SACW | July 27-29, 2008 / Sri Lanka: July 1983 riots / Pakistan: Taliban at the gates / Nepal: Old Ways / India: Blasts & Terror
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Mon Jul 28 23:52:43 CDT 2008
South Asia Citizens Wire | July 27-29, 2008 |
Dispatch No. 2545 - Year 10 running
[1] Sri Lanka: On the 25th Anniversary of the July 1983 Anti Tamil Riots
(i) Let Us Work Towards A Non Killing Culture (Kumar Rupesinghe)
(ii) Some Reflections arising from Ethnic Riots (Somapala Gunadheera)
[2] Bangladesh: Women's Policy Sneakily Changed by Gov't (Qurratul Ain Tahmina)
[3] Pakistan:
(i) The Taliban jitters (Editorial, Daily Times)
(ii) Learning from others (I.A. Rehman)
[4] Nepal: The king is gone, long live the
kingdom's old ways (Siddharth Varadarajan)
[5] Pakistan - India - America: Shifting focus (Abbas Rashid)
[6] India: CJP Condemns [Ahmedabad's serial] Blasts
[7] India: Blasts and the State of Terror (I.K.Shukla)
[8] India: Why there was no India riot repeat (Soutik Biswas)
[9] India: Communalists - Overt and Covert:
Hindutva Poison in Jammu / Govt on Ram Sethu /
Asharam Bapu, Sri Sri and Co
- Slogans of 'Quit Jammu' betray communal mind-set (Editorial, Kashmir Times)
- Govt Defence of Ram Sethu project by referring
to religious scriptures goes against secular
principles (Editorial, Mail Today)
- Happenings At Asaram Bapu's Ashram (Ram Puniyani)
______
(i)
Daily Mirror
July 19, 2008
LET US WORK TOWARDS A NON KILLING CULTURE
by Kumar Rupesinghe
The 25th anniversary of Black July provides us
with an opportunity to examine the sources of
violence in Sri Lanka. Black July was a momentous
event in the history of ethnic relations in Sri
Lanka. It was a dark day for Sri Lanka when
Tamils in Colombo and elsewhere were killed,
assaulted and large numbers of houses attacked
and looted. Over 95% of Tamil business houses
were burnt and razed to the ground. The
ostensible reason was the killing of 13 soldiers
in Jaffna and the retaliation against this
killing went out of control. A Presidential
Commission on this matter attributed in large
measure the violence committed to the state and
asked that compensation be paid to victims.
The 25th anniversary provides an opportunity to
reflect on violence in general and how Sri Lanka
has developed a culture of violence. Violence
permeates the very fabric of our society today.
Since independence, Sri Lanka has witnessed many
aspects of episodic violence. One of the first
was the disenfranchisement and deprivation of
citizenship of the workers of Indian origin in
the hill country. This single act made a major
breadwinner of our country into second class
citizens.
Previously, we witnessed communal violence as a
result of the introduction of the Sinhalese Only
Act in 1956. Sri Lanka is blessed with three key
languages, Sinhalese, Tamil and English. By
depriving the Tamils of their own language and
the denial of the use of English did untold harm
and deprived many generations of our youth access
to education. Once again, the reason for
introducing the Bill to make Sinhalese the
official language was to ensure that an injustice
done to the Sinhalese who had been deprived of
the use of Sinhalese during the period of British
colonialism be rectified. But in doing so, we
committed an injustice against Tamils. By denying
the youth the English language, we put ourselves
out as equal partners in global society. In
1958, communal violence took an ugly form and
spread throughout the country as a result of the
peaceful and non violent Satyagraha campaigns the
Tamil leadership initiated. As a result of these
actions, many Tamils sensed a feeling of
alienation and felt that they had become second
class citizens. Their peaceful protests were met
with violence and ridicule and this paved the way
for a more militant youth rebellion which today
continues to reverberate throughout the country.
Throughout the years, Sri Lanka has experienced
episodic violence as when the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam forcibly evicted over 100,000
Muslims from the North in 48 hours. It was
unimaginable how a self proclaimed freedom
movement of the Tamils could deny the Muslims
theirs. Not stopping at that, they attacked
mosques in the Eastern Province and deprived the
Muslims of their agricultural lands. In the
pursuit of their single minded purpose, many
moderate Tamil leaders were assassinated; the
hallowed Temple of the Tooth, a symbol for
millions throughout Sri Lanka and world was
bombed and desecrated. The war continues
unabated till today and has caused untold
unhappiness, sorrow and anguish to all
communities. No community has been left out of
the cycle of violence that we are witnessing
today. A culture of impunity hangs over the
country and many live in fear.
Sri Lanka has experienced three insurgencies -
two in the South and one which is still an
ongoing civil war in the North. All the three
insurgencies have had an enormous toll with
regard to life and property. For example, in the
insurgency of 1971, it is reported that over 20
,000 were killed and in 1988-1989, over sixty
thousand youths were killed within three months.
The current war in the North has taken the lives
of over 80,000 and recently a medical journal
reported that those killed may be as high as
250,000. Twice this number has been seriously
injured. As a result of the war, over a million
have left the country and another half a million
live in refugee camps.
The cycle of violence is not only the result of
war; we witness violence in all walks of life.
Violence at home is an endemic problem and there
are countless stories of domestic violence which
are highlighted in the daily press. The problem
of domestic violence is particularly acute in the
plantations where women workers are not given
their own salaries; rather it is taken by the
husband who invariably spends some of the money
on alcohol. All this compounds domestic violence.
The instances of rape and harassment of women and
children are on the increase. The crime rate is
at an all time high. The suicide rate is also one
of the highest in Asia.
There are continuous news reports of abductions
and disappearances of citizens which have
unfortunately become an everyday part of our
lives. The media has become one of the first
casualties of this killing culture.
As a society have we developed immunity against
violence? Should we continue to be bystanders in
the face of continuous violence? Does all this
mean that Sri Lanka is by nature violent? No!
Sri Lankans are fundamentally friendly people and
have on many occasions protected the others and
provided refuge. These stories of compassion
remain unrecorded and have to be chronicled. Sri
Lanka is the home of many religions, of which
Buddhism enjoys a special place. Buddhism is a
philosophy which rejects all forms of violence.
Sri Lanka is also blessed with Hinduism, Islam,
Christianity and many other spiritual movements.
All these religions and spiritual movements
emphasise peace and non violence in their
teachings.
There are difference kinds of violence.
Structural violence is systemic violence
perpetrated against people due to income
disparities, the presence of poverty etc.
Structural violence is endemic to the plantation
system where the majority of workers lives in
line rooms and cannot leave the estate for want
of better jobs. The indicators on health and
education are the lowest in the hill country.
Cultural violence is the legitimation of violence
against communities which means that various
ideologies and beliefs deny the other. These
ideas of a chosen people, selective use of
history and chosen traumas to justify violence
against the other and stigmatization of other
groups and denial of the identity of others are
also common in our society. Direct violence which
is the use of force against individuals and
groups has also been with us for many decades.
Sri Lanka is essentially a multi ethnic society
with a mixture of religions and ethnic identities
which have co-existed for many centuries. Our
multi ethnic plural identity is one of the most
important and valuable assets that we possess.
Despite the violence, these communities have
lived in co-existence and cooperation and this
fortunately is the foundation upon which our
people live. Colombo city itself is the home of
many communities and Tamils live in peace with
their neighbours. Muslims are also present in
many of our cities and towns. In the hill
country, Sinhalese and Tamils live side by side
and in the Eastern Province, Muslims and Tamils
live in villages next to each other. Sri Lanka's
map is a rich mosaic of diversity and mutual
co-existence.
Black July to White July
The 25th anniversary of Black July provides us an
opportunity for deep reflection about our society
and ourselves. Let us spend a week reflecting on
what we can do as citizens to ensure that
violence as a way of settling disputes is
replaced by reconciliation and a commitment
towards establishing a plural and multi ethnic
society. We have to act now, for our actions now
will affect the future. Millions of our people
have to say no to violence and it is this voice
which will end the war.
o o o
groundviews.org
SOME REFLECTIONS ARISING FROM ETHNIC RIOTS
July 28, 2008
by Somapala Gunadheera
Off and on, I write short stories, never
anecdotes. But now I have to oblige Sanjana. He
wants stories about our ethnic riots, the one
that raged before he was born and the other when
he was at school. Therapists say that anecdotes
have a healing effect on ethnic wounds.
