SACW | Sept 3-4, 2008 / Honour Kills / Kashmir stories / Orissa Communal advance
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Wed Sep 3 23:24:28 CDT 2008
South Asia Citizens Wire | Sept 3-4, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2561 - Year
10 running
[1] 'Honour' Killings:
(i) Pakistan ought to bury the male chauvinist tribal customs - A
compilation by siawi.org
(ii) Keep quiet? I don't think so (Cath Elliott)
(iii) Book Review: They kill women, don't they! (Khalid Hasan)
[2] India Administered Kashmir: The Folly Continues
(i) How India Lost The Kashmiris (Prem Shankar Jha)
(ii) Kashmir's Sea of Stories (Suvir Kaul)
(iii) [The accord in Jammu: Abject surrender to communal forces]
An immoral & illegal accord (A G Noorani)
(iv) Interview - Ajit Bhattacharjea: 'Restore autonomy originally
enjoyed by J&K'
[3] India: Orissa Pogrom 2008
(i) Inert Orissa govt accomplice in crimes against Christians
(Antara Dev Sen)
(ii) Crocodile tears? (Editorial, The Herald)
(iii) Violence in India Is Fueled by Religious and Economic Divide
(Hari Kumar And Heather Timmons)
[4] India: Children Die in an Outsourcing Boom (J. Sri Raman)
[5] The Kosi crisis should bond India and Nepal (B G Verghese)
[6] India: online petition to the President of India about the Bihar
floods
[7] Announcements:
(i) Donate Relief material and funds: Anhad team of volunteers
headed to Bihar and Orissa
(ii) Himal Southasian Cartoon Competition
______
[1]
(i) PAKISTAN OUGHT TO BURY THE MALE CHAUVINIST TRIBAL CUSTOMS
A compilation by siawi.org [31 August 2008 - updated on 4 September
2008]
http://www.siawi.org/article531.html
(ii)
KEEP QUIET? I DON'T THINK SO
We should all make a fuss about the women killed in Pakistan for the
sake of 'honour' and 'tradition'
by Cath Elliott (The Guardian, September 03 2008)
It's amazing the excuses some people will come out with. Take
Pakistani politician Israr Ullah Zehri for example, who last week in
Pakistan's senate tried to justify the so-called honour killings of
five women by Baluch tribesmen by saying that: "These are centuries-
old traditions, and I will continue to defend them." Zehri allegedly
went on to tell the stunned parliament that they could spare him
their outrage, and that "We will not let anyone interfere with this."
His message to another politician who tried to raise the subject was
to "keep quiet".
Keep quiet when five women have been beaten, shot, and then buried
alive in a ditch? I don't think so.
It was back in July that the women were abducted at gunpoint from a
house in the village of Baba Kot in Baluchistan province, driven to a
remote area and then murdered. Their crime? They were about to leave
for a civil court so that the three younger women, all teenagers
between the ages of 16 and 18, could marry men they had chosen for
themselves. The two older women accompanying them were apparently the
mother of one, and the aunt of another.
According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, which launched an
appeal calling for an investigation into the case early in August,
the women had been in discussion for several days with tribal elders,
seeking permission from them to marry. This permission had been
denied, and when news of the plan to ignore the elders and go ahead
with their weddings leaked out, the tribesmen decided to deal with
these uppity women in their own unique "traditional" way.
So a group of men turned up at the house, dragged the women off at
gunpoint, and drove them away in a government car. When they arrived
at their destination the three younger women were lined up, beaten,
and shot. Then, while they were still alive, they were thrown into a
ditch and buried. The two older women were forced to witness this
outrage, and when they couldn't manage to hold their silence any
longer they too were shot and buried alive.
And Israr Ullah Zehri thinks we should all keep quiet about it, don't
interfere, and just accept that this kind of barbarity is a tribal
tradition. No doubt he'll be expecting us to "respect" this tradition
next: after all, the deputy chairman of the senate, Jan Jamali does.
Jamali refused to pass comment when the subject was being discussed
in parliament, alleging that as it was "part of Baluch traditions" he
couldn't say anything about it because one tribe doesn't comment on
the actions of another.
