a point 
where they have been nothing but sub-human.

The ulema committee has only echoed those 
primitive sentiments. We need to be able to forge 
the will and the courage in ourselves to put up 
strong, intellectual resistance to the committee.

It is a job that must begin through taking the 
initiative back from the extremist elements 
arrayed against our women, for the simple reason 
that Bangladesh's women have struggled long and 
hard to come by the rights that are now within 
their reach. Speak of CEDAW, speak of Beijing, 
speak of the feminist movementall of these have 
been steps towards the creation of an enlightened 
society in this country and elsewhere.

Every citizen in this country has taken intense, 
sustained pride in the determined way in which 
the movement for equality has taken shape and has 
forged ahead. Women in our civil service, in the 
labour movement, in teaching, in the armed forces 
and in politics have demonstrated an immense 
capacity to act as forces of change.

In the villages, in our small towns, in the 
cities, the social engineering that has gone into 
enabling our women to reach out for the skies 
must be allowed to go on without let or 
hindrance. The various tactics of intimidation 
currently being brought into play, indeed being 
refined, in order to thwart the march of Bengali 
women must be blunted through the concerted 
efforts of everyone who has striven for the 
establishment of a secular democratic order in 
this country.

This is no country for people who would prefer to 
hold one half of its population in disrespect and 
abject misery. And let it not be a place where 
men with wrong notions about life, with 
convoluted ideas about the scheme of things in 
the universe, determine for us the manners and 
modalities along which we will carry ourselves. 
We will restore the values of faith in our 
mosques by taking politics and extremism out of 
them.

We will reassert the principles of social 
behaviour that bring men and women on a par, in 
every sense of the term. Bigotry cannot, and must 
not, be allowed to mar the quality of life.

Just rights for women? Drop the idea, for nothing 
less than equal rights for them matters. Which is 
why a sustained campaign for an implementation of 
the provisions, all of them, of the national 
women development policy becomes an absolute and 
immediate necessity.

o o o

The Daily Star
27 April 2008

Women Development Policy
GOVT ASKED NOT TO GIVE IN TO ANY PRESSURE
Staff Correspondent

Concerned at Islamists' recent moves in the name 
of protesting against Women Development Policy, 
2008, eminent citizens yesterday said giving in 
to their pressure would push the country back to 
the Middle Ages.

They said the agitating groups are 
misinterpreting Islam when Muslim countries 
across the globe have moved away from the 
traditional provisions to keep pace with 
international development.

They urged the government to deal with the 
situation with a strong hand if it does not 
intend to fall back to the dark ages. They said 
these at an opinion-exchange meeting on "Women's 
Constitutional Rights: Perspective--Women 
Development Policy and Recent Debate".

Nagorik Uddyog organised the programme at the BIAM Foundation in Dhaka.

Yesterday's meeting saw a number of citizens' 
representatives express deep concern about the 
demonstrations and recommendations of an ulema 
review committee aimed at blocking the 
long-awaited policy announced by the chief 
adviser on March 8.

Blasting the government for showing leniency 
towards the group that demonstrated in Dhaka 
violating the state of emergency and attacked 
Hathazari Police Station in Chittagong, they 
questioned how only four advisers could opt to 
form a review committee comprising ulemas.

"If mollahtantra [theocracy] succeeds, the 
country will plunge into darkness. The mullahs 
have vetoed the much-awaited policy," noted Prof 
Khan Sorwar Murshid who presided over the 
programme.

Questioning the rationale of the violent protests 
when the policy is not at all "that much 
revolutionary", he wondered if all in the 
government had agreed upon the policy. "Why did 
the government become lenient towards them?"

The review committee members represent the 
"savages" who demonstrated in Dhaka and 
Chittagong, he said, adding, "The word of a 
public servant or a madrasa student cannot be the 
last word."

"How come some advisers rushed to the ulemas and 
formed a committee after the chief adviser had 
announced the policy on behalf of the council of 
advisers? And why a religious quarter was given 
the task neglecting experts and rights 
activists," Hameeda Hossain said, adding that 
chief of Hathazari Madrasa, whose students 
attacked Hathazari Police Station, was on the 
review committee.

Human rights activist Khushi Kabir said the 
policy was formed not only basing one religion, 
it aims at development of women irrespective of 
religion and giving in to the group's pressure 
would mean paving the way for turning the country 
into a fascist Islamist state.

Asking the government to make its stance clear 
regarding the policy, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad 
President Ayesha Khanam pointed out that the 
policy is not for Muslim women alone.

Most of the Muslim countries have moved away from 
traditional provisions over the ages, Bangladesh 
has also done that. There are only a few cases 
like the inheritance issue where we are 
maintaining it here, Shahdeen Malik said 
referring to Resolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 
1929 and the law regarding custody of children.

"It cannot be done in the case of inheritance 
because there is a shortage of people to talk 
honestly about it with an open mind," he said.

Blasting the role of the Baitul Mukarram Khatib, 
former finance minister AMA Muhit said there is 
no provision for priesthood in Islam.

The government did not permit Samajik Protirodh 
Committee to hold a meeting on April 25 but the 
fundamentalist forces did not bother to seek 
permission and indulged in violence, the speakers 
mentioned.

The participants demanded stopping religion-based 
politics and use of mosques for political 
purposes.

ABM Musa, Syed Abul Moksud, Zafrullah Chowdhury, 
Badiul Alam Majumder, Farzana Islam and Ruhin 
Hossain Prince also participated in the 
discussion.


o o o

RESTORING DEMOCRACY IN BANGLADESH

Asia Report No 151
28 April 2008
www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/asia/south_asia/151_restoring_democracy_in_bangladesh.pdf

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[3]

The Rising Kashmir
April 20, 2008 (Srinagar)

"There can be no reconciliation without justice"

Angana Chatterji, co-convener of the 
International People's Tribunal on Human Rights 
and Justice in Kashmir, talks to Shazia Khan, 
exclusively for Rising Kashmir


Shazia Khan: What made you decide to work on Kashmir?

Angna Chatterji: In June 2006, Parvez Imroz 
invited me to Kashmir. That was a profoundly 
meaningful visit. I came in contact with friends 
whose lives bear testimony to courage, dignity, 
and generosity, who are quick to think, laugh, 
be, and dedicate their lives enduringly to the 
work of securing justice. Through my association 
with Advocate Imroz and his colleagues at the 
Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society I was 
invited to participate in, and shape, the 
tribunal process. I am grateful for this 
invitation.

In 1989, there were 210 school-days in Kashmir, 
in 2005 there were 60. This genocide, since 1989, 
is not yet sufficiently understood in 
international arenas. Sixty-seven thousand 
deaths; over 8,000 disappeared; 60,000 tortured; 
12,000 extrajudicial killings; hundreds of 
thousands displaced; draconian laws; violations 
of conscience, promises, laws, conventions, 
agreements, and treaties; mass graves; horrific 
sexualized and gendered violence. I heard Atta 
Mohammad Khan, graveyard caretaker, testify to 
235+ bodies buried by the forces in unmarked 
graves in Bimyar village, in Uri district, 
between 2002-2006.

