SACW | June 4, 2008 /

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Tue Jun 3 20:14:29 CDT 2008


South Asia Citizens Wire | June 4 , 2008 | Dispatch No. 2518 - Year 10 running

[1] Pakistan: Unmaking of the state (Adil Zareef)
[2] Sri Lanka: The media at a time of war (groundviews)
[3] Nepal: Mount Neverest (Harsh Mander)
[4] India: Article Writing Equals Sedition ? (Subhash Gatade)
[5] India: Speak, freedom (Tarunabh Khaitan)
[6] India - 10 years after Pokharan II: Saying no to nukes (Praful Bidwai)
[7] India: Statement to the commission of inquiry 
Re. communal violence in Kandhamal, Orissa
[8] Kashmir Cantata - Junoon's concert in Srinagar (Namrata Joshi)
[9] Pakistan: "Bread, not Bomb" a Peace rally in Hyderabad
[10] Book Review: 'Roti Kapra aur Makan by 
Krishan Chander' (Reviewed by Syeda Saleha)

______



[1]

Dawn
June 3, 2008

UNMAKING OF THE STATE

by Adil Zareef

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. 
It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an 
enigma!" - Winston Churchill

PAKISTAN in this age and time clearly fits this 
description. The US prediction that the next 9/11 
would come from Fata is no less ominous - 
Pakhtunkhwa certainly is in the eye of the storm.

Only last week, the Pak-India Forum for Peace and 
Democracy meeting scheduled in Peshawar for May 
24-26 was postponed for 'security reasons'. It 
had last met in Peshawar in November 1998 in an 
altogether different world. There was music and 
classical dancing by the Sheema Kermani troupe as 
well as panel discussions on diverse issues 
between the two rival neighbours. Our world 
seemed to be inching towards normality.

Most ordinary folks ask the question: from where 
have the Sufi Mohammads, Nek Mohammads, Baitullah 
Mehsuds, Fazlullahs, Mangal Baghs, Namdaars and 
their ilk suddenly appeared and fortified their 
positions, taking the public hostage and 
challenging the state? Why do these things not 
happen in Punjab where they have Raiwind, 
Mansoora and the renowned 'bazaar' alongside the 
famous Badshahi mosque? How do the profound and 
the profane coexist as their economies thrive? 
And here in our land known for centuries for its 
peaceful civilisations and syncretism of cultures 
there has suddenly emerged the most violent 
interpretation of religion threatening to take 
the country into the dark ages.

As Swat's tenuous peace holds after a 
controversial agreement with the militants, 
cynics have termed it a total capitulation of the 
traditionally secular ANP and PPP to the 
Wahabi-sponsored movement supported by state 
intelligence agencies. The argument goes like 
this.

The caretaker government led by former Chief 
Minister Shams ul Mulk had already prepared the 
blueprint of this deal with the establishment's 
man, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who instigated the 
insurgency against the state for imposition of 
the Islamic system in 1994, and later on led 
thousands of gullible Pakhtuns to their deaths in 
Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. He was not the 
only one who was indemnified for his crimes. 
Mullah Fazlullah, another shadowy character, who 
sprang into prominence last year after taking the 
entire Swat district hostage, also got official 
reprieve for his gross violations of human rights 
despite the fact that he had inflicted heavy 
losses on the provincial economy and 
infrastructure. In fact, both men have been 
rewarded with this peace agreement.

According to one Swati academic, "The liberal 
intelligentsia is pitched against the Taliban 
backed by the agencies to enforce Wahabi Sharia 
in the entire Malakand division. As a result 
there is a stifling silence and suffocating fear. 
In fact, Sufi Mohammad never signed the peace 
agreement but many others did on his behalf as 
Mullah Fazlullah was on a special umrah visit to 
Saudi Arabia. Armed vigilantes are defying the 
ban on weapons display and still targeting their 
opponents."

According to another source, the government made 
commitments to the militants some of which have 
not been made public. As a result, the militants 
have started roaming around freely and are doing 
what they had done previously. Very few residents 
in Kabal, Kanju, Matta and Mingora are convinced 
that militants would abide by the guarantees 
given in clauses 3-16 of the agreement.

Talking to the people of Swat, I found that they 
resent the fact that a few unrepresentative 
hardcore militants should decide their future. 
They feel that by acquiescing to the demand for 
complete Sharia, the provincial government may 
further erode the credibility of the already 
vulnerable state institutions. No relief has been 
provided to the victims of the upheaval. To fill 
in the vacuum left by the destruction of 
institutions, a multi-pronged approach with a 
comprehensive participatory development plan and 
transparent governance is immediately needed. 
Both peace and development are essential 
components of this deal, which are not yet in 
sight.

Closer to Peshawar, in the Khyber Agency, Mangal 
Bagh representing the Lashkar-i- Islam is 
consolidating his position after eliminating all 
opposition. The recent gunning down of several 
followers of MNA Noor ul Haq Qadri's relatively 
peaceful Qadriya silsila is equally disturbing 
with hardcore Taliban backers and notorious drug 
barons of the region having openly sided with the 
menacing Mangal Bagh brigade. The political 
authorities always look the other way.

When the killers of Qadri's men were nabbed by 
the authorities, they were immediately freed 
within hours through 'high level' contacts. 
People living in the area also say that whenever 
a new killing spree takes place, the security 
personnel conveniently disappear from the scene. 
A representative of the Shia Toori tribe in 
Parachinar also reported the political 
authorities' pressure to give safe passage to the 
Taliban into Afghanistan after the peace deal was 
struck in Fata.

Banned FM radios go on and off sermonising to the 
people on their dress code, religious rituals 
etc. The presence of over 200 brand new vehicles 
is tolerated by the political authorities and no 
action is taken against them. The Lashkar-i-Islam 
has virtually taken over Bara tehsil and the 
public is subjected to heavy fines for missing a 
prayer. Even old men are ducked in water for not 
following one Islamic code or another. In fact, 
people live under the shadow of intimidation.

For this reason, the ANP-PPP's role has come in 
for a lot of flak from opponents for making a 
deal with hardcore Islamists. But Dr Minhaj ul 
Hasan who heads the history department at the 
Peshawar University has another view. He finds 
this approach to be in line with 
'atamam-i-hujat', which, according to the Quran, 
is the last step to avoid a full-scale 
catastrophe which is the alternative to this 
peace agreement. "If peace fails this time we are 
in for big trouble," he remarked.

Dr Fazl ur Rahim, who accompanied Dr Minhaj to 
Kabul to participate in the Bacha Khan peace 
conference, agreed, saying, "What we gathered 
from Nato officials there is worrying. If 
Pakistan does not get the Taliban to put their 
act together it may not be just pre-emptive 
missiles from across the border that we will get 
but the total obliteration of Fata and perhaps 
more!" he said.

A parody of Sufi poet Rehman Baba's famous lines 
is making waves these days, "Da sabab da 
jahilanoTalibano - kor au gor au Pekhawar dree 
wana yo di!" (On account of the illiterate 
Taliban - our homes and graves and Peshawar have 
all become synonymous!)

______


[2]

Daily Mirror
June 4, 2008

THE MEDIA AT A TIME OF WAR

During the Second World War the German people 
tuned into the BBC for war news rather than their 
own radio managed by Goebbels who broadcast war 
propaganda as news. People under Communist rule 
listened to Radio Free Europe.

Is it important for people in a democracy to know 
what the government is doing? Can the media print 
or broadcast all information they receive? What 
press policy should the military use in wartime? 
This is an important issue. The freedom of the 
press is guaranteed in any Constitution. If it is 
to be curtailed it must be in terms of the 
Constitutional provisions.

In USA where there is similar protection for 
freedom of the press in the First Amendment the 
press filed action in the US Supreme Court when 
the Pentagon interfered with the right of the 
press to collect and report war news. Some news 
organizations filed a lawsuit charging the 
military with violating the First Amendment 
guarantee of freedom of the press. They argued 
that a free press should have access to a war 
zone, because the people have a right to know 
what is happening. They won the lawsuit. They 
argued that the First Amendment's protection of 
the free press should not be thrown out.

