SACW | July 11-12, 2008 / Suma's Story / Next Door To War / Arthur C. Clarke / Mass graves in Indian Kashmir

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | July 11-12 , 2008 | Dispatch No. 2538 - 
Year 10 running

[This issue of SACW is dedicated to the memory of C.N. Hensman, the 
progressive Sri Lankan intellectual and teacher. C.R. Hensman died in 
London on the 9th of July 2008]

[1] Bangladesh: Suma's story (Zafar Sobhan)
[2] Pakistan: Next Door to War - After Benazir (Tariq Ali)
[3] Arthur C. Clarke's Secularism (Commentary, Polity)
[4] Indo-Pakistan rivalry and Sri Lanka (K. Godage)
[4] Disquiet Ghosts: Mass graves in Indian Kashmir (Angana Chatterji)
[5] India: Partitions of the mind (Pratap Bhanu Mehta)
[6] The Interesting Times We Live In (C Sathyamala)
[7] Announcements:
(i) Film Screening: Bhuli Hui Hoon Daastan by Adnan Malik (Karachi, 
13 July 2008)
(ii) Public Lecture by Professor Vinay Lal (Calcutta, 14 July 2008)

______


[1]

Daily Star
July 11, 2008

SUMA'S STORY

by Zafar Sobhan

IMAGINE for a moment what it is like to live your life in fear. You 
are 12 years old, studying in class seven, enjoying spending time 
with your school friends, watching your favourite soap operas and 
reality shows instead of doing homework, listening to new artists on 
the radio, slipping out of the house to spend time giggling and 
gossiping with your friends, pleading with your parents to buy you a 
mobile phone, your whole life ahead of you.

Then a shadow falls on your life. You notice a man, old enough to be 
your father, following you, his eyes moving up and down your body, 
making you feel uncomfortable. Everywhere you go, there he is, his 
steady, unblinking stare, his ravaged face, a cigarette dangling from 
the corner of his sneering lips, his teeth stained yellow, his eyes 
bloodshot.

One day he approaches your parents and demands your hand in marriage, 
never mind that he is middle-aged and repellent, that he is already 
married with two children, that you are too young to even begin 
noticing the boys in your class at school, that he makes your skin 
crawl and your heart thump with fear when you see him, that you lie 
awake at night, terrified, your stomach turning over, unable to 
sleep, your eyes and ears straining in the darkness for any 
unfamiliar sight or sound.

He is well-known in the locality as a man not to cross. His eyes are 
filled with malevolence as he swaggers into your home and 
contemptuously demands you for himself, not pausing to wipe his feet 
outside the door, tracking mud into your spotless home, not even 
putting out his cigarette as a mark of respect to your parents, 
sprawling himself across your front-room, aggression, arrogance and 
menace oozing from his paunchy but still powerful frame, the threat 
of violence behind his every movement.

Your parents are simple people. Your father trades vegetables at 
Gabtoli market in Dhaka. They do not want trouble with this man. They 
know what he is capable of. They try to put him off. They plead with 
him that you are too young, that they will think about it when you 
are older. Evenings you sometimes catch them speaking to one another 
in hushed voices, tension and fear etched on their loving faces. You 
wake one night to get a glass of water and see your mother sitting in 
the balcony, her head bowed, weeping silently as her fingers move 
across her prayer beads.

The man's harassment of you continues. Now he does not merely follow 
you and stare at you from afar but comes right up to you, so close 
that you can smell the foulness of his breath, see the savage glint 
in his eyes as he leers at you, making vile and obscene remarks in a 
low, guttural tone, reaching out to grab at you with his 
nicotine-stained fingers.

He grows more aggressive and threatening daily. You return home from 
school every day in tears until you can take it no longer and beg 
your parents to keep you at home so that you don't have to run the 
gauntlet of his harassment and humiliation twice a day. You barricade 
yourself in your house only to see him from the balcony, lounging 
outside your gate with his two friends, making catcalls, and staring 
up at you with malice and spite.

One day he barges back into your house, and when your parents again 
plead with him for time, he grows furious, smashing a flower vase 
against the wall. He grabs your father by the throat and demands one 
lakh in "compensation" for being "kept waiting" for two years. He 
storms out of the house, slamming the door behind him, threatening 
terrible consequences if he is not satisfied.

Three days later he returns with his two friends and a pot of acid 
and flings it at your face and upper body, and your life, as you know 
it, is over. You are 14 years old.

I couldn't come up with a more horrific story if I tried.

If there is a more grotesque crime than this, I can't think of it. 
The only silver lining to Suma's tragic story is that the man who did 
this to her was apprehended on Wednesday and we can now hope and pray 
that he gets the death penalty in accordance with the law. Frankly, 
capital punishment is too good for him, but one takes what one can 
get.

The Acid Survivors Foundation, Prothom Alo, the late Nasreen Huq, 
among others, deserve unending praise for the tireless work on behalf 
of the victims of acid attacks like Suma. In large part due to their 
combined efforts, the numbers of acid attacks have been coming down 
and convictions are on the rise.

Last year there were 156 recorded acid attacks in Bangladesh, down 
from a high of 367 in 2002, though there are also cases that remain 
unreported so the full number is undoubtedly higher, leading to 48 
convictions for an approximately 30% conviction rate.

We have done a creditable job in terms of rehabilitating acid victims 
and helping them lead a full and productive life. Public awareness 
campaigns as to the appalling nature of the crime have helped to 
decrease its prevalence. But where we need to do more is on the 
prosecutorial side.

As long as two out of every three acid attackers walk free, as long 
as the men who perpetrate such crimes consider themselves untouchable 
by the law, these kinds of attacks will continue to occur. No one 
flings acid on the spur of the moment or in the heat of passion. 
These are cold-blooded, calculated, pre-meditated crimes. Severe and 
certain consequences can therefore effectively reduce their incidence.

Look at the present case. Suma's attacker did nothing to hide his 
identity or his intentions. The brazenness of the attack is part of 
what made it so reprehensible. Nor is his crime solely his cruel 
disfigurement of a young girl. What made him feel that he could ruin 
her life with impunity is the same thing that made him believe that 
he could terrorise her for the two years prior with impunity.

This is the kind of criminality under the shadow of which too many 
Bangladeshis must live their lives. It is a crying shame. People 
should not have to live their lives in fear.

If there is one thing Bangladeshis want and have a right to expect 
from their government, it is to be kept safe and sound.

Sociologist Naomi Hossain in a piece entitled "The Price We Pay" 
published in the January 2008 edition of Forum magazine, pointed out 
the debilitating cost to individuals and society that was wrought by 
the fact that so many of our citizens have little recourse to law and 
must live insecure, vulnerable, and defenceless lives:

"This, it seems, is how you live in rural Bangladesh. You sleep (in 
squalor) next to your cow so it is not stolen overnight. You marry 
your daughter off before she sprouts breasts so as to avert her rape. 
You never really get ahead of the game because you have cut off your 
nose to spite your face."

Let us never underestimate the crushing effect that lawlessness and a 
culture of impunity has on the common men, women, and children of 
Bangladesh. Nothing scars their lives so severely as their lack of 
security in their persons and property, and a safer and more secure 
Bangladesh in which everyone has recourse to justice and can live 
free from fear is both a moral imperative and absolutely within our 
capabilities.


______


[2]

London Review of Books
17 July 2008

NEXT DOOR TO WAR:
AFTER BENAZIR

by Tariq Ali

     * Descent into Chaos: How the War against Islamic Extremism Is 
Being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
     * Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars within by Shuja Nawaz


To recapitulate. After Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last December, 
her will was read out to the family's assembled political retainers. 
Her 19-year-old son, Bilawal, inherited the Pakistan People's Party, 
but until he came of age her husband, Asif Zardari, would act as 
regent. The general election, postponed following her death, took 
place in February. The immediate impact of the stunning electoral 
defeat suffered by General Musharraf's political party and his 
factotums was to dispel the disillusionment of the citizenry. Not for 
long. Musharraf is still clinging on to the presidency; Zardari is 
running the government with the help of his old cronies; the judges 
dismissed by Musharraf have still not been reinstated; the economy is 
a mess; and the US Air Force has started dropping bombs on the 
North-West Frontier Province again. Poor Pakistan.

Forty-five per cent of the electorate voted in the election, more 
than expected, though the figure was much lower in the Frontier 
Province, where the spillage from the Afghan war discouraged voters 
from braving the journey to the polling stations. The new army chief, 
General Ashfaq Kayani, had ordered the ISI not to interfere with the 
polls and instructed his generals to cease all bilateral contacts 
with the now civilian president. Musharraf's defeat would have been 
even worse had it not been for the violence and vote-rigging in 
Karachi, where his loyal and armed allies from the Muttahida Qaumi 
Movement (MQM) threatened opposition candidates and their supporters. 
In at least three cases, armed MQM goons threatened TV journalists 
with death if the chicanery was reported.