My experience about the 1983 riot was brief. Then
I was the Chairman of the Ceylon Steel
Corporation at Athurugiriya. Towards mid-day, I
heard that Tigers had invaded Colombo and people
were running away helter-skelter. The Aturugiriya
Police had blocked the road opposite their
station and were in battle array.
Later it transpired that the beginning of the
turmoil was the sighting of a Tamil victim of the
riot hiding on the roof of a building in the
Pettah, reminiscent of the fable in which the
entire animal kingdom took to its heels as the
story spread that the world was crashing, as
reported by a chick on whose back a large leaf
had fallen.
Before the actual fact was known however, there
was much excitement. The workers went home early
and the staff bus was ready to take the officers
away. But there was a snag. One of the officers
was Tamil and it was considered risky to have him
in the bus, as by now Sinhala chauvinism had
taken control of the situation and there were mob
checks at every junction.
I offered to take the Tamil officer in my vehicle
hoping to exploit the status of my car in the
area. For solidarity's sake a few others got in
with the man under risk. On the way, we were
blocked by a mob armed with clubs and knives at
the Hokandara junction. I opened my window. The
leader of the mob came up. "Ah, Sir, Chairman!"
he said with a bow, "you are all Sinhalese, no
sir?"
That was a situation where truth was homicidal. I
smiled my sweetest in reply. Besides how could I
answer that question with scientific precision,
without the help of the best bio-analyst in the
world, in the background of our long and
checkered history?
My experience in the 1958 riots was far more
dangerous. I had just returned from Jaffna after
serving my cadetship. I could afford only a part
of a house rented by a Tamil. One day there was
mayhem up the lane with a mob attacking the
Tamils, towards dusk. My landlord who was a
leading Communist had gone to his headquarters,
leaving his young wife and their son and daughter
who were about two to three years.
There was not much time to act before the mob
reached our house. I took the son in my hands and
the mother took the daughter. Together we got out
of the backdoor, crept through a barb wire fence
and ran across a coconut property as fast as we
could until we came to a cadjan hut. There was an
old couple there. They were very sympathetic to
the helpless trio in distress and assured me that
nothing could happen to them in that out of the
way place.
Satisfied with their assurance, I left my charges
there and returned home to look to my old parents
and young sister. They were alright. The mob had
entered the house and the results of their
'linguistic test' being negative, they had passed
on. Past nine in the night, I brought back my
landlord's wife and children, the man still
apparently engrossed in conference with the
dynamics of ethnic conflict.
All was quiet now and we retired to bed. I slept
in the front room and my parents and sister in
the room behind. Around midnight, I was suddenly
put up by a sound of crashing glass. It did not
take long for me to realize that my front window
was being attacked with stones. Some stones were
falling inside the room. Before I could get up my
mother was physically upon me covering her only
son with her body. I struggled out of bed and
took my mother to the inner room.
Soon there was the roar of an approaching
motorcycle. The stoning ceased suddenly. The
cycle stopped in front of our house. I came out
to see it was a police officer, a cousin of my
landlady. There was a large pistol in his
holster. As the officer entered the house, I saw
our front door neighbor closing his partly opened
window and it dawned on me the attack was his
punishment to me for helping the 'bloody Tamils'.
His cowardice was now taking the better of his
chauvinism.
Twenty-five years later, the protagonists of this
drama keep coming back to my mind now. My
Communist landlord died long ago. His bones might
be turning in his grave to find that his
successors are even now grappling with ethnic
rivalry, even around the epicenter of his dogma.
The old couple that gave shelter to my charges
that night are very likely to be among the
departed. The loving kindness they showered on
their wards that night was more than enough to
open the gates of heaven to them.
My mother is dead now and the mother of the Tamil
children is supposed to be living abroad. The two
mothers showed that a basic instinct like
maternal sacrifice had no ethnic barriers. The
two children must be well away in their new
salubrious abode. Their childhood memory may be
validating what communalists keep preaching to
them about the Sinhala desperados. Perhaps they
were too young then to realize that their
survival had something to do with a different
kind of 'desperado'. As part of the Tamil
Diaspora, they may be assuaging with alms, their
guilty conscience about leaving behind, their
less fortunate, (more patriotic?) blood cousins.
My front door assailant is dead. As a believer in
rebirth, I do not rule out the possibility of his
being reborn a Tamil to pay penance for what he
did to the Tamils in his previous birth. It is
even possible that he is among the hundred
suicide bombers that are supposed to be in
Colombo now, according to our authorities whose
statistics are as efficient as their management
of the ethnic conflict is deficient.
______
[2]
Inter Press Service
27 July 2008
BANGLADESH:
Women's Policy Sneakily Changed by Gov't
by Qurratul Ain Tahmina
DHAKA, Jul 27 (IPS) - A vibrant women's rights
movement in Bangladesh has much on its plate --
an ominous scale of violence against women,
omnipresent social and religious prejudices and
poor representation in decision-making despite
two women heading the government consecutively
for the last 15 years
And now activists have stumbled upon the fact
that the present government had quietly changed,
more than a year ago, the National Policy for
Advancement of Women (NPAW), negating some of its
crucial equality principles.
The original policy was formulated in 1997,
following the United Nation's Beijing Women's
Conference, directly involving activists and
thinkers in the process. It was participatory and
highly acclaimed at home and abroad.
Krishna Chanda, until recently with a project of
the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs,
facilitating gender mainstreaming in development
programmes, said she and others were caught by
surprise by the changes.
''Last year, around March, we heard that the
ministry was initiating some changes in the
preamble,'' Chanda told IPS. ''But we got no hint
that the essence would be tampered with''.
A government source told IPS that Law, Justice
and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Moudud Ahmed
was part of the cabinet committee that revised
the policy.
Asked by IPS if that was indeed the case Ahmed, a
barrister, said,''I might have been (part of the
committee) but don't exactly remember''. Ahmed
added he had no idea of the policy or the changes.
Pressed with examples, the minister expressed
surprise that the previous government had
provided for equal inheritance rights. ''No
government in Bangladesh can commit to equal
shares in inheritance. It's a very nice deal but
will go against Quranic principles''.
The 1997 preamble eulogised the Awami League, the
party then in power. It was, therefore, expected
that the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP), now heading the ruling, rightist
coalition, would want its share of historical
credits.
Ayesha Khanam, general secretary of Bangladesh
Mohila Parishad (Bangladesh Women's Forum), the
country's largest women's organisation, first
picked up the new policy in March this year.
''The government has been secretive about it and
we had no idea of its existence''.
''My guess is some rightist lobby within the
government did it,'' says Khanam. Activists share
this view, some directly suspecting the
involvement of Jamaat-i-Islami, Bangladesh, a
religion-based political party in the ruling
coalition.
The 1997 policy had a unique context, says Dr.
Maleka Begum, a pioneering women's rights
activist in Bangladesh. ''In continuity with the
process initiated during the preparatory stage of
the Beijing Conference, we were with the
government formulating our country action plan
based on the Beijing Plan of Action, devising
various mechanisms for gender mainstreaming in
development, and finally drafting the policy''.
Others involved in formulating the policy on
being informed of the changes said they thought
the changes were like finding one's own baby
grossly mutilated.
Multilateral and bilateral donors such as the
World Bank have reportedly sympathised with the
activists. Seeking anonymity, one donor
representative told IPS: ''We are very concerned.
The 1997 policy was very progressive. This one
seems very broad-based -- to some extent, vague
even''.
Activists say the original policy reflected the
goals of the women's movement and was in tune
with the UN Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Bangladesh ratified CEDAW in 1984 but had
reservations on two core provisions that deal
with comprehensive legislative changes and
equality in marriage and divorce. The
government's main problem concerns personal laws
that are based on religious codes. Its recent
progress report to the CEDAW committee, however,
pledged efforts to withdraw the reservations.