He stated that this work -- digging graves for 
those killed, including in brutal and fake 
encounters, whose bodies remain unidentified with 
no one to mourn their passing, has left him 
scared, weak, made his blood run dry. He stated 
that he is unable to rest, that each night forces 
a revisitation of the terror the task he was 
forced to perform produced. The fabric of 
military presence and the existing structures of 
governance have produced spirals of deepening and 
continuing violence. It has generated forms of 
brutal resistance on the part of groups that have 
engaged in violent militancy.

Militarization's effects have been differently 
organized, linked to gender, class, religion, and 
ethnicity, with increasing social, political, 
economic, ecological, and psychological 
consequences. Militarism has created an intense 
isolation that has impacted private, public, and 
day-to-day life. Repressions of struggles for 
self-determination and international policies and 
politics have produced profound consequences in 
the region, creating a juncture at which the 
failure of governance intersects with the culture 
of grief in Kashmir.

It is imperative to call on the international 
community to recognize this sustained and often 
unmarked violence. As a citizen of India, I do 
not want the genocide in Kashmir to continue in 
my name. The practice of principled citizenship 
requires we dissent atrocities committed in our 
supposed 'self/national-interest'. Demystifying 
violent events and processes in Kashmir will 
assist not only in empowering processes for 
seeking justice in Indian-administered Kashmir, 
but also strengthen people's movements for 
self-determination and social justice elsewhere 
in South Asia, for example amid Adivasi (tribal), 
Dalit (formerly 'untouchable' groups), and 
Christian, Muslim, Sikh and other minority and 
allied communities in India.



SK: How did the concept of International People's 
Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in 
Indian-administrated Kashmir build up?

AC: In Kashmir local struggles and civil society 
organization have created a unique space in a 
conflict zone where such a process as this 
Tribunal, that is locally mandated, may take 
place. The mandate of a people's tribunal is to 
respond to alleged crimes, human rights abuses, 
and the conditions that create injustice, and to 
seek justice, peace, and reparations, demanding 
accountability from the state. A people's 
tribunal may be constituted as a fact-finding and 
remedial mission after and during an event and 
act as a preventive and injunctive mechanism 
toward avoiding future injustices. Based on the 
conviction that people's voices must not be 
silenced, a people's tribunal seeks to 
investigate existing evidence, and hear 
statements through public processes that maintain 
transparency.

To conceptualize and frame the International 
Tribunal in Kashmir took us almost two years. 
This time was necessary to learn and devise all 
the aspects of this process, to form a strong 
core group of advisors and workers, to design the 
inquiries we will undertake, and build alliances 
at the grassroots locally and internationally for 
support and participation in this process.



SK: How is the tribunal process going to be conducted in Jammu and Kashmir?

AC: The Tribunal will be carried out within a 
timeframe of two years, 2008-2009. The 
investigation will focus on the period between 
2003, when the Indo-Pak cease-fire began, and 
2009, with related inquiry into the period 
between 1989 and 2002. To undertake rigorous 
work, it is not possible to study the entire 
period of the conflict within a two-year 
timeframe. Therefore, we identified the period 
between 2003 and 2009, even while the time span 
between 1989-2002 will inform our work.

The Tribunal is constituted as a people's 
collective, and seeks to serve as one of various 
processes instituted for justice in Kashmir. The 
purpose of this initiative is to undertake an 
inquiry into the history of present Kashmir. The 
primary aim of this process is to foster vibrant 
civil society participation in identifying and 
documenting the events in Kashmir and their 
effects on people to reflect on the past and 
energize public space in the present, in shaping 
the future and enabling responses that ameliorate 
suffering in society. Through this process we 
will call upon the international community to 
join us in investigating India's record in 
Kashmir, as India, an emergent superpower, argues 
for a seat on the United Nations Security 
Council. We seek accountability under provisions 
of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, 
Constitution of India, International Law and 
Conventions, to insist upon reparations, justice, 
and self-determination.

In undertaking its investigation, the Tribunal 
will seek, first and foremost, the participation 
of diverse people and groups from Kashmir, as 
well as from elsewhere in South Asia and from the 
international community. The Tribunal will 
conduct studies and site visits and hold public 
hearings. We will meet with non-state actors and 
state actors and solicit testimonials from 
persons from diverse constituencies and those 
with eminent expertise in various fields, 
including human rights and law. The Tribunal will 
seek testimonials from members of local 
communities that have been or are being impacted, 
as well as from local leaders, political groups 
and parties, government officials, police, 
military and paramilitary personnel, members of 
educational, religious, labor and other 
institutions, activists, academicians, students, 
filmmakers, artists, musicians, lawyers and 
journalists, human rights defenders, and public 
intellectuals.

The Tribunal will publish a series of interim 
reports. On completion of the entire process, the 
Tribunal will produce its final report. The 
Tribunal will then ask the Government of India to 
offer any comments as they may deem fit. After 
which, the Tribunal will invite a group of 
renowned public figures to constitute a council 
of justice to deliberate on the findings and to 
craft statements in response. The Tribunal's 
findings and recommendations, and the statements 
of members of the council will be presented at a 
public hearing in Indian-administered Kashmir and 
subsequently to the international community. 



SK: How do you feel the process will benefit the common Kashmiri people?

AC: Across India, Kashmir reverberates in the 
fault lines of national imagery as an icon of 
unification whose continued repression is a must 
for the assertion of nationalist history and 
purpose. Kashmir is reduced to a flashpoint 
between India and Pakistan. In Kashmir, the grip 
of violence lives in sign and performance. Its 
dynamics are inscribed on bodies, in language and 
culture, gender and state, affecting community, 
precipitating alienation. Displacement and 
dislocation are its markers.

I met with women in Handware who talked about the 
violence utilized by the army. Children, who have 
seen parents victimized, spoke of how their 
bodies convulse each time there is a knock on the 
door. I heard torture survivors speak of 
detention by the military, and the calculated use 
of pain as punishment, to discipline difference. 
They spoke of being drowned through 
water-boarding, their fingers and legs pulled 
apart, their bodies wrenched, broken physically, 
emotionally. I heard a peace activist narrate the 
story of a mother who, asked to watch her 
daughter being raped by army personnel, pleaded 
with them to release her daughter. They refused. 
She pleaded that she could not watch her daughter 
being raped, and asked to be sent out of the room 
or be killed. A soldier pointed a gun to her 
forehead, stating he would grant her wish, and 
shot her, before they proceeded to rape the 
daughter.

These children, women, and men in Kashmir re-live this violence, over and over.

Violence, intimate to life in Kashmir, has shaped 
an entire generation. From engagement with civil 
society across Indian-administrated Kashmir, I 
have found people to be enthused and desirous to 
have a people's tribunal offer a platform via 
which to acknowledge and document the systematic 
and invisibilized effects of militarization on 
their lives. My engagements with members of civil 
society have led me to understand that such a 
process would enable people's empowered and 
creative participation in decision-making on 
their future.

What must healing involve? The Tribunal is 
premised on the understanding that there can be 
no reconciliation without justice. Previous truth 
and reconciliation processes across the world 
have largely been confessional in character, 
where perpetrators have spoken to crimes they had 
committed, expecting forgiveness. There were no 
structural changes undertaken in the aftermath 
that actually enabled justice. What must justice 
look like in Kashmir, what must freedom look 
like, in ways that honor and recognize the 
Kashmiri people's immense diversity and complex 
history, and their inalienable right to spiritual 
and political self-determination? How can varied 
understandings of self-determination address 
present-day realities and future hopes and 
expectations?