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) - or BFP (Bhutto Family Party), as 
some of its own members refer to it in semi-public - emerged as the 
largest single party in the country, thus propelling the widower 
Bhutto to power. The Pakistan Muslim League (N), led by the ex-prime 
minister Nawaz Sharif, came second nationally, but emerged as the 
largest party in the largest province, the Punjab, where Nawaz's 
younger brother Shahbaz is now ensconced as chief minister. In the 
Frontier Province, the secular Awami National Party (ANP) defeated 
the Islamists, once again contradicting the widespread view that 
jihadis are either strong or popular in Pakistan. In Sindh the PPP 
won comfortably and could have governed on its own, but chose to do 
so with the MQM. In Baluchistan, largely because of military actions 
in the province, which borders on Afghanistan, and the killings of 
nationalist leaders, most local opposition parties boycotted the 
polls, and it was in this province alone that Musharraf's party won a 
majority of assembly seats.

Five months on, democratic fervour, or naivety, has turned to anger. 
Old Corruption is back. The country is in the grip of a food and 
power crisis. Inflation is approaching 15 per cent. The price of gas 
(used for cooking in many homes) has risen by 30 per cent and the 
price of wheat by more than 20 per cent since November 2007. Food and 
commodity prices are rising all over the world, but there is an 
additional problem in Pakistan: too much wheat is being smuggled into 
Afghanistan to feed the Nato armies. According to a recent survey, 86 
per cent of Pakistanis find it increasingly difficult to afford 
flour, for which they blame their new government. Zardari's approval 
rating has plummeted to 13 per cent. Were an election to be held now, 
he would lose to Sharif by a substantial margin. That this old rogue 
is now thought of as a man of principle is an indication of how 
desperate the situation has become.

Two major issues confronted the victors. The first concerned the 
judiciary. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad 
Chaudhry, had been a prisoner of the regime since 3 November 2007, 
detained in his own house, which was sealed off by barbed-wire 
barricades with a complement of riot police permanently on guard 
outside. His landlines had been cut and cellphones were incapacitated 
by jamming devices. His colleagues and the lawyers defending him were 
subjected to similar treatment. In January, he wrote an open letter 
to Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Condoleezza Rice and the president 
of the European Parliament. The letter, which remains unanswered, 
explained the real reasons for Musharraf's actions:

     At the outset you may be wondering why I have used the words 
'claiming to be the head of state'. That is quite deliberate. General 
Musharraf's constitutional term ended on 15 November 2007. His claim 
to a further term thereafter is the subject of active controversy 
before the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It was while this claim was 
under adjudication before a bench of 11 learned judges of the Supreme 
Court that the general arrested a majority of those judges in 
addition to me on 3 November 2007. He thus himself subverted the 
judicial process which remains frozen at that point. Besides 
arresting the chief justice and judges (can there have been a greater 
outrage?) he also purported to suspend the constitution and to purge 
the entire judiciary (even the high courts) of all independent 
judges. Now only his hand-picked and compliant judges remain willing 
to 'validate' whatever he demands. And all this is also contrary to 
an express and earlier order passed by the Supreme Court on 3 
November 2007.

Before the election, Sharif had pledged that his party would restore 
the chief justice and the other sacked judges to their former 
positions and remove those who had replaced them. The PPP's position 
on this issue was ambiguous, but soon after their election triumph 
the widower Bhutto and Sharif agreed publicly that reinstating the 
judges would be a priority, and promised that they would be returned 
to office within thirty days of the new government's being formed. 
Within the month, the judges were released and restrictions on them 
removed. This was widely, but wrongly, interpreted as a prelude to 
their reinstatement. Musharraf and his backers in Washington panicked 
and the US ambassador summoned Zardari. The message from Washington 
was clear. The State Department was determined to keep Musharraf in 
power as long as Bush was in the White House. If the chief justice 
and his colleagues were to resume office, the under-secretary of 
state told the new government, there was a possibility that Musharraf 
would be legally removed from office, and that was unacceptable. His 
removal would be considered a setback in the War on Terror. The issue 
brought into the open the differences between the widower and Sharif, 
which were subsequently aggravated when it was made plain that, 
unbeknownst to Zardari, Benazir had agreed to work with Musharraf in 
the War on Terror and to sideline the judges.

Zardari had other worries. A National Reconciliation Ordinance which 
allowed corrupt politicians to be pardoned had been part of the deal 
between Benazir and Musharraf. It was much detested and the Supreme 
Court was due to hear an appeal questioning its legality. Zardari, 
only too aware of the possibility that the cases against him in 
European courts might be resurrected, capitulated to the US: the 
judges would not be reinstated or, at least, not on their own terms. 
Might the chief justice be interested in a senior position on the 
International Court of Justice, the US intermediary asked, or perhaps 
a sinecure at some American university? The chief justice declined.

In May, Zardari and Sharif met in London. Two Muslim League 
parliamentarians flanked Sharif; two political fixers, Rehman Malik 
and Husain Haqqani, sat with Zardari. No agreement could be reached 
on the restoration of the judiciary and, after consulting senior 
colleagues, Sharif withdrew Muslim League ministers from the 
government, citing disagreement on this issue. It is extremely rare 
in Pakistan for a politician to relinquish office on an issue of 
principle. The ministers who were told to resign were not happy, but 
they accepted party discipline and Sharif's popularity soared. The 
widower's failure to support the judges provoked great indignation 
and a number of senior figures in his own party were clearly unhappy 
at the public embracing of Musharraf. But they had accepted him as 
their 'temporary' leader and so rendered themselves powerless. When 
told that it was really Benazir who had done the deal they replied 
that just before her death she was beginning to realise she'd made a 
mistake. There is no evidence for this, although it helps preserve a 
few illusions. The trouble is that PPP politicians have grown so 
accustomed to the Bhutto harness that they can do nothing without it. 
In the PPP the initiative now lies entirely with Zardari and Malik. 
They make the key decisions. The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, 
seems happy in his role as political eunuch; the PPP cohort in 
parliament is used as a rubber stamp.

The campaign to defend the judiciary constituted the first nationwide 
mass movement against military rule since 1969. The Supreme Court 
decisions challenging the legality of the Musharraf regime had 
restored the country's self-respect. But the judges were not popular 
in the United States or Euroland, where elite opinion was obsessed 
with occupation and war. For defending the civil rights of the poor, 
the chief justice was referred to in the Guardian as a 'judicial 
activist' and a 'firebrand'.

The second major problem confronting the government was the Nato 
occupation of Afghanistan. Washington and its allies regard the war 
in Afghanistan and Pakistan's role in relation to it as the central 
priority. Everything else is a diversion. In March, Admiral Olson, 
the head of the US Special Operations Command, arrived in Islamabad 
for consultations with the Pakistan military and surprised locals by 
demanding a meeting with the country's elected leaders. Olson asked 
the politicians how they would respond to the US need to make 
cross-border incursions into Pakistan. The Pakistanis made their 
opposition clear. The most senior civil servant in the Frontier 
Province, Khalid Aziz, told Olson that 'it would be extremely 
dangerous. It would increase the number of militants, it would be . . 
. a war of liberation for the Pashtuns. They would say: "We are being 
slaughtered. Our enemy is the United States."' For Sharif, 
negotiations with militants in Waziristan and a gradual military 
withdrawal from the area were essential to deter terrorist attacks in 
Pakistan's cities. The PPP was not prepared to go quite so far, but 
it was not in favour of Nato raids inside Pakistan, at least not in 
public. The ANP leaders, who had supported the US presence in 
Afghanistan, now refused to go along with Washington's demands and 
called for negotiations with Baitullah Masood, a pro-Taliban militia 
leader in South Waziristan, accused by the CIA of masterminding 
Benazir Bhutto's assassination.

Two ANP leaders, Asfandyar Khan and Afrasiab Khattak, were summoned 
to Washington for meetings with Stephen Hadley, the national security 
adviser, and John Negroponte. There was only one issue on the agenda: 
cross-border raids. Washington was determined to find Pakistani 
politicians who would defend them. The ANP leaders refused. 'We told 
them physical intervention into the tribal areas by the United States 
would be a blunder,' Khattak later told the New York Times. 'It would 
create an atmosphere in which the terrorists would rally popular 
support.' Owari Ghani, the governor of the Frontier Province and a 
Musharraf appointee, agreed: 'Pakistan will take care of its own 
problems, you take care of Afghanistan on your side . . . Pakistan is 
a sovereign state. Nato is in Afghanistan; it's time they did some 
soldiering.'

