SACW | July 30-31, 2008 / Black July: Colombo, Swat, Ahmedabad / Jihadi Undies / Indore Under Hindutva

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | July 30-31, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2546 - 
Year 10 running

[1] Sri Lanka: No Lessons Learnt From 'Black July' of 1983 (Feizal Samath)
[2] Pakistan:
   (i) Red mist
   (ii) Taliban warn 'un-Islamic' businesses of dire consequences
  (iii) Terrorists develop 'suicide underwear' (Imran Asghar)
[3] Bangladesh: Make women ineligible to become head of govt, state 
Khelafat Andolon tells govt in dialogue
[4] India - Bombings in Gujarat:
  - Bomb blasts and Instant Suspects - How the politics of hate is 
being taken for granted as Necessary Routine	(K.M.Venugopalan)
  - 'Cold-Blooded Murderers' (C.M. Naim)
  - The Larger Toll of India's Terror Blasts (J. Sri Raman)
  - India should not become like Israel, beyond repair and utterly 
vulnerable (Jyotirmaya Sharma)
  - The Gujarat Bombings: Real terrorists and blockbuster villains 
(Mukul Kesavan)
  - A city divided (Amrita Shah)
[5] India: Communal Violence in Indore (Jaya Mehta, Vineet Tiwari)
[6] India: Secularism and nations survival (V R Krishna Iyer)

______


[1]


Inter Press Service
23 July 2008

Inter Press Service

SRI LANKA:  NO LESSONS LEARNT FROM 'BLACK JULY' OF 1983

by Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Jul 23 (IPS) - On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the 
1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka there are few signs that any 
positive lessons have been learnt from the gory events that changed 
this island nation's history and sent a once booming economy into a 
downward trajectory.

Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the think tank Centre 
for Policy Alternatives and an often-quoted political analyst, says 
billions of dollars have since been spent on the quarter century of 
ethnic strife that followed 'Black July'.

"We are nowhere near a solution than we ever were,'' he said, adding 
that the present government does not seem interested in a negotiated 
settlement.

Most victims from the Tamil minority community are reluctant to speak 
about the terrible tragedy that befell them on Jul. 24, 1983 and 
thereafter. "Why talk about the past?" said one elderly Tamil woman 
when asked to comment.

Widespread riots broke out in Colombo and southern Sri Lanka a day 
after 13 government soldiers were killed in an ambush by Tamil rebels 
in the northern city of Tamil-dominated Jaffna. Angry mobs from the 
majority Sinhalese community retaliated by attacking and killing 
Tamil residents, raping their women and setting fire to homes and 
shops. The pogrom followed bouts of anti-Tamil violence in 1958 and 
1977.

A Tamil industrialist K. Vignarajah spoke of how his wife, who owned 
and managed two garment factories that were razed to the ground, was 
devastated by the events. "Sarada (wife) was shocked and shattered by 
the events. We lost a house too but thank God nothing happened to 
us," he said, adding that soon after that the couple and their 
10-year-old daughter left for Britain.

"Sri Lanka would have been a paradise and even better than Singapore 
if not for this conflict," Vignarajah, now an international 
consultant on garments and a stock market investor, says. "It was the 
absurdity of chauvinistic politicians who are responsible for this 
situation. We have many friends amongst the Sinhalese," he added.

Vignarajah's daughter lives and works in Britain, but he, after 
spending time in the southern Indian city of Chennai, has returned to 
Sri Lanka.

Around 1981-82, Sri Lanka -- the first South Asia country to 
liberalise its economy, far ahead of India -- had a booming economy 
and was heading for the kind of prosperity enjoyed by the 'Asian 
Tiger' economies when the conflict reversed the trend.

Will Sri Lanka ever recover from this crisis? Noted peace activist 
Jehan Perera believes the situation has improved compared to the 
pre-1983 period as people now freely speak out on Tamil rights and 
Tamil autonomy. "Unlike earlier there is no animosity by the 
Sinhalese against the Tamils. Earlier because of the Tamil insurgency 
(and demands for an independent homeland), many Sinhalese saw the 
Tamils as their enemy.''

Perera added that there is a widespread view that the Liberation 
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has been leading the war against 
Colombo to secure a separate homeland in the north and east of the 
island for the Tamil minority, must be ''crushed''. "This is not an 
anti-Tamil feeling,'' he insists.

During the July 1984 riots many Sinhalese residents saved the lives 
and properties of Tamils from the gangs defying a curfew to maraud 
and rampage. Some Tamils were sheltered in Sinhalese houses during 
the violence as the mostly Sinhalese police and military looked on. 
The estimates of casualties varied from between 400 to 3,000 Tamils 
dead while more than 18,000 houses and commercial establishments were 
razed to the ground.

Hundreds of thousands of Tamils fled the country to India, Europe, 
Australia and Canada while Tamil youth joined various Tamil militant 
groups, including the LTTE, in droves. The LTTE later emerged as the 
most ruthless guerrilla group in the world, set up funding and 
promotion offices overseas and coerced Tamil expatriates to fund 
their war machine.

Many professionals from other communities have also left the country 
and still remain out as Sri Lanka struggles to contain a conflict 
that has cost more than 80,000 lives -- including combatants from 
among the military, the rebels, and civilians -- besides untold 
billions worth of damage and lost opportunities. Tourism, among the 
country's chief revenue earners, is now struggling to recover while 
garments exports and remittances from over a million Sri Lankan 
workers in the Middle East make up for the main earnings now.

Since 1983, the total economic loss, according to some estimates in 
1998, is 1.27 times of Sri Lanka's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while 
a million people have been displaced internally. However, the economy 
has grown at a creditable five percent on an average annually since 
1983 while drawing small levels of foreign investment.

The 33-month-old government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, after a 
couple of months trying to talk to the LTTE, launched a military 
offensive two years ago that has seen a great degree of success. The 
rebels have largely been driven away from the eastern region and have 
suffered serious reverses in parts of their main stronghold in the 
north.

Journalists are not permitted into the war zones. The few conducted 
trips by the military are not enough for an independent assessment of 
what parts remain under LTTE control or where its reclusive leader 
Velupillai Prabhakaran operates from. Kilinochchi, the town where the 
rebels have their official headquarters, is constantly being bombed 
by government war planes.

"I can't see any peace (in the near term)," says Saravanamuttu, 
adding that the army commander who said the rebels would be destroyed 
by the end of 2008 now says it would take the whole of 2009. ''Even 
if the government succeeds in chasing the Tigers from their 
headquarters, they will go into the jungle and resort to guerrilla 
warfare as before, unless there is a political settlement."

Perhaps the worst consequence of the protracted conflict has been the 
rising level lawlessness in society prompted by a sense of impunity 
that soem say has origins in the fact that none of the perpetrators 
of the 1983 violence were brought to trial. Human rights violations, 
by all parties, have steadily increased over the years.

Lately, the number of abductions of civilians -- mostly Tamils 
suspected of being connected to the LTTE -- has intensified, while 
assaults and harassment of journalists, critical of the war, have 
increased. This has not helped the cause of Tamil-Sinhalese amity.

Clashes between the Tamils and the Sinhalese majority originated with 
British colonial rulers favouring the Tamils in administrative, 
educational, and economic situations. Post independence the situation 
reversed with the majority community ruling the country and cornering 
plum jobs and the larger chunk of resources. Soon Sinhalese and Tamil 
sub-nationalism began to grow and became sharply polarised.

"I am not bitter and have no regrets but I feel sad for my country," 
says Chris Kamalendran, an experienced Tamil journalist and a victim 
of the riots. Kamalendran, living with his father, mother and other 
family members in the predominantly Sinhalese town of Homagama, south 
of Colombo, saw a mob --of mostly neighbours -- set fire and loot the 
family home. "I was angry, hurt and wanted revenge," he recalled, 
adding that he was restrained by moderate Sinhalese friends.