The Tribunal, it is our hope, will yield a 
detailed understanding of the architecture of 
military presence, militarization, and governance 
in Indian-administered Kashmir, and its continued 
impact on civil society, political economy, 
community mental health, and local government. 
Revisiting established facts and figures and 
generating new ones, and charting oral histories, 
memory-writing, and testimonials, will allow for 
an understanding of the continued devastation of 
the last nineteen years. We hope that such 
knowledge, as resistance, will serve as an 
ethical and reverberating call to action. 



SK: What is your overall role in this process?

AC: I am one of the conveners of the Tribunal. My 
responsibilities include identifying ways in 
which the process may be highlighted and 
recognized at an international level, crafting 
methodologies and international standards for the 
investigations, building local, regional, and 
international alliances, undertaking a long-term 
study in collaboration with Advocate Imroz, 
assisting with assembling fact-finding teams, 
being involved in the day-to-day workings of the 
Tribunal, and the production of the report. As a 
woman, I am also especially concerned about 
enabling the participation of women and other 
disenfranchised groups in this process.



SK: Many people belonging to different ideologies 
in India called you 'black sheep', have 
threatened you physically and targeted you 
politically, and definitely you have faced much 
opposition from different quarters. How do you 
tackle this? 

AC: Much of the targeting I have faced has been 
from Hindu militant groups and their allies in 
India and in the diaspora in the United States 
intent on creating a Hindutva state/theocracy in 
India. I do not want to react to their agendas, 
as it serves to distract from what I must focus 
upon.

I must focus on the work ethical and non-violent 
citizenship compels me to undertake. Working in 
Kashmir with issues of justice and survival, with 
issues of memory and mourning with colleagues and 
friends keeps me close to my father and his 
world, to my youth in Calcutta, evoking kindred 
feelings of 'home'.

PROFILE :

Angana Chatterji is associate professor of 
Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute 
of Integral Studies, a progressive graduate 
university in San Francisco, United States. She 
is one of the four conveners of the International 
People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in 
Indian-administered Kashmir. [..].

______


[4]

FALLING BACK ON PSEUDO-SCIENCE?

by Praful Bidwai

Indian policymakers are clutching at straws to 
duck their responsibility to reduce the country's 
greenhouse gas emissions.


AS Indian policymakers come under growing 
pressure from global scientific and political 
communities on climate change, they are 
increasingly resorting to disingenuous, devious 
or downright specious arguments to avoid taking 
purposive action to cap and reduce the country's 
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are rising 
three-and-a-half times faster than the world 
average.

Instead of acknowledging the universal 
responsibility that devolves on all states to 
contain and reverse global warming and 
demonstrating a strong will to seize the 
initiative, they are preoccupied with averting or 
deflecting that pressure.

Three of their arguments are by now familiar. 
One, hide behind the poor and claim that the 
developing countries cannot afford to give up on 
poverty reduction by controlling carbon 
emissions, which are low in per capita terms and 
need to increase if all their people are to have 
access to, say, electricity for lighting. This 
hides huge (and growing) differentials in 
consumption, and in GHG contributions, between 
their own rich and poor and makes blanket per 
capita comparisons meaningless.

A second argument makes any Indian effort to 
control GHG emissions conditional upon something 
else: for instance, emissions trading under the 
clean development mechanism (CDM) agreed to in 
the Kyoto Protocol; grants from the rich to 
develop less carbon-intensive technologies; and 
incredible as it might seem, international 
support for the United States-India nuclear deal.

The recent appointment of former Foreign 
Secretary Shyam Saran as the Prime Minister's 
special envoy on climate issues has been 
described in official briefings as signifying 
India's intention to "use the climate change 
argument to push forward its nuclear deal". As a 
newspaper reported: "The government is working on 
the argument that the deal is important for India 
and good for the world because it addresses the 
issue of climate change. If India is not to burn 
the world out of the galaxy [sic] with fossil 
fuels, it is in the global interest to let India 
go through with the nuclear deal." This argument 
will come in especially handy if a Democrat 
becomes the next President of America.

However, as this Column has argued (Frontline 
September 7, 2007; August 12, 2005), nuclear 
power can at best make only a marginal 
contribution to reducing GHGs. Besides, the 
"give-us-the-deal-or-we'll-spread-the-plague" 
line sounds more like a threat from an 
irresponsible nation than a logically persuasive 
argument. It is unlikely to find many buyers.

The third argument is that India is already doing 
enough. As another daily put it: "Saran's first 
job" is to "get the record right", and declare 
that India is "already clean". Saran is quoted as 
saying: "Nationally, we are already doing a lot. 
While our economy has grown by 8-9 per cent, our 
energy intensity has only grown by 4 per cent." 
Similarly, he contends, India recycles 70 per 
cent of its waste and is among the leaders in 
wind energy. It cannot be asked to do more.

This reasoning is dubious. The 70 per cent 
recycling (of what?) figure has been bandied 
about without a remotely systematic, let alone 
rigorous, study. This factoid is probably of the 
same quality as former Environment Secretary 
Prodipto Ghosh's claim that even the affluent in 
India, with their hugely energy-intensive 
lifestyles, fuel-guzzling cars and armies of 
servants, live frugally because they sell off old 
newspapers.

True, India is the world's Number 4 in wind 
energy, but this contributes less than 2 per cent 
to its power generation. More important is 
India's other Number 4 rank: among the world's 
biggest GHG emitters, a position from which it 
has just displaced Japan. Equally, India is 
already the world's Number 2 as far as the 
expansion of coal-based electricity goes.

Much of India's recent GHG increases have come 
from the "luxury consumption" of the rich, 
related to privatised transport, posh housing, 
air-conditioning, water overuse, and so on. There 
is huge scope for reducing the energy and carbon 
intensity of output, which only an irresponsible 
and profligate country would ignore.

And now, Indian policymakers seem to be seeking 
solace in outright denial of the need to do 
anything about global warming at all, in 
particular, undertake major GHG reductions. On 
April 2, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman 
Montek Singh Ahluwalia called for a 
"comprehensive debate on the issue of climate 
change" because, reported The Hindu, there is "an 
element of uncertainty" on whether climate change 
is as serious a threat as projected.

While releasing a report by the Civil Society 
Coalition on Climate Change (CSCCC) and its 
Delhi-based affiliate, the Liberty Institute, 
Ahluwalia said: "It [the report] needs to be 
thoroughly discussed, and if it is true, then it 
is for the developed countries to mitigate the 
damage caused to the environment while the 
developing countries can resort to adaptation to 
prevent global warming." Significantly, other 
members of the establishment, including former 
Environment Minister Suresh Prabhu and the 
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and 
Industry secretary-general Amit Mitra, besides 
Liberty Institute office-bearers, were also 
present at the release.

The report (available at http://www.csccc.info) 
attacks the principal conclusions of the United 
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
(IPCC) and rejects any capping of GHG emissions 
as this would be "counterproductive": undermine 
economic development, "harm the poor", and 
probably fail to address climate change problem 
"in a meaningful way".

Instead, it advocates "economic development" 
(read, limitless market-driven growth) and yet 
more consumption, denies a link between climate 
change and the growing incidence of diseases, and 
zealously demands privatisation of water and 
other resources and the lifting of all taxes, 
tariffs, subsidies and entry barriers - to 
promote "free enterprise".