Some light is thrown on the Afghan situation by Ahmed Rashid in his 
new book, Descent into Chaos. As a foreign correspondent on the Far 
Eastern Economic Review and subsequently the Independent and Daily 
Telegraph, Rashid has been reporting diligently from the region for 
more than two decades; when the publication of his book on the 
Taliban coincided with 9/11, he was projected to media stardom in the 
United States, repeating a pattern that introduced the Iraqi-American 
writer Kanan Makiya and the Republic of Fear to the liberal public 
during the First Gulf War. Both men became prize-cocks of the US 
defence establishment and the videosphere. Graciously received by 
Bush in the Oval Office, Makiya strongly backed the decision to 
invade Iraq in 2003 and predicted that the US would be greeted as 
liberators, looking forward to the day his friend Ahmad Chalabi would 
be running a 'liberated Iraq'. It didn't quite happen like that, but 
fortune favoured Rashid. The first chapter of Descent into Chaos 
lavishes praise on his friend Hamid Karzai and the book is full of 
sentences like 'On 7 December, with Vice President Cheney in 
attendance, Karzai took oath as Afghanistan's first legitimate leader 
for nearly three decades. Many grizzled old Afghan leaders broke down 
in tears.'

Rashid's real argument can be summarised as follows: the war after 
9/11 should have been fought in Afghanistan and not Iraq, which was a 
diversion. A heavy armed presence was needed. Bush and his neocon 
advisers have let the side down badly by trusting Musharraf and the 
ISI. Karzai, a legitimate leader, was prepared to embark on reforms, 
sidelining the Northern Alliance, but the Taliban were allowed to 
regroup and create chaos, helped by the conspiratorial and 
'Bolshevik-like' al-Qaida. The real problem is Pakistan, not a 
Western occupation gone badly wrong, and there is no point being 
squeamish about what needs to be done. Rashid's views coincide with 
those of the Pentagon hawks who have, for the last year, been 
pressuring Bush and Rice to unleash Special Operations units inside 
Pakistan on the pretext that al-Qaida has grown substantially and is 
preparing new attacks on the West.

Rashid was a firm supporter of the Soviet intervention, although he 
is coy about this in his book. He shouldn't be. It reveals a certain 
consistency. Afghanistan, he thinks, can be transformed only through 
war and occupation by civilised empires. This line of argument avoids 
the need to concentrate on an exit strategy. Civilian casualties in 
Afghanistan are high and in the last two months more US and British 
soldiers have died here than in Iraq. Jaap Scheffer, Nato's 
secretary-general, told the Brookings Institution in February that 
the continuing occupation had less to do with good governance than 
with the desire to site permanent military bases (and nuclear 
missiles?) in a country that borders China, Iran and Central Asia. 
Contributors to the organisation's house magazine, Nato Review, have 
argued that the preservation of Western hegemony in the Asia-Pacific 
region requires a permanent military presence. Whatever the 
justifications or fantasies, the occupation cannot last, since those 
who live under it feel they have no option but to back those trying 
to resist, especially in a part of the world where the culture of 
revenge is strong.

On 14 May a Predator drone hit the village of Damadola in the Bajaur 
Agency, close to the Afghan border, and killed more than a dozen 
people. The US claimed that they had targeted and killed a 
'significant leader'. Akhundzada Chattan, the local member of 
parliament and a PPP veteran, called a press conference and denounced 
the US for 'killing innocents'. 'The protest lodged by the Pakistan 
government against the missile raid is not enough,' he insisted. 'The 
government should also sever diplomatic ties with the US and expel 
its envoy immediately.' Chattan saw a pattern: whenever the Pakistan 
government and local insurgents began to talk to each other and 
discuss a durable peace, Nato targeted the tribal areas inside 
Pakistan. He appealed to tribal elders, insurgents, the Pakistan army 
and the new government to cast aside their differences and unite 
against 'foreign aggression'. This could indicate that Zardari's 
ascendancy is not as secure as he might imagine. It is also a 
reminder that the decision of successive Pakistan governments to keep 
the tribal areas formally separate from the rest of the country has 
become entirely counterproductive. It prevents political parties and 
other organisations from functioning in the region, leaving political 
control in the hands of tribal leaders, often with dire results.

In June two F-15 bombers dropped 500 lb bombs in Pakistan killing 11 
soldiers and a major from the Frontier Corps. The Pentagon described 
the action as 'a legitimate strike in self-defence', leading Brian 
Cloughley, an extremely conservative historian of the Pakistan army 
(and a former commandant of the Australian Psychological Operations 
Unit in Vietnam) to write:

     One can only regard such utterances with contempt, because those 
who spoke in such a way, and those who ordered them to say what they 
did, have no concept of loyalty to a friendly country. Nor, for that 
matter, do they take the slightest heed of international law and 
custom. The Pentagon quickly distributed a video showing an attack 
that was said to be a strike on an 'enemy' position. There was no 
indication of where it was, when it was, what ordnance was used, or 
results of the attack. It was a fatuously amateur exercise in 
attempted damage control. And of course, later, in the inevitable 
reassessment (for which read: 'We've been found out and had better 
think up a more believable version of the lies we told'), it was 
revealed that 'a US Air Force document indicates bombs were dropped 
on buildings near the border, and Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman 
conceded there may have been another strike that occurred outside the 
view of the drone's camera.'

Pakistan's ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, merely denied 
that the air strikes had been intentionally hostile and stressed the 
'improving' . . . partnership between the two countries. Cloughley's 
links to GHQ in Islamabad stretch back several decades and it was 
clear he was giving the view of many senior officers in the Pakistan 
army, men who fear that such actions and the alliance with Washington 
will undermine the much vaunted unity of the military high command, 
with unpredictable and dangerous consequences.

There are three interrelated power blocs in Pakistan. Of these the US 
lobby is the most influential, the most public and the most hated. It 
is currently running the country. The Saudis, who use a combination 
of wealth and religion to get their way, are second in the pecking 
order and less unpopular. The Chinese lobby is virtually invisible, 
never interferes in internal politics and for that reason is 
immensely respected, especially within the army; but it is also the 
least powerful outside military circles. In Cold War times, the 
interests of the three lobbies coincided. Not now. The War on Terror 
has changed all that.

What is missing is a Pakistan lobby, a strong group within the ruling 
class that puts the interests and needs of the country and its 
citizens above all else. A survey carried out in May for the New 
America Foundation revealed that 28 per cent of Pakistanis favour a 
military role in politics as compared to 45 per cent in August 2007; 
that were elections to be held now, Sharif would sweep the board; 
that 52 per cent regard the United States as responsible for the 
violence in Pakistan; that 74 per cent oppose the War on Terror in 
Afghanistan. A majority favours a negotiated settlement with the 
Taliban; 80 per cent hold the government and local businessmen 
responsible for food scarcity; only 11 per cent see India as the main 
enemy.

Given the political conjuncture in the country, the publication of 
Shuju Nawaz's Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within 
is timely. He overlooks links between military entrepreneurship and 
corruption, but nevertheless this is the best researched and most 
serious history of the Pakistan army. Nawaz, a former IMF staffer who 
lives in Washington, had unprecedented access to the military 
archives. Belonging to a military family, he was treated as an 
insider and interviewed numerous army personnel. His brother Asif 
Nawaz was the army chief when he died suddenly and mysteriously in 
January 1993. His widow received letters suggesting murder. Some were 
anonymous, two were not. One was from a servant at Prime Minister's 
House. He named senior government officials who, he alleged, had told 
him to put poison in the food served to the general. It was widely 
rumoured that Sharif (then the prime minister) had had General Nawaz 
poisoned because a military operation in Sindh against the MQM had 
embarrassed the government (then in alliance with the MQM) and Asif 
Nawaz was obstinately refusing to allow a cover-up and, more 
important, could not be bought off. Sharif denounced these reports. 
When traces of arsenic were found in the dead general's hair, Shuja 
Nawaz fought for a new investigation and the body was exhumed. The 
military establishment closed ranks and the official inquiry, 
supported by evidence from US medical experts, upheld the result of 
the original autopsy: the general had died of a heart attack. Perhaps 
he did. As with much else in the book the incident is described 
dispassionately, both sides of the argument are clearly laid out - 
yet another unsolved mystery involving an illustrious corpse for 
Pakistan to consider. There might be more of these if the war next 
door continues.

Tariq Ali's new book, The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of 
American Power, will be published by Simon and Schuster in September.