The 1997 policy had 104 principles, grouped into
14 areas of concern. The new policy gets rid of
two principles and changes others in a way that
make them self-contradictory.
Women's economic participation and rights see
crucial changes in six principles. These drop
provisions of equal opportunity or equal share in
property or assets; and strike out inheritance,
property or assets, and land rights from a list
of prerequisites for women's economic
empowerment. Of the special provisions mandatory
for institutions employing large numbers of
women, housing has been dropped.
About half the 140 million population of
Bangladesh lives in poverty and the majority of
them are women. Despite a highly- praised micro
credit programme, earning women are one-fourth of
the economically active men and mostly, engaged
in the informal sector.
The government credits itself for achieving
gender parity in primary school enrolment and for
an incentive programme for girls up to class 12.
But drop-out rates are high. Women-headed
households are on the rise among the poorer
sections; and wage discrimination, lack of skills
and options, marginalise women.
'Equal' rights to formulating and implementing
economic policies has become 'in accordance with
constitutional rights'. ''Had the constitution
remained in its original form, I would not be
concerned,'' says Sultana Kamal, legal expert and
executive director of the human rights
organisation 'Ain Shalish Kendra'.
''Equality is guaranteed in our constitution as
every citizen's fundamental right. But in 1977,
the Constitution was amended to make 'absolute
trust and faith in the Almighty Allah' a
fundamental principle of state policy and the
basis of all actions,'' explained Kamal.
''We don't know which clauses would prevail in
matters of women's rights,'' said Kamal.
Then there is the practise. ''Constitution
clearly says any law inconsistent with the
equality rights will become void,'' said Kamal.
''The government could have easily discarded
religion-based personal laws. Instead we hear all
the time that discriminatory laws in inheritance,
rights in marriage or divorce cannot be touched
because that would hurt religious sentiments''.
Right now among the 300 legislators in general
seats, only seven are women, including Prime
Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and leader of the
opposition Sheikh Hasina Wajed.
Although Bangladesh has 10 to 15 percent reserved
quota in government employment, women are very
poorly represented at decision-making levels. The
new policy drops the principle of placing women
as ambassadors and in high posts in the planning
commission and the judiciary.
The 1997 policy clearly valued the role of the
women's rights movement and NGOs. While
sidetracking this issue, the new policy has also
dropped the principle of inspiring these two
groups of actors to take up campaigns for
encouraging women's participation in politics.
On violence against women, the 1997 policy
expressed concern about state or police violence
and community edicts subjecting women to public
lashing, stoning, even burning to death. The 2004
policy does away with all of this though the
general tone depicts a hopeful picture.
Protests against the changes have begun and the
leading women and human rights activists and
organisations have formed a common platform. The
members include the Bangladesh chapter of the
international funding organisation OXFAM and a
leading national daily.
Said Prof. Sadeka Halim of Dhaka University,
''The new policy contradicts the government's
millennium development goals (MDGs) and its
strategy for meeting those. As for us women, the
original policy was like a protective shield and
an excellent instrument for empowerment. I would
say we were one step ahead but will now be thrown
two steps back''.
______
[3]
(i)
Daily Times
July 29, 2008
EDITORIAL: THE TALIBAN JITTERS
The ultimatum by the Taliban warlord, Baitullah
Mehsud, to the NWFP government has been followed
by a declaration from the Swat warlord Fazlullah
that the dialogue with the NWFP government is now
off and suicide-bombers are ready to attack
Peshawar. After having already dynamited a girls'
school and burnt down a market in Swat, Mr
Fazlullah delivered himself of the following
impossible-to-implement condition: "We are
determined to continue our efforts for
Islamisation not only in Swat and Pakistan, but
also throughout the world".
Those who want to negotiate the terms of
"Islamisation" with them should know from the
deeds of Mr Fazlullah what kind of system he has
in mind. Islamic Swat would have no female
education, no music, no sport, no entertainment
of any kind and no tourism, however harmless,
which the Taliban regard as fahashi. Now that
Peshawar itself is threatened, Mr Fazlullah too
has raised his voice. The NWFP government, which
was greatly offended when it heard many
responsible people say that Peshawar was
besieged, should think again and review its
policy of smoking the peace pipe with outlaws.
The sad fact is that so far the outlaws have been
allowed to get the upper hand. Pakistan has the
military capability to confront the menace but
its army doesn't want to risk taking on the
warlords when the elected politicians are not
fully willing to endorse military action.
The electronic media, too, must put on its
thinking cap and review its policy of getting
reporters to go to Peshawar and stand in front of
a market and report that all was normal with the
city and it was not under siege. Now that the
suicide-bombers are coming, there will be no
doubt about whether they were "bribed and sent by
India" or by the warlords that march under the
banner of Pakistani Taliban. The modus operandi
of the Taliban is known all over the world. The
well known Muslim commentator Ziauddin Sardar,
said on Monday:
"The Taliban have been in total control of FATA
for almost a decade. Peshawar will be the jewel
in their crown. And if Peshawar goes, the rest of
Pakistan would not be far away. The Taliban may
look invincible, but they are nothing more than a
marauding band of zealous puritans. A typical
Taliban commander is a warlord with fewer than a
hundred armed men. He pays them with money earned
from drugs or extortion. He takes over an area,
ruthlessly imposes taxes, administers summary and
brutal justice, and declares himself the ruler.
He murders his opponents and kidnaps others for
ransom. Any Pakistani soldiers captured are
slaughtered in the most barbaric way".
Mr Sardar goes on to cast suspicion on the
Pakistani state itself and implies that it
suffers from a split personality vis-à-vis the
Taliban whom it has been using in the past and
might still want to use against the Karzai
government in Kabul . He concludes: "The Taliban
are a Pakistani problem, created and nourished by
Pakistan itself. To defeat the Taliban and defeat
them truly, Pakistan must find a way to cure
itself".
Loss of territory happens when an entire nation
begins to think alike and speaks from emotion
rather than objective observation. Pakistan lost
one half of itself when a consensus developed
against the rights of a polity with a nationally
elected leadership. That was the time for cool
calculation but that didn't happen and the army
was used against the people of East Pakistan.
Today, another kind of "consensus" seems to be
developing in favour of the Taliban whose
legitimacy doesn't come even close to the
legitimacy that the people of East Pakistan had.
But we are once again on the brink of losing
territory.
Despite the lack of political consensus, however,
police action is producing effective results. On
a daily basis, suicide-bombers are arrested,
munitions uncovered and terrorists identified.
The Taliban succeed only when they infiltrate
their men into a population whose sympathies have
been bought with force, fear and intimidation.
The politicians who don't want to face up to the
situation could be presented a fait accompli like
the one in East Pakistan. Only the difference
will be that the Taliban will not be able to
survive as rulers of the Tribal Areas and the
NWFP alone. They will have to take the rest of
the country to stay in power. The politicians may
grow beards and reconcile even with that, but the
world will not allow a nuclearised Pakistan to
fall into the hands of these Taliban. *
o o o
Dawn
24 July 2008
LEARNING FROM OTHERS
by I.A. Rehman
THE Punjab government's decision to send a couple
of hundred civil servants abroad for study and
training is in accord with the public view that
the administration urgently needs a strong
injection of modern administrative techniques.
The matter, however, is not as simple as some
people may like to believe. In several phases of
the country's history the government relied
considerably, particularly in the areas of
economics and defence, on civil servants that had
been sent abroad, especially to the US and
Britain, for study, training and probation. Many
of them proved themselves to be eminent experts
but since the political authority lacked a
wholesome view of the national interest and the
strategies to serve it, many if not most of these
foreign-trained civil servants eventually looked
like foreign bureaucrats on deputation to the
Pakistan government.
Besides, talented bureaucrats saw benefit in
casting themselves in the image of their
political masters. A prominent example was Dr
Mahbub ul Haq whose advocacy of inequality while
serving the iniquitous regime of Ayub Khan
tarnished his image as a thinking economist. But
when he was freed from the bondage of
dictatorship, the same Mahbub ul Haq did for the
UNDP work of outstanding merit and originality
that deserved recognition by the Nobel Prize
Committee. Clearly then, it is not enough to
select some bright young persons (hopefully women
will not be neglected) for overseas training. It
is equally necessary, if not more, that the
government should have a clear idea of the
direction it must follow and of the tasks for
which it needs expert advice.