Kamalendran -- like many Tamils and Sinhalese -- is desperate for a 
solution in his lifetime so that "my daughter won't suffer''. 
Believing in communal amity, he has married a Sinhalese woman and has 
a daughter who follows Buddhism, the majority religion. But, he says, 
the problem will drag on ''until a national leader capable of 
providing a viable political settlement emerges''.

(END/2008)


_______



[2]  PAKISTAN:

(i)

RED MIST

July 24th 2008 | DELHI
 From The Economist print edition

Frightening and senseless threats to our correspondent from angry jihadists

BY SOME reckoning, the leaders of Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red 
Mosque, ought to be in prison. For six months last year, led by two 
clerical brothers, Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the mosque was 
a jihadist citadel. In the heart of Pakistan's capital, the brothers 
sent forth Islamist vigilantes. They kidnapped six Chinese women whom 
they accused of selling sex. They threatened to break the heads of 
music-cassette vendors. When President Pervez Musharraf demurred, the 
Red Mosquers bunkered down.

A siege ensued. "We will defend ourselves even to death," said Mr 
Ghazi, at a press conference inside the mosque's fortified walls. He 
spoke truth. A year ago this month, the then General Musharraf sent 
in the troops. In the ensuing gun-battle, Mr Ghazi and over 100 of 
his followers were killed. Mr Aziz escaped in a burqa; but was soon 
arrested. He has been charged with kidnapping and other crimes. But 
most of his accomplices are still at large. They include his wife, 
Umme Hassan, who ran a seminary for female jihadists. Indeed, she and 
her fellows have since set up shop in another seminary, outside 
Islamabad.

There, they like to rage against the government, the army, 
America-and, this month, our correspondent. An eminent Pakistani 
newspaper editor, and long-time contributor to The Economist, Najam 
Sethi has often aroused the wrath of his Islamist compatriots. But 
this latest incident, inspired by the liberal editorial line of 
Aajkal, an Urdu newspaper that he edits, is especially troubling. On 
July 11th-five days after a suicide-bomber killed 19 people, mostly 
policemen, near the Red Mosque- its clerics held a protest in 
Islamabad against Mr Sethi and his newspaper. They objected mostly to 
a cartoon it had printed, depicting Ms Hassan in the act of teaching 
burqa-clad students "how to kidnap Chinese masseuses".

Mr Sethi and his supporters defended the paper's right to a little 
harmless satire. In response, the clerics have claimed that the 
cartoon was blasphemous-and even compared it to cartoons in Denmark 
that ridiculed the Prophet. This is nonsense. It is also a supremely 
reckless way to criticise Mr Sethi. As the government has thankfully 
realised; it has sent armed guards to his newspaper and his house.

Why are these hoodlums free to terrorise law-abiding Pakistanis? It 
may be that many Pakistanis sympathise with their cause. After all, 
it is widely believed that hundreds of good Muslims died at the Red 
Mosque. But that is no excuse for the government to refrain from 
using the law to restrain those who incite violence.

o o o


(ii)

Daily Times, July 31, 2008

TALIBAN WARN 'UN-ISLAMIC' BUSINESSES OF DIRE CONSEQUENCES

* Group sets 15-day deadline for CD shops, cafes to close down
* Says women to wear hijab or be ready to get burnt with acid

by Shahnawaz Khan

LAHORE: Tehreek-e-Islami Taliban Pakistan (TITP) has distributed a 
fifteen-days notice to several "un-Islamic" businesses in Kot Addu to 
shut down or face dire consequences.

The TTIP wrote threatening letters to owners of CDs shops, Internet 
cafes and cable service providers urging them to close down their 
activities.

Similarly, the group warned that women must wear hijab to ensure their safety.

Muzaffargarh District Police Officer (DPO) Shahzad Sultan told Daily 
Times that Rao Yasin, owner of Nomi Video Center, at Railway Road 
received one such letter.

Sultan said the police have increased the security though it could 
not independently confirm the group's activities.

Kot Addu Police Station House Officer (SHO) Irfan Khosa said that 
another person, who requested anonymity, received a similar letter 
and the police have registered a case in this regard.

The letter, typed and printed on computer, had Baitullah Mehsud's 
photograph on it along with two gunmen, Khosa said. There were also 
Quranic verses about Jihad around the picture, he added.

The message said that Western and Indian media was damaging the 
character of youths and madrassah students, the official said. The 
business of music and movies is 'Haram', it added.

The message then warned that those who continued their businesses 
after the 15-day deadline expired would be dealt with sternly.

Acid: The second paragraph said that within five days of the receipt 
of the letter, every woman not wearing Hijab would be disfigured with 
acid.

Very soon we would cleanse earth from the traitors of Allah, the 
third paragraph said.

Name of Khalid Mehsud, purported local Taliban leader, was printed at the end.

o o o

Daily Times
July 31, 2008

TERRORISTS DEVELOP 'SUICIDE UNDERWEAR'

by Imran Asghar

RAWALPINDI: Would-be suicide bombers could be using explosives 
"underwear briefs" rather than explosives jackets to evade 
"conservative" body searches, sources said on Wednesday.

Sihala Police College forensic lab sources told Daily Times that the 
study of recent suicide attacks showed that suicide bombers used 
"explosives-laden" under-garments, briefs in particular, to carry out 
the attacks.

The sources said that the explosives could weigh between five 
kilogrammes to seven kilogrammes, made deadly by adding glass 
splinters, metal ball bearings and bullets. The law enforcers 
normally search upper body parts sparing the "privates", the sources 
said, hence assailants are increasingly using the lower body parts to 
dodge the searches. The sources said that forensic experts were 
trying to devise methods to pre-empt suicide bombing. The experts 
have achieved successes in "Post Bombing Investigation," the sources 
said, adding that resources are sharpening "Pre Bombing 
Investigation" techniques.

_____


[3]

Bangladesh:

The Daily Star
13 July 2008

MAKE WOMEN INELIGIBLE TO BECOME HEAD OF GOVT, STATE KHELAFAT ANDOLON 
TELLS GOVT IN DIALOGUE

by Staff Correspondent

Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan (BKA) yesterday called upon the interim 
government to make women ineligible for becoming head of the 
government or the state.

"We have told the government to take measures so that men hold the 
top executive positions and no woman assumes the responsibility of 
head of state or government," said BKA Secretary General Muhammad 
Zafrullah Khan in a joint press briefing following the party's 
dialogue with the panel of advisers led by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin 
Ahmed.

The BKA during the dialogue also suggested reintroducing presidential 
form of government in the country and mentioning religion of voters 
on voter identity cards to determine their religious identity.

The party urged the government to implement the recommendations made 
by Baitul Mukarram National Mosque's acting Khatib-led committee that 
was formed to review the National Women Development Policy 2008.

A seven-member delegation of the BKA, led by Amir-e-Shariah Shah 
Ahmedullah Ashraf, attended the dialogue and demanded the release of 
those held for violence from the Baitul Mukarram area during a 
demonstration over the National Women Development Policy 2008.

The party, however, demanded promulgation of a law banning 
destructive activities such as hartal and blockade.

BKA at the talks put forward a 30-point demand that includes 
formulation of an electoral policy. They demanded that the policy 
would have to ensure a free, fair, meaningful and acceptable election 
while barring the agnostics, identified corruptionists, black money 
holders, murderers, terrorists, convicts and bankrupts from 
participating in the elections.

They also proposed increasing parliamentary seats in accordance with 
the rising population in the country.

Zafrullah said handing over the responsibility of the country's 
education to any NGO would be disastrous. "We also urged the 
government [to take a stand] against foreign interference in our 
internal affairs," he added.

[. . .] .

_____


[4]  BOMBINGS IN GUJARAT :  REFLECTIONS


www.mynews.in/
30 July 2008

HOW THE POLITICS OF HATE IS BEING TAKEN FOR GRANTED AS NECESSARY ROUTINE
About the Bomb blasts and Instant Suspects

by K.M.Venugopalan

Same story, in which Muslims as a community end up being repeatedly 
asked to prove their credentials in patriotism and Muslim youths get 
arrested arbitrarily after every blast, is being played out, with 
only minor changes in scripts.