______



[3]

Polity, Vol. 4 No.4

ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S SECULARISM

Arthur C. Clarke - one of Sri Lanka's most famous and distinguished 
resident - died aged 90, on March 19 2008. While Clarke's 
contributions on space explorations,communications technology and 
writings on these themes have been publicized and lauded in the local 
press, less is mentioned about his warnings of the dangers of 
fundamentalism in religion and his strong secularism. Throughout his 
life, Clarke often took issue with religious bigots and with those 
who denied Darwin's theories.

Although Voltaire, a philosopher of the Enlightenment, proclaimed 
that "God is Dead" over 200 years ago, and Charles Darwin wrote The 
Origin of Species over 150 years ago, debate still continues on 
issues of both atheism and evolution. Christianity, however, has 
ceased to dominate the lives of people in Western Europe (where 
churches are almost empty and clergy hard to recruit), and in 
Britain, more Muslims worship at mosques than Christians attend 
church on Sundays. But fundamentalism flourishes, promoting violent 
conflict and war in many parts of the world.

There are many modern-day Voltaires who have created an interest in 
challenging beliefs in God(s) and religion. Most sensationally in 
recent years have been Francis Wheen's How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the 
World, scientist Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion, and the 
philosopher Slavoj Ziszek's article "Atheism is a Legacy Worth 
Fighting For" (Polity Vol 3, No3). Unfortunately when 'Third World' 
scholars write critically of religion - as did Taslima Nasreen, 
Salman Rushdie or S.J. Tambiah - they are villified by extremists.

Arthur Clarke was certainly in the secular tradition, as seen in his 
insistence that "absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating 
to any religious faith should be associated with my funeral."  His 
many pronouncements on religion, and his belief that religious 
fanaticism leads to violence and war, are revealing. Clarke said he 
suspected that "religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our 
particular species" and added that "there is possibility that 
humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies." In an interview to 
the Free Inquiry magazine on the topic of "God, Science and Delusion" 
he said:

But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. There are, for 
example, so many different religions - each of them claiming to have 
the truth, each saying that their truths are clearly superior to the 
truths of others - how can someone possibly take any of them 
seriously? I mean, that's insane. And such insanity concerns me, 
especially now that waves of lunacy are washing over the United 
States and the world in the form of millennial cults.

To Arthur Clarke one of the "great tragedies of mankind" was that 
morality had been "hijacked by religion"

So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary 
connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and 
doesn't require religion at all. It's this. "Don't do unto anybody 
else what you wouldn't like to be done to you." It seems to me that 
that's all there is to it.

Sri Lanka mercifully has not become a theocracy, and if we are to 
honour the memory of Arthur C. Clarke, we should continue to stress 
the importance of secularism which is a necessity for maintaining 
unity in diversity. Clarke towards the end of his life said that if 
he was granted three wishes, they would be - proof of extra 
terrestrial life, freedom from dependence on oil, and an end to the 
civil war in Sri Lanka.  We hope that all these wishes  will be 
realized soon.

______


[4]

The Island
July 10, 2008

INDO-PAKISTAN RIVALRY AND SRI LANKA

by K. Godage
(Formerly of SL Foreign Service)


The most recent news of the form the rivalry between Pakistan and 
Indian Intelligence Services is taking in Afghanistan is most 
disturbing. The bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul is said to be 
the result of this rivalry. India for security reasons appears to be 
seeking to establish her presence in Afghanistan, particularly to 
protect the oil pipeline from Iran to India through Afghanistan and 
this is quite understandable, but it does appear that Indian 
influence in Afghanistan is being viewed as inimical to Pakistan's 
interests in that country. It appears that a low intensity war of 
sorts is being engaged in between RAW and the ISI is raging in 
Afghanistan. This new situation portend ill for this country.

I wrote in an article published last week on the recent visit of the 
high level delegation from India, as follows:

"With regard to Pakistan, whatever may be said for the growing thaw 
in India's relations with Pakistan, old habits die hard and there can 
be little doubt that RAW may be seeing ghosts where none exist and 
thinking in terms of the Pakistan ISI exploiting the situation in the 
eastern province to create an Islamic militancy there which would 
spread across the waters to India. In this regard it should be stated 
with more than a small measure of vehemence and confidence that the 
Indian establishment seeks a merged North-East Province only because 
they seek to ensure that the Muslims remain a small minority in a 
merged province and that no Islamic threat could emerge from there 
which would result in Islamic groups in Tamil Nadu linking up with 
them and posing a threat to the security of India.

 From what has transpired in Afghanistan it is more than possible that 
the RAW and the ISI may use our country also as a battle ground. It 
was only two years ago that the former Pakistan High Commissioner an 
Ex-ISI man accused RAW of attempting to assassinate him in Colombo. 
Most fortunately for everyone the HC's accusations were not taken 
seriously even by his own government; what the accusation indicated 
was that the ISI -RAW hatred runs deep and both intelligence 
organizations see ghosts everywhere.

This situation holds grave dangers for our own country's security and 
as to whether our own Intelligence organization is able to meet this 
challenge is most doubtful. There can be no comparison when it comes 
to professionalism between our outfit and theirs; our intelligence 
men would not be able to monitor the 'activities' of these two well 
trained organizations in subversion - so how can we handle this 
situation?

Former Indian RAW chief Raman has been virtually screaming about our 
'Pakistan connection' and our relations with China; he conveniently 
forgets that it is they, by their refusal, for domestic political 
reasons, to help us put down the Insurgency, which they created when 
they armed and trained Tamil militants and also 'directed' operations 
to de-stabilize this country (the LTTE attacks of the 1980s, 
including the Pettah bus stand bomb, to mention but one such 
operation) and push us into a relationship of subservience, which 
they succeeded in doing through the letters exchanged between Prime 
Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President Jayewardene which formed an 
integral part of the Indo-Lanka Accord. It should also be recalled 
that their representative here at the time when Jaffna was about to 
fall to the LTTE, Gopal Gandhi offered us ships to evacuate our 
troops and to help create Eelam. It was Pakistan that offered us the 
Multi-barreled rocket launchers that helped us to beat back the 
enemy. As far as this country is concerned India is our closest 
neighbour with whom we have a historical relationship and a country 
with whom we must maintain the closest of relations. We need to 
acknowledge the fact that their security concerns should be also our 
security concerns and that we should neither do anything nor indulge 
in any actions which could give India any reason to be concerned. 
India for her part must respect our independence, sovereignty and 
territorial integrity and should at no time give us cause to be 
concerned about our country's security.

As for our relations with Pakistan and China, these are old 
relationships dating from ancient times (Pakistan as a state may be 
new but that land does have many places of cultural importance to 
this country). The fact that we have had to look to them to provide 
us with the means to defend our country's independence and 
territorial integrity should not give any other country cause for 
concern. This situation has been entirely forced upon us. We are free 
to buy arms from any country that is prepared to accommodate our 
requirements on favourable terms. Our relations with these countries 
are not in any way directed at undermining the security of India. We 
cannot be made to suffer for the utterly misplaced paranoia of others.

I must confess that till recently I was not able to put the finger on 
why the Indians have been persistently demanding that we merge the 
northern and eastern provinces of this country. We were always of the 
opinion that it was to satisfy Tamil aspirations. The traditional 
Tamil homeland concept which they would surely have known was a 
fiction has been conveniently used by them to achieve their own ends. 
The Muslim factor in India's security calculation has never occurred 
to us, though it was not a secret that India had expressed concern on 
many occasions about the ISI 'operating' in our Eastern Province. 
Muslim militancy in India is a matter which is receiving the highest 
attention in India because of 'events' such as the attack on the 
Indian Parliament, the killings in Gujarat, in Mumbai, the bombings 
in Jaipur, the militancy in Kashmir, the recent events in Srinagar 
and the rise of Hindu sub-nationalism and looming threat to secular 
India from the RSS and the BJP.

I wonder as to whether our strategic studies establishment, if we 
have one, or the 'Intelligence community' of this country have 
studied this problem, namely that the Intelligence Agencies of India 
and Pakistan may make our Eastern Province a playground for a proxy 
war. India is reported to have shown a great interest in the recent 
Provincial Council elections in the EP and in ensuring that a Tamil 
became the Chief Minister, if these reports are true then they do 
lend credence to the theory that it is the Muslim factor which has 
made them demand that we merge the two provinces, that would ensure 
that the Muslims would become a small minority in the merged province 
and that they would not enjoy the power they would have in a separate 
Eastern Province.

