SACW | August 1-4, 2008 / Nuclear-weapons-free S Asia / FATA's Fascists / State patronage for pilgrimages / fight against Aids

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | August 1-4, 2008 | 
Dispatch No. 2546 - Year 10 running

[1] For a nuclear-weapons-free Southasia (Zia Mian)
[2] Pakistan: Fata's growing disconnect (Afrasiab Khattak)
[3] India: State Cultivation of the Amarnath Yatra  (Gautam Navlakha)
[4] India: The Sarpotdar case (Jyoti Punwani)
[5] International: A chance to fix the fight 
against Aids (Siddharth Dube and Joanne Csete)
[6] Publication announcement: The History of Pakistan (Iftikhar H. Malik)
[7] Upcoming Events:
   (i) The Nigah QueerFest '08 (New Delhi, 8 - 17 August 2008)
   (ii) War and the Question of Minorities: 
Democratization and State Reform in Sri Lanka 
(Toronto, 8 August 2008)

______


[1]

Himal SouthAsian, August 2008

SOMEONE ELSE'S WEAPONS

by Zia Mian

A nuclear-weapons-free Southasia must be championed by the smaller countries.

In May 1998, first India and then Pakistan tested 
nuclear weapons. War erupted in the Kargil region 
of Kashmir a year later. This was the first war 
between two nuclear-armed states anywhere in the 
world, and raised the prospect that the next 
conflict would be a catastrophe beyond reckoning. 
Since Kargil, both states have continued to build 
nuclear weapons, to develop and test ballistic 
missiles with ranges up to several thousand 
kilometres, and to accelerate their build-up of 
conventional arms.

The tests, war, crises and the on-going arms race 
are only the latest expressions of a more than 
60-year-long conflict between Pakistan and India, 
which has plagued efforts to build democratic and 
just societies in these countries and has 
hampered the progress of Southasia as a whole. A 
settlement of the Kashmir dispute would help ease 
tensions, but would not necessarily be enough for 
India and Pakistan either to give up their 
nuclear-weapons status or to end their mutual 
hostility. The experience of the Cold War and the 
nearly two decades since its end makes this 
abundantly clear. The US and Russia still have 
thousands of nuclear weapons each, despite the 
fact that the Soviet Union is no more. The logic 
of nuclear weapons has had an enduring effect in 
preventing the establishment of peace in any 
meaningful sense. This suggests that the Indian 
and Pakistani nuclear stockpiles ensure that the 
future of the region will remain in jeopardy 
until these weapons are eliminated.

Nuclear war between India and Pakistan would be a 
catastrophe not only for the two countries. 
Recent studies simulating the effects of such a 
conflict have suggested that the use of 50 
weapons by each side could create enough smoke 
from burning cities to trigger a decade-long 
change in climate across much of Southasia - 
indeed, across large parts of the northern 
hemisphere. This would lead, in turn, to crop 
failures and widespread famine. The casualties 
would be beyond imagination.

Against the backdrop of the nuclear-weapons tests 
of 1998, peace groups sprang up spontaneously in 
towns and cities across India and Pakistan. 
Building on years of work by a handful of 
anti-nuclear activists in both countries, these 
groups articulated deep public concern about the 
grave dangers posed by nuclear weapons, sought 
ways to educate and mobilise local communities, 
and reached out to make common cause with other 
civil-society groups working on issues of 
sustainable development and social justice. The 
need for a Southasia-wide effort on public 
education and mobilisation for nuclear 
disarmament in India and Pakistan was recognised 
by activists in both countries. They hoped that a 
South Asian Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone (SANWFZ) 
treaty, modelled on such agreements in Latin 
America, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia 
(with Africa and Central Asia on the block), 
could offer a way to build regional consensus 
against nuclear weapons. Such a treaty would 
forbid each signatory state from possessing or 
seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

At its heart, this activism reflects a politics 
based on imagining and bringing about, from the 
ground up, a Southasian community of countries 
sharing a particular set of values. It envisages 
the countries of the region as not only committed 
to peaceful co-existence, but also as rejecting 
the possession and threat of use of nuclear 
weapons. The political path is one where the 
civil society in the non-nuclear weapons states 
in Southasia (ie, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, 
Afghanistan, the Maldives and Bhutan) campaign 
for respective governments and others in the 
region to negotiate a SANWFZ treaty. This 
combination of popular and official pressure 
would strengthen nuclear-disarmament movements in 
India and Pakistan.