"People in a free society should decide whether 
to go to war, whether to stay at war, and whether 
a war is just. To decide, people need information 
from a free press, not from a press controlled by 
the military. Otherwise, Americans might fight 
wars knowing only what the military wants them to 
know. And the military might not want people to 
know any bad news, anything critical of the 
military, or anything that might turn them 
against a war. Americans could then find 
themselves in the position of citizens in a 
military dictatorship-like Saddam Hussein's Iraq. 
We need to tell the factual story-good or 
bad-before others seed the media with 
disinformation and distortions, as they most 
certainly will continue to do. Our people in the 
field need to tell our story-only commanders can 
ensure the media get to the story alongside the 
troops."

The above sums up the case for freedom of the media during a war.

Debates about freedom of speech and liberty are 
ultimately shaped by two contrasting views. Those 
who cherish liberty argue that free speech is not 
only a democratic right; it is also indispensable 
for the clarification of ideas and the conduct of 
civilized public life. It is the only barrier to 
the manipulation of the people by the government 
of the day. From the perspective of an 
authoritarian government however, free speech 
should not be used to blame the government or 
criticize it. Traditionally our ancient rulers 
did not stomach criticism of their actions. In 
China during the Qing dynasty, people who were 
more intelligent and knowledgeable were either 
exiled or executed if they spoke out their minds 
against the ruler. Even democratic countries have 
been tempted to curb fundamental freedoms of the 
people in times of war.

When the criticism comes from its political 
opponents they consider free speech and 
expression as being subversive. The view that too 
much freedom is not good was enunciated by the 
late Felix Dias Bandaranaike, who was exasperated 
by the undisciplined actions of trade unionists 
and special interest groups. He called for a 
little bit of totalitarianism. But this is to 
mistake freedom for license. Some argue that too 
many civil rights are somehow inconsistent with 
waging a war.

Our liberal democratic values like freedom of the 
press are being undermined, because of the 
alleged necessity not to undermine the morale of 
the armed forces. Has democracy and liberal 
values to be sacrificed for the sake of war?

Groundviews

______


[3]

Hindustan Times
June 3, 2008

MOUNT NEVEREST

by Harsh Mander

These are momentous times for the people of 
Nepal. Two years ago, in the late spring of 2006, 
for 19 exhilarating days, tens of thousands of 
Nepali students, farmers and workers surged on to 
the streets of Kathmandu - peaceful, resolute and 
uncompromising in their demand for the end of 
monarchy. The Rhododendron Revolution, as it came 
to be known, has culminated two years later with 
notice to the last monarch after 240 years of the 
reign of the Shah dynasty to vacate the palace, 
and the metamorphosis of a Hindu kingdom into a 
secular republic.

The same people's power again unexpectedly 
asserted itself, when it elected through the 
ballot, for the first time anywhere in the world, 
a Maoist revolutionary party with a still 
standing 'people's army'. Not many observers had 
anticipated the wave of popular support for a 
party that was leading an armed insurgency since 
1996. Political commentator Kanak Dixit sees the 
vote for the Maoists as fuelled by the 
aspirations of youth, and of the silenced and 
suppressed minorities - by caste, ethnicity and 
class - disenfranchised by all earlier regimes, 
regardless of whether they were democratically 
elected, monarchic or panchayats. But the 
turbulent Maoist insurrection has left a bloody 
trail of an estimated 14,000 deaths, the economy 
virtually stopped growing, and impoverished 
people fled the mountains and plains in droves as 
they found themselves not only in hopeless 
poverty but caught in the crossfire between the 
royal and insurgent armies.      

The unexpected popular mandate to the Maoists to 
lead (in collaboration with the Congress and 
Marxist parties) not just the new republican 
government but also the Constituent Assembly to 
frame the Constitution of the newly born 
republic, has raised critically important debates 
about the legitimacy of violence for political 
transformation that both resonate and have vital 
lessons for India as well. Many interpret the 
spring revolution of 2006 to be the triumph of 
non-violent public protest, as the king was 
ultimately dethroned without any blood being 
shed. But others argue that the mass support of 
the Maoists was based on foundations of their 
prior mobilisation around what was unarguably a 
violent rebellion. The electoral victory of the 
Maoists is interpreted by their supporters as an 
endorsement of the ideology and strategies of the 
Maoist 'people's war' (which incidentally was 
waged against the democratically elected 
government and not against the king). But others 
argue that it is paradoxically a vote for peace, 
as it signalled that the Nepali people wanted the 
Maoists to abandon their firearms for the 
instruments of democratic statecraft.

The debate around political violence spilled 
recently again on to the streets and popular 
debate, when a Maoist sympathiser was 
exterminated in murky circumstances, allegedly 
because he expropriated illegal money that he had 
gathered for the party. I was in Kathmandu when a 
bandh was called to remonstrate against this 
killing on May 20 2008, and observed visible mass 
anger again on the streets, with crowds of young 
men protesting that a democratically elected 
party continues to use extortion and murder. 
Maoist leader Prachanda, in a public meeting, 
rather grandly compared himself to the ancient 
emperor Ashoka, who abjured violence after a long 
and bloody war in Kalinga. But there have been by 
the Maoists no official pronouncements of regret 
for the excesses, killings, extortion and 
disappearances in the guerrilla violence of the 
past decade, and many - not just political 
observers but also ordinary people in Nepal - 
seek a clear assurance of peaceful democratic 
practice for the future. There is optimism that 
the Maoists will usher in land reforms, end debt 
bondage and untouchability, and respect ethnic 
identity aspirations. But there is far less 
certainty that they will end bloody cycles of 
slaughter and mayhem which has racked life of 
ordinary people for too long.

This passionate political and ethical debate - 
about the legitimacy of the use of political 
violence, including armed insurrection, to fight 
perceived injustices - that rages today in Nepal 
not just in newsprint, but in roadside cafes, 
farms, and factories, has been evaded for too 
long in various troubled zones of India. There is 
appropriate anger among human rights defenders in 
India against State repression and killings in 
Maoist strongholds like Bihar and Chhatisgarh, 
but conspicuous silences when Maoists blow up 
police stations and kill scores of junior police 
personnel. Brave human rights defenders in Punjab 
continue to fight for accountability of security 
forces which killed and cremated thousands of 
youth, but many among them celebrate uncritically 
Khalistani icons like Bhindarawale, and almost 
none protest the depiction of Indira Gandhi's 
assassins as revered Sikh martyrs in the Golden 
Temple. There is righteous opposition to the 
suppression and atrocities by uniformed forces in 
Kashmir and Manipur, but rare non-official 
condemnation of the violence and even extortion, 
often targeted against civilian populations, by 
armed insurgent groups. It is as though violence 
is wrong only when the State crushes dissent, but 
not when non-State organisations and guerrilla 
armies kill, molest and rampage. Such a position 
is just not ethically tenable, as the experience 
of Nepal reflects.

One notable exception in India is a group of 
citizens of undisputed moral standing which came 
together in early 1997 to form the Committee of 
Concerned Citizens. Convened by S.R. Sankaran, 
its aim was to bring an end to decades of 
violence in Telengana by consistently applying 
the same democratic and moral principles in 
evaluating acts of violence by the state and by 
revolutionary parties. The committee condemns 
killing of alleged Naxalites by police in 
'encounters', which it describes as "targeted 
extra-legal executions". It maintains that 'the 
government particularly the police have converted 
themselves into the prosecutor, the judge and the 
executioner....'

The committee is significantly also scathing in 
its condemnation of Naxalite violence, which 
focuses more on "military actions rather than on 
the mobilisation of people for social 
transformation". Its strategies include physical 
liquidation of people, attacks on police stations 
and targeted killing of police personnel, killing 
so-called informers and 'coverts', exploding 
landmine, destruction of public property, and 
death threats. It regards the policy of 
individual annihilation followed by the Maoists 
as flawed, mirroring the policy of government 
which believes that liquidation of activists and 
leaders will lead to liquidation of the movement.