Some Indian newspapers gave the report prominent 
coverage, virtually equating the CSCCC, despite 
its lack of expertise or scholarship on climate 
issues, with the IPCC, which has 2,500 scientists 
from the world over and whose deliberations 
lasting 20 years led to four detailed 
peer-reviewed assessment reports.

The CSCCC was only established in February 2007 
and has 40-odd member-organisations, which 
function as industry-friendly think tanks or 
corporate lobbyists, and have names like the 
Institute for Free Enterprise, Institute for 
Market Economics, Hayek Institute, Free Market 
Foundation, Minimal Government Thinkers, and 
Liberty Institute. Earlier, the CSCCC was based 
mainly in western Europe and North America and 
was coordinated through the so-called 
International Policy Network; now these groups 
are trying to spread their influence to India and 
China. Articles by their members are carried in 
Indian newspapers.

The CSCCC comprises hard-core libertarians of the 
Ayn Rand variety, who dogmatically advocate the 
free market, including "tax freedom", minimal or 
no government, unrestricted individual liberties 
and strong intellectual property regimes. 
Libertarians are even further to the right than 
neoliberals. Many CSCCC constituents are funded 
by big corporations such as ExxonMobil. (See 
http://www.exxonsecrets.org, and some interesting 
facts in Manu Sharma's blog, 
http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/04/climate-change-in-media-ht-reaches-new.html#ref4)

Such libertarians have a "one-size-fits-all" 
approach to all social, economic and political 
problems, regardless of context or content. They 
subordinate democracy, or the rule of the people, 
to the rule of property. They do not deal with 
specific issues. For instance, it is irrelevant 
to them whether and what kind of human activity 
may have led to global warming and what the 
multifarious consequences of a rise in the 
earth's temperature would be. (In fact, they are 
anti-environmentalists or are climate change 
deniers, like Bjorn Lomborg.)

In the past, CSCCC members have questioned the 
existence of global warming on spurious or 
frivolous methodological grounds, argued that 
people should adapt themselves to climate change 
rather than prevent or stop it, and lobbied 
governments against signing the Kyoto Protocol 
and participating in its follow-up conference in 
Bali.
Flimsy report

The CSCCC report is utterly flimsy and fails to 
grapple with the issues at the heart of the 
climate debate, including the extent of global 
warming and its relationship to GHG emissions; 
the likely physical, ocean-related and 
climatological effects of a rise in global 
temperatures under varying scenarios and their 
consequences for different biological systems, 
human habitats, health and economic activities; 
and different ways of stabilising or reducing 
emissions, their differential costs and the 
distribution of these costs across different 
countries.

It only looks at one minuscule aspect, disease, 
and summarily rejects the World Health 
Organisation's detailed findings on the 
climate-health link. It concludes on the basis of 
vague, uncorrelated numbers that deaths from 
climate-related disasters have fallen 
dramatically since the 1920s as a result of 
economic growth and technological development. 
But that is like saying that one should not 
invest in new medical discoveries because some of 
the biggest gains in health indices have occurred 
because of better sanitation and nutrition.

The report is an exercise in charlatanry and 
sophistry, which adopts a sanctimonious tone in 
speaking of the poor and their stake in not 
combating global warming.

What is astonishing is that Ahluwalia should have 
bestowed respectability upon such a junk-science- 
based, dogma-driven, fact-free report. True, he 
"wondered aloud whether Šthe IPCC could go so 
horribly wrong as the current report" makes out. 
But this criticism was oblique and mild, within a 
general commendation of the document. This stands 
in sharp contrast to his scathing attack on the 
United Nations Development Programme's Human 
Development Report, which too he released last 
year, for asking India to make GHG cuts. In any 
case, it is doubtful whether he would have lent 
his weight to a radical (as against corporate or 
free market) environmental agenda.

It is sad, embarrassing, even shameful, that our 
policymakers should countenance giving any 
quarter to libertarianism and fall back on its 
pseudo-science to resist the eminently reasonable 
demand that fast-growing, big economies such as 
China and India must stop using resources 
profligately, limit elite consumption, adopt 
energy-efficient technologies and move towards 
capping their emissions.
Deeper cuts needed

What makes this even more deplorable is the 
evidence emerging from solid scientific studies 
that suggests that the world needs to make much 
deeper cuts in GHG emissions than suggested by 
the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, or rather, 
its politically negotiated, widely circulated 
"Summary for Policymakers", which has influenced 
policymakers and the media.

The prestigious science journal Nature (April 3) 
published a remarkable article entitled 
"Dangerous assumptions" by Roger Pielke, Tom 
Wigley and Christopher Green, which argues that 
the IPCC's Summary holds that the world economy 
is moving towards decarbonisation (reduced use of 
fossil fuels per unit of production) and that 
energy efficiency (the amount of energy needed to 
produce, say, Rs.10 crore worth of goods) is 
falling.

Under this trend, the world will spontaneously 
achieve about three-fourths of the reduction in 
GHG emissions needed to stabilise atmospheric 
carbon dioxide levels at around 500 parts per 
million without policy intervention such as 
tightened regulation and incentives and 
disincentives. Such reductions are built into the 
IPCC's reference scenarios. Thanks to this "free 
ride" provided by decarbonisation, the world will 
only have to bring about a much smaller GHG 
reduction under different scenarios.

"In all [scenarios], the IPCC assumes that most 
of the challenge (between 57 per cent and 96 per 
cent) of achieving stabilisation Šwill occur 
automatically, leaving a much smaller 
emissions-reduction target for explicit climate 
policies," say the authors.

Alas, this is not to be! In reality, the world is 
recarbonising, "thanks to the economic 
transformation taking place in the developing 
world, especially in China and India. As 
development proceeds, rural populations move to 
high-rise buildings that consume energy and 
energy-intensive materials. This process is 
likely to continueŠ all over populous South Asia, 
and eventually Africa, until well beyond 2050."

The IPCC assumes that Asian carbon dioxide 
emissions will rise by 2.6 to 8.4 per cent a year 
between 2000 and 2010. But more realistic 
estimates, based on actual observation of energy 
intensity and efficiency, are much higher, as 
high as 13 per cent for China. Therefore, much 
deeper GHG cuts will be needed in developing Asia 
as well as the developed West. These will demand 
improved efficiencies not just across countries 
but "in individual energy-using sectors", 
especially, heavy energy consumers such as 
electricity generation, construction and cement, 
chemicals and metals production.

The IPCC will no doubt revisit these scenarios 
but is not due to do so until 2013. The world 
cannot wait that long to start the process of 
decarbonisation. It has become imperative to 
break the link between poverty reduction and 
carbon emissions and recognise that GHG emissions 
cannot be adequately controlled by setting 
binding output targets and relying on CDM 
markets, as Kyoto does. What the world needs is a 
combination of GHG reduction targets and massive 
plans for new technology development and 
technology transfer to developing Asia.

The sooner our policymakers accept this, the better for us.*


______


[5] Communalism in Goa

Herald, 24 April 2008, Editorial

JUST SAY NO!

In a time when religious intolerance is 
increasing, it comes as a breath of fresh air 
when ordinary people stand up to say no to those 
who propagate that the people who worship 
differently from you are the 'enemy'. In that 
sense,' the faithful of the Madina Masjid in 
Vasco must be congratulated for seeking the 
removal of a cleric who through his preachings 
was trying to create tensions within different 
sections of the Muslim community in the port 
town. The recent violence in Malbhat in Margao 
seems to have added to the urgency of the 
situation.