Unfortunately, the days of absolute or generic
values in efficient administration seem to have
passed. What may be good from the perspective of
a highly developed (and capitalist) country or a
multinational behemoth may not be good for a
tardily developing Pakistan. Thus, the government
should know where to seek the knowledge it needs
to mould an admittedly moribund administration
into a pro-people vehicle of good governance and
dynamic growth. This is particularly important in
view of instances in the past when the government
did not baulk at sending out experts to discover
more effective means of fudging elections and
running a controlled democracy.
Today the world is a giant laboratory in which
solutions are being sought for a large variety of
political, socio-economic, judicial and
administrative problems. Many of these problems,
such as sluggishness of the primary sector,
creation of unemployment by favouring
capital-intensive projects and
development-induced poverty, perseverance with
the colonial pattern of administration and a
decrepit justice system, dysfunctional elected
bodies and the existence of powerful elements
that are hostile to change and modernisation, to
name only a few, are dragging Pakistan down. For
training civil servants in managing such issues
it seems necessary to look for expertise in
societies comparable to Pakistan.
For instance, Mongolia and Australia may be
better places than the more advanced countries of
Europe to learn about livestock breeding if
prejudice against India's Haryana cannot be
overcome. Central Asia offers good lessons in
water conservation and control of
salinity/waterlogging. China may still have
something to offer in the area of the
labour-intensive works Pakistan needs to help the
hordes of the jobless poor. For the latest models
of dynamic local government institutions, Brazil
and India (Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, in
particular) are front runners.
There is also a need to scan the institutions
within the Third World that offer courses
appropriate to serve Pakistan's needs. A look at
the variety of disciplines offered by the network
of IITs across the border should be quite
rewarding. There may be something to be gained
from the institutions providing training in
public/business administration in Manila or
Singapore.
At the same time the government must shed the
notion that institutions within the country can
do no more in terms of producing capable
administrators. Much can be gained by expediting
the reorientation of research work at our own
institutions. Why can't research on local bodies,
human rights, public administration et al be
conducted at our universities?
An important fact to be borne in mind is that the
search for practical wisdom abroad should be
affected neither by distance nor by ideological
or political differences. Those dealing with
Pakistan's food crisis may find something useful
in the report on Cuba prepared by the UN special
rapporteur on the right to food and submitted to
the Human Rights Council in March this year.
The special rapporteur observes that despite the
loss of socialist trading partners, the rigours
of the trade embargo and the fact that Cuba
imports 54 per cent of the calories consumed and
64 per cent of the protein (from long distance
because of the US embargo), "there has been
important progress in reducing malnutrition and
hunger in Cuba since the early 1990s. Today,
malnutrition is not considered a significant
problem and the government estimates that it
affects less than two per cent of the population."
The special rapporteur quotes WHO estimates that
only 2.3 per cent of children under five suffer
from grave or moderate undernourishment, one of
the lowest figures in the developing world.
According to the FAO, Cuba is one of the few
countries in the developing world that have
achieved the objectives of the 1996 World Food
Summit, that is to halve the number of
undernourished people by 2015. Cuba has also
already achieved Target 2 of the Millennium
Development Goal 1, namely to reduce by half the
proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
These achievements should be seen in the context
of the severe crisis Cuba faced after the
dissolution of the Soviet-led economic council.
After 1991, imports fell by 75 per cent over four
years and food availability was affected. Between
1989 and 1993, GDP fell by 33 per cent.
Agricultural productivity declined sharply.
In conclusion the report says: "The Special
Rapporteur strongly believes that by addressing
the structural causes of hunger and by
prioritising the rights of the most vulnerable
groups, including children, the legal framework
in Cuba has greatly contributed to the
realisation of the right to food, the reduction
in child mortality and the achievement of the
objectives of the World Food Summit. Today, Cuba
ranks 51st out of 177 states listed by [the] UNDP
in its Human Development Report, an impressive
achievement for a developing country."Cuba still
faces many problems but what it has already
accomplished is worth studying, for Pakistan
needs practical guidance more than the
acquisition of theories.
______
[4]
The Hindu
July 29, 2008
http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/29/stories/2008072954750800.htm
THE KING IS GONE, LONG LIVE THE KINGDOM'S OLD WAYS
by Siddharth Varadarajan
By abandoning the principle of consensus in
favour of artithmetical machinations, Nepal's
discredited establishment is betraying the
aspirations of the young republic.
When the people of Nepal cast their votes in the
elections to the Constituent Assembly in April,
they did so not merely in order to abolish the
monarchy. What they wanted was an end to the era
of manipulated democracy in which political
parties and politicians swung this way or that
for no reason other than to grab or hold on to
power. That is why they delivered a crushing blow
to the two establishment parties most associated
with this brand of crass parliamentarianism - the
Nepali Congress and the Unified
Marxists-Leninists. If the voters sealed the fate
of the Shah dynasty by choosing candidates who
were formally committed to the republic, they
also sent a stern message to that lesser Nepali
dynasty, the Koiralas, by defeating the daughter
and virtually every close relative of its
patriarch, Girija Prasad, barring one. As for the
UML, there was no better measure of the public's
contempt for its opportunism of the past few
years than the defeat handed out to its leader,
Madhav Kumar Nepal, from both the constituencies
he contested.
By voting in the Maoists as the single largest
party, the electorate also sent a clear message
that it favoured the new. But voters tempered
this message by denying the former rebels an
absolute majority of their own. Under the rules
of Nepal's interim constitution as it stood at
the time of the election, a two-thirds majority
was needed for any major decision, including the
election of Prime Minister and President. By
giving the Maoists a little more than one-third
of the seats in the 601-strong house, the
electorate said it wanted the Maoists to keep
alive the principle of consensus that had served
Nepal's parties so well in the struggle against
the monarchy. And also that it considered the
party's manifesto to be so important to the
constitutional development of Nepal that its
views could not be ignored by the CA, even if the
Old Establishment were to gang up against them.
Sadly for democracy, peace and the immediate
future of the young republic, however, this fine
balance that the electorate struck has now been
cynically subverted by reactionary elements in
the NC and the UML.
By stitching together an unprincipled coalition
together with the UML and the Madhesi Janadhikar
Forum of Upendra Yadav, the NC managed to get one
of its leaders, Ram Baran Yadav, a Madhesi
politician, elected President. As part of the
same bargain, the MJF's Parmanand Jha was elected
Vice-President. In both cases, the Maoist-backed
nominees for President and VP - the independent
Madhesi activist and intellectual, Rama Raja
Prasad Singh, and the independent legislator,
Shanta Shrestha, respectively - were defeated.
Sequence of betrayal
Once it was clear that the Maoists had emerged as
the largest party in April, the NC and the UML
more or less conceded that the party would have
the right to lead the new government. At the same
time, they kept raising procedural and policy
obstacles in the way of the Maoist leader,
Prachanda, becoming Prime Minister. In
particular, they said the Maoists might never
leave power if the two-thirds majority rule were
not replaced by a simple majority. Mr. Prachanda
warned that such a change would destroy the
principle of consensus and bring in the
power-play of majority and minority, but his
concerns were brushed aside.
Even after amending the interim constitution to
allow the President and Prime Minister to be
chosen (and removed) by a simple majority, the
political stalemate persisted. For the better
part of the past two months, the question of who
would become the republic's first President
paralysed the entire process of government
formation. After initially staking a foolish
claim for both the prime ministership and the
presidency, the Maoists had quickly backed off
from the latter and expressed their willingness
to nominate any prominent non-political
personality for the job of ceremonial head of
state. But this proposal was immediately rejected
by the NC, which proposed, instead, that the
caretaker Prime Minister, Girija Prasad Koirala,
be elevated to President and none else. Given Mr.
Koirala's age and indifferent health, as well as
the well-founded fear that he would use the job
to create an alternative power centre, the
Maoists baulked at his nomination.