It concludes that "there is a general public 
feeling that people are sandwiched between 
Naxalites and police apparatus..." This could be 
as true of Nepal, tribal tracts of central India 
under Maoist influence as well as the insurgent 
regions of Kashmir and India's North-East. It 
calls on both the State and Maoists instead to 
"establish a tradition of human rights and values 
as a part of their political perception and 
practice". This is advice that Prachanda, leader 
of the elected Maoist party in Nepal, could do 
well to heed.

The world will watch how a political party in 
Nepal, which raised and armed its cadres for 
armed insurrection, but which acquired power 
through non-violent democratic instruments, 
handles the responsibilities of building a just 
and humane polity. The experience of the people 
of Nepal will carry lessons vital for everyone.

Harsh Mander is the convenor of Aman Biradari.

______


[4]

ARTICLE WRITING EQUALS SEDITION ?

by Subhash Gatade

Whether the police commissioner of a city and his 
colleagues are an incarnation of the state itself 
?

Any sane person would reply in the negative.

Perhaps the (newly appointed) honourable police 
commissioner of Ahmedabad has a different take on 
the whole issue. It is not for nothing that he 
has filed a case of 'sedition and treason' 
against the Ahmedabad edition of the Times of 
India supposedly for carrying a series of 
articles which questioned his alleged links with 
a Mafia Don.According to the complaint filed by 
the Commissioner, the said articles 'gave the 
impression that state police officers were in 
league with criminals'.It is learnt that these 
reports are based on the statement given before 
the CBI by a henchman of the Don in which he had 
claimed that the present commissioner was once on 
the Don's 'payroll'. (The Hindu, 2nd June 2008).

The honourable police commissioner has every 
right to feel offended over such charges and if 
needed he can take recourse to legal action to 
seek redressal. Normally in all such cases 
case(s) are filed under the charges of 
defamation. But as they say it, in Gujarat they 
do things differently.

While the police commissioner's complaint 
vis-a-vis the newspaper have underlined the scant 
respect with which the fourth estate is viewed by 
the Supercops in a saffron regime, another 
incident involving a leading intellectual of our 
times underline the challenges which lie before 
anyone who loves to exercise her/his right to 
freedom of expression under such dispensation. 
The case involves a leader page article (Blame 
The Middle Class, 8 th January 2008, Times of 
India) written by Prof Ashish Nandy, a leading 
political psychologist and sociologist of our 
times.According to a report which appeared in a 
section of the media, (Indian Express 31 May 08)

     Ahmedabad, May 30 The Gujarat Police has 
registered a criminal offence against Professor 
Ashish Nandy, a political psychologist and 
sociologist, for writing an alleged inflammatory 
article in the second week of January 2008 in an 
English daily.

     ...The case was registered on a complaint 
filed by advocate - activist V K Saxena, the 
president of the Ahmedabad-based National Council 
for Civil Liberties.

     The complaint registered under Section 153 
(A) (B) of the Indian Penal Code said that the 
article was prejudicial to national integration 
and intended to cause friction and promote enmity 
between different communities on grounds of 
religion, race, language and place of birth.

     Nandy's article, the complaint said, was 
highly intemperate, vituperative and showed 
Gujaratis in a low light.

     Surprisingly, the state government gave the 
permission for filing the case through a 
notification on April 15. While granting 
permission for filing the criminal case against 
Nandy, the government notification said "there is 
prima facie evidence against the accused for his 
involvement in the commission of offences under 
sections of the IPC".

The particular article had tried to analyse the 
election results of the Gujarat assembly held in 
December 2007 which had once again given a 
mandate to Mr Narendra Modi. Apart from 
delineating the plight of the Muslims who are 
condemned to a life of second class existence and 
the growing marginalisation of the 'secular 
formations/ideas' it had tried to focus its 
attention on the 'state's urbane middle class' 
which has remained 'mired in its inane versions 
of communalism and parochialism'.

It concluded with the observation that :

     Recovering Gujarat from its urban middle 
class will not be easy. The class has found in 
militant religious nationalism a new self- 
respect and a new virtual identity as a martial 
community, the way Bengali babus, Maharashtrian 
Brahmins and Kashmiri Muslims at different times 
have sought salvation in violence. In Gujarat 
this class has smelt blood, for it does not have 
to do the killings but can plan, finance and 
coordinate them with impunity. The actual killers 
are the lowest of the low, mostly tribals and 
Dalits. The middle class controls the media and 
education, which have become hate factories in 
recent times. And they receive spirited support 
from most non-resident Indians who, at a safe 
distance from India, can afford to be more 
nationalist, bloodthirsty, and irresponsible.

While the state government can console itself 
over the fact that it has not been consulted over 
the case filed against the Times of India, it 
would be height of innocence to say that it has 
not been party to the decision which saw filing 
of criminal charges against Prof Nandy. And it is 
not very difficult to understand the growing 
displeasure of the Saffron lobby over Prof Nandy 
- who has at times been very critical of the 
left/secular intellectuals/formations as well. 
Perhaps the manner in which Prof Nandy has 
castigated the 'Sangh Parivar's contribution to 
the growth of radical Islam' in India has hit 
them below the belt.

     Events like the desecration of Wali 
Gujarati's grave have pushed one of India's 
culturally richest, most diverse, vernacular 
Islamic traditions to the wall. Future 
generations will as gratefully acknowledge the 
sangh parivar's contribution to the growth of 
radical Islam in India as this generation 
remembers with gratitude the handsome 
contribution of Rajiv Gandhi and his cohorts to 
Sikh militancy. (Quoted in Times of India ( 8 th 
January) 'Blame The Middle Class'.)

Looking at the unsustainable charges against the 
leading newspaper and the condemnation it is 
receiving for throttling the right to freedom 
expression, one can expect that wiser sense would 
prevail and the state government would itself 
intervene to rectify the mistakes. But looking at 
the past history of the government the chances 
seem remote.

It was only two years back that an editor of an 
eveninger from Surat, Gujarat was charged with 
'anti-national activities' including 'instigating 
people against a duly elected government' and was 
put behind bars by the same government.As 
reported in a section of the media, the law and 
order people had felt offended when Manoj Shinde, 
editor of 'Surat Samna' the said eveninger in an 
editorial '..[a] ttacked several officials and 
BJP leaders for mishandling of the release of 
water from the Ukai dam resulting in the flooding 
of the city and causing colossal losses to the 
people'. (The Hindu, 30 th August 2006,Delhi). 
The complaint against Shinde on behalf of the 
government of Gujarat was lodged under Section 
124A (sedition: anyone who by words or expression 
of any kind brings or attempts to bring or 
provoke a feeling of hatred, contempt or 
disaffection towards government established by 
law shall be punished with life imprisonment) 
292, 293, 294(b) (dealing with obscene 
publication), 500 (defamation), 501 (printing and 
aggravating matter against union territory or 
Chief Minister) and 502 and 505(1) (circulation 
of false statement against the public peace) 
under the Indian Penal Code.

Despite nuanced opinion of human rights activist 
that "Shinde's editorial doesn't amount to 
sedition as the comments were against an 
individual. The tendency here is that the CM 
considers himself to be Gujarat. It is not 
sedition even if he is called Hitler. It may 
amount to defamation but not sedition."(Indian 
Express, 31 st August 2006) the government went 
ahead with the case.

The arrest of the journalist under charges of 
sedition two years back and the filing of similar 
charges against the leading newspaper raise 
another pertinent question as well which question 
the presence of such draconian provisions in the 
statue books of a sovereign democratic set up 
which helps the powers that be to apprehend 
anyone under its pretext.

To further elaborate about the leeway it gives to 
ruling elite one can have a look at a few cases 
during last few years where it can be clear to 
even laypersons that the 'offenders' were engaged 
in activities not even remotedly connected with 
sedition.

Post 9/11 when the anti war movement took shape 
all over the world to oppose machinations of the 
USA for world hegemony, a section of its 
participants in Delhi had a tough experience at 
the hands of the then BJP regime. Six students 
belonging to Delhi university were charged with 
'sedition' and were arrested for the "crime" of 
distributing anti-war leaflets and denouncing the 
communal-fascist war mongering stand of the 
Vajpayee government. It is a different matter 
that faced with large scale criticism at the 
hands of the media and civil society the 
government had to retrace its arbitrary move.