Peace zone

It was back in January and February 2001 that 
Admiral (retired) Laxminarayan Ramdas and Sandeep 
Pandey from India, and A H Nayyar from Pakistan, 
as well as this writer, were asked by groups in 
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal to travel to each 
country, to begin a regional civil-society 
dialogue on a Southasian Nuclear-Weapons-Free 
Zone. This effort was by some measures very 
successful. It showed the feasibility and utility 
of systematic interactions between peace 
activists from India and Pakistan with a large 
number of civil-society organisations, activists, 
scholars and government officials in the other 
Southasian countries. The interest generated by 
the visits, evident from the large meetings and 
extensive media coverage that ensued, indicated a 
widespread concern in the region about the 
implications and challenges created by the 
nuclearisation of India and Pakistan.

In some places, people did seem to find the 
nuclear dangers facing the region somewhat 
remote. The clearest expression of this was in 
Sri Lanka, where many seemed to be hearing about 
the devastating effects of nuclear weapons for 
the first time. This could be due simply to 
geography; Sri Lanka is, after all, far removed 
from any plausible conflict between Pakistan and 
India. But there can also be no doubt that there 
are more pressing concerns for Sri Lankan civil 
society and policymakers, with the long civil war 
there showing few signs of ending. Nonetheless, 
even in Colombo, there was enthusiasm for a 
Southasia-wide civil-society initiative for peace 
and disarmament, recognition that nuclear weapons 
posed a risk to the whole region and support for 
a SANWFZ treaty.

While there were no discussions with government 
officials in Sri Lanka, we learnt that Sri Lanka 
had sought to encourage talks between India and 
Pakistan on the matter of nuclear weapons. This 
is a positive sign, and suggests that a more 
formal dialogue with government officials on the 
possibilities of the treaty could be worth 
pursuing. There was strong support from the 
Bangladeshi civil society for the idea of a 
SANWFZ treaty, and the need for the smaller, 
non-nuclear countries in the region to lead the 
way. The contacts with government officials 
suggested that Bangladesh could be encouraged to 
consider working towards such a treaty. This 
willingness reflects the historical role that 
Bangladesh played in launching the idea of SAARC 
as a regional organisation during the late 1970s, 
and in hosting the organisation's first summit in 
1985. Meanwhile, in Kathmandu, there was concern 
about the impact of a possible nuclear war on the 
northern parts of the Subcontinent, which would 
rope in Nepal. The possibility of being affected 
by radioactive fallout was taken very seriously. 
An important issue raised most directly in Nepal, 
but also elsewhere, was that of overcoming the 
constraints imposed by the larger and more 
powerful neighbours on political initiatives by 
smaller Southasian countries.

While immediate domestic problems took priority 
in each country, there was a widespread sense of 
urgency regarding possible nuclear-armed 
confrontation between India and Pakistan. There 
was likewise significant understanding that, 
without peace between Pakistan and India, the 
Southasian region would remain unstable, and fail 
to develop the structures of economic and 
political cooperation it needs to meet the 
people's needs. From nuclear weapons to energy, 
food security and climate change, there is a 
growing array of problems that need to be seen as 
regional in scope, and which require collective 
regional solutions. These problems and their 
solutions will necessitate and generate the 
practice of a Southasian politics - and with it, 
a Southasian identity.

Zia Mian directs the Project on Peace and 
Security in South Asia at Princeton University's 
Program on Science and Global Security.

______


[2]

www.dawn.com
July 31,2008

FATA'S GROWING DISCONNECT

by Afrasiab Khattak

IT is hardly an exaggeration that the security of 
Pakistan, Afghanistan, the entire region and 
indeed that of the whole world will be defined by 
developments in Fata over the next few months. 
Different scenarios are being painted by military 
strategists and political experts.

Al Qaeda, after regrouping in the militant 
sanctuaries of the area, is acquiring the 
capacity to repeat attacks in North America or 
Europe similar to those carried out in 2001 in 
the US.

If reports about the exchanges between Pakistan 
and the US at the highest level are anything to 
go by it is pretty clear that the US will 
retaliate against Pakistan, probably even more 
severely than it did against the 
Taliban-dominated Afghanistan. Similarly the use 
of these militant sanctuaries for cross-border 
fighting is so large in scale (in fact all the 
six political agencies bordering Afghanistan are 
being used) that denial in this regard is no 
longer plausible.

The federal government has to either admit defeat 
or muster the political will to resolve the 
problem, or else justify the existence of 
militant sanctuaries by explaining their 
usefulness to the national interest. We have run 
out of time and this decision cannot be delayed 
any more as there are no takers of the denial 
line.

As if this were not enough, armed lashkars 
(armies) from militant sanctuaries in Fata are 
poised to penetrate/invade the contiguous settled 
districts. The events in Hangu some three weeks 
back are a case in point. The Hangu police 
arrested four Taliban commanders from a car that 
also contained weapons, explosive material and 
manuals for making bombs in a place called Doaba 
not far away from the Orakzai Agency border.