With deadlock at that end, the Maoists asked the
UML to nominate someone other than Mr. Nepal -
whom they judged to be unsuitable given that he
lost both the seats he contested in the April
elections - for the presidency. This time, it was
the UML's turn to be adamant. The party rejected
the Maoist suggestion that its senior leader,
Shahana Pradhan, or any woman, Dalit or janajati
from its ranks be made President, and insisted
instead that it wanted only Mr. Nepal for the job.
Rebuffed by the intransigence of both parties,
the Maoists then turned to the fourth-largest
formation in the CA, the MJF, with an offer they
thought no self-respecting Madhesi group could
refuse: the nomination of Rama Raja Prasad Singh
as President. The MJF was unhappy with the choice
of Mr. Singh but could not afford to openly
reject him. So it insisted that one of its
members be made Vice-President, something the
Maoists were unwilling to accept since they had
imagined the top four posts of President, VP,
Prime Minister and Speaker would be equitably
divided among different sections of the
population in such a way that Madhesis, women,
Pahadis and janajatis would all feel they had a
stake in the new set-up.
As the Maoist agreement with the MJF broke down,
the NC and the UML rushed to field their own
Madhesi nominees for President. For two months,
these parties had refused to come up with any
names other than those of their top leaders. But
now that it seemed the political stalemate could
be broken in such a way as to isolate the
Maoists, the two Establishment parties promptly
withdrew their insistence on nominating Mr.
Koirala or Mr. Nepal. With the MJF on board, a
carve-up was effected wherein an NC leader with
no credibility in the struggle of Madhesis became
President (the UML helpfully withdrew its
nominee, Ramprit Paswan), an MJF leader became
the Vice-President and the UML's Subhash Nemwang
was chosen to be Speaker of the CA.
At the best of times, such unprincipled politics
should have no place in a democracy. What makes
the recent drama more sordid is that it is taking
place in a country that has just freed itself
from the yoke of monarchy and is trying to usher
in a constitutional system that would genuinely
empower its citizens.
Having demonstrated the viability of their unholy
coalition, the NC and the UML are now saying they
have no objection to the Maoists forming the
government. It is clear, however, that any
Maoist-led government would be subject to
constant blackmail by the Old Establishment. That
is why Mr. Prachanda has said he is still willing
to enter and lead the new government but only on
the basis of an understanding with all the
parties in the CA about the broad policies to be
followed and about the new set-up not being
destabilised.
The present stalemate presents both an
opportunity and a dilemma for the Maoists. By
staying out of power and insisting that the Old
Establishment run the country as it sees fit, the
party will almost certainly ensure an even bigger
vote share for itself when elections are next
held. But staying out of power will vitiate the
constitution writing process and perhaps even
fatally imperil it. It will also raise questions
about the smooth implementation of the peace
process, since any NC-UML led government is
unlikely to pursue the promised integration of
the Peoples' Liberation Army with the Nepal Army.
The presence of the MJF in the coalition
alongside the NC and the UML will also open up a
dangerous frontline. The latter two parties are
reluctant federalists who embraced the concept of
an inclusive Nepal only because the Maoists
placed it squarely on the national agenda. Will
they end up appeasing the more extremist elements
of the MJF and provoke a backlash of the kind
that has already started, thanks to Mr. Parmanand
Jha taking his oath of office in Hindi rather
than in his constitutionally-recognised mother
tongue of Maithili? Or will the Pahadi
chauvinists amongst their ranks prevail and push
for a polarisation of the polity on ethnic lines?
Though the Maoists have every right to feel
betrayed and cheated, they must make one last
attempt to foster a consensus. For better or
worse, the former rebels are the only party with
the ability to manage the contradictions and
faultlines which lie at the base of Nepali
society. A government that is not led by them
will find it hard to negotiate its way through
the next 20 months during which the rising and
sometimes contradictory aspirations of Nepal's
people must be bound together in the emerging
Constitution.
Even at the eleventh hour, it is essential that
democratic elements in the NC and the UML put an
end to the dangerous course their parties have
embarked upon. President Yadav should immediately
invite Mr. Prachanda to form a government, swear
him in and give him one month to demonstrate he
has the support of the CA. Nepal has a unique
opportunity to showcase its spirit of
republicanism and peace at the SAARC summit in
Sri Lanka next week. There can be no better way
of doing so than for Kathmandu to be represented
by Prime Minister Prachanda.
______
[5]
Daily Times
July 26, 2008
SHIFTING FOCUS
by Abbas Rashid
Unfortunately, sections of the establishment in
both India and Pakistan are far from reconciled
to the idea of peace and closer ties between the
two countries. But, whatever the veracity of
these accusations and counter-accusations, they
create more space for those who still think
militancy is the answer
In Pakistan, the number of those who advocate a
peaceful relationship with India has increased
steadily in recent years. This is necessary for
lifting millions of people in both countries out
of the state of abject poverty to which they have
been condemned. The sentiment is accompanied by
the realisation that perpetual low or high
intensity conflict with India is not any more the
route to securing a just settlement over Kashmir
and a better deal for Kashmiris. Closer ties, in
fact, may create more space for a resolution of
outstanding issues between the two countries.
The China-India relationship provides a model
that underscores the efficacy of such a strategy.
It is in this context that we need to look at the
new trade policy that has been criticised for
showing a 'tilt' towards India. Given the intense
economic pressures to which Pakistan is currently
subjected, it needs to make full use of the
advantage of proximity offered by India.
But there is clearly a strategic imperative, as
well. It is now clear that resolving the conflict
on Pakistan's western border is not going to be a
short-term enterprise. It is necessary for this
reason as well for it to minimise tensions on the
eastern frontier with India and find ways to take
the peace process forward.
But, as past experience shows, the path to better
ties with India is unlikely to be smooth. There
are many who find the prospect unacceptable.
Consider the recent rise in the incidents of
violence in Indian-administered Kashmir. And once
again there is the charge that those responsible
are militants from across the border.
Recently, India's foreign secretary said the
peace process with Pakistan was "under stress"
due to alleged increase in attacks by fighters
from the Pakistani side of the border. The
bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul may also
have been geared to secure the reaction that it
did, with Pakistan being accused of complicity.
Pakistan has, of course, often objected to the
large number of consulates opened by India in
Afghanistan and accused it of aiding insurgents
in Balochistan.
Unfortunately, sections of the establishment on
both sides are far from reconciled to the idea of
peace and closer ties between the two countries.
But, whatever the veracity of these accusations
and counter-accusations, they create more space
for those who still think militancy is the
answer. It is encouraging that despite the stress
the peace process has not been derailed but its
pace is far from satisfactory. A contributory
factor is that Pakistan five months after the
elections has yet to put its politics and
governance on an even keel and India is looking
to the next elections in which the BJP is likely
to pose a serious challenge to the incumbent
coalition.
At this point Pakistan needs to focus on its
western border and ensure that the people of the
tribal agencies as well as the settled areas are
not left at the mercy of the militants nor is the
territory used as a launch pad inviting
aggression in return. An improved relationship
with India will mean that Pakistan can do so more
effectively by among other things diverting
greater resources towards the development of
these and proximate areas.
It is somewhat strange in this context to come
across the news attributed to the US State
Department that the administration had decided to
shift $230 million from counter-terrorism funds
to allow Pakistan to upgrade its F-16 fighter
jets. True, Pakistan has an ageing fleet of F-16s
that can probably do with an upgrade but
considering that the fighters have relevance
largely in the context of a war with India, why
is this an urgent issue at this point in time?
In fact, even if the government is convinced as
per the current 'consensus' that a suit of peace
deals is our best option for restoring its writ
in the tribal areas, there is surely enough
reason to beef up our counter-terrorism or
anti-terrorism capabilities in the event that
this strategy does not work.
But what is more alarming is the rationale
provided by the White House spokesperson for
providing this support to Pakistan: "The F-16s
that they have are used in counter-terrorism
operations...We believe that these updates will
effectively employ the F-16s - they will be able
to use them during night time operations...to
fight a common foe."