During Mayawatis third stint of power in Lucknow 
with due support of the BJP, peace activist and 
Magasaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey and his 
fellow activists also faced charges of 'sedition' 
and 'inciting communal violence.' Interestingly a 
poster put up by them on the dharana site in 
Faizabad (U.P.) which was organised to demand 
peaceful resolution of the Ayodhya issue was 
declared inflammatory.( 20 March 2003) The poster 
in question had a quote from a poem by Laxmi 
Shankar Vajpayee and said " Oh God, Please don't 
accept the temple which is built on the 
foundations of the dead and has blood stained 
walls."

Human Rights Watch in its report of 1999 tells us 
about the violation of dalit rights which is done 
with impunity. Under the heading 'Criminalisation 
of Social Activism' the report narrates the story 
of one Tirumavalavan a dalit rights activist from 
Tamilnadu and other members of his movement who 
are targeted by the police for organizing Dalits 
to claim their rights. According to the testimony 
of Tirumavalavan he is ".[o]ften arrested under 
Indian Penal Code sections 153(a) [for promoting 
enmity between different groups] and 120(b) [for 
criminal conspiracy], and also under the Sedition 
Act and the National Security Act.

A cursory glance at the genesis of the 'crime of 
sedition' would make it that it has its roots in 
an era when statesmen and political leaders were 
considered to be largely above reproach by the 
common man. It was a time when coups and 
revolutions were a constant threat and the resort 
to political violence a common phenomenon. Coming 
to Indian case one can see that while the British 
colonialists imposed it supposedly to rein in the 
natives but as an offence it originated in UK. 
Prior to 1606, treason (an offence similar to 
sedition) was punishable under the Statute of 
Treasons of 1352. The offence of seditious libel 
was first created in 1606 by the infamous Star 
Chamber decision in de Libellis Famosis18 and 
continued to exist at common law as a species of 
libel.

One can say that the rationale for incorporating 
sedition act has come in for criticism on two 
counts. Firstly its clear espousal of methods 
adopted by our colonial rulers to discipline the 
'natives' and secondly its core concept which 
seems clearly antithetical to the underlying 
premises of modern democracy. A mere look at the 
'Sedition Act' embodied under Indian penal Code 
section 124 A would make it clear what one wants 
to convey :

Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by 
signs, or by visible representation, or 
otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into 
hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to 
excite disaffection towards, the Government 
established by law in India, shall be punished 
with imprisonment for life, to which fine may be 
added, or with imprisonment which may extend to 
three years, to which fine may be added..

It is symptomatic of its anachronism that in most 
of the mature democracies, the law of sedition 
has now either formally been rescinded or is 
largely defunct. A considered observation of 
'Global Campaign for Free Expression' is worth 
quoting in full : Pronouncements by courts and 
law reform commissions in a number of common law 
jurisdictions support the contention that the law 
of sedition serves no useful purpose, is 
anachronistic, is palpably undemocratic, and is 
an unconstitutional encroachment on the right to 
freedom of expression.

Whether India the 'largest democracy in the 
world' is ready to pay heed to the voices in the 
other mature democracies?

To start with the honourable Police Commissioner 
of Ahmedabad can reconsider his decision.

_______


[5]

Indian Express
May 30, 2008

SPEAK, FREEDOM

by Tarunabh Khaitan

The courts' orders in the M.F. Husain and 
Khushboo cases earlier this month offer hope. But 
in the long run, we need to review the utility of 
Sections 177 and 178 of the Criminal Procedure 
Code


  In a remarkably unequivocal judgment delivered 
on May 8, Delhi High Court quashed eight criminal 
cases against artist M.F. Husain, saying that 'it 
has become imperative that in this information 
age, jurisdiction be more circumscribed so that 
an artist ... is not made to run from pillar to 
post facing proceedings.' A few days later, on 
May 15, the Supreme Court stayed criminal 
proceedings against actor Khushboo in 23 cases. 
While these orders are commendable, they do not 
go far enough. Each time an actor, writer, 
artist, journalist, or anyone else whose speech 
or expression is transmitted widely through the 
media expresses a controversial sentiment, 
multiple law suits will be filed across the 
country. Higher courts will continue to waste 
their strained resources to quash these 
proceedings. The problem needs a permanent 
solution.

The root of the problem of multiple proceedings 
lies in Section 177 of the Criminal Procedure 
Code: 'Every offence shall ordinarily be inquired 
into and tried by a court within whose local 
jurisdiction it was committed'. Section 178, 
which deals with offences committed in more than 
one jurisdiction, provides that they 'may be 
inquired into or tried by a court having 
jurisdiction over any of such local areas.' 
Crimes such as obscenity that are committed 
wholly or in part by expression usually include 
the publication of such expression as well. 
Therefore, every court within whose local 
jurisdiction such expression has been published 
in any medium has potential jurisdiction. This, 
in the case of TV broadcast or internet 
publication, includes every single court in the 
country! It is this loophole that allows 
disgruntled groups to pursue such proceedings.

The impact on the speaker of multiple criminal 
proceedings initiated in different corners of the 
country is easy to imagine. If implicated, you 
have to spend a lot of time and money organising 
legal defence and making personal appearances 
before these various courts, however frivolous 
the allegation. Usually the court finds that no 
offence was committed and that the speech was 
constitutionally protected. Many people give up 
before reaching that stage. Taslima Nasreen and 
M.F. Husain chose to leave the country.

A less obvious but more worrying consequence of 
these multiple proceedings is that certain things 
may never be said for fear of similar 
consequences. This nightmarish possibility has a 
chilling effect on any potentially controversial 
- though constitutionally legitimate - speech. It 
encourages self-censorship and undermines our 
democracy.

Thus, however harmless they might appear to be, 
Sections 177 and 178 of the Criminal Procedure 
Code seriously impair free speech by allowing 
multiple proceedings. They undermine the 
constitutional protection of freedom of speech 
and expression guaranteed in Article 19(1)(a).

That is not to say freedom of speech is absolute. 
Any law that restricts speech may be justified as 
a 'reasonable restriction' under Article 19(2) of 
the Constitution. The procedural laws in question 
are anything but reasonable. Most of these 
criminal proceedings result in acquittal. In the 
rare instance that a person is successfully tried 
and convicted by two courts for the same crime, 
the constitutional bar on double jeopardy in 
Article 20(2) guarantees that 'No person shall be 
prosecuted and punished for the same offence more 
than once.' Only one of these punishments can be 
enforced.

Not only do these multiple proceedings serve no 
legitimate state purpose, they in fact conflict 
with a vital state interest. Our overstrained 
courts waste much precious time entertaining 
these complaints, most of which will be 
unfruitful even when not frivolous. Several cases 
go all the way to the Supreme Court, seeking 
intervention on a case-by-case basis. The cases 
always end up quashed, stayed or consolidated, 
but not before much detriment to the speaker and 
to judicial resources.

What, above all, makes these cases so 
unreasonable is that they severely harm the 
speaker's interests even before they establish 
that a crime has been committed at all. Legal 
proceedings are rarely much fun. But being 
obliged to appear in several courts for 
exercising what usually turns out to be one's 
constitutional right to free speech will strain 
anyone's time, money and sanity.

Sections 177 and 178, as they stand now, have an 
unconstitutional impact on freedom of speech. To 
pass constitutional muster, an exception to these 
provisions must be carved out which provides that 
any crime constituted by speech or expression can 
only be tried in the defendant's place of 
ordinary residence, or in Delhi, if the defendant 
lives outside India.

The writer is a legal researcher at the 
University of Oxford tarunabh[AT]gmail[dot]com

______


[6]

Frontline
May. 24-Jun. 06, 2008

SAYING NO TO NUKES

by Praful Bidwai

Ten years after Pokhran-II, India is being sucked 
into an upward spiral of insecurity, high 
military spending and yet more insecurity.

THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

The Kargil War, the world's worst conflict 
between nuclear weapons states, belies the theory 
that nuclear bombs bring deterrence.