Hundreds of Taliban surrounded the Doaba police 
station and demanded the commanders' release. 
They also blocked the Hangu-Kurram highway. 
During this confrontation the Frontier 
Constabulary was ambushed near Zargari village 
and 16 security personnel were killed. 
Subsequently the army was called in to launch a 
military operation in Hangu. This action was not 
just in retaliation for the murder of 16 FC men 
but also came in view of the threat of attack by 
four to five thousand Taliban from Orakzai and 
Kurram agencies.

By now the said military operation has been 
completed and the targets achieved to the extent 
that the Taliban have been chased out of Hangu. 
Nevertheless, they have fled to Orakzai Agency 
where they are regrouping and preparing for 
future attacks.

The NWFP (Pakhtunkhwa) government is in a 
quandary. It has to call in the army whenever 
armed lashkars threaten to overrun a district as 
the police force simply does not have the 
capacity to fight an ever-expanding insurgency.

After Swat the army has also been deployed in 
Hangu. In view of the militant sanctuaries 
situated nearby, the army cannot be withdrawn in 
the near future. Imagine if the story is repeated 
in other vulnerable districts. Will the army also 
have to be deployed in all these other districts? 
Will such measures not bring the existence of the 
civilian provincial government into question?

Is it not amazing that in spite of such high 
stakes the presidency that has a monopoly over 
governance in Fata seems to show no anxiety over 
the prevailing situation? It is continuing with 
the policy of keeping Fata a black hole where 
terrorist groups from across the globe run their 
bases. It is still a no-go area for the media and 
civil society, and so far there is no corrective 
measure or policy change in sight. So much so 
that we have failed to take even the most 
preliminary step of extending the Political 
Parties Act to Fata.

It is only natural that we are perturbed when 
attacks are launched from across the border. But 
should we not be equally sensitive to the loss of 
our sovereignty over Fata to militant groups? 
Strangely enough we do not seem to be bothered 
about the militants' total control of Fata. When 
the international media carries reports about 
this situation we dismiss them as 'enemy' 
propaganda against Pakistan. We have failed to 
grasp the fact that in the post-cold war world 
there is a universal consensus about two things. 
One, that all assault weapons that can be used 
for launching a war cannot be allowed to be kept 
in private possession. Two, that no state will 
allow the use of its soil by non-state players 
against another state. The entire world is 
astounded by our fixation with the cold war mode. 
We have developed an incredible capacity to live 
in unreality. This is indeed dangerous for any 
state system but it can be catastrophic for a 
state dancing in a minefield.

Where does all this leave the people of Fata? 
They are victims and not perpetrators as some 
people would like us to believe. They are in fact 
in triple jeopardy. Firstly they are groaning 
under the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation 
(FCR) of 1901. They have no access to the 
fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution 
of Pakistan since they are not justiciable 
outside of the jurisdiction of the higher 
judiciary.

Secondly the tribal belt has almost been occupied 
by foreign and local militant organisations that 
are better equipped, better trained and better 
financed than the local population. More than 160 
tribal leaders have been killed by terrorists in 
North and South Waziristan who operate with total 
impunity. Today's Fata is not dissimilar to the 
Taliban and Al Qaeda controlled Afghanistan 
before 9/11.

Thirdly, the people of Fata get caught in the 
crossfire between militants and security forces 
from both sides of the Durand Line. The so-called 
collateral damage has seen a cancerous growth in 
Fata. The people of Fata have lost the support 
and protection of the state. They have no access 
to the media, courts and hospitals or to 
humanitarian assistance. The only intervention by 
state players takes place through their armies 
and air forces in which people of the tribal area 
are mostly on the receiving end.

For any informed and sensitive Pakistani, the 
situation in the tribal area is the top-most 
priority when it comes to policy formation and 
implementation. We must realise that the question 
of dismantling militant sanctuaries in Fata and 
taking short-term and long-term measures to open 
up the area and integrate it with the rest of the 
country needs urgent national attention if we are 
to avoid the impending catastrophe.

______


[3]

The Economic and Political Weekly
July 26, 2008

STATE CULTIVATION OF THE AMARNATH YATRA

by Gautam Navlakha

The origins of the conflagration in June in 
Kashmir on forest  land allocation for 
construction of facilities for the Amarnath yatra 
lie in open state promotion of the pilgrimage. 
The yatra has caused considerable damage to the 
economy and ecology of the area.  The high-handed 
actions of the  Shri Amarnath Shrine Board only 
aggravated the situation.

The Amarnath pilgrimage erupted into a major 
controversy last month entirely on account of the 
actions of the state. The Act setting up the 
Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) was passed by 
the National Conference government in 2001. On 
January 1, 2008, the SASB informed the 
legislature of Jammu and Kashmir, through a 
letter to the deputy chief minister, that "(t)he 
Governor is  sovereign ex-officio holder of the 
power...  who acts on his own personal 
satisfaction and not on the aid and advice of the 
council of ministers...the member (of the 
legislative council) may be explained that he 
does not enjoy the powers to question the 
decisions of the body" (Greater Kashmir, June 12, 
2008).