This is in great contrast with material evidences like and artificial 
beards and wigs (obviously kept for using as make up material for 
disguising as Muslim terrorists) reportedly found by police in a VHP 
headquarters where two VHP workers died in an accidental bomb blast 
in Nandhed, Maharashtra.

Similar incriminating evidences which directly point to the 
involvement of the RSS were reportedly available in the course of 
investigation of so many incidents of blasts,for example Ajmeer, 
where names of Muslim organizations had been given out in the first 
place as suspects.

The role of Narendra Modi''s administration and the top brass of the 
BJP in the post-Godhra pogroms of 2002 is already too well-known to 
mention again.

This is not to suggest that Jehadi Islam propagating hatred in the 
name of Islam together with a few real  Muslim Organizations 
committed to a politics fuelled only by the feeling of insecurity so 
rampant in the community, and quite a few of them dependent largely 
on ideological distortion of Islam supporting institutionalized 
violence against women are just non-entities.

On the contrary, I wish to suggest that the Jehadi Islam is like a 
twin brother of VHP/RSS brand of Hinduism. Both will join hands on 
every occasion where people begin to ask questions when their genuine 
voices are being suppressed, pre-empted by these crooked politicians 
representing the forces of obscurantism. For example Ajmeer, where 
names of Muslim organizations had been given out in the first place 
as suspects.

The role of Modi's administration and the top brass of the BJP in the 
post-Godhra pogroms of 2002 is already too well-known to mention 
again.

This is not to suggest that Jehadi Islam propagating hatred in the 
name of Islam together with a few real  Muslim Organizations 
committed to a politics fuelled only by the feeling of insecurity so 
rampant in the community, and quite a few of them dependent largely 
on ideological distortion of Islam supporting institutionalized 
violence against women are just non-entities. 

On the contrary, I wish to suggest that the Jehadi Islam is like a 
twin brother of VHP/RSS brand of Hinduism. Both will join hands on 
every occasion where people begin to ask questions when their genuine 
voices are being suppressed, pre-empted by these crooked politicians 
representing the forces of obscurantism.

o o o

outlookindia.com
29 July 2008

'COLD-BLOODED MURDERERS'

'I read the email, purportedly from 'Indian Mujahideen', with 
increasing dread and disgust. Dread for what it can cause, and 
disgust (and worse) for the minds that created it... ...

by C.M. Naim

We shared the email from "Indian Mujahideen", received by some media 
outlets minutes before the blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26, with 
Professor Naim and wondered if he might want to comment on it. Given 
the inflammatory potential, and the readers' right to be informed 
about the contents of this email, we also solicited his views on 
whether or not it should be published in full as it clearly seemed to 
be aimed at stoking communal passions so as to set off a 
conflagration. This is Professor Naim's response. We hope to share 
more responses from others in the days to come

***

I read the e-mail with increasing dread and disgust. Dread for what 
it can cause, and disgust (and worse) for the minds that created it. 
It also made me aware, more than ever before, the constraints under 
which press must work.

It is a carefully prepared document, by someone who is fairly well 
educated and informed. The English has only a few errors. The 
arguments are made in a 'rational' manner, showing the 'cause' first 
and only then the 'effect.' The document is laid out and printed with 
care and expertise. The two signatories must be quite 'modern.' They 
may even take pride in being so good at controlling modern (Western) 
technology.

The writers wish to project a facade of calm, deliberate thinking, 
but they do lose it several times. Their anger and feelings of hatred 
take over. Of course, they are not themselves victims of the crimes 
they mention. They are self-appointed revenge-takers, with no thought 
for what their actions might bring to many more innocent people even 
on their side of the religious divide, not to mention the innocent 
non-Muslims whom they intend to make targets of their hatred.

Most of the 'villains' they list by name and charge with specific 
criminal deeds are indeed villains. But the self-proclaimed 
'Mujahids' expose their imbalanced thinking when they generalise and 
accuse undifferentiated groups. To their own mind, of course, there 
is no imbalance. For them the entire world is divided into four 
groups: themselves, the Righteous; their enemies, the Kaffirs; the 
traitors among their own, the Munafiqs; and the rest of their own who 
must fit themselves into one of the preceding categories before they 
could count for anything. Otherwise the latter don't matter to the 
writers one bit. That's how all fascists think. Come to power, their 
first targets will be women and children.

How does one respond to what they write? (this is in response largely 
to the portions that we have excised, at least for now, from the 
'Indian Mujahideen' email which appears as a link at the bottom of 
this page)

On 'facts' they are not wrong. The verses they quote are in the 
Qur'an, and the translations are well accepted. The liberals 
introduce History when they interpret, placing every verse in some 
'historical' context; the fundamentalists take the verses literally 
and as universally applicable. For them Qur'an is above history. 
Their translations or interpretations also do not employ such 
expressions as 'metaphorically speaking,' 'symbolically speaking,' 
and 'psychological truth.' Anyone who charges them of putting 'God's 
Truth' into a context not intended at the time of its revelation is 
wasting his breath. But that's what Asghar Ali Engineer and C M Naim 
will do in a knee-jerk fashion. Beyond that, we may only hope that by 
doing so we succeed in convincing at least a few among the Mujahids' 
intended Muslim audience to think in terms of their own lived and 
felt religion, i.e. the Islam of their mothers and grandmothers along 
side the Islam of their fathers and grandfathers, the Islam of the 
indigent and weak, the Islam of the sufis, the Islam that puts faith 
in a God who is foremost 'Most Gracious, Most Merciful.'

One cannot hope to convince the writers of the pamphlet of anything.

One can only hope to limit their influence. That's where Asghar Ali 
Engineer and C M Naim serve no purpose. The burden lies entirely on 
the Ulama of Deoband and Nadwa, and on the qazis and muftis in large 
and small towns. I deliberately leave out people like the Madani 
brothers and the heirs of Banatwala and Uwaisi-they are unscrupulous 
political beasts, as much interested in power as the writers of the 
pamphlet, though in different ways. Asking them to do something would 
only give them undue public attention. Common Muslim is to be 
protected from them as much as from the Mujahids. But the former 
should be asked to stand up and be counted. And they should also be 
asked to restrain themselves within secular laws when they start 
declaring Ahmadis and Taslima Nasreen and Salman Rushdie infidels and 
heretics and therefore to be hurt and harassed.

Remember in Pakistan the downward slide in its polity began when the 
'socialist' Z A Bhutto converted the Pakistani parliament into an 
inquisition and had Ahmadi Muslims declared non-Muslim-just to save 
his own hold on the state. It is a slippery slope to perdition, this 
business of mixing religion and politics.

Should you publish it?

Do you always publish everything that comes to you for publication? 
What would I do if I were in your position? At this moment I would 
not put the pamphlet on the web, though I'm sure a Google search 
tomorrow or day after would show that it is being read in abundance. 
I would send it to the Mufti of Deoband, with a formal request for a 
fatwa. 'The people who make these claims in the name of Allah and His 
Prophet and cause bloodshed and disharmony between people in the land 
where they live, are these people righteous Muslims?'

To my mind, they are cold-blooded murderers. They are also pathetic 
in their anxiety to be seen as the sole perpetrators of these crimes. 
If they were any different, they would come forward and take the 
'credit' and its consequences publicly, thus saving innocent people 
from being killed in a spiral of vengeful killings. They are both 
cowards and criminals.

My asking for a fatwa against them is not a political act; it's an 
appeal to the Ulama to take some bold and sustained steps against the 
menace that will eventually destroy them too. They have access to 
mosques, pulpits and madrassas; only they can make them secure. Their 
fatwa will not make any difference to these 'modern' Mujahids, but it 
may give some comfort to the victims and will strengthen those among 
the pious who wish to condemn and oppose this monstrous subversion of 
their religion.