HEN the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government decided, 
in complete secrecy and without even the pretence 
of the promised strategic defence review, to 
cross the nuclear threshold 10 years ago, it did 
not advance a national-consensual programme but a 
sectarian, hawkish agenda, which reflected a 
peculiar Hindutva obsession with mass-destruction 
weapons.

That obsession is traceable all the way to 1964, 
when the Jan Sangh became the sole political 
party to demand that India build nuclear weapons 
- just when it was crusading for global nuclear 
disarmament.
Political polarisation

The "Shakti" blasts polarised political opinion. 
The Left parties criticised them as a reversal of 
India's long-standing policy and demanded that 
India must under no circumstances induct nuclear 
weapons. The Sangh Parivar went into raptures. 
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad demanded that India be 
officially declared a Hindu state.

The Congress was divided. Some of its leaders 
congratulated Indian scientists for the 
"achievement". Sonia Gandhi said that the "real 
strength lies in restraint, not in the display of 
'Shakti'". A fortnight later, Manmohan Singh, 
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, made 
what was probably his most eloquent and 
impassioned speech when he argued that the 
Vajpayee government had breached the national 
consensus that nuclear arms were mass-destruction 
weapons whose use was "a crime against humanity" 
and "India should be in the forefront of 
international efforts to.Š have these weapons 
outlawed".

Manmohan Singh warned against ignoring the 
economic and social dimensions of security and a 
single-minded pursuit of military objectives. 
India, he said, would be "sucked into an arms 
race" and "uncontrollable increases in 
expenditure" on nuclear weapons, which would 
prove ruinous, as in the former Soviet Union: 
"Therefore, think before you act, think before 
you weaponiseŠ." Playing partisan politics with 
nuclear policy would be a "great disservice to 
our nation" ("Sanctifying atomic apartheid", 
Frontline, August 12, 2005).

The tests came as a surprise even to most 
supporters of the bomb. Few of them had advocated 
testing. But as soon as it happened, a majority 
of these so-called security experts concocted all 
kinds of justifications for the bomb.

Many of these worthies cited threats from 
Pakistan although some of them had lobbied 
against all nuclear restraint proposals emanating 
from Pakistan since the 1980s. They now began to 
crave a tit-for-tat response from Pakistan as if 
that would show that India was not totally 
isolated. When the Pakistan excuse did not work, 
they changed their tune and pointed fingers at 
China. But they could not explain why India could 
live with China's bomb for a quarter-century 
without having one of its own. Completely absent 
from this "security discourse" was the vitally 
important moral dimension of the nuclear issue.

The moral question was taken up passionately by 
the peace movement, which soon gathered force 
among scientists, writers, scholars, artistes, 
environmentalists and social activists. Although 
fledgling, it powerfully challenged the political 
and security assumptions of the dominant 
discourse, including nuclear deterrence.

The peace movement acquired a pan-Indian 
organised expression in 2000, with the formation 
of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and 
Peace (CNDP) by over 200 people's movement 
groups, non-governmental organisations, 
scientists' associations, artists' networks and 
other citizens' bodies. The movement's views had 
a resonance with the underprivileged masses who, 
opinion polls showed, opposed the manufacture and 
use of nuclear weapons, which do not invest them 
with prestige, and accorded priority to 
bread-and-butter issues.

May 1998 thus witnessed a clear split between the 
policy-shaping elite led by cynical strategic 
experts and the poor and disadvantaged majority, 
who wanted state funds to be spent on health 
care, education, food security and employment 
generation, not on the military.
Four trends

Ten years on, four distinct trends are 
discernible. First, the elite-mass divide has 
sharpened in keeping with the general experience 
of the poor with increasingly predatory and 
dispossessing growth under neoliberal 
globalisation.

Second, political party-level polarisation has 
decreased. Both the Congress and the Bharatiya 
Janata Party claim "credit" for India's 
nuclearisation (through Pokhran-I and Pokhran-II) 
or its follow-up (through the proposed United 
States-India nuclear deal). Even the Left parties 
are no longer as vocal as they used to be in 
demanding a rollback of India's nuclearisation 
and its return to the global disarmament agenda. 
A major reason for this is the debate over the 
nuclear deal, which has generally been couched in 
nuclear-nationalist terms or within the framework 
of resistance to neocolonial hegemony, rather 
than in considerations of peace, rational energy 
options and environmental sustainability.

Third, most forecasts made by the bomb's 
apologists have turned out false. They 
confidently predicted that India's nuclear 
weapons would give it security and impart 
stability and maturity to its relations with 
Pakistan. They said it would also help limit 
conventional military spending while effectively 
pre-empting conventional war. (Does not the 
deterrence theory say that nuclear weapons states 
- NWSs - do not go to war with each other?) Most 
important, they claimed that India's nuclear 
status would enhance its global prestige and 
expand its room for manoeuvre in world affairs.

In reality, nuclearisation has made South Asia 
manifestly more volatile and insecure. Although 
the India-Pakistan peace process has reduced 
tensions since 2004, millions of Indians and 
Pakistanis remain within the range of missiles of 
different descriptions but capable of carrying 
nuclear weapons that concentrate devastating 
power against which armies, governments and 
citizens are defenceless.

The presumption that nuclear weapons give 
security is based on the doctrine of nuclear 
deterrence. But deterrence - which India for 50 
years rightly described as "morally repugnant", 
strategically unworkable, and a recipe for an 
arms race - is a deeply flawed doctrine. As game 
theory analysis and experience with military 
stand-offs (the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, for 
instance) show, it is hard to predict how an 
adversary may behave following a rational 
calculus - although there is no guarantee that he 
or she will behave rationally.

Thomas Schelling, who won the Economics Nobel in 
2005, has shown that "a party can strengthen its 
position by overtly worsening its own options, 
that the capability to retaliate can be more 
useful than the ability to resist an attack, and 
that uncertain retaliation is more credible and 
more efficient than certain retaliation". 
Certain, devastating retaliation is at the core 
of deterrence - and India's nuclear doctrine.

We now know that the probability of a nuclear 
exchange during the Cuban crisis was far higher 
than was then understood. And yet, key players 
from the same side such as John F. Kennedy and 
Robert S. McNamara had widely divergent 
perceptions of the effectiveness of their own 
strategic moves.

Kargil, the world's greatest-ever conflict 
between NWSs, offers an even more powerful 
refutation of the deterrence theory than did the 
limited Sino-Soviet clashes of the 1970s over the 
Ussuri river. Kargil, a mid-sized war involving 
40,000 troops and top-of-the-line armaments, 
occurred a year after the Pokhran/Chagai tests. 
Pakistan's generals embarked on that misadventure 
in the belief that nuclear weapons would shield 
them against Indian retaliation.

During those seven weeks, India and Pakistan 
exchanged nuclear threats no fewer than 13 times 
even as 2,500 soldiers were killed. According to 
former White House advisor Bruce Riedel, U.S. 
intelligence had gathered "disturbing information 
about Pakistan preparing its nuclear arsenal" 
without even the knowledge of Prime Minister 
Nawaz Sharif. It is inconceivable that India did 
not make contingency plans for the use of nuclear 
weapons as the two "were heading for a deadly 
descent into full-scale conflict, with a danger 
of nuclear cataclysm".

Kargil might have had a far worse outcome had 
Sharif not asked for U.S. mediation, which led to 
Pakistan's unconditional withdrawal. It also led 
to a huge escalation of tension between Sharif 
and General Pervez Musharraf and eventually, an 
army coup. Pakistan is just beginning to recover 
from its debilitating effects on the process of 
democratisation.
Dangerous precedent

Kargil set an extremely dangerous precedent. The 
potential for escalation of an India-Pakistan 
conventional conflict to the nuclear level again 
became evident after the Parliament House attack 
in December 2001. India and Pakistan eyeballed 
each other with one million troops for 10 months, 
and India contemplated a "limited" strike across 
the Line of Control.

Pakistan made credible threats to the effect that 
this would lead to full-scale war and warned of 
its escalation to the nuclear level. The two 
states twice came close to the brink of a nuclear 
catastrophe in early and mid-2002 as they readied 
nuclear weapons for use according to 
unimpeachable reports - a prospect almost too 
frightening even to imagine but one that cannot 
be firmly ruled out given the history of mutual 
strategic hostility and miscalculation. Once 
conflicts begin, they acquire their own momentum, 
and the logic of retaliation and 
counter-retaliation prevails over normal, 
rational judgment.