India has sought to establish an Export Processing Zone exclusively 
for Indian investors; she is also assisting to establish a power 
plant in the east; Indian Oil has the oil tank farm in China Bay; 
perhaps these facilities were and are being established to secure her 
interests; she could further allay her imagined fears if, as I have 
also mentioned in my recent article, she enters into the Defence 
Cooperation Agreement, which it is said has been almost finalized but 
from which India is said to have withdrawn from, for domestic 
political reasons. If, as has been mentioned in many articles in the 
recent past, India is concerned about the rise of China as naval 
power then it is logical that she should put her national security 
interests first and not let parochial coalition politics determine 
her security policy.

It is incumbent on the government of Sri Lanka to act now to ensure 
the security of this country. It should take pre-emptive/preventive 
action to ensure that our country does not become a place where these 
two countries indulge in a proxy war. The LTTE insurgency has grown 
in proportions which have strained the resources of this country to 
the very limit; so much so that our country is even being described 
as a 'failing state'; another ethnic conflagration would be 
impossible to handle, that would plunge this country into chaos. The 
government would have to do better than at present with its 
diplomacy, it should both recall and understand that Diplomacy is the 
first line of defence of any country, this government does not appear 
to understand the efficacy of diplomacy; the government must head off 
this emerging disaster; the US has the influence and the leverage 
with both countries to help us in this regard. The east is polarized 
and it would not be difficult for foreign countries to exploit this 
situation and any fires set in the east will without doubt spread to 
other parts of the country with catastrophic results.

The government needs not only to get its Intelligence operatives 
working overtime and its diplomatic act together but also it needs to 
take political measures such as involving all communities both at the 
decision making and executive levels in the Eastern Province 
Provincial Council to head off another disastrous situation.


______


[4]


DISQUIET GHOSTS: MASS GRAVES IN INDIAN KASHMIR

by Angana Chatterji


A PDF of the article with photos can be found on the Tribunal website at:
http://kashmirprocess.org/news/20080708_MassGravesKashmirChatterji.pdf


Etala'at, Daily Newspaper, Srinagar, 09 July 2008
http://etalaat.com/english/Dimensions/1531.html


Dirt, rubble, thick grass, hillside and flatland, crowded with 
graves. Signifiers of military and paramilitary terror, masked from 
the world. Constructed by institutions of state to conceal massacre. 
Placed next to homes, fields, schools, an army practise range. 
Unknown, unmarked. Over 940 graves in a segment of Baramulla district 
alone. Some containing more than one cadaver. Dug by locals, coerced 
by the police, on village land. Bodies dragged through the night, 
some tortured, burnt, desecrated. Circulating mythology claims these 
graves uniformly house 'foreign militants'. Exhumation and 
identification have not occurred in most cases. When undertaken, in 
sizable instances, records prove the dead to be local people, 
ordinary citizens, killed in fake encounters. In instances where 
bodies have been identified as local, non-militant and militant, it 
demystifies state rhetoric that rumours these persons to be 'foreign 
militants', propagating misrepresentation that the demand for 
self-determination is prevailingly external. Mourned, cared for, by 
locals, as 'farz'/duty, as part of an obligation, stated repeatedly, 
to 'azadi'. 'Azadi'/freedom to determine self and future.

On 18 and 20 June, the International People's Tribunal on Human 
Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir ('Tribunal', 
convened in April 2008, www.kashmirprocess.org) visited Baramulla and 
Kupwara district to conduct ongoing fact-finding and verification 
related to mass graves at the behest of local communities. The team 
comprised of Tribunal Conveners Advocate Parvez Imroz and myself, a 
staff member, and camera crew.

On 18 June, we visited Raja Mohalla in Uri, Baramulla district, 110 
kilometres from Srinagar, where 22 graves were constructed between 
1996-1997. Then to Quazipora, where 13 bodies were stated as buried 
in seven graves in 1991. Then we travelled to Chehal, Bimyar village, 
Uri, holding 235 graves. We re-met Atta Mohammad, gravedigger and 
caretaker at Chehal, who testified that these bodies, brought by the 
police, primarily after dark, were buried between 2002-2006. Atta 
Mohammad said that the bodies appear in his nightmares, each in 
graphic, gruesome detail. Terrorised by the task forced upon him, his 
nights are bereft of sleep. Then we travelled to Mir Mohalla, 
Kichama, Sheeri, to the main graveyard with 105 graves, stated to 
hold about 225-250 bodies, buried between 1994-2003, and a smaller 
graveyard, with nine graves, adjacent to a sign proclaiming it a 
'Model Village'.

On 20 June, we visited the northern district of Kupwara. On the way 
we witnessed army convoys, including one of 21+ vehicles. Created in 
1979 through the forking of Baramulla district, approximately 5,000 
feet above sea level, Kupwara borders the Line-of-Control to the 
north and west. Between Shamsbari and Pirpanchal mountain ranges, it 
is one of the most heavily militarised zones, about 95 kilometres 
from Srinagar. Kupwara houses six army camps, as military and 
paramilitary forces occupy significant land. Seven interrogation 
centres have been operational with police stations functioning as 
additional interrogation cells. In Hundwara town, a watchtower 
surveils and regulates movement.

In Kupwara, we visited Trehgam village, holding 85-100 graves, 24 of 
which are identified, and spoke with community members. Trehgam was 
home to Maqbool Bhat (b. 1938), founding figure of the Jammu Kashmir 
National Liberation Front. Acknowledged as Shaheed-e-Kashmir, Bhat is 
labelled a 'terrorist' by certain segments of India. He sought to 
unite the territories of the former princely state of Jammu and 
Kashmir into a secular, sovereign, democratic state. Bhat was 
sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of India and hanged in Tihar 
jail in New Delhi on 11 February 1984. Maqbool Bhat's nephew, Parvaiz 
Ahmad Bhat, reminded us that Habibullah Bhat, Bhat's brother, was the 
first case of enforced disappearance before 1989.

After Trehgam, we reached Regipora around 3 pm and stopped for lunch. 
There, two persons introduced themselves as Special Branch Kashmir 
(SBK) and Counter Intelligence Kashmir (CIK) personnel, and 
questioned the Tribunal staff member about our visit. After 
responding, we proceeded to the 'martyrs' graveyard' holding 258 
graves, constructed in 1995. This burial ground is meticulously 
ordered, each grave numbered. The body of a 20-25 year old youth was 
buried in the first week of June, reportedly killed in an encounter 
in Bamhama village.

We stopped at a roadside tea stall to speak with local people about 
the graves. Four intelligence personnel questioned us, asking we 
disclose information about those we had visited. Soon, four 
additional SBK and CIK personnel joined the questioning. Other 
intelligence personnel made phone calls. By then, about 12 
intelligence personnel gathered. Following further questioning we 
proceeded toward Srinagar. A car followed at a distance.

We detoured to Sadipora, Kandi, where locals stated that around 20 
bodies were buried. The graveyard, overrun with wild flowers, is part 
of a larger ground used during festivals, including Id. Two of four 
bodies, killed in a fake encounter on 29 April 2007, were exhumed, 
identified as locals, contrary to police records stating them to be 
'Pakistani terrorists'. Saidipora holds Riyaz Ahmad Bhat's grave, 
killed in the encounter, age 19. Police records, per the First 
Information Report, declared him a 'Pakistani terrorist'. Riyaz Bhat 
was identified by Javeed Ahmed, his brother, as a resident of 
Kalashpora, Srinagar, based on police photographs from the time of 
death. Ahmed travelled with the Tribunal to take us to his brother's 
grave. On his knees Javeed attempted to clear the thick brush. Later, 
in Srinagar, he testified that Bhat had never been involved in 
militancy. Javeed spoke of grieving, of imprisonment and beatings at 
the police station. He asked how he could have saved his brother from 
death.

After Sadiapora, we were stopped at Shangargund, Sopore, at about 
6.40 pm, by three persons in civilian clothing. They forcibly boarded 
the car. We were ordered to the Sopore Police Station. There we were 
asked to detail our identity, employment, the purpose of the visit, 
and to hand over tapes which, the police alleged, contained 
'dangerous' and 'objectionable' material. We stated that the 
Tribunal, a public process, was undertaking its work peaceably, 
lawfully, with informed consent, and that we had not visited 
restricted areas. We stated that the police had no lawful reason to 
seize the tapes. We were detained for 16 minutes. After several calls 
to senior police persons, we were released. A red Indica car followed 
us to Sangrama. At Srinagar, Intelligence personnel were stationed at 
my hotel. On 21 June, I was followed from the hotel to the Tribunal's 
office in Lal Chowk, where about 8 personnel were stationed the 
entire day questioning anyone who entered or left the office.