Disconcertingly, the SASB, when presided over by 
S K Sinha when he was governor, has been engaged 
in some controversial transactions. The chief 
executive officer (CEO) of the SASB is the 
principal secretary to the governor. The CEO's 
wife, in her capacity as principal secretary of 
the forest department, granted permission to the 
SASB on May 29, 2005 to use forest land for the 
pilgrimage. Because this action was not in 
accordance with the provision of the J&K Forest 
Conservation Act of 1997, the state government 
withdrew the order.  However, a division bench of 
the J&K High Court stayed the withdrawal of 
permission to occupy forest land. But when in 
mid-2008, the state cabinet gave its approval to 
"divert" 40 ha of forest land for the yatra the 
issue erupted into widescale public protests. The 
deputy chief minister, belonging to the 
Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) went so far as 
to claim that Congress ministers "black- mailed" 
them into giving this approval (Indian Express, 
June 16, 2008).  The Indian state has often used 
the yatra to promote a certain kind of 
nationalism.  During the Kargil war, in 1999, the 
Press Information Bureau put out a press re- 
lease stating: "(the) yearning for moksha 
(salvation) can move the devotees to the 
challenging heights of Kashmir and will be a 
fitting gesture of solidarity with our valiant 
soldiers who have been fighting the enemy to 
defend our borders" (pib.nic.in/ 
feature/feo799/f1507992 html).

A Little Known Shrine

Thus, what is otherwise a religious pilgrimage of 
the shaivite Hindus has been elevated to 
represent a patriotic enterprise. What is 
interesting is that the translator of 
Rajtarangini, Aurel Stein, found no  reference in 
1888 in either the Rajtarangini or the Nilmata 
Purana to the Amarnath cave. For Kashmiri Hindus 
the holiest site was the Haramukuta (Shiva's 
Diadem) and Haramukh-Gangabal pilgrimage (see M 
Ashraf, 'Aggression At Its Worst', Greater 
Kashmir, June 20, 2008). The cave was in fact 
discovered in the 18th century and a Gujjar 
family and its descendants who found it were 
given the right to a share of the offering as a 
consequence. Even until the 1980s, this 
pilgrimage was not well known and in 1989, only 
12,000  pilgrims visited the cave in a fortnight 
of pilgrimage. It is only after 1996 that the 
Amarnath cave acquired its prominence when 
militancy in Kashmir was at its peak.  The SASB 
is headed by the governor (until recently S K 
Sinha, a former lt general in the army) and his 
principal secretary, from the Indian 
Administrative Service, is the CEO of the SASB. 
Thus when the SASB pushes for movement of a 
larger and larger number of pilgrims and rejects 
the right of the legislators to even raise a 
question regarding the functioning of the   SASB, 
the Indian state is sending a simple message.

Imagine if a Muslim governor of  Rajasthan were 
to ask to set up an independent Ajmer Sharief 
Dargah development authority, with say, control 
over  a large part of Ajmer city. What would  be 
the response of Rajasthan's BJP  government or 
the right wing Hindutva rabble-rousers?

Ironically, it is the deposed custodian of the 
shrine Deependra Giri who has been crying hoarse 
over SASB's promotion of pilgrimage as tourism, 
flouting the principle of penance inherent in 
such pilgrim ages as laid down in the Hindu 
scriptures! The point is this promotion 

of Amarnath can be faulted on temporal, religious 
and secular grounds. In other words it is 
downright duplicitous when the Indian state 
promotes religious tourism (tourism in any event) 
in the guise of the welfare of Hindu pilgrims. 
This is an extension and/or part of the process 
of  acquisition of a huge mass of land (orchard 
and cultivable fields, including the precious 
saffron fields of Pampore) by  Indian security 
forces and water management and control through 
the National Hydro Power Corporation.

Implications

The implications are far-reaching. The SASB runs 
a virtually parallel admini- stration and acts as 
a "sovereign body" promoting Hindu interests, 
increasing the number of pilgrims from 12,000 in 
1989 to over 4,00,000 in 2007 and ex- tending the 
period of the pilgrimage from 15 days to two and 
half months (the first fortnight is meant for 
families of service personnel). The SASB has 
virtually taken over the functioning of the 
Pahalgam De- velopment Authority, laying claims 
to forest lands and constructing shelters and 
structures even on the Pahalgam Golf Course!