Similarly, apologists of the bomb have been 
proved totally wrong on the supposedly moderating 
effect of nuclear weapons on conventional 
armaments acquisition. This proved a complete 
delusion during the Cold War, which witnessed 
both a nuclear and a conventional arms race. In 
fact, the two fed on each other.

Military spending

This is equally true of India and Pakistan, which 
have raised their conventional military spending 
by leaps and bounds even as they stockpile bomb 
fuel and test-fly new missiles. India's military 
spending has tripled since 1998; Pakistan's has 
doubled. And it is still early days for their 
nuclear programmes.

Nor have nuclear weapons bestowed global prestige 
on India. India's global profile has certainly 
risen. But that is the effect of India's 
successful practice of democracy in a highly 
diverse and plural society and, more recently, 
its growing economic power, besides a hangover 
from the past, when India was a force of 
moderation and reform of the global system.

If nuclear weapons enhance a nation's prestige, 
one would have seen proof of this in Pakistan and 
North Korea. But nuclear Pakistan was considered 
a failing state until late 2001. And North Korea 
commands nothing approaching prestige.

The peace movement has proved right on most 
counts although it must be conceded that some of 
its representatives, including this writer, 
overestimated the degree and duration of India's 
isolation and underestimated the rapidity with 
which the U.S. would move to embrace this 
"emerging power", not least to contain China.

Not just the moral but also the 
political-strategic arguments of the movement 
stand fully validated. The core "guns vs. butter" 
moral argument has lost none of its force despite 
India's high gross domestic product (GDP) growth, 
which has not significantly reduced poverty, 
hunger and mass deprivation. Spending 3 to 3.5 
per cent of the GDP on the military while 
remaining at the level of Afghanistan in public 
health spending (1 per cent) continues to be 
obscenely immoral.

Retreat from restraint

The fourth trend is the total retreat of the 
Indian establishment from the agendas of nuclear 
restraint, arms reduction and disarmament. Its 
topmost priority is to push through the nuclear 
deal with the U.S. and thereby secure legitimacy 
for India's mass-destruction weapons.

Behaving like a "responsible" member of the 
nuclear club means not rocking the boat but going 
along with Washington's plans for upgrading its 
nuclear weapons, finding new uses for them, 
launching the unilateral Proliferation Security 
Initiative (PSI) to intercept "suspect" 
shipments, and proceeding with ballistic missile 
defence (BMD). As if in recompense for this, some 
strategists offer a "moderate-sounding" agenda in 
contrast to the maximalist one of testing another 
H-Bomb and greatly expanding India's 
nuclear-missile programme. This includes sticking 
to "minimum" deterrence and no-first-use, 
limiting India's capability to threaten some of 
China's "key industrial and population centres", 
negotiating nuclear confidence-building measures 
with Pakistan and, at maximum, joining the recent 
appeal for a nuclear weapons-free world by George 
Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and Sam 
Nunn 
(online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120036422673589947.html).

Problems with the appeal apart - including 
vagueness, lack of a time frame, silence on PSI 
and BMD - this "moderation" is misleading. 
Possessing nuclear weapons is itself against 
moderation: all NWSs have the will and readiness 
to kill lakhs of non-combatant civilians - an act 
of extreme terrorism if there ever was one. As 
Manmohan Singh said 10 years ago, history shows 
that even when NWSs "said they would not be the 
first to use nuclear weapons, their opponents 
never took that seriouslyŠ".

This deceptive agenda does not involve stepping 
back from the nuclear abyss, only not jumping 
headlong into it. It does not meet the urgent 
need to grasp the nuclear nettle by energetically 
promoting regional nuclear restraint and global 
nuclear elimination.

A good way of doing so would be to update the 
thoughtful 1988 Rajiv Gandhi Plan for global 
nuclear disarmament, presented to the Special 
Session of the United Nations General Assembly. 
But doing this will also demand unilateral 
gestures from India - like offering to suspend 
missile test-flights or fissile production - 
while convening an international conference on 
disarmament jointly with other initiatives such 
as the Mayors for Peace campaign, the "2020 
Vision campaign", Abolition-2000, and advocating 
a Nuclear Weapons (elimination) Convention. Can 
India muster the will?


______


[7]

www.sacw.net  > Communalism Repository
June 3, 2008
To: The Commission of Inquiry of Honourable 
Justice Panigrahi/Re. Kandhamal, Orissa

From: Dr. Angana Chatterji
Associate Professor, Social and Cultural Anthropology
California Institute of Integral Studies
E-mail: achatterji [at] ciis[dot]edu; Angana [at] aol[dot]com
Address in the United States: Anthropology 
Department, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, 
California - 94103, United States
Phone in the United States: 001-415-575-6119
Phone when in India: 9937770819

Note: I am a Citizen of India, born and raised in 
Calcutta/Kolkata, and a Permanent Resident of the 
United States. I travel to India regularly and 
remain committed to making myself available 
should you require any clarifications from me.
Note 2: I am submitting this sworn statement by 
fax through Advocate XXXX on 31 May 2008. The 
original will arrive by courier the following 
week, and I request the Commission to kindly 
accept the same on arrival.

________________

TO: THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY OF HONOURABLE JUSTICE PANIGRAHI
From: Dr. Angana Chatterji

Re. Kandhamal, Orissa
                                                                
30 May 2008


To whom it may concern

I am writing to submit the enclosed sworn 
statement of fact/affidavit on the violence in 
Kandhamal district in Orissa that ensued in 
December 2007. This affidavit has been notarized 
by a Public Notary.

My statement is based on extensive research on 
the communalisation of Orissa conducted by me 
between June 2002-June 2008. I have undertaken 
over 15 trips to the state since June 2002, 
including in 66 villages, 11 towns, and 4 cities 
across 17 districts. I travelled to Kandhamal 
district in January 2005, after the incidents in 
Raikia. I travelled to Kandhamal district and 
visited certain towns and villages again in 
January 2008, following the violence of December 
2007.

In 2005-2006, I co-convened with Advocate Mihir 
Desai the Indian People's Tribunal on Communalism 
in Orissa organised by the Indian People's 
Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights (IPT). 
The Tribunal was led by Justice K. K. Usha, 
Retired Chief Justice of Kerala. The Tribunal was 
constituted in response to concerns voiced by 
citizens over the growth of communalism and 
increased aggression throughout Orissa 
particularly since the Gujarat 2002 genocide. The 
Tribunal was targeted by Hindutva, Hindu 
extremist, activists and women members of the 
Tribunal threatened, in June 2005.

The findings of the report strongly warned about 
the formidable extent of mobilisation by the 
majoritarian communalist group of organisations 
in Orissa, including in Kandhamal district, and 
documented their adverse impact of society, 
economy, culture, and polity in the state. 
According to the report, the Sangh Parivar group 
of Hindutva, Hindu supremacist, organisations has 
a visible presence in twenty-five of thirty 
districts in Orissa. The Tribunal's report had 
submitted detailed recommendations for action, 
which did not invoke any reflection or 
determination on part of the Government of Orissa 
or the Central Government.

The State Government of Orissa has been incapable 
of dealing with, or responding appropriately to, 
these issues and the serious concerns they pose 
to democratic governance in the state, and of 
ensuring the security and sanctity of peoples and 
groups made vulnerable through majoritarian 
communalism as perpetrated by Hindu nationalist 
organisations in the state. These matters and 
circumstances that led to the Kandhamal violence 
of December 2007 in Orissa continue to pose a 
threat to the sanctity and security of human 
rights in the state, particularly of religious 
and ethnic minorities, disenfranchised Adivasi 
and caste groups, and other vulnerable groups 
such as women and secular organisations, and 
active individuals across the state. Failure to 
take preventative action jeopardises rule of law, 
the right to life and livelihood, freedom of 
speech, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, 
freedom of inquiry, and the right to information 
in Orissa.