My mother, residing in Calcutta, received a query regarding my 
whereabouts from the District Magistrate's Office. I was followed to 
the Srinagar airport on 22 June, and questioned, asked if I possessed 
dual citizenship. I do not. I am a citizen of India and a permanent 
resident of the United States. On 24 June, I arrived in Bhubaneswar 
to submit a statement to the Commission of Inquiry on the Kandhamal 
violence against Christians in 2007 in Orissa. There too, Central 
Intelligence officials persistently inquired after me. In April, 
after announcing the Tribunal, I was stopped and harassed at 
Immigration while leaving India for the United States, and again on 
my re-entry in June.

The targeting of the Tribunal has not abated since the Amarnath issue 
erupted around 23 June. The volatile proposal to transfer 800 kanals 
of land to the Shrine Board, revoked on 01 July, was supported by the 
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu militant Shiv 
Sena. Despite the Sena's recent call to Hindus to form suicide 
squads, it faces no sanctions from the state. Kashmiris of diverse 
ethnicities and religions dissented the Amarnath land transfer. 
Community leaders in Kashmir explained that their stance against the 
proposal is not in dissent to Hindu pilgrims, but a repressive state. 
During the Amarnath land transfer protests, civil disobedience 
paralleled that of 1989, amid severe repression. On 30 June, in 
curfew-like conditions, we met with two families in Srinagar who 
narrated that the police had shot dead their sons. At one place, in 
the old city, while the men took the body for burial late at night, 
the police returned and destroyed property and molested women.

On 30 June, at about 10:10 pm, Parvez Imroz and his family were 
attacked at home by state forces, who fired three shots and hurled a 
grenade while exiting when family and community interrupted their 
attempts. Neighbours reported seeing one large armoured vehicle and 
two Gypsy cars, and men in CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) and 
SOG (Special Operations Group) uniforms. This murder attempt is an 
escalation in the forms of state-led intimidation and targeting aimed 
at Advocate Imroz. It is an attempt to make the Tribunal vulnerable 
and instil fear in us in an attempt to stop this process.

On 01 July, we met at Khurram Parvez's home before addressing a press 
conference. Outside, jeeps with plainclothes men continued their 
observation, accompanied by a jeep with armed men in uniform. Later, 
Advocate Imroz, Khurram Parvez, Advocate Mihir Desai, and I went to 
the police station to lodge a First Information Report. We were not 
permitted to do so. For security reasons, Parvez Imroz is not staying 
at home. Khurram Parvez remains under surveillance. I must allow for 
distance before revisiting the graves. On 04 July, sitting on a plane 
at Delhi International Airport, waiting to take-off, I received a 
phone call on my India mobile, caller 'Unknown': "Madam, we know 
you're leaving. Think wisely before coming back".

Orders to unnerve the leadership of the International Tribunal by the 
Government of India's intelligence and security administration appear 
to be generated at the highest levels. The general policy of 
surveillance should not be used as a pretext to create obstacles for 
our work. As India argues for a seat on the United Nations Security 
Council, the Government of India, as 'Frontline Defenders' stated in 
their recent alert supporting the Tribunal, must adhere to its own 
repeated commitment to peace in Kashmir and international conventions 
and laws. It must uphold democratic governance and safeguard human 
rights.

Advocate Imroz, Khurram Parvez, other members of the Tribunal team, 
have long experienced injustices for their extraordinary work as 
human rights defenders. A lauded human rights lawyer, Parvez Imroz 
has survived two, now three, assassination attempts, the first from 
militants. Since 2005, his passport has been denied. Khurram Parvez 
lost his leg in a landmine incident. Gautam Navlakha and Zahir-Ud-Din 
have been intimidated and threatened, as has Mihir Desai, in their 
larger work. It is noteworthy that the Government of India is adding 
intimidation to the death and rape threats delivered me by Hindu 
extremists for human rights work.

The work of the Tribunal is an act of conscience and accountability, 
fraught with the charge of complex and violent histories. Its 
mandate, in documenting Kashmir's present, is to chronicle the fabric 
of militarisation, status of human rights, and legal, political, 
militaristic 'states of exception'. The Tribunal's work will continue 
through the coming months. We have received extensive solidarity from 
civil society; victims/survivors, at street corners, from villagers, 
ordinary citizens, those committed to justice. Each life in Kashmir 
has a story to tell. The subjugation of civil society has produced 
magnificent ethical resistance. The state cannot combat every 
individual.

Nearly two decades of genocidal violence record 70,000+ dead, 8,000+ 
disappeared, 60,000+ tortured, 50,000+ orphaned, incalculable 
sexualised and gendered violence, a very high rate of people with 
suicidal behaviours; hundreds of thousands displaced; violations of 
promises, laws, conventions, agreements, treaties; mass graves; mile 
upon mile of barbed wire; fear, suppression of varied demands for 
participation to determine Kashmir's future, spirals of violence, 
protracted silence. Last year, Kashmir's only hospital with services 
for mental health received 68,000 patients. Profound social, 
economic, and psychological consequences, and an intense isolation 
have impacted private, public, and everyday life. It has generated 
brutal resistance on the part of groups that have engaged in violent 
militancy. Repressions of struggles for self-determination and 
international policies/politics have yielded severe consequences, 
creating a juncture at which the failure of governance intersects 
with a culture of grief.

Torture survivors, non-militants and former militants, that I met 
with testified to the sadism of the forces. Reportedly, a man, hung 
upside down, had petrol injected through his anus. Water-boarding, 
mutilation, rape of women, children, and men, starvation, 
psychological torture. Brutalised, 'healed', to be brutalised again. 
An eagle tattoo on the arm of a man was reportedly identified by an 
army officer as a symbol of Pakistan-held Azad Kashmir, even as the 
man clarified the tattoo was from his childhood. The skin containing 
it was burned. The officer, the man stated, said: "When you look at 
this, think of azadi". A mother, reportedly asked to watch her 
daughter's rape by army personnel, pleaded for her release. They 
refused. She pleaded that she could not watch, asking to be sent out 
of the room or be killed. We were told that the soldier pointed a gun 
to her forehead, stating he would grant her wish, and shot her before 
they proceeded to rape the daughter. We also spoke with persons 
violated by militants. One man stated that people's experiences with 
the reprehensible atrocities of militancy do not imply the abdication 
of their desire for self-determination. This, he stated, is a mistake 
the state makes, conflating militancy with the intent for 
self-determination. He clarified that neither is self-determination 
an indication of allegiance to Pakistan, largely to the contrary.

The continuing and daunting presence of military and paramilitary 
forces, increased and sophisticated surveillance, merges with 
pervasive and immense suffering and anger of people in villages, 
towns, and cities across Kashmir. Parallel to the presence of 500,000 
troops and commitment to nuclearisation, official figures state that 
there are about 450 militants in Kashmir and that demilitarisation is 
underway. In March 2007, three government committees on 
demilitarisation resolved that the 'low intensity war continues', 
placing in limbo troop reduction and the repealment of draconian laws 
-- the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, imposed in Jammu and 
Kashmir in December 1990, and the Disturbed Areas Act, 1976, enacted 
in 1992. Local realities reflect that these laws and the military 
seek to control the general population with impunity.

Kashmir is increasingly defined as a 'post-conflict' zone. 
'Post-conflict' is not the propagation of tourism toward an overt 
display of nationalism. Post-conflict is a space in which to heal, 
reflect, and enable civil society participation in determining peace 
and justice. The graves speak to those that listen. Those haunted by 
history are called to remember.

(Dr. Angana Chatterji is associate professor of Social and Cultural 
Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and 
co-convener of the International People's Tribunal in Kashmir.)

A shorter version appeared in Tehelka Magazine (Weekly), Volume 5, 
Issue 27. Its contents are reproduced here with permission.



______


[5]

(Indian Express
July 10, 2008)

PARTITIONS OF THE MIND

by Pratap Bhanu Mehta

It's been a long week in Indian politics. Its identity markers will 
be with us for a while

Some partitions are territorial. Some are expressed in a polarised 
politics. But some act slowly, almost insidiously, to trap people in 
identities and create gulfs that become unbridgeable. A whole range 
of events over the last week, from the dangerous to the ridiculous, 
reminded us once again how the concept of secular citizenship is 
almost dead in India. This has not yet manifested itself in the kind 
of explosive communal politics this country has experienced in the 
past. But we would be living in a fool's paradise if we do not 
recognise the poison identity politics represents.