C.M. Naim is Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago

o o o

THE LARGER TOLL OF INDIA'S TERROR BLASTS

by J. Sri Raman

truthout.org, 29 July 2008

photo
Indian activists hold candles and protest the violent suicide attacks 
that have taken place across the country. (Photo: Reuters)

     Terror and tragedy have revisited parts of Ahmedabad, capital of 
India's state of Gujarat, which have yet to forget the fascist 
violence witnessed in the early months of 2002.

     Narendra Modi, who had presided over a pogrom then as the state's 
chief minister, was at the helm again on July 26, when a series of 16 
bomb blasts shook the city and the country. Six years ago, Modi had 
defended the massacre as something the religious minority deserved. 
He was back at his demagogic best now, describing the blasts as "a 
war on India."

     He hardly needed to say who, he thought, had declared the war. 
His flock knew fully well whom he had in mind: Pakistan and its 
"fifth column," the Indian Muslims. The Ahmedabad blasts have brought 
a fresh reinforcement of ammunition for the far right.

     The people of India cannot be blamed for seeing the latest in a 
long series of such blasts as a war on them. They could not but 
identify with the very common, surviving victims - including a street 
vendor of vegetables, a disconsolate wife and an eight-year-old boy 
who had just acquired a bicycle but won't ride it any more - of the 
terror strike that has so far claimed a toll of 49 lives. More may 
die in the crowded hospitals, two of which also were targeted in the 
first instance of its kind in India.

     Muslims were among the victims, and they were recognizable in 
their caps among the mourners. No religious-communal riots have thus 
far followed the blasts, as was excitedly anticipated by some experts 
of the security establishment. The far right, however, has never let 
such facts deter it unduly.

     It hopes to draw greater mileage from the Ahmedabad outrage for 
following blasts in better-known Bangalore, the country's cyber 
capital occupying a prominent place on the world's outsourcing map. 
Just a day before, on July 25, Bangalore rocked with six blasts, 
though these claimed a toll, mercifully, of only two lives.

     On December 28, 2006, unidentified gunmen opened fire in 
Bangalore's prestigious Indian Institute of Science, then hosting an 
international conference, and killed one scientist. Ever since, the 
city has been much discussed as a target of economic importance for 
terrorism.

     The Ahmedabad and Bangalore blasts have come just over two months 
after the explosions in Jaipur. The seven terrorist bombs in the 
colorful capital of the state of Rajasthan, a tourist favorite, 
claimed no less than 80 innocent civilians.

     Five basts similar to those in Ahmedabad and Bangalore killed 13 
people in three cities - Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad - in India's 
most populous state of Uttar Pradesh on November 23, 2007. On August 
26 of the same year, two explosions killed 42 in the southern city of 
Hyderabad, also known as a hub of information technology.

     Of more far-reaching consequences were the seven bomb blasts in 
suburban trains in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) on July 11, 2006, in 
which 209 were killed. We can keep going all the way back to the 
Mumbai blasts of March 1993 - 13 of them, with an unbeaten toll of 
over 250 lives. But we won't, as the Jaipur bombings mark a line of 
departure in the far-right discourse on the subject.

     Until the Mumbai train blasts, the investigative agencies and 
others had made a practice of immediately and instinctively 
attributing such strikes to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence 
(ISI). This instrument of Pakistan's Army had certainly never 
carefully concealed its activities in India's Punjab, when it was 
facing a separatist insurgency, or in Kashmir, especially in the 
eighties. After the terror on trains, the far right (which made no 
fine distinction between the ISI and the rest of Pakistan) started 
talking even more than before of the Indian Muslims' role in it all.

     After 7/11, which some proudly called India's own 9/11, Modi 
struck again. At a Mumbai rally, he proclaimed: "Not all Muslims are 
terrorists. But all terrorists are Muslims." Other far-right 
crusaders against terrorism were quick to take the cue. And they have 
been loud in their warnings against local "jihadis." Terrorist blasts 
have, since then, been attributed to an alliance of the 
Laskar-e-Toiba, a Kashmir militant group with a base in Pakistan and 
a homegrown Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

     If the far right has found proof of this alliance, it has yet to 
be shared with the public. Nor have the official agencies, which have 
distinguished themselves only by a dismal record of investigation in 
these cases.

     According to a review, the investigative agencies have not solved 
any of the 11 terrorist blast cases since 2005, and have not obtained 
a single conviction. Many of the persons arrested and charged in 
these cases were released for lack of evidence.

     Confronted with this failure, the far right counters by 
attributing it to the absence of a sufficiently tough law against 
terrorism. The Bharatiya Janata Party, the far right's political 
front, claims that the government in New Delhi has fortified 
terrorism by scrapping a law the previous regime under the BJP had 
enacted. The draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), modeled on 
the Patriot Act of the US and enacted in compliance with the 
post-9/11 command of the George W. Bush administration, met with 
popular resistance. The present rulers had to abolish it in order to 
keep a promise to the voters.

     Revival of the POTA is now likely to figure as a major item in 
the BJP's manifesto in the coming polls to some State Assemblies and, 
more importantly, in the general election due in May 2009. Party 
leader Lal Krisha Advani, projected as the prime minister-in-waiting, 
has seized the moment to stress the demand. Modi, whose own 
prime-ministerial ambitions are hardly a secret, may be expected to 
magnify the issue, taking advantage of the blasts in his backyard.

     The blasts cannot but strengthen the campaign in India's external 
covert operations agency for a similar battle on Pakistan's soil (see 
South Asia Awaits Another Secret War, Truthout, July 18, 2008). They 
will also help the far right's long-pursued designs to deepen the 
religious divide in India and pit its people against each other for 
political profit

     The explosions, in other words, can only empower further the 
Modis of India and their militarist counterparts in Pakistan.

o o o

Mail Today
June 29, 2008

INDIA SHOULD NOT BECOME LIKE ISRAEL, BEYOND REPAIR AND UTTERLY VULNERABLE

by Jyotirmaya Sharma

THE blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad once again would generate a 
largely futile debate about the internal security scenario in India. 
Political parties will fling charges of incompetence and 
ineffectiveness at each other. Calls to revive draconian laws such as 
POTA will grow louder. Very few voices will dare suggest that beyond 
questions of administration and policing lie larger issues of 
politics. And beyond the arena of politics are issues of whether we 
are any longer capable of living together in peace as civilised 
people. The BJP has always advocated special laws in order to tackle 
terrorist acts, a demand that loses its legitimacy at the very 
threshold of its ideological stand on minorities, and more so its 
recent record in a state like Gujarat. Administrative and police 
reforms make sense only when they go hand in hand with political and 
electoral reforms. Generating hysteria about the state of India's 
internal security often is a way for arguing that we become a 
surveillance state, more or less on the lines of Israel, a country 
that the Sangh Parivar greatly admires. Neurosis of the kind that 
Israel harbours leads to mindlessness of a high order, as was evident 
last May during my trip to that country.

Israel

The El Al security staff at Mumbai airport were not only suspicious 
of my beard and less than comforting looks, but also were greatly 
concerned about the fact that I was going to make a " presentation" 
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem without a computer or any 
slides or charts or graphs to show. I did not even have a pen drive 
in my possession to prove that I was indeed going to give a lecture 
at a university in Israel, for which I had a bonafide invitation. 
Worse still, the stamp of my visa, which read, " Invited by the 
Hebrew University of Jerusalem" was not good enough for the national 
carrier of that state. The security officer, then, proceeded to ask 
me why I taught political philosophy, and I was asked to give a small 
" presentation" on what I understood by political philosophy. 
Further, having noticed a copy each of my recent books in my hand 
luggage, the security officer proceeded to ask me what these books 
contained. I tried to give a gist of what they said. On hearing me, 
she asked, " Are you a Hindu?" I said I was a Hindu. " Why do you, 
then, write against Hinduism?" When I refused to answer such inane 
questions, she demanded that I present before her a gist of the paper 
I was going to present at the conference in Jerusalem. Had I agreed 
to do so, it would have made some sense to her because I write about 
contemporary India. But what if I was a scholar of Panini's grammar 
or of the philosophy of Bhartrihari? This wasn't enough. She demanded 
to know why I had recently switched from being a journalist and gone 
back to being an academic. None of this has a bearing on whether I 
was a potential terrorist or whether my tract on Hindutva was good 
enough, in itself, to blow an aircraft in mid- air. But the hysteria 
about security, which feeds on stereotypes, is also about proforma 
driven mindlessness. As I tried to contend with the security officer, 
who happened to be Indian, I wondered whether she might also be a 
sympathiser of the Shiv Sena or the BJP. Working for the Israeli 
national carrier and her own political affiliations, perhaps, had 
come to a happy and diabolical synthesis.