If we are seriously considering the use of F-16s
in our tribal areas then we should reconsider,
regardless of the pressure from the Bush
administration. One of the major difficulties in
fighting the kind of war that has now been thrust
upon Pakistan - in part due to the gravely flawed
policies of successive regimes - is that a
considerable number of those who are not involved
become targets by way of collateral damage. And
to use air power in the shape not just of
helicopter gunships but fighter aircraft is to
risk a far higher casualty rate among the
ordinary men and women in these areas.
Other issues aside this will certainly result in
swelling the ranks of the insurgents
notwithstanding all the talk about
precision-guided munitions. This war cannot be
won entirely without the use of force. But force
applied in a ham-handed fashion can also be
counter-productive.
Meanwhile the US presidential candidate Barack
Obama has a point when he says that a closer
relationship between Pakistan and India can help
in resolving the situation in Pakistan's tribal
areas and Afghanistan. Within the framework of
such a relationship, India could allay Pakistan's
suspicions as to its intentions and contribute
towards efforts to secure peace in the region by
using its influence with the Karzai regime in a
more responsible manner.
The US could also contribute positively to the
peace process by ceasing its opposition to the
Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. The opposition
by the Bush administration has been based on the
premise that Iran stands to gain from the project
and that is unacceptable given its categorisation
as a rogue state. It is time for the US to review
that policy for the broader strategic gain of
moving towards stability in this volatile region.
_______
[6]
July 28, 2008
CJP CONDEMNS BLASTS
The serial blasts in Ahmedabad, targeting
innocent lives are dastardly acts of terror that
have wrecked human lives and also generated
terror and fear among ordinary citizens. The CJP
unequivocally condemns them and demands that the
actual culprits, after fair investigation, are
punished. The targeting of busy market places and
worst of all, hospitals, where the sick and
injured come for medical aid exposes the vicious
and cynical mind of the terrorist. The CJP also
condemns the blasts the day before in Bangalore
that has led to the unfortunate situation that
professionals need to be provided security.
The staff and doctors of all Ahmedabad's
Hospitals, the Civil Hospital, the LG Hospital,
the VS Hospital and Rajasthan Hospital need to be
saluted for the singular hard work they have put
in to save lives and achieve a sense of normalcy
in the wards.
Two members of the Citizens for Justice and
Peace, its secretary, Teesta Setalvad accompanied
by Rahul Bose visited the city, met the victims
in visits to all hospitals and also visited the
blast sites. A detailed list of names of the
injured has been collated by CJP so as to enable
immediate relief, especially for the daily bread
winners from Ahmedabad. This list will be
uplinked on the CJP and Sabrang website by the
evening of July 27, 2008. Photographs will be put
up by also.
The atmosphere in both Ahmedabad, the rest of
Gujarat and the country (after the Bangalore
blasts) is fragile and therefore the need to
maintain calm and project voices of reason. The
need of the hour is dialogue between communities
and individuals as the sinister aim of the
terrorist is to create hatreds and suspicions
between communities. Moreover all investigations
into the terror attacks should be transparent
accountable. Terrorism and terror attacks should
not become the subject of irresponsible
politicisation. To combat terror we must stand
firm, calm and united.
The need of the hour is immediate peace and
communal harmonyŠ.social activists and political
leaders must move among the people, speak to the
victims, help ease the trauma and above all
ensure that no cheap political gain is made out
of this tragedy. In Varanasi (Kashi) that saw
blasts at the Sankat Mochan temple in March 2006,
the active presence of silent street and mohalla
committees who worked 24 hours, to dispel any
suspicion and panic, to the scores of religious
organisations, notably those from the Muslim
minority who stepped forward, spontaneously and
unequivocally, to condemn the heinous acts and
offer help and sympathy to the victims, it was
the ordinary people of this ancient and historic
place of pilgrimage that typifies India's
Ganga-Jamuna culture, who then emerged the
victors against terror. Ahmedabad maintained
calm, on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We must now
ensure that lasting peace is built on this calm
and this city that has seen bitterness, violence
and division builds bridges out of the tragedy.
An Appeal
The CJP appeals to all citizens, organisations
and corporate groups to donate generously to our
relief effort in Gujarat. Daily wage earners,
rickshawpullers, sweepers frm the Valmiki
community, innocent children of barbers and
vendors lie injured in hospital with each day
from work, also a day of hunger and deprivation
for the rest of their families.
Financial aid to them will be CJP's first priority.
Children, women and men have also faced great
trauma. We hope to be able to work with the
victims on a long term basis to assist them out
of the irreparable loss they have suffered apart
from in the immediate, lending assistance for
those injured who are faced with the loss of
daily wages.
Please donate generously to the Citizens for
Justice and Peace, Mumbai. Send queries to
sabrang at vsnl.com and cjpindia at gmail.com. The CJP
is a registered body and donations made out to it
enjoy exemptions under Section 80 G of the Income
Tax Act. Cheques or contributions need to be
posted to CJP, Nirant, Juhu Tara Road, Mumbai
400049.
Teesta Setalvad,
Secretary
Trustees: IM Kadri (Vice-President), Arvind
Krishnaswamy (Treassurer), Anil Dharker (writer),
Alyque Padamsee (communications expert), Cyrus
Guzder (corporate leader), Ghulam Pesh Imam
(businessman), Javed Anand (writer and social
activist), Javed Akhtar (poet and script writer),
Nandan Maluste (financial consultant), Rahul Bose
(actor), Cedric Prakash (social activist), Teesta
Setalvad (journalist and social activist)
______
[7]
BLASTS AND THE STATE OF TERROR
by I.K.Shukla
After Bangalore now Ahmedabad has been rocked by
blasts taking a toll of 45 innocent lives and
maiming a hundred others. Despite the oft
unmasked state complicity, its collusion with,
and its absolution of terror rained on the
minorities since 1992, not one of its architects,
promoters and practitioners has ever been
punished let alone pilloried. This is tantamount
to continuation of terror as institutional policy
and official statecraft. That means, the state is
determined not to punish but protect the killers
and criminals, and that it will also continue
persecuting the victims of violence. Sleeping
over the Sri Krishna Commission Report and
cocking a snook at the Liberhan Commission (on
Babri Mosque demolition of 1992) provide starkest
evidence of a failed state and its lethal lurch
into a rightist and regressive theocracy.
Two fatally divisive factors of this massive
national betrayal that aid and abet the seditious
mayhem and treasonous turmoil engulfing India
are: 1.the community-weighted and
caste-privileged electoral charade masquerading
as parliamentary democracy, and 2. the semantic
deception borrowed from the empire - "war on
terror", that camouflages its hardcore intent and
predatory objective of global dominance and
militaristic control of world's resources. Ruling
classes, steeped in vicious injustice and yawning
social disparities, have found this feral war of
terror handy to quell dissent and snuff out
resistance against the inhuman socio-political
evils of privileged and putrid status quo. Nation
states are replicating at home the empire's
terror ravaging the globe. Like the empire, they
are partisans and votaries of outlaw justice
blanketing their crimes under the convenient but
dishonest slogan of 'fighting terrorism'.
This barbaric war against the nation, begun in
Gujarat 2002 through the administratively
executed slaughter spree against Muslims, was
swept under the carpet and confidentially lauded
by the then Home Minister of India, Lal
Kishenchand Advani who had already earned
mountainous notoriety, along with others, for
involvement in the Babri demolition. And, it is
he who always reflexively, like Pavlov's dog,
screams loudest for more stringent laws to nab
the blast bombers, i.e., in his jaundiced
presumption, Muslims. What these laws have
already done is noteworthy: exculpating the
saffronazi criminals and destroying the lives of
numerous innocent Muslim men, women and children.
Advani's moral deficiency and lack of scruples
was obscenely loud when, even before the
investigations had begun, he had absolved the
Bajrang Dal's Dara Singh in the multiple murders
of Staines family in Orissa. For his crime, Hindu
fascists rewarded him with a ticket for the UP
assembly. This is sectarian Hindutva idea of
"cultural nationalism". This thuggish cult spurns
the national flag and shuns the national anthem.