However, it is not only among Muslims that 
intolerance is sought to be spread. The Bajrang 
Dal, especially its leader in South Goa, one 
Jayesh Naik, has been making unnecessarily 
aggressive statements. In a recent Hindu 
religious meeting in Margao, among other 
provocative statements, he said that "Margao is 
no more the city of the Hindus". Cities do not 
belong to religions. They belong to the 
residents. And it is up to the people to disown 
those who seek to sow the seeds of hate and 
create tension where none is necessary.

Hinduism is in no danger of any kind. Despite 
being restricted mainly to South Asia-it is the 
dominant religion in India, Nepal, and among the 
Tamils in Sri Lanka-Hinduism is the world's third 
largest religion, after Christianity and Islam, 
which are the predominant religions of dozens of 
countries. About 13 per cent of the world's 
population is Hindu, mostly in India.

In fact, Hinduism differs from Christianity and 
other Western religions in its essential 
decentralisation in organisation, values and 
scriptures. It does not have a single founder, a 
specific theological system, a single system of 
morality, or a central religious organisation. It 
consists of thousands of different religious 
groups, some of which differ radically from each 
other, but all of which have evolved in India 
over thousands of years; Hinduism is universally 
regarded as the world's oldest organised religion 
and, owing to its essentially diversified 
structure, has traditionally been among the 
world's most religiously tolerant faiths.

It is outfits like the Bajrang Dal that want to 
change this basic nature of Hinduism, and make it 
more intolerant. And to do this, they create a 
bogey that Hinduism is "in danger". It is time 
that ordinary Hindus in Goa, who have been living 
in harmony with people of other religions for 
centuries, say no to people who want to spread 
hate and mistrust. Religion is an intensely 
personal thing, and it is best confined to the 
personal space.

Goa has so far remained a place where there is 
tolerance among religions. In a country that has 
seen terrible religious violence, especially in 
states like Gujarat and Orissa, Goa is an island 
of calm. We must keep it that way. And, the way 
to do this is for ordinary citizens to stand up 
and tell people it who want to incite hatred on 
religious grounds that we will not stand for it. 
We have grown up in a peaceful and tolerant 
state, and we owe it to our children that they 
too should be able to live their lives happily, 
without fear of religious tension or violence.

The devotees of the Madina Masjid have shown the 
way. Just as ordinary citizens in so many 
villages in Goa are standing up and coming 
together to fight against large housing and 
commercial real estate projects that threaten 
their way of life, they must also unitedly stand 
up to say no to the peddlers of hate. They are no 
better than the peddlers of drugs. What they do 
is destoy lives.  And there is only one answer to 
both these social scourges: just say no!


______


[6]

Human Rights Watch - 14 April 2008

INDIA: STOP EVICTING DISPLACED PEOPLE
Government Should Ensure Protection and Assistance

(New York, April 14, 2008) - The Indian 
government should stop forced eviction and 
relocation of tens of thousands of men, women, 
and children from their forest settlements in 
Andhra Pradesh where they sought safety from the 
violence in neighboring Chhattisgarh state, Human 
Rights Watch said today.

In the latest crackdown against displaced 
persons, the Andhra Pradesh forest department on 
April 5, 2008, destroyed homes of displaced 
indigenous persons residing in Kothooru village 
to forcibly evict them. Since January 2007, the 
Andhra Pradesh forest department has made about 
10 attempts to forcibly evict displaced persons 
from Kothooru. 

"Many thousands of men, women, and children fled 
to Andhra Pradesh from the conflict in 
Chhattisgarh," said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior 
researcher for South Asia at Human Rights Watch. 
"Instead of providing them with safe sanctuary, 
the authorities are tearing down their homes and 
putting them in harm's way." 

Since June 2005, between 30,000 and 50,000 people 
have fled to Khammam and Warrangal districts of 
Andhra Pradesh following escalating tensions in 
Chhattisgarh between Naxalites, an armed Maoist 
group, and a state-supported vigilante group 
called Salwa Judum. Although the Indian federal, 
and Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh state 
governments describe Salwa Judum as a 
"spontaneous uprising against Naxal abuses," 
Human Rights Watch found that police routinely 
participate in violent Salwa Judum raids against 
villages suspected of being pro-Naxalite. 
According to Human Rights Watch investigations in 
November and December 2007, most villagers fled 
to Andhra Pradesh because of attacks by Salwa 
Judum and police. 

Once in neighboring Andhra Pradesh, many of these 
displaced persons settled in reserved forest 
areas. Saying these settlements are illegal, the 
authorities have without prior notice or due 
process repeatedly burned down the hamlets of 
hundreds of displaced persons, forcibly evicting 
them from forest lands. In some cases, Andhra 
Pradesh forest department officials have forced 
them into trucks and dropped them close to the 
Chhattisgarh state boundary. 

A Human Rights Watch investigation in November 
and December 2007 found that Andhra Pradesh 
authorities have also failed to provide the 
displaced persons with basic assistance including 
food, water, shelter, medical services, 
sanitation, and livelihood opportunities as set 
out by the United Nations Guiding Principles on 
Internal Displacement. The Andhra Pradesh 
government denies existing government welfare 
benefits to those displaced on several grounds, 
including that they are not residents of Andhra 
Pradesh. 

"The Indian federal and Andhra Pradesh state 
governments have done nothing in nearly three 
years to address the massive displacement of 
people from Chhattisgarh," Ganguly said. 
"Thousands of people need help, and the 
government has utterly failed to respond to their 
needs. Instead, they try to force them back to 
areas where they are even more vulnerable. It's 
unacceptable." 

Human Rights Watch called on the Indian 
government to immediately draw up a plan to 
address the specific protection and assistance 
needs of displaced persons in Andhra Pradesh. The 
government should take immediate steps to prevent 
the Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh governments 
from unlawful forced relocation and extend all 
government welfare schemes to displaced persons 
without discriminating against them. 

The Indian government should also develop a 
comprehensive national policy for internally 
displaced persons in consultation with displaced 
persons, governmental, non-governmental, and 
inter-governmental organizations, and in 
accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on 
Internal Displacement.

o o o

The Times of India
28 April 2008

TALK TO NAXALITES, SAYS GOVT PANEL

by Akshaya Mukul

NEW DELHI: Admitting that the rise of Naxalism 
was a "political movement with a strong base 
among poor peasantry and adivasis", a 
high-powered government committee has ascribed 
its growth to people's discontent and complete 
failure of the system and asked for immediate 
winding up of the Salwa Judum.

The report, prepared by a panel set up by the 
Planning Commission, said that measures like 
Salwa Judum "delegitimizes politics, dehumanizes 
people, degenerates those engaged in their 
security and above all, represents abdication of 
the state itself".

While criticising the crude violence practised by 
Naxalites, the committee asked the government to 
first deal with the problem of landlessness, 
ensure livelihood and have an effective land 
acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement 
policy. It also asked the government to hold 
peace talks with the Naxalites.

Stating that "dissent or expression of 
dissatisfaction is a positive feature of 
democracy", the committee said, "What is 
surprising is not the fact of unrest, but the 
failure of the state to draw right conclusions 
from it."