Price

In Israel itself, the suffocating preoccupation with security is 
alarming for someone who still manages to live in relative freedom, 
where one does not have to go through innumerable checks of identity 
and person to enter a university or a restaurant. The surveillance 
and security mechanism in that country is today independent of the 
democratic process and feeds on systematic brutalisation of everyone 
alike who refuses to participate in the Zionist nationalist vision. 
One has to go not too far from Jerusalem to see what the Israeli 
state has done in the name of security and demography to the many 
villages scattered in South Hebron. In this instance, the Israeli 
state has actually legitimised the Jewish settlers in Palestinian 
territories to oppress and dehumanise an entire population, the more 
malignant version of our own Salwa Judum. Of course, none of this 
helps in the long run. There is nothing one can do to prevent a 
suicide bomber from carrying out an attack and every bit of the 
oppressive security mechanism comes tumbling down with every such 
instance of gratuitous violence. The residual effect of this endless 
preoccupation with guns, closecircuit cameras, X- ray machines and 
identity cards is the creation of a Humpty Dumpty state and society, 
utterly vulnerable and beyond repair. Once such a state is created, 
the silent and disapproving majority goes into sullen silence and 
seldom questions the ways in which a democratic state argues in the 
name of saving human lives and protecting its citizens. This silence 
is the victory of the state as well as the terrorist. Caught between 
the two are ordinary human lives, insecure and vulnerable, and ready 
at all times to surrender liberties in the name of preserving the 
fundamental unit of existence, life itself.
Fear
On the flight back from Israel, the scene at the airport was no 
different. But the security officer, a lady, was less aggressive and 
less self- righteous. She too asked me questions about the conference 
paper I had given in Jerusalem as well as the lectures I had 
delivered elsewhere. The joy of returning home made me summarise for 
her a talk I had given at the Haifa University. I told her that there 
was a man called Gandhi in India. He was of the opinion that fear 
leads to force. But the initial application of force, if it is not 
legitimate and ethical, leads to greater fear. Greater fear, in turn, 
leads to reliance on greater force. It is a spiral that has no end 
and leads to destruction, brutalisation and annihilation. The 
security officer was a bright young girl. She smiled and let me go. 
The message had hit the target. Of course, I did not have the heart 
to tell her that I was carrying with me vivid memories of witnessing 
a brutal police reaction in South Hebron to a joint Israeli- 
Palestinian peace demonstration, and also had in my much searched and 
X- rayed bag, a documentary about the moral bankruptcy of the Israeli 
state, that was far more explosive than anything they could have 
found in the bag of a potential terrorist. What I could not tell her 
was that I live in mortal fear of my own country turning out this way.


o o o

The Telegraph
31 July 2008

THE GUJARAT BOMBINGS
- Real terrorists and blockbuster villains

by Mukul Kesavan

All acts of terror are shocking but the Gujarat bombs, both the ones 
that went off and the ones that didn't, are peculiarly unnerving. Not 
because of the evident planning and coordination of the explosions - 
synchronized or serial explosions seem to have become a standard 
feature of terrorist violence in India in recent times - but because 
the people who designed these carnivals of violence seem to be 
post-modern villains who both quote from and take their cues from 
popular cinema.

When I first read reports in the newspapers that the pattern of the 
Ahmedabad bomb explosions seemed inspired by Ram Gopal Varma's film, 
Contract, I didn't pay much attention. The reports claimed that there 
were uncanny similarities between the film and the terrorist 
atrocity. The terrorists in the film had apparently set off 
explosions in hospitals a little while after the first blasts, to 
target relief and rescue operations. Real life and real conspirators 
appeared to have mimicked the movie because the hospital bombings in 
Ahmedabad occurred an hour after the first explosions. Doctors were 
killed and, according to news reports, some good samaritans who had 
helped the people injured in the earlier blasts by taking them to 
hospitals, lost their lives as well. I thought this was a coincidence 
rather than a connection. I was sceptical because it seemed unlikely 
that terrorists about to do something as hideous and irreversible as 
blowing up people randomly, would need a Bollywood storyline to 
inspire them.

I began to take the connection more seriously when I read the 
threatening email sent to news outlets just before the blasts by a 
sender named 'Indian Mujahideen' from an email address that read: 
alarbi_gujarat at yahoo.com. "await 5 minutes for the revenge of 
GUJARAT" was the subject line and the body of the email carried a 
message that the stagiest scriptwriter in Hindi cinema would have 
hesitated to write for its most lurid villain:

"In the Name of Allah
The Indian Mujahideen strike again!
Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!"

The hideous truth was that the person who sent the email was in 
earnest because five minutes after it arrived the bombs did in fact 
go off and dozens of people in Ahmedabad felt the "terror of Death". 
That's when I began to wonder about the imagination of the 
conspirators and its connection with the tropes of popular cinema. 
There are so many movies made in Hollywood that feature a mocking 
villain taunting both law-enforcers and the fearful public with 
forewarnings of attacks, that it began to seem reasonable to suspect 
that life was, in this case, imitating art.

It was Wednesday's headlines about the 18 bombs in Surat that didn't 
go off that seemed to confirm the merger of real terrorists and 
villains in summer blockbusters. Eighteen live bombs were defused by 
policemen in Surat throughout the day. For three days running, the 
police had recovered unexploded bombs and cars loaded with 
explosives. Many of these bombs were found in congested, 
working-class areas in the city where terrorists had successfully set 
off bombs on the first day of the violence. This time round it seemed 
as if the plotters wanted the police to find the bombs because the 
newspapers reported that the the explosive devices weren't wholly 
concealed. The explosives had been made into boat-shaped objects and 
wrapped to be visible in coloured paper. They were placed, in two 
instances, in front of police stations. It was as if the bombs were 
props in a lethal Easter-egg game, where the policemen were the 
children and the terrorists were the designers of the diversion.

The use of plot-lines from popular cinema, the warning email before 
the event, just to let the world know that the conspirators are in 
complete control, the taunting 'treasure hunt' with bombs at every 
streetcorner, even on the doorsteps of police stations suggest 
perpetrators who don't just watch popular cinema as much as live and 
breathe it. The grotesque playfulness of the Surat episode is 
particularly hard to reconcile with the idea of adult vengeance for 
the Gujarat pogroms.

This isn't to say that the pogrom of 2002, where Muslims were 
massacred in public view in the presence of policemen, wasn't on the 
minds of the bombers. It may well have been. But it's hard to believe 
that anyone who had been directly affected by the killings would have 
plotted his revenge in this preening, taunting, clever-dick way. "The 
Indian Mujahideen strike again!" - this isn't raging grief from a 
pogrom victim; it's a line out of Zorro.

Because revenge for the Gujarat pogrom this is not. If anything, the 
bombings will help consolidate the systematic subordination of the 
province's Muslims that has been accomplished over the past six 
years. Every bomb that exploded (or didn't) helped demonize the 
community further, justified greater police surveillance and 
encouraged talk of 'the enemy within'. There's something surreal 
about an act of allegedly Muslim vengeance that allows Narendra Modi 
to look statesmanlike in the face of violent provocation. One 
newspaper speculated that Modi's restraint was part of a concerted 
effort to re-make his resume for a future bid at becoming prime 
minister. If it was, then the 'Indian Mujahideen' were supplying the 
cues for a script not of their devising.