The events surrounding the controversy over the Amarnath Shrine are a 
cause of alarm for a number of reasons. First, they brought out the 
depth of alienation and resentment that still exists in the Valley, 
such that every action becomes overloaded with sinister meaning. An 
administrative matter acquired volatile proportions. Second, the 
nature of the protests in the Valley suggests a new generation of 
protest. The participants were young and the protests appeared to be 
spontaneous. But they were not merely directed against the state or 
India. But some appeared to use the language of "infidel", at once 
communally entrenching the issue, and uniting all kinds of factions 
in Kashmir. The VHP's violent response equally polarised the issue, 
and now things have reached such a pass that it will be very 
difficult to avoid this divisive trap.

In one stroke, these agitations have also nullified the little modest 
gains that had accrued as a result of the representative process in 
Kashmir. There has been no serious political initiative from the 
Indian government. The prime minister decided not to use whatever 
political capital he had, to follow through on his promising start on 
Kashmir. There are no leaders with any stature that can pick up the 
slack, and arguably no capable mediating figures left in national 
politics. Make no mistake about it: the crisis in Kashmir will only 
deepen, and its effect on politics in the rest of India ought not to 
be underestimated.

Then there was the disgraceful spectacle of Mayawati parading clerics 
on the Indo-US nuclear deal. We all heaved a sigh of relief when 
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam could be trotted out as a "Muslim" in favour of 
the deal. But that only reinforced the deeper insidious tendency: 
that one is always representative of one's community; it is 
inescapable even for a former president. The phrase "don't 
communalise foreign policy" was taken to mean one of two things: that 
not all Muslims have the same views, or as an exhortation not to make 
it a Hindu-Muslim issue. But the idea that any Muslim could speak on 
this issue without it being necessary to identify him as a Muslim was 
not even an option. It is nonsense to worry about communalising 
foreign policy when our mode of identifying citizens is communal in 
the first place.

The imperative of identifying citizens through communal categories 
has distinct sources. The first is the understandable proposition 
that the axis of identity might also define the lines of 
disempowerment and subordination. These forms of injustice need to be 
recognised. But the big mistake of secular politics, whether on caste 
or religion, has been to suppose that remedies must also reinforce 
the same identities, justice must be parcelled out along communal 
lines. Nirmal Verma once said something rather prophetic. So long as 
the distinction between minority and majority remained politically 
relevant, it would be impossible to prevent communal politics. The 
ideal ought to be to make what rights one has independent of the 
community to which one belongs. Each person should have the right to 
be who they wish to be, maintain whatever cultural identifications 
they wish, compatible with basic norms of justice. But what rights 
they have in employment, or against the state, should be independent 
of these identifications.

Given the messy realities of India, this was always a distant ideal. 
But the active backtracking on this ideal now under way in our 
educational institutions is, in a farcical way, a harbinger of things 
to come. One can discuss all the legal niceties of the rights of St 
Stephen's College as a minority educational institution to set its 
own admission criteria. But four things were disturbing about its 
decision to increase the Christian quota. An institution that 
symbolised a shared public space and excellence will now be 
sacrificed to identity politics. Our minority institutions were 
excellent shared spaces; like AMU they have been progressively 
diminished. Second, so many progressive teachers, who in any other 
case would have balked at the idea of an institution largely funded 
by the state taking directives from religious authorities, openly 
condoned the idea of St Stephen's being run, more as an appendage of 
the Church than an educational institution.

Third, it has been reported that so-called minority colleges will now 
also be exempt from the various requirements on faculty recruitment 
that the UGC imposes on colleges. Why not give all colleges the same 
freedoms? These exemptions will set in motion exactly the same 
opportunistic dynamic that my community of Jains engaged in recently: 
seeking minority status for no other than the most instrumental 
reason that they can run their own educational institutions without 
interference from the state. Instead of a straightforward set of 
freedoms based on freedom of association, we have made rights 
contingent upon community identity.

We are in this paradoxical and dangerous position, that real 
grievances and discrimination against particular groups is occluded 
from our consciousness. At the same time, the language of justice has 
been reduced to a ruse to parcel out benefits based on identity. Even 
the Left, which was ideologically wary of communal categories, has 
now fallen lock stock and barrel into using them. Our idea of an 
inclusive politician is not someone who can defend a principled 
liberal politics; it is someone who can cut a deal on any issue, 
sometimes for communalism, sometimes against it.

It could be argued that raising these questions is being 
over-anxious: communal polarisation is not worse than in the past, 
there is a revulsion against certain forms of violence; even Narendra 
Modi is apparently trying to keep up appearances. Terrorism has not 
produced the kind of backlash it did previously; there is, on the 
face of it, a new maturity. But this was precisely the time to 
fundamentally alter the language of citizenship, to rescue it from 
the dead end of a permanent distinction between majorities and 
minorities. While there is a surface calm, deeper divisions are being 
insidiously entrenched. Don't be surprised if ugly times return soon.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi



______


[6]

Economic and Political Weekly
June 21, 2008

THE INTERESTING TIMES WE LIVE IN

by C Sathyamala

Public health issues are inextricably linked with human rights and it 
is only apt that many health professionals will involve themselves in 
such issues. The response of governments and the corporate sector to 
the work of such professionals suggests how they are seen as threats 
to the established order.

It is a year since Binayak Sen, a paediatrician and human rights 
activist from Chhattisgarh  was arrested and placed in custody under 
sections of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, and 
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (2004) for alleged links 
with the banned Maoist groups. To justify his detention, evidence is 
being manufactured to project him as a "hard core Naxal", who 
supports violent means for opposing the state. This is despite the 
admission of the prosecution lawyer, during framing of charges in the 
sessions court, that he had no evidence of Bianyak being a Naxalite 
[Medico Friend Circle 2008]. Binayak's "crime" is that, apart from 
providing medical care to the rural poor and working class 
communities, he felt compelled to be involved with the issue of human 
rights since he perceived health work not merely as provision of 
medical services but as efforts that coun- ter the suppression of the 
socio-economic and political rights of the marginalised [Sathyamala 
2007]. It was this perspective that led to his becoming a member of 
the People's Union for Civil Liberties and, later on, its 
vice-president due to his continued involvement in human rights 
issues.

Health and Human Rights

Socially sensitive public health professionals find it difficult to 
ignore issues of human rights as they are inextricably to the health 
and well-being of a population. And the state, in turn, finds it 
vital to suppress any evidence that points to such linkages. Riyadh 
Lafta is a professor of medicine at Al-Mustansiriya University of 
Baghdad, who led the Iraqi ministry of health's Unicef funded 
immunisation campaign for 14 years. In May 2007, he was denied visa 
to visit the US where he was to give a talk and then was denied a 
transit visa in UK en  route to Canada to deliver the same lecture in 
Vancouver since Canada agreed to issue him a visa [Woodward 2007]. 
His crime: he had co-authored a study published in the Lancet which 
showed the health impact of the American-led war in Iraq. The cross 
sectional study, conducted during September 2004, compared mortality 
during the period of 14.6 months before the American invasion and 
occupation with the 17.8 months that followed [Roberts et al 2004]. 
The study found that the risk of death was 2.5 folds higher, the risk 
of death from violence was 58 folds higher after the invasion and 
most individuals killed by the coalition forces were women and 
children. The major causes of death before invasion were myocardial 
infarction, cerebro-vascular accidents, while after the invasion, 
violence was the primary cause of death with most of the deaths 
attributed to coalition forces. The authors estimated an excess of 
1,00,000 deaths or more in the one year following invasion. This 
estimate was 20 times higher than the number used by the Bush 
administration. For all of these "crimes", his home in Iraq has been 
searched by the   coalition forces, and his life is under threat, 
from both the pro-government people and anti-government people, 
according to Les Robert, his co-author from Johns Hopkins University 
[Woodward 2007]. Lafta has also collected data to show an increase in 
birth defects and a tenfold increase in childhood cancers that could 
be ascribed to  the war and he was to have used his visit   to work 
on completing the paper. Lafta continues to live and work under these 
severe conditions as he believes that   it is his "duty to 
concentrate on the things that are alarming and disastrous to our 
population".