This attitude doesn't seem to be unusual in Pakistan. In The Dark
Side of Honour (pdf) Rabia Ali writes:
In the perpetuation of honour killing as custom and practice,
the role of the local waderos or sardars (tribal chiefs or feudal
lords, usually both) cannot be underestimated. For the most part, the
sardars support the custom as an essential constituent of their
tradition. Many of these gentlemen are well-educated and well-
travelled; many sit in the country's parliament (when it is not
'suspended') as representatives of the people and serve in the
government as cabinet ministers and advisers; they are all aware that
the world beyond their fiefdoms has changed in the last hundred
years. And they are not interested in changing the almost medieval
world they themselves inhabit.
Thankfully this time the two men were alone in their view and, nearly
two months after the crime, the Pakistani parliament has announced a
high-level police enquiry into the "incident".
But I can't help wondering what would have happened if the Asian
Human Rights Commission hadn't got hold of the story and launched an
online campaign. Would this atrocity ever have been investigated? Or
would these women's brutal murders simply have been ignored and
passed over like so many thousands of others that have been
commissioned in the name of honour?
According to the UN, over 5000 women and girls are killed every year
for failing to live up to cultural and familial expectations of
female behaviour, and some estimate that up to 25% of these murders
happen in Pakistan. And it's not just women who are victims of the
outdated patriarchal notions of ownership and control that lie behind
these so-called honour killings. In May for example, 22-year-old
Jasbir Singh was murdered along with his partner Sunita Devi, this
time in India, after her family found out that she was pregnant. The
couple were living together at the time, but as they were both from
the same village they were regarded by their caste as brother and
sister and thus forbidden from entering into relations with one
another. Their strangled bodies were later laid out for display
outside Devi's parent's house, while villagers boasted of the pride
they felt in maintaining the community's honour. The double murder
"was the act of real men" according to one of Devi's cousins.
But whatever the Balla villagers or Israr Ullah Zehri would have us
believe, there is no cultural, religious or moral justification for
these crimes: killing in the name of honour is quite simply an
obscenity. Zehri thinks people should "stop making such a fuss about
it". I think anyone with any sense of human decency should make as
much fuss about it as they possibly can.
o o o
(iii)
Book Review: THEY KILL WOMEN, DON'T THEY!
by Khalid Hasan (Kashimir Times, August 22, 2008)
Amir Hamid Jafri, whom I salute for spelling his last name in the
simplest possible form, considering some very strange ways in which
it is seen spelt, is truly a man of many parts. He trained as an
engineer, played cricket for the Engineering University, Combined
Universities, and Combined Services XI in Pakistan, joined the EME
Corps of the Pakistan Army, left to travel the world, drove a cab in
New York for over a decade while he studied theatre in the city's
bohemian district, Greenwich Village and moved on for another gig at
graduate school at the University of Oklahoma, where he completed his
doctoral work in communication. Since then he has taught a variety of
subjects under the rubric of rhetoric, communication, culture and
gender.
Now, drawing from sacred texts and eminent philosophers and theorists
from various traditions, and extending on his doctoral research,
Jafri has written a scholarly book titled, Honour Killing: Dilemma,
Ritual, Understanding, being published by Oxford University Press.
Sensational as it is, the subject has been covered at length in
popular national and international media, but this work is a first of
its kind, a seminal research and systematic exploration of the
gruesome practice in certain cultures where male agnates of a family
kill their women in order to restore what they consider their family
honour.
What propelled Jafri into the research was the cold blooded murder of
29-year-old Samia Sarwar on in Lahore April 6 1999 by her family in
the offices of her lawyers, the admirable sisters, Asma and Hina
Jilani. Samia had reluctantly agreed to a meeting with her mother and
her attorney, Hina, Jafri recalls. Samia's mother, a Western-trained
gynecologist, had brought with her a gunman who, in Jafri's words,
accomplished the task without much fuss. Samia's father and her
maternal uncle were also accomplices to the murder. Surprisingly, in
spite of the relentless press attention, nobody was arrested. Even
more surprisingly, people actually demonstrated on the street to
arrest Asma and Hina as facilitators of besmirching the "family
honour." It is important to note that at the time of the murder,
Samia's father was president of his hometown chambre of commerce and
a model citizen.