For what it's worth, I don't think these explosions are the work of 
local Muslims. If the name "alarbi_gujarat" is any guide, the 
perpetrator's provenance is more likely to be Arabia than Gujarat. If 
it is an Indian Muslim who organized these explosions, he is a 
comfortable, tech-savvy, grandstanding hipster who probably plays 
first-person shooter games on a game console while drinking in the 
kool-aid of some internet hate site. There's a remote-controlled 
cleverness to the operation, a leering detachment that suggests a 
villain who lives half his life in a virtual world and the other half 
at the movies. May he spend the rest of it in solitary confinement, 
in a windowless cell.

o o o

Indian Express
July 31, 2008

A CITY DIVIDED

by Amrita Shah

Ahmedabad's divisions must be addressed for its own security

  It is not generally recalled that Ahmedabad is one of India's oldest 
surviving cities. Founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah (after whom 
the city is named) and then in turn Mughal, Maratha and British, 
Ahmedabad will be 600 years old in 2011. The original city was the 
walled city on the eastern side of the Sabarmati which runs through 
the city dividing it into two, one representing the past and the 
other the present aspect of the city. On the eastern side is a warren 
of intricately carved pols, temples, mosques and gates; the compounds 
of numerous textile mills that once gave Ahmedabad the tag 
"Manchester of the East"; and Shahibaug, the gardens laid out by Shah 
Jahan when he was viceroy in Gujarat, where Ahmedabad's old money has 
its mansions. On the west bank are modern institutions such as the 
IIM, busy shopping areas and the fast expanding residential areas of 
the upwardly mobile and aspiring middle and upper class.

Almost all the bombs that comprised Saturday's serial blasts were set 
off on the eastern side of the river. This today is an area of 
crowded markets selling hardware and electronics, chemicals traders 
and neighbourhoods of the genteel, the lower middle class, former 
mill-workers and the poor. The Civil Hospital, also a target, is one 
of the country's oldest and most efficient hospitals, a sprawling 
facility spread over 110 acres with specialists that draw equally 
from the low income groups in the city and prosperous Indians from 
overseas.

What did those who planted the bombs hope to achieve with their 
attack? Given that a group with Islamic overtones has claimed 
responsibility and that Ahmedabad was the nerve centre of the 2002 
communal violence, probably the worst assault on the Muslim minority 
community in post-independence India, revenge seems a clear motive. 
But the blasts are clearly also part of a larger pattern to 
destabilise Indian cities.

And India's seventh-largest city is a significant target. Despite a 
dip in the '80s and '90s, the city has come to be the centre of a 
thriving pharmaceutical and chemicals industry. Home to leading 
pharma companies, Zydus Cadila and Torrent, the fast growing Adani 
group, Nirma and a clutch of foreign concerns including Bosch 
Rexroth, the city is also a leading supplier of denim, gems and 
jewellery. Six years ago NASSCOM rated it fifth in a list of most 
attractive destinations for IT-enabled services. In recent years the 
city has expanded and undergone a further makeover with massive 
malls, new hotels, transport and beautification projects and the 
emergence on its outskirts of the Gujarat International Finance Tec 
City (GIFT), a futuristic-looking 27,000 ha finance and business 
district.

In fact, Narendra Modi has staked his reputation on development and 
while reports suggest his growth figures may have been wildly 
inflated, his vision of Ahmedabad as an emerging Singapore has 
fuelled optimism in the state. It is possible that Modi's reluctance 
to upset the city and the state's progress - evidenced in his focus 
on economic growth early in his last election campaign - is the 
reason for his uncharacteristically neutral response to Saturday's 
attacks, unlike his stance after the Godhra incident in 2002. Recent 
hoardings in the city, among other things, also suggest that his 
ambitions have expanded beyond Gujarat. And with an eye to Delhi it 
is possible that he wants to shed his demagogic image and project 
himself as a statesmanlike figure.

The consequences of anti-minorityism, however, cannot be wished away 
so easily. The last six years have seen no further disturbances in 
Ahmedabad, unusual for a city known for endemic communal violence. 
Yet this calm is a mere veneer and discrimination from Hindus and 
fear among Muslims has driven the latter out of mixed neighbourhoods.

Migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan form a substantial part of 
these enclaves; they were prominent targets in the 2002 riots. These 
and other victims have rebuilt their lives but still live with 
memories of past horrors and a belief that the state is not 
even-handed in its treatment of its citizens. Religion however is not 
the only grounds of disparity. Moving about the city, it is 
impossible to miss the blatant difference between the gleaming towers 
and lifestyle of the nouveau riche and the proliferating slums of the 
back streets.

Migration, discrimination and a growing disparity among the rich and 
the poor - these are the features prominently visible in Ahmedabad; 
they are also emerging characteristics of many Indian cities today. 
Suggestions made by intelligence authorities of local involvement in 
the blasts have still to be fully probed but these are possibly some 
issues for policy-makers to address for long-term measures in the 
fight against terrorism.

Mumbai-based Shah is the author of 'Hype, Hypocrisy and Television in 
Urban India'

______


[5]

The Economic and Political Weekly
July 26, 2008

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN INDORE

by Jaya Mehta, Vineet Tiwari

The "Bharat bandh" of July 3 saw communal violence erupt in Indore, 
with the police either on the sidelines or allegedly conniving in the 
attacks on the minorities. A number of events preceded the flare-up. 
Now fear and insecurity haunt the minority areas.

In the wake of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Vishwa Hindu 
Parishad's (VHP) call for an all-India bandh, Indore witnessed 
widespread violence on July 3 and 4, 2008. Eight persons died. (Seven 
of them were Muslims.) Many people were injured and were admitted to 
hospitals in a serious condition. This was just a glimpse of the 
communalist forces active in the town and in Madhya Pradesh (MP).

Background

Indore has had a glorious past of communal harmony. The Holkar state 
was known for its secular and progressive rule in the region. Indore 
was also a major textile centre in central India. Hindu and Muslim 
labourers worked side by side and the working class culture 
constituted a major bulwark against caste and religious divides. 
However, the mills have closed down. Indore is no longer an 
industrial town. It is now a major business hub and a real estate hot 
spot. Trade union politics has given way to communal politics. The 
working class culture has been replaced by the neorich culture of 
shopping malls.

The town is flush with loads of unaccounted money. At the same time, 
unemployed youth are available in large numbers for recruitment into 
various activities which characterise the distorted lumpen capitalism 
of our time.

After the BJP government came to power in the state again in 2003 the 
Hindu right wing organisations geared up their activities on all 
fronts and the local administration supported them. 'Path 
sanchalans'are organised regularly by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh 
(RSS) in different parts of the town. All public parks are used for 
morning 'shakhas'. The premise of a girls' college has been taken 
over to build a temple complex. 'Surya namaskar' is compulsory in all 
government schools.

Communal politics has made deep inroads in the administrative setup 
as well as in the audiovisual and print media. Temples in the 
premises of police stations are a common feature.

It is in this milieu that activists from the Bajrang Dal and other 
allied organizations have routinely registered their rowdy presence 
at the railway station, at the airport, in hospitals, and of course, 
on the streets. The Christian and Muslim communities have been 
attacked innumerable times. The Muslims retaliate locally. The 
Christians lodge their protests in various secular forums. However, 
the skirmishes occur with greater frequency than before.

As a background to the violence on July 3 and 4, one needs to mention 
two specific occurrences during the past year.

(1) Karbala Dispute: Over the last 150 years or so Muslims have been 
using a particular piece of land, the Karbala ground, for their 
three-day long fair of Moharram. This land was given to them in 1890 
by Holkar rulers. They have all the necessary proof regarding legal 
ownership of the land. In 2000, Bajrang Dal, RSS, VHP and BJP 
activists claimed that there was an old Hanuman shrine in the 
ground.A Hanuman idol was installed and they started worshipping 
there every Tuesday.