But it is not necessary that a medical professional directly involved 
in raising"sensitive" human rights issues for the state to perceive a 
threat; conducting scientific studies which bring out evidence of 
adverse health outcomes and points to state policies/interventions as 
a source is sufficient. For instance, after the Bhopal gas leak 
disaster of December 1984, the activities of several organisations 
involved in relief and rehabilitation of the victims came under 
surveillance. Doctors and other health workers engaged in providing 
injections sodium thiosulphate as an antidote, were arrested in a 
midnight swoop and several of the activists had serious charges 
(attempt to murder for example) filed against them by the Madhya 
Pradesh government. This was because acceptance of sodium 
thisosulphate as a rational treatment for the gas affected population 
(a remedy that had the approval of the Indian Council of Medical 
Research) would have meant that the state recognised that the victims 
were suffering from chronic cyanide poisoning and that the gases had 
crossed the lung blood barrier to produce multi-systemic effects. 
Activists attend- ing meetings discussing the medical con- sequences 
of the toxic gases in Bhopal were arrested. The Medico Friend Circle 
study on pregnancy outcome which was planned initially for June 1985 
had to be postponed as the MP government declared that all 
"outsiders" working with the gas victims would be treated as 
"terrorists".  Finally when the study was carried out, the survey 
team was under constant surveillance and it became necessary to shift 
the completed schedules every night   to a safe place. The reason was 
that the government wished to minimise damages and any independent 
study meant to assess health impact was viewed as a threat.

Corporations and Whistle-blowers

It is not merely the state that is antagonistic to public health 
professionals who are involved in highlighting disturbing 
associations through their studies. 

Depending on where they find themselves, the corporate sector deals 
with whistle- blowers in other ways. In countries where the rule of 
law is upheld, the corporate sector uses legal means to settle its 
score.  Frank Nicklason and others, who spoke about the health 
hazards posed by a major logging company in Tasmania (Gunns Limited) 
were sued for damages worth $A6.3 million by the company [Zinn 2005]. 
Nicklason is a staff physician at the Royal Hobart Hospital, 
Tasmania, whose research showed that legionella bacteria, fungal 
organisms, and wood dust, all of which were present in the stockpiles 
of shredded wood at the wharf posed poten- tial health risks to the 
exposed population.  Nicklason said that the Hippocratic oath 
required him to prevent illness not just in patients but in society 
as well.

Closer home, on December 19, 2007, the Madras High Court was reported 
to have restrained two farmers' associations and their office bearers 
(the Sathankulam Regional Agriculture Association and the association 
for users of irrigation water, 145, left main canal sub-channels I 
and II) from making any "derogatory remarks and baseless allegations 
against the Titanium unit project being planned by the Tata Steel in 
Tuticorin district of Tamil Nadu" (The Hindu, December 20, 2007).

The company had filed a civil suit seeking Rs   50 lakh damages 
caused to the company "due to defamatory remarks, comments and false 
allegations" made against the project. Due to these "unfounded 
remarks", the company had alleged that it faced many hurdles while 
executing its project and that the company would suffer heavy 
financial hardships, and loss if the respondents were not restrained. 
The crime: the two farmers' associations had raised questions about 
the degradation of land and water supply and environmental damage due 
to the setting up of the Tata   unit and were successful in 
mobilising the local people against the industrial unit. Titanium is 
indicted as potential occupational carcinogen [The National Institute 
for Occupational Safety and Health 2007].

Extraordinarily Political

The discipline of epidemiology is extra- ordinarily political as it 
has the ability to pinpoint causal associations between exposure and 
outcomes. Causal associations are bound to be contentious issues. 
When conducted with integrity, epidemiological studies have pointed 
out that the sources of health or ill-health lie in the 
socio-economic and political location of a population. But as 
evidence of the ill effects of anti-people policies begin to 
accumulate, we see epidemiology being evoked to justify the unjust 
polices of the state that goes to great lengths to generate 
counter-evidence. And those who challenge such bad science are 
accused of being anti-government, anti-patriotic and anti-science. 
The long-waged campaign against the injectable contraceptives and the 
more recent one against the polio eradication programme in the 
country illustrate this. In both the cases, a body of evidence has 
been built systematically, step by step, against the advisability of 
such programmes. But the establishment continues to create more 
"evidence" to counter facts with figures.

For Binayak, though trained as a medical professional, involvement in 
human rights issues was inescapable in a state like Chhattisgarh that 
is witnessing large- scale government-sponsored terrorism in the name 
of Salwa Judum, an operation whose stated objective is to combat 
Maoist insurgency but which in reality is to wrest ancestral land 
from the tribal communities, for the use of private industrial 
houses. Binayak Sen's continued incarceration is the expression of 
zero tolerance by the state for anyone, who will hamper the zooming 
up of the sensex. Questioning the path of development that the 
country is hurtling along, and the threat it poses to the lives of 
people and other living beings, will be viewed as a threat to 
national security and all efforts will be attempted to contain 
dissent.

An earlier version of this article was discussed in the annual meet 
of the Medico Friend Circle, December 28-29, 2007, at Dallihara, on 
the theme 'Role of the Health Professionals in Times of Social 
Violence and Conflict'.
C Sathyamala (csathyamala at gmail.com) is an epidemiologist based in Delhi.

References

Medico Friend Circle (2008): 'Release Dr Binayak Sen! Health, Human 
Rights and Development Activist: Prisoner of Conscience in 
Chhattisgarh, 2007-08' (monograph), MFC Pune, p 17.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (2007): 
'Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards', 
www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0617.html accessed 24.12.07.

Roberts, L, Lafta R, Garfield R, Khudhairi J, Burnham G (2004): 
'Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Cluster Sample 
Survey', www.thelancet.com published online October 29, 2004.
http://image.thelancet.com/extras/04art10342web.pdf.

Sathyamala, C (2007): 'Binayak Sen: Redefining Healthcare in an 
Unjust Society' (editorial), Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 4 (3): 
105-106. 

Woodward, J (2007): 'Doctor Fears for Life in Home-land: Prevented 
from Speaking at SFU, Author Continues Controversial Work despite 
Danger', The Globe and Mail, April 28,.

Zinn, Christopher (2005): 'Doctor Who Spoke on Public Health Issue is 
Sued', BMJ,  http://www.  bmj.com/content/full/330/7489/439-a.


______


[7]  Announcements:

Bhuli Hui Hoon Daastan - A Film by Adnan Malik
Date: 13th July 2008  |  Time: 7:00 pm

The Lahore film industry, Lollywood, has reflected and adapted to the 
changing moods in Pakistan's socio-politico-cultural sphere over its 
tumultuous history. It has morphed from the sole source of family 
entertainment that unified the classes, into a stigmatized sex and 
violence industry that caters specifically to the tastes of a small 
population of the working class. In a slightly camp and overtly 
analytical style, this comprehensive documentary reconstructs the 
demise of Lollywood, and deconstructs the various forces that have 
sidelined the culture of cinema in Pakistan today. A first of its 
kind documentary, Bhuli Hui Hoon Daastan, is a tribute to the 
Lollywood film industry.

The screening will be followed by a discussion, focusing on the 
current state of Pakistani cinema, media education and upcoming films.

Bhuli Hui Hoon Daastan has been screened at The South Asian Film 
Festival - New York 2005, KARA Film Festival 2004, Bite the Mango 
Film Festival - Bradford 2005, The Delhi Digital Film Festival 2005, 
and 'Pehli Dhahdkan' Pakistani Film Festival - Glasgow 2005. The film 
has played at schools and universities across the country and 
internationally, and recently aired on both Geo and Geo News as part 
of the 'Geomentary' series.

About the Director

Adnan Malik is a Vassar College educated, Karachi based 'slashie' - a 
filmmaker/ actor/model. The majority of his work uses pop culture and 
identity as a point of investigation. He has directed 'Bijli', a 
multi-award winning short film about a Muslim drag queen in New York, 
'The Forgotten Song', Pakistan's first feature length documentary on 
Lollywood, as well as having contributed to films such as the 
Sundance winning 'Why We Fight', and 'A Jihad for Love'. Adnan has 
also contributed a film, 'Telephone Pyaar', to the 60x60 project 
organized by MotiRoti, has assisted on a number of music videos and 
has been on the directing team of 'The Lux Style Awards' for the last 
4 years. He has also been a member of the organizing committee of 
'The KARA Film Festival' since 2003.

Bhuli Hui Hoon Daastan (The Forgotten Song)
PAKISTAN / 95 MIN / URDU
CREDITS:
Camera: Najaf Bilgrami
Editing: Adnan Malik, Maheen Zia
Producer: Geo Television
Scripted, Researched and Directed by Adnan Malik

Date: Sunday, 13th July 2008

Time: 7:00 pm

Minimum Donation: Rs. 50

Venue: The Second Floor (T2F)
6-C, Prime Point Building, Phase 7, Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA, Karachi
538-9273 | 0300-823-0276 | info at t2f.biz
Map: http://www.t2f.biz/location

- - -

(ii)

Public Lecture

by Professor Vinay Lal,
University of California, Los Angeles

On Dialogues on Justice

in Collaboration with
The Dept. of Political Science, Presidency College

Venue: Bankim Sabha Griha, Presidency College [Calcutta]
Date: 14 July 2008, 3.00 P.M.

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

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