As part of the latest instances of land grab the 
SASB received the approval of the state 
government on June 3, 2008 to transfer 800 kanals 
of forest land. And  it wanted another 3,200 
kanals. The  SASB has also staked claims to set 
up an "independent" Amarnath Development 
Authority between Nunwan, Pahalgam, and Baltal 
(ahead of Sonmarg). It is true that the state 
government shot down this  proposal and has 
publicly claimed that only temporary structures 
can be set up in the 800 kanals, but two things 
should be kept in mind. Firstly, the brazen 
manner in which the SASB has gone about staking 
its claims. Secondly, but for public anger it is 
doubtful if the state government would have found 
the courage to oppose the demands of the SASB. It 
has not done anything to prevent or rollback the 
annexation of parts of Pahalgam Golf Course in 
order to provide security for  pilgrims. If it 
were not for the widespread protests in Kashmir 
and the PDP's withdrawal from the government, the 
new governor of Jammu and Kashmir would not have 
been compelled to revoke his predecessor's order.

Environmental Damage

Be that as it may, probably the most damning 
evidence against the SASB and its  dangerous 
exclusivist policy is the dam- age being caused 
to the environment in and around Pahalgam. A 
noted environmentalist told Greater Kashmir (June 
10, 2008) that "The yatris during their Amarnath 
yatra do not only defecate on the banks of the 
Lidder river but throw tonnes of non-degradable 
items like polythene, plastic items directly into 
the river. This has resulted in the deterioration 
of its water quality." One expert, M R D 
Kundangar, told Greater Kashmir that "(t)he 
chemical oxygen demand of the Lidder has been 
recorded between 17 and 92 mg/l which is beyond 
the permissible level. Such enriched waters with 
hazardous chemicals ranges can no way be 
recommended for potable purposes.  It has crossed 
all permissible limits due to flow of sewage and 
open defecation. Lidder has been turned into a 
cesspool." It has been estimated that every day 
during the pilgrimage 55,000 kg of waste is 
generated. Apart from this waste, the degradation 
caused by buses and vehicles carrying pilgrims, 
trucks carrying provisions and massive deployment 
of security forces contributes further to air 
pollution.  Another fallout is the threat posed 
to local inhabitants from crowding of the 
ecologically fragile area where they have to 
compete to retain their access and rights to re- 
sources, both water and land.  Indeed such was 
the arrogance and clout of the previous governor 
that he sent an  ordinance to the state 
government to establish Shardapeeth University in 
Baghat Kanipora in Srinagar. Prominent jurist  A 
G Noorani was constrained to point out to Greater 
Kashmir (June 9, 2008) that this move of the 
governor was "unheard of in parliamentary 
democracy". General Sinha would have gotten away 
with this had it not been for the fact that state 
coalition government did not have enough time to 
promulgate this while he was still the governor. 
The same governor, who also headed the Shri 
Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, had also created a 
special facility for rich Hindu pilgrims visiting 
Vaishno Devi by paying an additional Rs 200-500. 
Had it not been for the strike by residents and 
ordinary pilgrims in Katra this decision would 
not have been withdrawn.

The special time allocated for the pilgrimage to 
the armed forces personnel, the acquisition of 
land, introduction of helicopter services (which 
causes its own attendant problems), crowding of 
the area and slowly pushing out local people from 
these locations because of the environmental 
degradation or because their livelihood is 
adversely affected (for example consider the 
protests by the Pahalgam- based tourism industry 
for squeezing them out), all pose a huge 
challenge.

Limits in Gangotri

Significantly, even the Bharatiya Janata Party in 
Uttarakhand on May 1, 2008 limited the number of 
pilgrims visiting Gangotri and Goumukh to 150 
persons per day so as to protect the fragile 
ecology of the area. Yet, in the case of 
Amarnath, and despite overwhelming evidence of 
environmental degradation posed by the huge 
increase in the number of pilgrims and large 
number of security forces  deployed for 
protection of such pilgrims, there is no one who 
dares challenge the SASB's stubborn extension of 
the yatra.  Indeed if the CEO of SASB is to be 
believed since "the population of India will 
increase we will have to consider further 
extension of the yatra period".

Arguably, when the yatra was halted between 1991 
and 1996 due to the threat by a section of the 
militants it played into the hands of the extreme 
right wing elements in Indian society who have 
since then played an integral role in mobilising 
large numbers of pilgrims.

However, it is equally important to note that 
earlier, school- children and college youth used 
to act as volunteers and provide assistance to 
the yatris. Even when this was discontinued after 
1996, the main indigenous militant organisation 
the Hizbul Mujahideen and Muslim Janbaz Force 
always supported the yatra and consistently 
demonstrated its opposition towards those who 
tried to dis- rupt it. And even today there is no 
section of people who opposes the yatra. What 
they resent is the horrendously jingoistic turn 
that it has taken under the SASB.  Verily the 
more things change more they remain the same.