The committee recommended that all debt 
liabilities of the weaker sections be liquidated 
where the debtor has paid an amount equivalent to 
the original principal and where intended benefit 
for which the loan was taken has not accrued to 
the borrowers. A policy and legal framework 
should be put in place to enable small and 
marginal farmers to lease-in land with secure 
rights while landless poor occupying government 
land should not be treated as encroachers. 
Instead, they should be declared as deemed patta 
holders on "as is where is" basis.

The committee recommended that the tribal 
sub-plan be brought under the fifth schedule and 
forest produce be provided protection of minimum 
support price.

"Public purpose" in the Land Acquisition Act 
should be limited to national security and public 
welfare and should not be stretched to 
acquisition for companies, cooperatives and 
registered societies. Police should undergo 
rigorous training not only on humane tactics of 
controlling rural violence but also on the 
constitutional obligation of the state for the 
protection of fundamental rights.

The committee, set up by the Planning Commission 
in 2006, is headed by D Bandopadhyay, a retired 
IAS officer who played a key role in dealing with 
Naxalites in West Bengal in the 1970s. Among the 
members are Prakash Singh, former UP DGP and an 
expert on Naxal issues; Ajit Doval, former 
director of Intelligence Bureau; B D Sharma, 
retired bureaucrat and activist; Sukhdeo Thorat, 
UGC chairman and K Balagopal, human rights 
lawyer. The committee submitted its report 
earlier this month.

On growth of Naxalism, the report said that while 
policy documents admitted direct correlation 
between extremism and poverty, in practice, the 
government treated it as a law and order problem. 
"It is necessary to change this mindset and bring 
about congruence between policy and 
implementation," the panel said.

The report has exhaustive details about social, 
political, economic and cultural discrimination 
faced by SCs/STs in the country and how that 
resulted in discontented people finding succour 
in immediate justice provided by the Naxalites.

To buttress its point, the committee did a survey 
of four districts affected by Naxalism and 
compared it with four comparatively more 
developed ones in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, 
Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa.

It was found that the districts where Naxalism 
had grown were different from developed ones in 
10 ways: high share of SC/ST population, low 
literacy, high infant mortality, low level of 
urbanization, high forest cover, high share of 
agricultural labour, low per capita foodgrain 
production, low level of road length, high share 
of rural households without bank accounts and 
high share of rural households without specified 
assets.

Blaming the growth of Naxalism on poor 
governance, the report said, "It is not 
fortuitous that overwhelmingly large sections of 
bureaucracy/technocracy constituting the delivery 
system come from landowning dominant castes or 
well-to-do middle classes, with their attachment 
to ownership of property, cultural superiority, 
purity-pollution governed behaviour and a state 
of mind which rationalizes and asserts their 
existing position of dominance in relation to 
others".

Arguing that land-related factors played an 
important role in the growth of Naxalism, as seen 
in the "land to the tiller" policy of the 
Naxalites, the report said Naxalites had done 
little to redistribute private land among poor. 
Pointing out that thousands of acres of land 
remained fallow, the panel asked the government 
to devise legal means to ensure that the landless 
got land.

It also suggested that land be returned to those 
landholders where it was taken by Naxalites for 
political reasons. "Excesses of the Naxalites in 
this regard are not only unjustified but deserve 
utmost censure," the report said.

o o o

The Times of India
20 April 2008

MEMORIES OF A NAXALITE FRIEND

by Jyoti Punwani

Cerebral malaria can be fatal, but people have 
been known to recover from it. Anuradha Ghandy, 
however, didn't stand a chance. Already weakened 
by the sclerosis when she walked into the 
hospital, it was too late. Within 24 hours, she 
was gone. By the time her vast circle of friends 
was informed on the evening of April 12, the 
54-year-old had already been cremated. Better 
this than death by 'encounter', after prolonged 
torture. For that was the fate we feared this 
Naxalite could not escape.

That Anu managed to evade arrest for so long, was 
an indicator of the ruthlessness with which she 
effaced her identity. This, of course, meant 
isolating herself from all those who would have 
given up everything to nurse her. There was 
another way she could have recovered, even while 
underground. Anu could have followed medical 
advice and given herself the break her body so 
badly needed. For someone so important to the 
Party (CPI-Maoist), it might well have allowed 
it. But that wasn't her style.

Just climbing stairs had become an ordeal five 
years ago. Yet, days before her death, she was in 
some jungle where malaria was probably an 
inevitability. Anuradha Ghandy, I learnt after 
her death, was a senior Maoist leader. Her 
political career spans the first radical student 
outfit in Mumbai (PROYOM) in the '70s, and the 
armed dalams of Adivasi women in Bastar. Certain 
that like her comrades in Chandrapur, she too 
would be implicated in false cases and arrested, 
Anu went underground some years ago.

When I first met her in 1970, Anuradha Shanbag 
was the belle of the ball in Mumbai's Elphinstone 
College. A petite bundle of energy, bright eyes 
sparkling behind square glasses, her ready 
laughter, near-backless cholis and coquettish 
ways had everyone eating out of her hands, 
professors included. Elphinstone then was an 
intellectual hub. The Bangladesh war was just 
over, drought and famine stalked Maharashtra. 
Naxalism had come to Mumbai, at that time the 
industrial capital of the country. Anu, majoring 
in Sociology, was everywhere-inviting Mumbai's 
leading radicals to talk about the reasons for 
the drought, putting up posters that proclaimed 
'Beyond Pity' and urging students to get involved 
with the crisis in the countryside, defending 
this stand against those who felt a student's 
role must be limited to academics and at the 
most, 'social work'.

Anu was also the one to question celebrity guest 
speakers such as Girish Karnad, whose 
path-breaking plays had just hit the stage, on 
the link between theatre and society. And it was 
Anu who introduced us to that feminist bible, 
Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch. Those were 
the days of 'parallel' cinema. Marathi amateur 
theatre was blossoming at Dadar's Chhabildas 
Hall. The Dalit Panthers had exploded into the 
Marathi literary scene. Adil Jussawala's New 
Writing In India was still making waves. Forum 
Against Rape, Mumbai's first feminist group, had 
just been founded. Anu, by then a lecturer at 
Wilson College, was immersed in all this. With 
her wide range of interests, she succeeded in 
linking the human rights organisation she and few 
others founded after Emergency with the city's 
intellectual ferment. Among other things, the 
Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights 
(CPDR), demanded that the State stop acting 
lawlessly with Naxalites even though they 
rejected its laws.

Thanks to Anu's ability to talk as intelligently 
with George Fernandes as with Satyadev Dubey, her 
brother Sunil Shanbag's mentor, the cream of 
Mumbai's intellectuals supported this demand. 
Playwright Vijay Tendulkar and reformist Asghar 
Ali Engineer were CPDR's president and 
vice-president.

It was time for Anu to grow into a successful 
academic, the type who writes books and attends 
international seminars. Instead, in 1982, she 
left the life she loved to work in Nagpur. The 
wretched conditions of contract workers in the 
new industrial areas near Nagpur and of Adivasis 
in the forests of Chandrapur had to be 
challenged. Committed cadres were needed. In her 
subsequent trips to Mumbai, Anu never complained 
about the drastic change in her life: cycling to 
work under the relentless Nagpur sun; living in 
the city's Dalit area, the mention of which drew 
shudders from Nagpur's elite; then moving to 
backward Chandrapur. In Marxist study circles, 
'declassing oneself' is quite a buzzword. From 
Mumbai's Leftists, only Anu and her husband 
Kobad, both lovers of the good life, actually did 
so.