Unless the banal reversal of cause and
consequence is renounced, unless Hindu fascism is
punished, unless public apology and contrition is
expressed unconditionally and immediately for
traitorous and inhuman crimes against the
minorities, unless the rehabilitation and
restitution of those who suffered in Gujarat 2002
at the hands of the Hindu
rapists-arsonists-killers-thugs, the wounds would
not heal nor even minimal justice appear to have
been done. Treason and war against the nation
launched by Gujarat Terror 2002 would appear to
be continuing and condoned, applauded and
absolved. To let the culture of crime, modeled on
Gujarat Genocide 2002, entrench itself in the
nation and swarm it, would be to reward the
irredeemable traitors and inveterate terrorists.
The agents of foreign powers need not infiltrate
India. They have been here all along. Treason and
cowardice have been ordained as the sacred duty
of Hindu fascists as any primer of RSS by its
founders and leading lights would amply and
abysmally show. The loyal acolytes are living
daily by their sacred texts that openly preach
hatred, violence, division and regimentation.
They have had the effrontery to call
collaboration with the enemy, betrayal of the
nation, suborning of the law and trashing of the
Constitution - bravery. They persist in calling
one such cowardly collaborator and iconic stooge
of the Brits "brave". He had played a big role in
Gandhi's assassination.
Let the honchos of Hindutva make a clean breast
of their crimes, let them be seen publicly
reprimanded and punished, let their nationwide
networks of terrorism and bomb-making, and their
training camps for violence and sabotage be
investigated and destroyed without their resort
to legalistic subterfuge enabling clandestine
continuance of their criminal dens. Let them avow
loyalty to the nation and pledge fealty to its
Constitution, let them abjure the evil of
communalism and forswear the blind, brutal
pursuit of vote bank politics. In short, let them
prove to be civilized and patriotic.
The onus is on them. Their rag of rhetorical
demagoguery is now too tattered to conceal their
horrendous crimes against the nation, against
humanity, against civilization, and against the
national ethos and its multichrome, multiverse
and multivalent heritage. They are stripped
naked. Let them repent and abandon the evil that
they have chosen as their path to power.
Let them reject their gods of foreign origin -
Hitler and Mussolini. Let them uncoil themselves
from fossils and freaks like Manu and James Mill.
Let them strive to graduate from humanoid to
human, from anti-India traitors, sectarian
terrorists and servitors of foreigners at least
to citizens and nationalists, if not patriots and
democrats which, genetically destitute and
disabled, they can never be.
27July 2008.
______
[8]
BBC News
28 July 2008 14:02 UK
WHY THERE WAS NO INDIA RIOT REPEAT
by Soutik Biswas
BBC News, Delhi
Relatives of a victim of Ahmedabad bombings
The attacks appear to have been planned and highly co-ordinated
When serial explosions ripped through the city of
Ahmedabad in the western Indian state of Gujarat
over the weekend, a fear of sectarian riots
gripped its people.
After all, nobody has forgotten the horrific
riots in Gujarat in 2002, when more than 1,000
mostly Muslim people died in violence sparked by
an attack on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims -
killing 59 of them.
Also, independent studies have shown that Gujarat
has the highest per capita rate of deaths in
communal rioting and clashes among all states in
India, at around 117 per million in urban areas.
The same studies also show that the cities of
Ahmedabad and Baroda accounted for more than 75%
of these deaths between 1950 and 1995 alone.
And in a blow to supporters of secular politics,
the vote share of Hindu nationalist parties in
Gujarat shot up from a mere 1.4% in 1962 to
47.37% in 2004 - while the share of votes for the
centrist Congress party dipped from 50.8% in 1962
to 43.86% in 2004.
Nothing much has changed fundamentally since the
last bout of rioting in 2002, which triggered off
international condemnation of the Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - which
led the state government then and continues to do
so now.
Sectarian divide
Narendra Modi, its controversial chief minister,
has been accused of failing to protect Muslims in
the 2002 riots. He still heads the government and
has been chief minister for the past six years.
The sectarian divide between the Hindus and
Muslims has widened. The latter make up 10% of
the state's population and live almost entirely
in ghettos.
Yet the state continues to perform exceedingly
well economically - a quarter of India's revenues
come from Gujarat.
But this time Mr Modi took the lead in taking
charge of the situation, calling the army out to
hold marches in potentially volatiles areas and
appealing for calm.
"My friends and I were very angry with the people
who exploded the bombs, but we agreed with our
leader that violence begets more violence," said
a local resident, Bharat Bhai, who was wounded in
one of the blasts.
Narendra Modi visiting the injured at a Ahmedabad hospital
Narendra Modi called in the army to maintain peace
It also helped there were no incendiary
statements from Hindu nationalist leaders,
despite the fact that many of the areas targeted
were dominated by Hindus.
"The stakes are too high for Narendra Modi this
time. He aspires to become a prominent leader in
India's national politics. He does not want to
give a slur to Gujarat's reputation as a favoured
business destination," says social scientist
Achyut Yagnik, who has written extensively on the
state.
"That is why he took control immediately, unlike
the last time when the riots were clearly
engineered."
A police inspector in the predominantly
Muslim-dominated area of Shahpur said his force
had been working hard to avert a repeat of 2002
since Saturday's blasts - a far cry from that
year when the police looked the other way in many
areas when the rioting continued.
"There was tension between Hindus and Muslims
here following the blasts. We sensed that and
held a meeting with members of the two
communities," said PN Joshi.
This definitely helped in preventing reprisal
attacks - after all the people behind the
explosions, say police and analysts - knew the
"social geography" of the places they targeted.
Maninagar, which was rocked by three explosions,
is the assembly constituency of Narendra Modi.
A blast in Bapunagar took place close to a
private hospital run by the firebrand leader of
the radical Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Praishad
(VHP) Pravin Togadia.
Sarangpur, another blast site, is the
constituency of senior BJP leader and speaker of
the state assembly Ashok Bhatt.
Climate of fear
Upscale neighbourhoods, thriving shopping malls
and government premises were left alone. The
people responsible were targeting areas where
prominent BJP leaders have support bases.
Riots in Gujarat in 2002
More than 1,000 people died in rioting in Gujarat in 2002
Analysts say those responsible for the blasts
were sending out two messages - that they could
strike at will despite the state machinery; and
that they were capable of creating a climate of
fear.
But, at the end of the day, the explosions will
only end up helping the BJP politically as the
fearful majority Hindus gravitate towards the
party.
"More people will now rally around the BJP. It
will lead to consolidation of the BJP in the
urban areas. A fear psychosis among Hindus only
helps the BJP," says Achyut Yagnik.
Analysts insist Ahmedabad remains a tinderbox,
with relations between Hindus and Muslims
strained and polarisation between the two
communities complete.
A lot of people feared reprisal attacks from
disgruntled Muslim groups after the 2002 riots,
but that never happened.
Some 145,000 Muslims became homeless after the
riots - the majority of them in Ahmedabad - and
ended up living in fetid refugee camps.
Sectarian positions have hardened: when a
prominent Mumbai-based civil right activist who
has been fighting for justice for the victims of
the 2002 riots and an actor arrived at the civil
hospital in Ahmedabad over the weekend to meet
the wounded, family and friends of the victims
hounded them out of the place.
They called the civil rights activist "a mouth piece of the terrorists".
Muslims in a refugee camp in Gujarat
Thousands of Muslims continue to live in refugee camps
So the fact that there was no rioting in what is
arguably India's most polarised city is
principally because the state machinery under
Narendra Modi decided to be firm this time.
"The only other saving grace is that the economic
relations between Hindus and Muslims have held
strong in the context of the economic boom that
Gujarat has enjoyed," says Achyut Yagnik.
In which case, Gujarat's economic boom has come
as a blessing in more ways than one.
With inputs from Zubair Ahmed in Ahmedabad
______
[9]
INDIA: COMMUNALISTS - OVERT AND COVERT: HINDUTVA
POISON IN JAMMU / GOVT ON RAM SETHU / ASHARAM
BAPU, SRI SRI AND CO
Kashmir Times
July 28, 2008
Editorial
IRRATIONAL AND XENOPHOBIC
Slogans of 'Quit Jammu' betray communal mind-set
That the Jammu agitation on the Amarnath land
transfer controversy is taking a more communal
turn is a cause for concern not just for the
minorities in the state but all those for whom
secularism, communal harmony and the integrity of
Jammu and Kashmir is dear. The latest 'Quit
Jammu' outburst by a BJP leader asking Kashmiri
Muslims to leave Jammu only smacks of xenophobia
and racism and ought to be condemned and opposed
in the strongest possible words. By raking up
such slogans, the BJP has not only vitiated the
atmosphere more, creating insecurities in the
minds of the Kashmiris staying in Jammu but also
the minorities in Jammu region. It also reflects
the divisive agenda of the BJP and its cohorts
who should realise that politics of exclusion on
atavistic lines has never served any noble cause.