NOTE: While working in Orissa, I have, at times, 
been portrayed by Hindutva activists and its 
leaders as a 'foreigner' and a 'missionary', who 
have also campaigned against my travels in Orissa 
publicly and to the police and intelligence 
agencies. I would like to clarify, again, for the 
record, that I am a citizen of India and a 
resident of the United States, who is an 
associate professor of anthropology and teaches 
in an accredited institution of higher learning. 
It is ironic that while non-resident Indians are 
being encouraged to participate in the well-being 
of the Indian nation, I am being targeted for 
doing so. I travel to India regularly, at least 
twice each year, to continue my research work and 
visit family and friends. My work has been 
focused on the human rights of Dalits, Adivasis, 
women, as well as other disenfranchised and 
minority groups across religion, caste and class, 
inclusive of numerous people who self-define in 
various ways as Hindu. I would also like to 
clarify that I am a secular person of Hindu 
descent and that my taking a position opposing 
Hindutva and Hindu nationalism is in no way in 
opposition to Hindus or Hinduism.

Kandhamal Riots, December 2007
December 25, 2007: Seven churches, Catholic, 
Protestant, Pentecostal, independent... were 
torched in Barakhama village, in west 
Kandhamal/Phulbani district, central Orissa. 
December 23: Hindutva-affiliated Adivasi 
organisations organised a march, reportedly 
supported by Hindu communalist groups, rallying: 
'Stop Christianity. Kill Christians'. It is 
stated that the Kui Samaj, a Sangh-affiliated 
Adivasi organisation that works in the district, 
was prompted by Hindutva activists into calling 
for a Kandhamal bandh (strike) on December 25 and 
26, demanding that Dalit Christians be denied 
scheduled caste status. A Dalit Christian leader 
from Barakhama testified: "On December 22, 
hearing of plans to create trouble during 
Christmas, we went to the local police and 
informed them of the situation. They assured us 
that things would be under control. On December 
24, in the daytime, we heard voices of Bajrang 
Dal, VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) , RSS (Rashtriya 
Swayamsevak Sangh), Shiv Sena people, chanting: 
'Hindu, Hindu, Bhai, Bhai', 'RSS Zindabad', 
'Lakshmanananda Zindabad'. Hindutva activists 
shut down shops. That night they felled trees to 
block roads along National Highway 217, across 
hill terrain, severed power and phone lines. On 
the 25th, we went to the inspector in-charge of 
police again. On the 25th, at 2.30, about 200 of 
us sat down to Christmas prayer at our church and 
around 4 p.m. we heard the mob approach." "Before 
the mob came we heard the sound of people 
approaching. The sound of hatred. Our lives, our 
faith, our existence is under attack and neither 
the neighbours, the police nor the state care." - 
Dalit Christian woman in Kandhamal.

The mob, about 3,000-4,000 persons, many bearing 
symbolic tilaks (mark on forehead), reportedly 
belonged to various Sangh Parivar groups named 
above, incited local Hindus into rioting. 
Estimates state 20 per cent of the mob comprised 
of people from Barakhama, 80 per cent from 
surrounding Balliguda, Raikia, Phulbani, as far 
away as Behrampur. In Barakhama, Christian homes 
were selected for destruction by the mob, Hindu 
homes spared. A Dalit Christian woman testified: 
"They broke the door to our church. We ran. We 
fell and kept running." Women and men were 
intimidated and assaulted. Cries of 'Jai 
Bajrangbali' rent the air. 'Christians must 
become Hindu or Die. Kill Them. Kill Them. Kill 
Them. Gita not Bible. Destroy their Faith.'

The crowd carried rods, trishuls (tridents), 
swords, kerosene, and crude bombs. They used 
guns, a first in Orissa, weapons available in the 
market and makeshift local fabrications. 
Predominantly middle class caste Hindus 
participated in looting, destroying and torching 
property. They threw bombs to start the fire. The 
breakage was systematic, thorough. Women and men 
hid for days in forests in winter temperatures, 
later seeking shelter in the Balliguda town 
relief camp, returning to decimated Barakhama on 
January 2. Engulfed in soot and sorrow, people 
attempted to function amid charred remnants. A 
woman said: "Everything burns down and we are 
left with nothing. How little our lives are made 
(of). How alone we are, so far away from 
everything."
[. . .] .

FULL TEXT AT: http://tinyurl.com/4cus8z



_______


[8]

outlookindia.com
9 June 2008

Junoon stringing its message of peace

Srinagar: Music

KASHMIR CANTATA
JUNOON, THE SOFT-ROCKING DERVISHES FROM PAKISTAN, 
CAME AS A RARE MUSICAL INTERLUDE ...

by Namrata Joshi

Despite staying in the same hotel, it proved hard 
to pin down Salman Ahmed-the lead singer and 
guitarist of the Pakistani Sufi rock group 
Junoon-for an interview. Faced with opposition 
from hardliners against his concert, he preferred 
to lie low, doing riyaaz at the crack of dawn by 
the peaceful expanse of Dal Lake, instead of 
talking to the media. But after the success of 
the concert, it was quite another story-Salman 
had become an instant celebrity, a bigger 
presence in the Kashmir capital than the visiting 
president of India. When our turn with him 
finally came at 2.30 am, you could hear the joy 
in his voice, even at that unearthly hour.

	For the young, the concert came as a rare 
relief from their limited world. And they seized 
the moment.

"After performing in innumerable shows you can 
get jaded, till something like this comes along 
to energise you," said Salman, "the response was 
totally unexpected, unprecedented." The concert, 
organised by the South Asia Foundation (a 
secular, non-profit,
non-political organisation with chapters in the 
eight SAARC nations), in association with the 
University of Kashmir, was indeed unique, the 
first of its kind in the two decades since 
militancy claimed Kashmir in 1989. There have 
been occasional concerts like those of Begum 
Akhtar and Farida Khanum but those were for the 
bureaucracy and officials. Junoon's show was the 
first one for the public, packing in over 5,000 
people. The venue at Chashm-e-Shahi made it even 
more memorable, with the majestic Zabarwan ranges 
providing a dramatic backdrop to the stage and 
the tranquil waters of the Dal Lake spread in 
front.


Youngsters cheering on

In this idyllic setting, Junoon's music spoke of 
all the right things: peace and harmony, 
pluralism, unity and regional cooperation, of 
music transcending religion to bring people 
together. The political symbolism of the concert 
became more pronounced, given the fact that just 
a couple of days before the event, the United 
Jehad Council, the umbrella group of militant 
organisations, had passed a resolution against 
the show. Their leader Syed Salahuddin had urged 
the Pakistan government to stop Junoon's 
performance since it would have a negative impact 
on the "disputed status" of Kashmir and send a 
wrong signal to the international community that 
"Kashmir was an integral part of India".

Salman's response was to dub his show a "jehad 
for peace". "It's about waging a war through the 
guitar rather than the gun," he said. "Both sides 
of the border, we have been demonising the other, 
but music is a universal emotion and the success 
of Pakistani musicians in India, like Atif Aslam, 
Strings and Jal, shows another way to take the 
peace process forward," he added. "We have begun 
something, now it's for others to take it 
forward," said Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyer 
who heads the India chapter of SAF.

Junoon's concert had cultural significance as 
well: it marked the opening of the Institute of 
Kashmir Studies at the University of Kashmir, 
which aims to revive the region's rich and 
distinctive culture. But more than 
political-cultural issues, the concert's real 
significance was in the way it reached out to 
young Kashmiris. They flocked to the venue in 
hordes, stood for hours in long queues; patiently 
bore with rigorous security checks and the 
scorching sun. But none of this dampened their 
enthusiasm. In fact, it came as a rare relief 
from the tensions-and tedium-of their daily 
lives....

"The boys here have been facing bullets in the 
last 20 years and the girls have hardly seen 
anything of life," observed a local journalist. 
Indeed, youngsters in Srinagar have very few 
options for entertainment other than watching TV 
or DVDs. There are no malls, multiplexes or 
clubs."We carry our music and spend time 
listening to it by the lake," said Rashid, a 
student at Kashmir University.