______


[4]

Indian Express, July 31 2008

THE SARPOTDAR CASE

by Jyoti Punwani

Mumbai is still to come to terms with the 
Madhukar Sarpotdar conviction. On July 9, the 
former Shiv Sena MP was convicted to a year's 
imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000 for having 
committed an offence under Sec 153 A, i.e., 
promoting communal enmity. The offence had been 
committed during the 1992- 93 riots and the 
judgment was handed down by one of the two 
special magistrates' courts set up in March his 
year to exclusively try the 1992-93 riot cases.

Madhukar Sarpotdar's case has been the highest 
profile case of the Mumbai riots, thanks to the 
special mention it received in the Srikrishna 
Commission report. It concerns a procession led 
by the then Sena MLA in his constituency (where 
his party boss, Bal Thackeray also lives) 
addressed by Sarpotdar and other Sena leaders. 
Two of them (one now with the Congress) were 
convicted with him. The processionists carried 
placards and shouted slogans, some of them so 
vulgar that even hardened policemen refused to 
repeat them in court. On one of those placards 
was a slogan which Justice Srikrishna highlighted 
as illustrative of the Shiv Sena's vigilantism 
during the riots. It read: 'Only in the Shiv 
Sena's terror lies the true guarantee of people's 
safety.'

Just a fortnight earlier, the worst riots to hit 
Mumbai had ended, with 263 dead. Incidents of 
communal violence continued. Yet, the top police 
officers accompanying the 5,000-strong procession 
made no attempt to prevent it from being taken 
out, or to arrest anyone en route or after it was 
over. Doing so would have escalated communal 
tension, they told the Commission. The then 
Police Commissioner had agreed with this 
assessment.

A mere four days after the procession, communal 
violence erupted again in Sarpotdar's 
constituency. At the height of this second phase 
of the riots, the army intercepted, during curfew 
hours, Sarpotdar in his jeep with his licensed 
revolver, and others, including his son, with 
unlicensed revolvers, choppers and hockey sticks. 
The local police convinced the major to hand over 
the case to them, arrested Sarpotdar three days 
later, allowed Shiv Sena women to block the 
highway in protest, and then produced him before 
the night magistrate who gave him bail 
immediately so as not to create further tension. 
Five years later, Sarpotdar was acquitted in this 
case because the major couldn't recognise the 
weapons he had seized.

It is this background one needs to keep in mind 
to understand the reaction of awe and wonder that 
has greeted Sarpotdar's conviction. After the 
Srikrishna Commission report held the Sena 
responsible for the second phase of the riots, 
the general feeling was : if Thackeray can't be 
booked, let's at least get Sarpotdar.

When Vilasrao Deshmukh set up the two courts 
exclusively for riot cases, he was simply taking 
the easiest measure to placate Muslims upset at 
the harsh punishment handed down to the 1993 bomb 
blast perpetrators, while those indicted for the 
riots, which had led to the blasts, remained 
untouched. Among the 120-odd non-descript cases 
sent to these courts, two had wellknown Sena 
leaders as accused. Former minister of state for 
home Gajanan Kirtikar was acquitted in May. 
Everyone expected Sarpotdar to walk free too.

The trial had already lasted 15 years, with 
magistrate after magistrate giving adjournments 
at the behest of the defence. Even after the 
Congress government took over in 1999, no special 
PP was appointed; indeed, one resigned after 
having remained unpaid for more than six months. 
All seven accused - six from the Sena and one 
from the BJP -were never present in court 
together, but warrants were rarely issued and if 
issued, not served.

Then, the police had done their best to save 
Sarpotdar. All that they produced in court 
against him as evidence was the FIR and the 
Station Diary Entry that had the text of the 
speeches, placards and slogans. Typically, they 
had not bothered to record the statement of any 
independent witness. Sarpotdar's lawyer 
Jaiprakash Bagoria, who had got him acquitted in 
the previous riots case and also got Kirtikar 
acquitted, had once fought elections on a Sena 
ticket.

He was confident about the outcome thistime too. 
Ironically, it was his cross-examination that got 
his clients convicted. Bagoria did not deny that 
his clients had given speeches. In his cross, he 
only contested the content of the speeches. 
Bagoria submitted a newspaper photograph of the 
procession which showed no placards. The 
accompanying text mentioned placards and slogans 
Magistrate R C Bapat Sarkar, picked out from a 
civil court to judge cases of rioting, was the 
kind who scrutinised every word of the evidence 
before her. Hence, she read not only those 
excerpts of the speeches highlighted in the FIR 
but also the long excerpts in the Station Diary 
Entry, which were far more incendiary. The 
judgment reproduces these long excerpts to show 
just how "vituperative and acerbic" the speeches 
were, the language used leaving no doubt about 
their intention to promote enmity on grounds of 
religion.