Puerile xenophobia only creates insecurities and
social and economic instability which is not in
the interests of this state, much less Jammu
city. While there are many Kashmiri Muslims
living in Jammu region, a large number of Hindus
from Jammu are also putting up in the Valley.
Besides, in both the regions, due to the state's
two capital formula, entailing the annual durbar
move practice, the movement of people from one
region of the state to the other is a regular
feature. Such slogans, therefore, also end up
making lives of the common masses vulnerable.
There is neither any legal, logical or ethical
basis of raking up such a demand that seeks to
prevent people from traveling to certain parts of
the state. Already, the Muslims of this state
have been wrongly branded as 'terrorists' and
harassed in several parts of the country. Why
should they now be harassed in their own home
state as well? A year back, separatist leader
Syed Ali Shah Geelani had revealed a similar
xenophobic streak by whipping up frenzy with his
demand to oust all outsider labourers from the
state. It took time for saner elements to prevail
and make those supporting such a call to realise
the perils and irrationality of such a move. The
BJP's call is far worse than that. It seeks to
curb the rights of the individuals of this state
within the peripheries of the state.
The BJP leader has maintained that the supporters
of Geelani, PDP and National Conference and all
those who have built their homes on the forest
land of Bhatindi would not be allowed in this
state. And how may one ask he proposes to begin a
screening of those supporting these politicians?
And as far as Bhatindi's vast forest area turned
into a posh colony is concerned, it is not simply
the domain of the Kashmiri Muslims but people
from various ethnicities and religions including
the Hindus of Jammu. And, how does one
distinguish the Kashmiri Muslim from the rest? Is
it by language? Many people from Doda and Poonch
are also known to speak Kashmiri? Essentially,
such slogans seek to be whip up frenzy against
all Muslims in the eventual run. While it is
important to oppose such prejudiced and communal
slogans, the genesis of such a pernicious demand
also needs to be understood. After whipping up
frenzy on the Amarnath land controversy, the
Sangh Parivar is working overtime to give it an
out an out communal direction so that it can
fully go ahead with its Hindutva agenda. Besides,
it also seems to be inspired by the equally
senseless demand of a separate state on communal
lines. While divisions on communal lines spark
hatred and bloodshed, the interests of this state
best served with the plurality of the state
maintained by a unique balance of overlapping
cultures. Besides, the economies of various
regions of the state are interdependent. The
Sangh Parivar is also trying to create deeper
communal divides by referring to the state police
as a 'communal Kashmiri force'. Such malicious
propaganda is absolutely baseless. The police
force is not divided into Jammu police or Kashmir
police. It is a united force comprising of people
of all regions and religions. Such voices of
irrationality and hatred will only vitiate the
atmosphere and will turn out to be lethally
suicidal. Besides, they go against Jammu's
culture of hospitality, harmony and it's vastly
plural capacity to absorb several cultures. Such
xenophobic hysteria must be shunned with the
contempt it deserves.
o o o
Mail Today
25 July 2008
Comment
CITING THE SCRIPTURE IS NOT A GOOD IDEA
JUST as we thought that the United Progressive
Alliance government had emerged from a serious
crisis and could focus on the more serious task
of governance, it has put its foot in its mouth
and created a needless controversy. Perhaps, as
is being alleged by the Opposition, it is paying
the price for the support during the trust vote
of a vital constituent of the UPA - whose
advocacy of the Sethusamudram Shipping Project is
well known. Yet, the government has committed the
very mistake it did earlier when it told the
Supreme Court that Lord Rama had never existed.
That time, the government had to beat a hasty
retreat for needlessly sitting in judgment on a
religious belief. This time, strangely enough, it
has cited religious texts, the Padma Purana and
Kamba Ramayan , to claim that the Ram Sethu had
been destroyed by Lord Rama himself and hence
could not be an object of worship. Those who
formulate the government's legal position seem to
have forgotten that they represent the government
of a secular party which governs a secular
country. It would have been perfectly valid for
the government to argue for the continuance of
the project on the basis of economic
considerations. The canal across the natural
formation, known as the Adam's Bridge or
Sethusamudram, does drastically reduce the
distance for ships traveling between the eastern
and western seaboards of the country. The use of
a religious text to argue the case also
obfuscates the more tangible objections that have
been raised against the project on economic,
geological, ecological and strategic grounds.
Besides responding to these objections with the
help of considered opinion, the government needs
to explain why the project cannot pursue an
alternate path which delivers the same results,
as the Supreme Court reiterated on Wednesday. The
latter course will ensure the economic gains,
even while meeting the objections of those who
argue that it was indeed a bridge built by Lord
Rama.
o o o
Godmen and Mortal World
HAPPENINGS AT ASARAM BAPU'S ASHRAM
by Ram Puniyani
Death of two students of Gurukul (traditional
schools run by Hindu Gurus) of Asaram Bapu's
Ashram (July 2008) has raised multiple questions.
The children staying in the Ashram were missing
for some time before being found dead near the
river. The post mortem showed that some of their
organs are missing. The parents of the children
accused the Ashram residents for practicing black
magic and removing children's organs. Asaram in
reply said that the residents of his ashram hear
Bhagvat and other holy books, how they can be
involved in such an act and that they won't even
kill a dog. Later two related events took place.
One, when Asaram had to travel by air and as a
part of security drill he was frisked second
time, a random check applied some times, his
followers created ruckus. The listeners of
Bhagvat etc. rampaged and expressed their anger
for the Holy man being subjected to the mundane
rules. Also the same ashramites attacked the
journalists, severely beating up a woman
journalist, who had to be hospitalized. So much
for the Bhagvat induced tolerant attitude!
This holy man has lot of other incidents to his
account. In Jhabua area his female Sadhvis beat
up the nuns in the Christian mission school when
a 13year old girl was raped and killed by an
outsider, who had nothing to do with the school.
The same Holy seer sat on protest dharana when
Shankaracharya was arrested on the charges, which
were far from divine. An act of solidarity
indeed! An FIR has also been filed against him
for grabbing one and a half acre of land in
Patna. He has a vast network of devotees and
followers, even his disciples are giving
pravachans (holy discourse), keeping his photo in
the backdrop. He is in the race for the most
popular Goodman, along with Sri Sri Ravishaker,
Baba Ramdeo amongst others.
His is not an isolated case. While these three
top Godmen are very visible, they are not the
only ones. This phenomenon is sprawling and one
can see them mushrooming every where with ever
increasing following. Recently in Kerala one
Godman created scene when arrested by police.
Shakarachraya's Ashram also showed lot of muck in
its cupboard. Surely this is the most
proliferating phenomenon in recent times marching
parallel with increase in the religiosity and
might of RSS at social and political level.
There are types and types of godmen but still one
can say that majority of them are politically
close to the RSS/VHP/BJP combine. Asaram Bapu sat
on dharana along with Vajpayee et al and
recently. Sri Sri Ravishanker and Baba Ramdeo
were all praises for Advani while releasing his
autobiography, which justifies the politics of
Hate and his own role in that. They subtly spread
the message that minorities are violent as they
consume meat etc. forgetting that the most
violent person of all the time Hitler was a
vegetarian. And the followers of these Godmen are
mercurial in their temper and aggressive in their
stance. Another such 'Holy man, Narendra Mahraj's
followers also created trouble when he was not
permitted to carry his holy staff in the
aeroplane. They were also involved in the attack
on nuns in Alibaug, these nuns were doing the
AIDS awareness work and that was presented as
'conversion' a pretext enough to beat them up.
[. . .]
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2008/07/happenings-at-asaram-bapus-ashram.html
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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