Kobad's family home had been a sprawling Worli 
Sea Face flat; he was a Doon School product. 
Anu's lawyer-father may have left his family 
estate in Coorg to defend communists in court in 
the '50s, but she had never seen deprivation. 
Despite her own rough life, neither did Anu make 
us feel guilty for our bourgeois luxuries nor did 
she patronise us. On the few occasions she would 
suddenly land up over these 25 years, it was as 
if she had never left. She had the same capacity 
to laugh, even at herself, the same ability to 
connect, even with management types, the same 
readiness to indulge in women's talk. But with 
those closest to her, she seemed unnaturally 
detached. Her parents doted on her, yet she 
didn't take every opportunity she could to meet 
them. I realise why now.

Rushing to meet them whenever she came to Mumbai 
would have been worse than an indulgence. It 
would not only have eaten into the time she had 
for Party work, it would have also made it 
impossible for her family to have accepted what 
she saw as inevitable-an underground future. In 
order not to endanger her family, Anu simply 
disappeared from their horizon. When her father 
died, she couldn't go home. That was also the 
reason for her harsh decision never to have 
children, though her parents would have willingly 
brought them up. That was one bond she knew would 
draw her away from the life she had chosen.

The 'Naxalite menace', says Manmohan Singh, is 
the biggest threat to the country. But I remember 
a girl who was always laughing, and who gave up a 
life rich in every way to change the lives of 
others.


________


[7]

Combat Law
March April 2008

Prisoner's Rights
WOMEN PRISONERS' RIGHTS

The wide gap between theory and practice 
vis-à-vis women prisoner's rights leaves much to 
be desired on the part of the government and 
prison administration. Yet the wont is to applaud 
certain Supreme Court orders in this regard and 
do nothing about it, writes Grace Pelly

The prison system is a predominantly male-centric 
model, concerned with security and containment of 
threat. Little thought has historically been 
given to the gender-specific needs of the female 
prison population. Today, approximately four 
percent of the prison population in India is 
female and there are just 14 women-only prisons. 
This comparatively small female prison population 
has led to the needs of female prisoners often 
being neglected despite ongoing calls for 
large-scale reforms of the treatment of women 
prisoners. This article will highlight the 
gender-specific needs and, equally importantly, 
the gender-specific rights of women prisoners set 
out in international and domestic documents. The 
article will also consider the Supreme Court's 
more recent examination of the subject in RD 
Upadhyay v State of Andhra Pradesh and Others.
Exercising significant judicial activism, the 
court directed that widespread reforms be carried 
out in the field of women prisoners' right and 
ordered that these reforms be implemented within 
three months. Like the Justice VR Krishna Iyer 
committee report in 1979, the report by the All 
India committee on jail reforms in 1983 and the 
Model Prison Manual of 2003 before it, Upadhyay 
will have little practical impact unless the 
Indian government takes positive steps to 
entrench the recommendations in legislation. For 
far too long, prisoners' rights and women 
prisoners' rights in particular, continue to 
exhibit the unacceptable gulf between successful 
constitutional rights theory and the successful 
realisation of these rights in practice.

Women prisoners' needs

The majority of women prisoners in India are 
housed in women-only wings in mixed prisons and 
women-only prisons and are supervised by women 
prison officers. Although this may indicate that 
gender main-streaming is alive and well in the 
prison system, this is not evident in most 
aspects of prison life. One example of disturbing 
gender insensitivity is the case of Malkangiri 
prison in Orissa where the only bathroom has 
neither a roof nor a door. As a result, the 
female prisoners are exposed to stares from the 
prison sentries and afforded no privacy.

The needs of women prisoners often differ from 
their male counterparts. Women need 
gender-specific facilities for healthcare, to 
help them in childbirth, to care for their 
children in prison, to receive counseling to 
guard against the possibility of rape and sexual 
assault and to maintain contact with their 
dependants outside the prison. This is reflected 
in the international standards on the treatment 
of prisoners and detainees. The Body of 
Principles for the Protection of All Persons 
under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment 
explicitly recognises the need for specific 
measures to be adopted to protect the rights and 
special status of women, particularly pregnant 
women and nursing mothers. In the domestic 
context, the specific needs of women are 
recognised by the Indian Supreme Court and are 
set out exhaustively in the Model Prison Manual.

Health

The majority of women in prisons are amongst the 
poorest members of society and many arrive in 
prison with a range of prior-existing physical 
and mental health problems. International best 
practices state that the medical services 
provided for women prisoners should be of the 
same quality and standard as those available to 
the outside (free) community. These services 
should include HIV/AIDS testing, breast and 
cervical screening, family planning and sexual 
health services. The Model Prison Manual states 
that: "Only lady doctors shall look after the 
medical care of women prisoners during their stay 
in prison". In practice, however, the health 
facilities available to women in prisons are 
ill-equipped and lack sufficient resources to 
adequately test, diagnose and treat inmates. On 
visiting a number of jails in Orissa, a 
fact-finding team of the committee on violence 
against women expressed concern over the poor 
hygiene conditions, lack of adequate medical 
facilities and overcrowding they witnessed in 
female prisons. In one prison, which housed 200 
women, the committee noted that there was no 
doctor and the only medical facility was a single 
pharmacist. Furthermore, the limit on medical 
expenditure for the prison was just Rs. 100 per 
day. In March 2007 women prisoners in Orissa 
complained that they are not, and have never 
been, provided with sanitary pads. The oversight 
of this basic need highlights the long-term 
practical neglect of women's issues in the prison 
context.
In addition to the physical medical attention 
required by women, the female prison population 
is disproportionately affected by mental health 
problems, with higher levels of depression, 
anxiety, phobias, neuroses, self-mutilation and 
suicide compared to both the general population 
and the male prison population. This is due to 
the fact that a large number of women prisoners 
have been victims of physical, sexual, mental and 
domestic abuse and are often traumatised as a 
result. The Model Prison Manual states that: 
"Female prisoners needing treatment for mental 
diseases shall not be admitted to prison. They 
shall be kept in separate enclosures for female 
patients at the mental health hospital, or in 
other mental health facilities, under the 
supervision of a lady medical officer". It goes 
on to recommend that: "Female offenders suffering 
from mental disorders, anxiety (and) drug 
addictionŠ should get proper medical treatment 
and psychotherapy". In practice, however, women's 
prisons lack the resources to implement this best 
standard and mental health problems remain 
largely undiagnosed and untreated.