The conclusive paragraphs of the judgment are 
worth reproducing only because they remind us 
that acts committed day in and day out by 
Hindutva leaders are in fact crimes for which 
they are never punished. Says the judgment: "All 
the accused have to begin with, lauded the act of 
destroying the Babri Masjid as a credit to the 
Hindus... These kind of speeches were clearly 
aimed at kindling the Hindu populace into an 
aggressive stanceŠ Against the backdrop (of the 
riots) it would be obvious to any prudent person 
Šthat such incitement would lead to further 
aggravation of communal sentiments and violent 
acts.

The accused were all seasoned politicians and 
elected representatives with some maturityŠ In 
spite of this, it has come on record that they 
blatantly gave such speeches openly exhorting 
Hindus to take to the streets instead of 
discarding their responsibility towards the 
public of trying to alleviate tension and restore 
normalcy. Such acts deserve punitive measures in 
order to send the correct signal to society at 
large that wrong-doing would be punished." The 
judgment is all the more remarkable because the 
magistrate could easily have taken the easy way 
out and talked about letting bygones be bygones.

After all, she had an illustrious precedent - the 
Bombay High Court had done that while exonerating 
Bal Thackeray for his editorials in Saamna, just 
two years after the riots. A week before this 
judgment, Magistrate SS Sharma's special riots 
court convicted two Shiv Sainiks for rioting, the 
first time anyone from the party was found guilty 
in a 92- 93 riots case. Not in his wildest dreams 
would Deshmukh, whose appointment had been 
welcomed in Saamna, and who has shown no 
inclination in the eight years he's been CM, of 
wanting to punish the guilty of the '92-93 riots, 
have imagined such an outcome. One more wily 
politician thwarted by the judiciary.

______


[5]

The Guardian
August 3 2008

A CHANCE TO FIX THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS

To improve prevention, HIV/Aids organisations 
must roll back George Bush's demonising of sex 
workers and drug users

by Siddharth Dube and Joanne Csete

With President Bush's term coming to a close and 
a search underway for a new chief for the UNAids 
secretariat, the 15,000 experts and activists 
gathered in Mexico City for the 17th 
International Aids Conference can begin to repair 
the deadly damage inflicted by the Bush 
administration's reactionary take on HIV 
prevention and the UN's culpable failure to 
challenge it.

Since 2001, the Bush administration has poured 
billions of US government dollars into preaching 
abstinence to young people, maligning the 
efficacy of condoms, denying key HIV prevention 
services to drug users and eradicating sex work - 
the last, bizarrely, elevated to an explicit goal 
of US foreign policy. The net result today is 
that HIV prevention is in tatters in many 
countries, including in the US itself.

In 2007, 2.5m people contracted HIV, bringing the 
global total of people living with HIV to over 
33m. HIV prevention services reach less than one 
in 10 injection drug users and men who have sex 
with men, globally, and less than one in five sex 
workers - even though these disenfranchised 
populations have some of the highest HIV 
infection rates and are crucial to stemming the 
epidemic's spread. The demonising of sex workers 
and drug users has intensified, with raids, 
imprisonment and punitive laws on the upsurge in 
country after country, rich and poor alike. 
US-funded abstinence-only programmes have 
derailed comprehensive approaches to HIV 
prevention in several sub-Saharan African 
countries, as well as fuelled persecution of gay 
men, sex workers and even people living with HIV.

Just as perniciously, through financial 
blandishments and outright bullying, the Bush 
administration has sabotaged the UNAids 
secretariat's commitment to providing rigorous 
guidance on any issue contested by it. (UNAids is 
a joint-agency effort that has coordinated the 
UN's response to Aids since 1996. Its 10 
co-sponsors include the World Health Organisation 
and the World Bank.) The UNAids secretariat's 
now-outgoing executive director, Belgian 
virologist Peter Piot, blundered hugely in not 
combating the reactionary Bush agenda on HIV 
prevention when it first emerged. Consequently, 
global policy-making on HIV prevention has 
regressed at precisely the time when rigorous 
guidance could have made the billions now 
available for anti-Aids programmes work 
effectively.

To its great credit, in its early years of 
operation, UNAids successfully integrated human 
rights and public health imperatives, as well as 
on-the-ground evidence of what works best, in 
framing policies and guidance on HIV prevention. 
It developed a remarkable body of guidelines for 
legislators and other policy-makers about 
protecting the rights of the disenfranchised 
populations that are very vulnerable to HIV. It 
put together a wealth of evidence showing the 
value of Aids programmes and policies that put 
the last first - that engaged with and respected 
some of society's most marginalised persons as 
agents of change and HIV prevention. It 
pronounced as "best practice" those path-breaking 
programmes that recognised the power of sex 
workers to educate their clients and the public, 
and the effectiveness of drug users as 
counsellors and outreach workers in HIV 
prevention efforts.