The case went to court. In 2006, the court mandated that such 
activity should stop. A huge protest was organised against the ruling 
in April 2006 and the 'aarti' continued. Taking no cognisance of the 
court order, the administration decided that the Hindu organisations 
would be allowed to perform aarti on Tuesdays and the Muslims would 
continue using this ground for the Moharram fair.

In 2007, Moharram fell on January 30, a Tuesday. The clashes between 
the two communities started 10 days in advance. Muslims were 
humiliated and beaten up mercilessly both by the saffron brigades and 
the police. One old imam in a mosque was beaten up by the police and 
both his legs were fractured.

On January 30, the administration decided that the Muslims would use 
the ground till 9 pm. After that the ground would be vacated for the 
Hindus to perform the aarti. The Muslims gathered on Karbala ground 
in a large number (about 5-10,000).

At 9 pm, a small group of Hindus reached there. The collector 
requested the Muslims to vacate the ground. The humiliated mass in 
thousands refused to vacate and were assaulted by the police. The 
Karbala issue has become a ready excuse for starting a confrontation 
at any time. The Hanuman idol is there, the mazaar or the dargaah is 
there in the other corner of the ground. Despite the presence of 
police security, the area is always tense.

(2) arrest of SImI activists: On March 27, 2008, the Madhya Pradesh 
police made a sensational arrest of 13 Students' Islamic Movement of 
India (SIMI) activists, who included Safdar Nagori, the 
organisation's top leader and Shibly Peedical Abdul, a Kerala born 
computer engineer, sought by the police since 2006. The media 
publicity that these arrests got generated an impression in the town 
that many Muslims in Indore had links with the terrorist 
organisation. A number of innocent people have been harassed by the 
police in this connection.

The cases were registered in Pithampur, an industrial suburb of 
Indore which belongs to Dhar district. The bar council of Dhar passed 
a resolution that no lawyer would take up the cases of those arrested 
in SIMI connections. When one lawyer came forward to take up the 
cases he was beaten up in the court. In this way, those arrested were 
denied their fundamental right of defence. Incidentally, Dhar has 
also been experiencing communal politics since the Babri demolition. 
The issue of Kamaal Moula masjid and 'Bhojshala' is known to everyone.

It is against this tense background that one looks at the happenings 
from July 3 onwards.

Chronology of Events

The VHP and BJP gave a call to observe the Bharat bandh on July 3 to 
protest against the Jammu and Kashmir government's order revoking the 
transfer of 40 hectares of land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board. 
The local leadership of BJP and the allied organisations naturally 
decided to make the bandh a big success. It was an opportunity to 
once again demonstrate their power. As the day broke, the saffron 
activists unleashed a reign of terror determined to stop all routine 
activities and in addition harass Muslims in the town in whatever way 
possible. At around 10 am, the bandh supporters marched in a 
procession and entered the Badwali Chowki, a Muslim dominated area. 
They shouted provocative slogans and misbehaved with local residents. 
There was not enough of a police force to control the hooligans. This 
happened afterwards in other Muslim dominated areas - Ranipura, 
Lodhipura, Mukeripura, Narsinghbazar, etc.

In Khajrana area, rowdy mobs of 10-15 teenage boys spread out and 
attacked, with hockey sticks, Muslim men and women walking on the 
roads. The victims were poor labourers wanting to go for work. Two 
women were coming home after a funeral. All these people were 
stopped, their religion was ascertained by their looks or by their 
names, and then they were beaten up. The police did not help the 
victims. They were left unattended on the road. When the Muslims went 
to the police station, there were only a few constables present and 
they refused to lodge their complaint. The Muslims then attacked the 
police station. This was sufficient for the police to behave in the 
most brutal manner. The bandh supporters were there in large numbers. 
The local 'patidar' community arrived on the scene with private guns. 
Some ammunition and arms was reportedly with Muslims also. There was 
firing resulting in the loss of three lives. Incidentally, all the 
three were Muslims. In Mukeripura area, when a mob of bandh 
supporters were near a masjid, they shouted provocative slogans. 
There was stone pelting from the rooftop of a building.

The bandh supporting mob started throwing stones in retaliation. On 
the local television channels one could see that the police stood by 
helpless, unable and unwilling to stop the violence. In all, four 
people died in the violence which erupted in the town on July 3, 
2008. Apart from three Muslims who died in Khajrana, one Sindhi Hindu 
youth died in Mukeripura. Local residents reported that he was 
playing cricket outside his house, when the saffron cadre took him to 
the riot affected area. He died there with head injuries. Police and 
district administration imposed curfew in four areas of the town.

The next day, on July 4, fresh violence erupted in many other areas 
and in Juna Risala, two lives were lost because of police firing. 
Newspapers say that Muslims coming back from the nearby masjid after 
'namaz' in Juna Risala started throwing stones and petrol bombs. The 
police was thus forced to open fire. However, according to the 
residents in the area the reality was just the opposite. The Muslims 
werecoming back peacefully after the namaz.

A petrol bomb was thrown on a scooter standing near the masjid. It 
caught fire, the Muslims were agitated. The saffron squads were 
present on the spot. The stone throwing took place from both sides 
and the situation got out of control. The police resorted to teargas 
shells and firing almost simultaneously. The area also has police 
residential quarters. The Muslims threw stones and petrol bombs on 
those houses and people witnessed that there was firing from the roof 
tops and from windows of the police quarters. Two people died in the 
firing (both Muslims). After this, curfew was imposed in the whole 
town.

On July 4, when curfew was imposed in the whole town, a religious 
procession of Venkatesh Mandir was not stopped in the Chhatripura 
area. Some 3,000 people participated in the procession. It is to be 
noted that the procession was taken out in an area, which had 
witnessed rioting and killing just a day before. Sumitra Mahajan a 
Member of Parliament, Mahendra Hardia a legislative assembly member, 
and many other BJP leaders participated in this procession. The 
police and administration found themselves helpless. Kailash 
Vijayvargiya, a minister in the state government, was given the 
responsibility of restoring peace and order. He repeatedly alleged 
that SIMI has been behind this eruption of violence. The director 
general of police reasserted this allegation. When asked to provide 
satisfactory evidence, the press was informed that the police was 
looking for evidence.

The very next day the Pithampur police recovered four live country 
made bombs, eight detonators and batteries from a mine in the 
vicinity of the Pithampur-Rau bypass. Although the police did not 
explicitly connect the riots with the discovery of bombs and the 
detonator, all the newspapers prominently placed the two news items 
adjacent to each other.

The curfew continued for five days. Sewa Bharati, an RSS outfit, 
offered help to the curfew affected people by providing them food. 
Along with food, they also distributed copies of a local eveninger, 
which had brought out a special issue on SIMI's activities in Indore. 
At the same time, the Bajrang Dal activists stood outside a hospital 
(Rajeshri Hospital) and did not allow Muslim riot victims to be 
admitted there.

On July 7, 2008, the BJP leaders took out a peace march in a 
riot-affected area. The implicit message to the minority people was - 
"Look, nothing happened to us and nothing will happen to us. You be 
aware of our strength". The collector and superintendent of police 
(SP) reaffirmed the message. There are hoardings in the town asking 
the union government to take back the Haj facilities from Muslims. 
The Congress leaders came and took the BJP, RSS and district 
administration to task. They addressed the press and raised a big 
protest in the assembly at Bhopal. With the elections approaching, 
the focus will soon shift from providing real justice to the victims 
to collecting votes.

After five days of curfew the town limped back to normalcy. Like 
Ahmedabad, Indore is also divided into two. The Muslim majority areas 
are simmering with anger and a sense of terrible insecurity. These 
areas are still under police guard. In many households the earning 
members are still not able to resume their work. The other side has 
resumed its normal life. The middle class Hindu community blames the 
Muslims for the disturbance in the town. The Hindu right wing 
activists go on with the refrain that they wanted a peaceful bandh; 
it is because of the noncooperation of Muslim community at large and 
the militancy of SIMI activists that bloodshed occurred.