Pregnant women

Both the international standards and the Model 
Prison Manual require that pregnant women in 
prison be provided with special accommodation for 
all necessary pre-natal and post-natal care and 
treatment. The Model Prison Manual also details 
the additional nutritional requirements of 
pregnant and nursing women: "During pregnancy and 
lactation, a woman needs more protein and 
minerals than otherwise. The extra protein can be 
obtained by substituting a part of the cereal 
portion of the diet with more milk, fish, meat 
and eggs, and in the case of vegetarians by 
concentrating more on milk and milk products. 
This would also ensure the necessary additional 
supply of minerals. Pregnant and nursing women 
need about 3100 calories every day". A study 
carried out by the national institute of 
criminology and forensic sciences found that in 
practice women are not receiving adequate medical 
attention during and after their pregnancies and 
nor are they receiving additional food during 
their pregnancy. Again, it is clear that whilst 
the theoretical standards afforded to women 
prisoners are sophisticated in their detail, they 
have had little, if any practical benefit.
There are, however, occasional examples of gender 
sensitive programmes being implemented for women 
prisoners. For example, in Karnataka, Maharashtra 
and Rajasthan prisons have special diets for 
lactating mothers and babies. Whilst these 
initiatives are clearly commendable, they remain 
few and far between. It is unacceptable that 
despite the academic and judicial activism on the 
issue, most women prisoners continue to lack 
adequate pre and post-natal care.

Visiting rights

Women prisoners suffer a more severe range of 
social exclusion problems than men on leaving 
prison and it is recognised that maintaining 
close contact with friends and families makes 
their rehabilitation and re-integration into the 
community easier. In India, the few penal 
institutions catering for women mean that many 
women are imprisoned long distances from their 
families. This can have devastating effects on 
the prisoner and on their family. It is important 
for women prisoners to maintain close contact 
with their families outside, particularly 
important for women who have children who are too 
old to live with them in prison. The Model Prison 
Manual recognises this gender-specific need and 
provides for women to have increased numbers of 
visits from friends and families, for illiterate 
women to be given special help in writing letters 
and for there to be no limit on the number of 
letters received by women prisoners. The Manual 
also sets out special measures to be taken to 
encourage visitors to the prisoners such as the 
creation of a special waiting room.

Childcare in prison

The findings of a report by the national 
institute of criminology and forensic sciences in 
2000 showed that children who lived with their 
mothers in prisons were growing up without 
adequate nutrition, medical care and few 
educational opportunities. The Indian council of 
legal aid and advice filed public interest 
litigation in the Supreme Court, asking that 
state governments formulate proper guidelines for 
the protection and welfare of children of women 
prisoners.
The case of RD Upadhyay v State of Andhra Pradesh 
and Others was decided in April 2006 . In this 
case, the Supreme Court recognised, and examined 
in detail the gender-specific needs and rights of 
women prisoners. The Court examined the plight of 
children who grow up in prison with their mothers 
and set down detailed minimum standards to ensure 
that the mother and child receive food, shelter, 
medical care, clothing, education and 
recreational facilities as a matter of right. 
Relying on both fundamental rights in the 
Constitution and directive principles the Supreme 
Court ordered that a number of standards be 
adopted in prisons throughout the country.

The Court set out the following special 
provisions for women prisoners and their children:

     * For pregnant women all basic facilities of 
pre-natal care and post-natal care shall be 
arranged for both mother and the child.
     * Births in prison shall be registered in the 
local birth registration office. The fact that 
the child has been born in the prison shall not 
be recorded on the birth certificate.
     * Female prisoners are allowed to keep their 
children with them until they reach six years of 
age. After this period they are to be taken to a 
suitable institution run by the Social Welfare 
Department.
     * Sleeping facilities that are provided to 
the mother and the child should be adequate, 
clean and hygienic.
     * The child of female prisoners living in the 
jails shall be given proper education and 
recreational opportunities. While their mothers 
are at work in jail, the children shall be kept 
in crèches under the charge of a female warden.
     * Women prisoners with children should not be 
kept in sub-jails, unless proper facilities can 
be ensured which would make for a conducive 
environment for proper biological, psychological 
and social growth.

The Supreme Court directed that all relevant 
laws, rules and regulations were to be amended 
within three months in order to comply with the 
directions. The Court also ordered that positive 
steps be taken to implement the new provisions in 
practice. The Upadhyay judgment further cemented 
the notion of women prisoners' rights as rights 
different from those of the general prison 
population.

Conclusion

In order for women prisoners to attain the full 
range of rights open to them, the Government of 
India must take positive steps to implement them 
in practice. As we have seen, there are isolated 
examples of prison authorities granting specific 
rights to women prisoners but these are limited 
in number. Whilst the judicial activism of the 
Supreme Court in the Upadhyay case is to be 
applauded, the on-going tension between a 
rights-based theory and the practical realisation 
of these rights is unmistakable. It is a 
depressing prospect that today, advocates of 
prison reform still echo the sentiments of 
Justice VR Krishna Iyer expressed thirty years 
ago -- "I hope that prison reform will receive 
prompt attention as the higher political echelons 
in the country know the need and we may not be 
called upon to pronounce on the inalienable 
minima of human rights that our constitutional 
order holds dear". Through all these years, the 
Supreme Court has shown itself to be an eager 
proponent of women's rights. Yet when it comes to 
the present context the lack of their actual 
application rob them of meaning and substance 
vis-à-vis those they seek to protect.


_____


[8]

Sexual harassment panel. What's that? ask govt depts -
INDIAN EXPRESS April 24, 2008

Vadodara, April 23 "We have three women 
employees, they are all married and are adults. 
They know about the resolution. So, we don't feel 
the need for having such a committee, but we are 
still in the process of doing so," writes the 
Gujarat State Co-operative Tribunal in response 
to an RTI application on the status of Sexual 
Harassment Committee (SHC) formed in state 
government offices.

It was on February 7 that Vadodara-based activist 
Rohit Prajapati filed an application under the 
RTI Act at the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) to 
know the status of the SHCs formed in wake of the 
Patan gangrape incident wherein six teachers were 
accused of raping a student in a Primary 
Teacher's College.

Instead of an answer from the CMO, Prajapati has 
been receiving replies from various departments 
to which the CMO had forwarded the RTI 
application. And the answers are very 
interesting, revealing the lack of understanding 
of the very concept of SHC in sarkari corridors.

Gujarat State Biotechnology Mission (GSBM) also 
has an interesting reply. "We do not have an SHC. 
We appoint employees on contractual basis with a 
tenure of 11 months. There is very little staff 
and we have no SHC." Even the Institute of 
Seismological Research, under the state 
Department of Science, says that it has no SHC as 
all the employees are hired on contract. This 
comes in spite of a Supreme Court directive that 
binds everyone to have such a committee.

The list of such departments does not end here. 
The state Health department and even the Gujarat 
Pavitra Yatradham Vikas Board say that the 
formation of SHC does not concern them at all and 
neither do they have one. They perhaps are taking 
a cue from the Gujarat Administration department, 
which also says that forming such a committee 
does not come under its purview.

The answer by College of Nursing in Ahmedabad is 
even more alarming. The institute says it has no 
instruction to form any such committee. 
Incidentally, the college has a fair share of 
girl students.

Some departments have candidly admitted to the 
fact that they have no such committee and nor are 
they in the process of forming one. There are 
some like the Gujarat Council of Science and 
Technology where all the members are males, or in 
some cases, like that of Science and Industrial 
department, the committee was formed in March 
2008.

Prajapati pointed out that the exercise only 
revealed the utter lack of awareness about the 
issue in government offices and policy makers. 
"They are treating it as some routine file 
pushing affair, many don't even know the basics 
of SHC formation. Worse, the CMO instead of 
giving a state-wide picture has pushed the 
application to all departments," he said.

Incidentally, the Patan PTC where the teachers 
had gangraped the student also had no sexual 
harassment committee.


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

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