Tragically, in the face of the Bush 
administration's assault, UNAids has disavowed 
much of this admirable legacy. The disavowal is 
particularly marked on sex work and injection 
drug use, the two areas singled out by the Bush 
administration. Thus, UNAids' longstanding policy 
guidance that sex work should be decriminalised, 
sex workers mobilised and health and workplace 
conditions regulated, as a central HIV prevention 
strategy, contrasts starkly with a UNAids 
guidance note on sex work released last year 
(pdf), seeming to have been dictated by the White 
House. The guidance note focused on "rescue" and 
"rehabilitation" of sex workers - an approach 
that UNAids had criticised in the past as being 
harmful to HIV prevention - rather than on 
supporting sex workers. The guidance note did not 
even refer to UNAids' earlier recommendations on 
sex work, let alone explain the reversal of 
policy.

It may bode well for a new era of more courageous 
UN leadership against Aids that the Commission on 
Aids in Asia, a group of distinguished experts 
convened by but independent of UNAids, released a 
report in March that breaks with both the Bush 
and the current UNAids lines. The HIV epidemic in 
Asia, the commission noted, affects mostly sex 
workers and their clients, drug users and men who 
have sex with men. The epidemic is stopped in its 
tracks, then, by ensuring that those persons have 
access to all the HIV prevention and treatment 
services that 25 years of experience have shown 
to be effective. But providing those services is 
nearly impossible to people whose most pressing 
worries are escaping police repression and 
overcoming social exclusion.

So with clarity and boldness that has been 
completely lacking from UNAids for many years 
now, the commission recommends decriminalisation 
of sex work as being essential to HIV prevention. 
It calls for reshaping policy on illicit drugs so 
that public health services for people with 
addictions are more important than criminal 
prosecution. And it enjoins Asian nations to 
repeal sodomy laws, to respect the rights of men 
who have sex with men, and to empower them to be 
part of HIV programmes and policy-making. The 
case for such legal and policy reform is so 
strong that UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon 
himself explicitly endorsed the commission's call 
for decriminalising sex work, same-sex relations 
and "harm reduction" for injection drug users.

A strong and human-rights-based UNAids response 
is vital to ensuring that millions more people do 
not die as a result of preventable HIV 
infections. If the delegates to the Mexico Aids 
conference want to see HIV prevention efforts get 
back on track, they must insist that the next 
leader of the UNAids secretariat be someone who 
has the nerve to resolutely stand up to political 
pressures - and to always put the needs and 
legitimate demands of the last first.

______


[6] [Just Published]


THE HISTORY OF PAKISTAN

by Iftikhar H. Malik

ISBN: 0-313-34137-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-34137-3

260 pages, map
Greenwood Press
Publication: 7/30/2008
List Price: $45.00 (UK Sterling Price: £25.95)

Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Table of Contents:

     * Series Foreword
     * Preface
     * Acronyms
     * Chronology
     * Chapter One The Indus Heartland and Karakoram Country
     * Chapter Two The Indus Valley Civilisation: Dravidians to Aryans
     * Chapter Three Islam in South Asia: The Indus and Delhi Sultanates
     * Chapter Four The Great Mughals and the Golden Era in the Indo-
     * Islamic Civilisation, 1526-1707
     * Chapter Five The British Rule and the Independence Movements
     * Chapter Six Muslims in South Asia and the Making of Pakistan
     * Chapter Seven Pakistan: Establishing the State, 1947-58
     * Chapter Eight Military Take-over and the 
Separation of East Pakistan, 1958-1971
     * Chapter Nine Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, PPP and 
the Military Regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, 1972-88
     * Chapter Ten Democratic Decade: 1988-1999. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif
     * Chapter Eleven General Pervez Musharraf and 
Pakistan in the Twenty-first Century
     * Biographical Notes
     * Glossary


______


[7]  UPCOMING EVENTS

(i)

THE NIGAH QUEERFEST '08
8th to 17th August 2008 in New Delhi
http://www.thequeerfest.com

o o o

(ii)

Kethesh Loganathan Memorial Event

WAR AND THE QUESTION OF MINORITIES: 
DEMOCRATIZATION AND STATE REFORM IN SRI LANKA

Saturday, August 9, 2008
7:00p.m.
OISE/University of Toronto
Auditorium
252 Bloor Street West
(St. George Subway Station)

Sri Lanka is mired in a brutal war with civilian 
suffering reaching immense proportions. A just 
political solution that rejects violence and 
works towards democratization and co-existence is 
the need of the hour. Impunity must end and there 
is no military solution to the conflict. The 
question of minorities, who are under increasing 
attack, needs to be addressed through open 
dialogue and a democratic political process. 
Please join Sri Lankan activists from around the 
world for this public discussion in memory of 
longtime democracy activist Kethesh Loganathan.

Sponsored by Sri Lanka Democracy Forum (SLDF)



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

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
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.net/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.