Administration and Police

Both the collector and SP in the town took charge just about a month 
before the violence. The administration was admittedly unprepared for 
the violence which erupted in the wake of the bandh call. The police 
force recruited in the sensitive Muslim majority areas was inadequate 
and did precious little to confront the saffron squads harassing the 
Muslim families.

On July 4, the Khajrana area was under curfew. The police van arrived 
there on the pretext of guarding the streets under curfew and entered 
the Muslim residential area. Reportedly, the police force went on a 
rampage without any provocation from any quarter. The police threw 
stones at Muslim houses and vehicles parked in the street.

There is the more serious question of police opening fire at Khajrana 
on July 3 and at Juna Risala on July 4. The Muslims in Juna Risala 
refused to perform the last rites of the dead, till the first 
information reports (FIRs) were lodged against three policemen. 
Reportedly, even though the FIRs have been lodged, no action has been 
taken against them. On the other hand, the bandh supporters demanded 
that the FIRs be taken back. Any action against these policemen would 
bring down the morale of the entire police force, it is said.

The story of police action in Khajrana is even more sinister. One 17 
year old boy Imran was going for work. When he saw the crowd in front 
of police station, he turned back to go home. According to his 14 
year old younger brother, a policeman caught him, dragged him down to 
the ground, put the gun on his face, pulled the trigger and walked 
away. The mother found the body in the city hospital.

Till now, in communal conflicts, private parties were attacking each 
other with sticks, stones, knives and other such weapons. This is the 
first time that private guns have been used on such a large scale. 
Apart from those who died in firing, a large number of wounded 
persons suffered from bullet injuries. It needs to be investigated 
how many licences were issued lately for fire arms and to whom.

Media

Most of the pictures in the newspapers, or footage given on TV showed 
the Muslim boys and youth with beards and caps throwing stones or 
shouting. It is clear where the cameramen were and when these 
photographs were taken. The cameramen stood on the other side, i e, 
the side of the BJP-VHP people. Channels were continuously showing 
the scenes of violence for next two to three days after the incident 
with the label "live".

Once curfew was declared and rioting stopped, the media started 
reporting in great detail how people (the middle class) were passing 
their time during the curfew - playing cricket in the streets or 
inside the compounds of their multistoried buildings; men were 
cooking some special dishes, or, watching TV with the family or 
playing cards, etc. The media reported how marriages were organised 
under the curfew, and so on. The BJP leaders were projected as 
peaceseeking people appealing to the public to calm down. They led 
massive peace rallies. Little space was left for reporting the plight 
of those poor families whose near ones had died or those who were 
lying in hospitals. There was no effort in the media to mobilise 
public opinion to take action against the culprits of this crime. In 
fact, as already mentioned, the media collaborated in diverting 
attention to SIMI involvement.

Conclusions

The July 3 Bharat bandh for Amarnath shrine land was only an excuse. 
Any odd excuse can cause a flare-up in Indore. And every new flare-up 
makes the situation more volatile. Indore is indeed a mini-Gujarat in 
the making.

The Muslims are insecure. They cluster together and seek shelter in 
the religious infrastructure whether it is Friday namaz or sending 
their children to madrasas. At the same time, the Muslim youth is 
restive and desperate.

The Hindu right wing has many sufficiently well organised squads of 
young activists who are ready to cause mayhem anywhere at a very 
short notice. No one dares to resist them. The administration and 
media offer support with impeccable loyalty to the ruling party's 
political agenda. The educated and elite Hindu middle class is 
complacent, rabidly anti-Muslim and anti-reservation. The rest of the 
Hindu community (the poor and the lower caste) is silent. This silent 
majority has no opinion, primarily because it has no confidence that 
its opinion matters anywhere.

It is of utmost urgency that the secular space be recovered. Politics 
has to be necessarily wrenched from the domain of caste and religious 
divides so that the meaningful agenda of development, employment and 
equitable growth comes on the centre stage. One hopes that the civil 
society groups and the left parties, and secular forces from other 
political and nonpolitical parties/ organisations will come together 
and take up this ambitious task without losing any time. One hopes 
that sufficient confidence can be instilled in the silent majority. 
It can then claim its democratic space and declare, "We will not 
allow Madhya Pradesh to become another Gujarat".


______


[6]

Deccan Herald
23 July 2008

SECULARISM AND NATIONS SURVIVAL

by V R Krishna Iyer

We should not allow obscurantism and bigotry to threaten national unity.

If secularism collapses as a casualty of communalism, humanism has no 
hope of survival as a basic creed of the nation. Today humanism is a 
fundamental duty under Article 51 A of the Constitution. So too is 
compassion for living creatures. They go together as a global vision. 
The Preamble gives paramount prominence to secularism in its 
supra-religious dimension. Independent India has a prolixity of 
religions but no savage rivalry or obdurate obscurantism among the 
several faiths is permissible in this country. Indeed, the tapestry 
of theological plurality, marred by terrorist multiplicity, is alien 
to our traditional liberalism.

Even atheism and agnosticism enjoy constitutional protection. But 
certain intimidatory forces rooted in communal competitiveness 
threaten the unity of India. They politically fuel terrorist 
antagonisms. Specious spiritualism such as violent godist bellicosity 
and bigoted outbursts corrode people's fraternal co-existence. This 
divisive development disguised in religious drapery is a disaster 
since our communities have been living without fissiparous fights 
from time immemorial.

Our dynamic, socialistic democracy vests power in the people, and the 
people decide on the choice of the creative executive and the social 
justice-fired legislature. Who commands more votes and wins more 
seats rules the country in its humanist stature and federal 
structure. But an appalling evil vitiates elections. Communal 
campaigns manipulate the minds of the electorate.

Religiosity, with its intransigent intolerance, inflames the feelings 
of large numbers of looney sects, competing castes and furious 
followers of fanatic faiths. Secularism cannot but contest this 
malady. For this purpose, stern legislation and punitive action are 
firm measures. Indian secularism has a glorious dimension of 
all-embracing unity and universality - be it the profound Upanishads, 
the cosmic Christian commandments, the Islamic world brotherhood 
mandate or the global wonder of compassion for all life taught by 
Mahavira and the Buddha and the grand Sikhism of Guru Nanak.

Ambitious political strategists instrumentalise religion as a means 
of carving social space and economic dominion through indoctrinating 
crazy believers, particularly when elections arrive and ballots 
matter. Campaigners and candidates wear apparels of patriotism. 
Indeed, rampant communalism becomes a rabid force in politics, 
disguised as nationalism. A do-or-die struggle for secular swaraj is 
now an inalienable imperative.

Religious pluralism by itself is not an evil because each 
denomination projects a certain dimension of the Supreme which is 
omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. Different prophets and saints 
and seers perceive the Infinite Reality from different angles of 
perfection. But when religion degenerates into institutional 
theology, the Eternal Light suffers eclipse. Every religion has this 
insane infirmity. Hindutva is not an exception. Neither is Islam.

Christian bigotry obnoxiously pretends papal infallibility with 
communal narrowness. Even Sikhism and Buddhism can wear the apparel 
of militant-extremism although Guru Nanak and the Buddha were rare, 
revolutionary incarnations. Unfortunately, the eclectic culture and 
noble texture of India's moral-spiritual estate suffered at the hands 
of competing claimants to Godhood. The task of national 
transformation is to restore divinity and humanity glowing as the 
Supreme Light.

Already we suffer divisive frailty economically because of the 
dependency syndrome. We will fall to pieces unless there is a burning 
realisation that secularism and social justice are a revolutionary 
policy indispensable to our survival. This is nationalism not the 
Manmohan brand of US vassal status or the Rajnath Singh doctrine of 
cultural nationalism - a baloney which stultifies Article 43 and the 
desideratum of a value-based family law, fair and uniform for 
Indians. Only he who swears by the solemn principle of one nation, 
one family and one law, is a patriot. Differences and hostilities do 
exist. But we shall overcome-Bharat Mahan shall never surrender!


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Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
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