In such a limited and limiting world, the concert 
was a release, specially for the girls. And they 
seized the moment with gusto. They sat quietly as 
the concert began, gently moving their hands to 
the tunes. By the time Salman began playing the 
hot favourite, Sayonee, they were up on their 
feet, clapping, dancing and whistling in happy 
abandon. What helped was the fact that Junoon's 
is the kind of music they could instantly connect 
with. It was their language, their concerns and 
feelings, be it Meri awaaz suno, mujhe azaad karo 
or Yaaro yehi dosti hai; Iqbal's Khudi ko kar 
bulund itna or Bulle Shah's Mandir dha de, masjid 
dha de.

"We want more such events here," said college 
student Aban Mullick. The environment certainly 
seems conducive at the moment for fostering a 
lively youth culture. The town might look as 
though it is under siege, bathed in army hues of 
olive green and khaki, but Srinagar has been 
peaceful for a while now. The economy is looking 
up a little with tourists from Gujarat, south 
India and Bengal cavorting in the Mughal Gardens 
and posing for pictures in shikaras. Life seems 
normal but the underlying unease is also 
palpable. One incident can tilt the 
balance-that's the unspoken fear.

And though the young may have lost themselves 
happily in Junoon's music for an evening, their 
frustration at the lack of opportunities in the 
Valley remains. The concert was but a glimpse of 
a normal, vibrant world, that's still a long way 
out of their reach.


______


[9]

Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 9:03:07 PM
Subject: "Bread, not Bomb" a Peace rally

Dear all

Greetings from GRDO

A "PEACE" rally was organized from Press Club 
Hyderabad to Hyder Chowk on 27th of May, 2008 
under the umbrella of Pakistan Peace Coalition. 
Hundreds of people from different Areas of Sindh 
belonging to different walks of life joined the 
Torch-Light Peace Rally. The participants were 
carrying placards along with Torches. The slogans 
written on the placards were "BREAD, NOT BOMB", 
"NUCLEAR FREE SOUTH ASIA", "MAKE PUBLIC THE 
DEFFENSE BUDGET" and others. The Rally was 
organized on May 27 to protest against nuclear 
explosions by India and Pakistan in May 1998. 
Karamat Ali, Adam Malik, Dr.Haider, Comrade 
Ramzan Memon, Momin Khan, Akhtar Bhutti, Zain 
Daodpoto and other Pakistan Peace Coalition 
leaders were amongst the participants.

Best regards

Dr.Haider
Director
Green Rural Development Organization  [GRDO]


______


[10]

Books / Dawn
June 01, 2008

[BOOK] REVIEW: A red, silk shirt


  Reviewed By Syeda Saleha

The title of the book and the publisher's 
assertion that the book is a collection of short 
stories by the great progressive writer Krishin 
Chander (1913 -1977) will prove incorrect as soon 
as you open the book and search for an index 
containing the list of short stories. As you turn 
the pages, you will find that it is not a 
selection of short stories but in fact a novella.

This is the first shock. The second shock 
awaiting the reader is that the novelette was 
originally titled Jab Khait Jage. It was 
published in 1952 and the title is symbolic. 
Khait is a metaphor which Krishin Chander used to 
present the uprising of the landless farmers in 
Telengana, now Andhra Pradesh, India. If the 
present title is the innovation of the publisher 
then I wonder at the liberty taken. Another 
irritant, which is not unusual for Urdu 
publications (of course I am talking about 
certain publishing houses), is the spelling 
mistakes and the grammar.

Having said this much about the irregularities, 
Jab Khait Jage is regarded as a milestone among 
the novels written by Krishin Chander. As pointed 
out earlier, the theme is the Telengana movement 
of the landless farmers. Dr Aijaz Ali Arshad in 
his book Krishin Chander Ki Novel Nigari regards 
it as a journey from romanticism to realism. The 
novella presents the struggle of farmers against 
the landowners who suppress and exploit them, 
turning them into bonded labour and depriving 
them of the fruit of their labour. Sardar Jafri, 
the noted poet, critic and scholar writes, 'This 
novella is also most important in the sense that 
the helpless farmer (Houri) of Premchand in his 
novel Gowdaan( The sacrifice of a cow) has 
returned after a lapse of almost 15 years with a 
new grandeur. This is not the same helpless 
farmer but the courageous fighter who is 
disciplined to fight for the rights of the 
downtrodden people'.

Jab Khait Jage is the story of Raghu Rao, a young 
son of a landless farmer who has been sentenced 
to death by execution at the age of 22. His crime 
is that he has fought on behalf of the farmers 
and for this he is charged with sedition. The 
novella starts with his last night in the cell 
where he reflects on the events of his life from 
his early childhood till the day when he was put 
into prison.

As a child, when he was enjoying a mela along 
with his father (a landless farmer) he is abused 
when he tries to touch a roll of silk in a shop. 
Again, to his dismay, he and his father are 
picked up by the men of the landowner for forced 
labour. Raghu Rao resists this high-handedness 
but when threatened with a gun, his father pleads 
for mercy. The incident becomes a turning point 
in Raghu's life. He runs away from the village 
and ultimately lands in Hyderabad (Deccan) where 
he becomes a rickshaw-puller, but because of 
reckless labour he soon falls victim to 
tuberculosis.


The father returns to the village to fulfill his 
son's last desire: to wear a silk shirt. The 
villagers do not have silk. Eventually he digs 
through the dowry box of his late wife and finds 
her red dupatta which the villagers use to sew a 
shirt.


He meets a trade union leader, Maqbool, who comes 
to his rescue by getting him a job in a paper 
mill and acquaints him with the triumphs of 
communism in the Soviet socialist republic. Raghu 
is now a partner in struggle for the rights of 
the downtrodden.

The comrades grab land from the landowners and 
distribute it among the landless farmers. By this 
time Hyderabad is annexed to India by the 
Congress whose leaders are no different from the 
former rulers. The manipulations of the feudal 
class and the new rulers results in the failure 
of the farmers' movement. The activists are 
arrested, put into prison and charged with 
treason. Raghu Rao is sentenced to death.

On the last night of his life in the prison, his 
father visits him and Raghu opens his heart 
before him, asking him not to lament his death 
because it is for an important cause: Wattiyon 
(landless farmers) ki duniyan mein virani hai. 
Kab tuk is viraan duniya mein sannata rahega. Koi 
oper se aanevala nahin ha. Koi unki haalat 
tabdeel karne wala nahin hai. Is kaam ko khud 
Watti logaun ko karna hoga.Varna hazaraun saal ki 
tarha aaj bhi resham udhar rahega aur uryani 
idhar rahegi. (The world of the landless farmers 
is barren. How long it will remain so. No one 
will come from above. No one is going to change 
their condition. They will have to do it 
themselves. Otherwise like for the past thousands 
of years, the silk will remain on that side and 
the cloth-less will remain on this side.) The 
father returns to the village to fulfill his 
son's last desire: to wear a silk shirt. The 
villagers do not have silk. Eventually he digs 
through the dowry box of his late wife and finds 
her red odhni (dupatta) which the villagers use 
to sew a shirt. A procession of 10, 000 farmers 
gathers at the prison gate and Raghu Rau walks 
out wearing the shirt feeling as if he is wearing 
not only a shirt but the flag of his people, the 
great symbol of their struggle.

The above is only brief summary of the book. 
There are many more characters, some weak and 
others strong; the exploiters and the suppressed. 
Chundri, Raghu Rao's lady love is a Lambada woman 
who succumbs to the lust of the landowner's son, 
while Jagannath Reddy's mother, Kashma, joins the 
band of armed fighters for the rights of the 
farmers.

The book may be discarded by some as propaganda 
literature, but Krishin Chander is very vocal 
about his philosophy of socialism. Today, 
although the Soviet Union is not the same as when 
this novella was written, socialism has itself 
undergone many changes but Krishin Chander was a 
firm believer in its philosophy of equality, 
justice and humanity. Revolution in India will 
succeed but in an Indian way is the message. The 
reprint of this book will certainly be 
appreciated by lovers of Urdu literature.


Roti Kapra aur Makan
By Krishan Chander
Sarang Publications, Lahore
108pp. Rs110




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