Samia was killed by her parents because she was said to have brought
"shame to her family and tradition." A mother of two, Samia had been
seeking a divorce from her husband Imran, a doctor, on grounds of
domestic violence and his drug abuse. Since the family wanted no such
thing, Samia had sought help from lawyers Hina and Asma. In various
quarters of Pakistani culture, the killers were praised since they
were said to have killed in accordance with their tradition, which
exempted the killing from the realm of crime. Remarkably, Sen Ilyas
Bilour, a senator from Samia's home province of NWFP, opposed an
attempt on the Senate floor to pass even a condemnatory resolution,
arguing that the resolution went against a hallowed custom specifying
the place of women and the limits placed on them in their culture. He
added, "We have fought for human rights and civil liberties all our
lives but wonder what sort of human rights are being claimed by these
girls in jeans."
In the several languages and dialects spoken in Pakistan, according
to Jafri, the act of honour killing has historically been mentioned
in ways that directly brand the victims of the act "black." In other
words, it is the victim who is blamed. The whole notion is
inextricably linked with the idea of male ghairat, or honour. In
Pakistan, honour systems derive from tribal traditions that are often
in conflict with other traditions of national life, such as religion
and liberal democracy, similar to the interface between mythic and
rational realms of consciousness. Jafri demonstrates that, since
9/11, the culture and society of Pakistan are in the throes of an
unprecedented upheaval. Religious faith is flaunted and there is no
tolerance for religious or ethnic differences. Radical violent groups
have flourished with the connivance of the government under the
exhilarating notion of jihad.
With meticulous interpretation of texts, data analysis and other
evidence, Jafri proves that, as viewed in the West and claimed by
certain "discourse communities" in Pakistan, honour killing is not an
Islamic custom but one that has often been co-opted as a rallying
point by the fundamentalists in their bid to rid Pakistan of "foreign
ideological influences." Jafri writes that the inability of the
enforcing agencies to arrest the audacious perpetrators and the
paralysis of the national judicial system to enforce the law are
powerful messages to fellow citizens and the world about the "true"
identity of the state. While a segment of the population perceives
the act as pure and simple murder, others view it as an honest and
dutiful attempt at the re-ordination of the universe, a re-balancing
of the cosmos that can only be made possible by purging a family of
profanity and restoring its sacred nature.
For those who view it as their sacred duty, killing for the sake of
individual and collective honour is not a crime but a heroic act
because only under circumstances restored by such killings could an
honourable life - the only life worth living - be possible. Honour
killing is not a clandestine activity but a loud public proclamation
in Pakistan. Men, who are arrested after their act, proudly display
their handcuffs, declaring them to be marad kaa zaiwar - a man's
adornment. They typically do not go about creating alibis to deny the
act. On the contrary, they feel vindicated in living up to what was
expected from their manliness as the man-members of the family.
Jafri notes that honour killing continues to some degree in certain
Latin American and Mediterranean countries, but is more common in
some Muslim countries. The few cases of honour killing in Europe too
have occurred in Muslim immigrant families. Future research can
explore the persistence of such crimes in Islamic societies in spite
of clear injunctions in the sacred texts against all vigilante
responses to real or perceived breaches of personal or collective
honour. Jafri rightly points out that not only does the Quran make it
clear that man and woman stand absolutely equal in the sight of God,
but also that they are "members" and "protectors" of each other. In
other words, the Quran does not create a hierarchy in which men are
placed above women nor does it pit men against women in an adversary
relationship. They are created as equal creatures of a universal,
just and merciful God whose pleasure it is that they live in harmony
and righteousness. The symbolic definition of masculinity drenched in
violence and propagated by the bearers of the fundamentalist agenda
in the political fray of Pakistan can be neutralised only from
within, through the re-interpretations of the sacred texts.
Demonstrating the interruption of an oppressive and hegemonic
discourse in Pakistan, among other evidence, Jafri reproduces Attiya
Dawood's translation of the Sindhi poem about a young girl that says
it all: What is there to my body?/Is it studded with diamonds or
pearls?/My brother's eyes forever follow me./My father's gaze guards
me all the time,/Stern, angry./Then why do they make me labour in the
fields?/All day long, bear the heat and the sun,/Sweat and toil and
we tremble all day long,/ Not knowing who may cast a look upon us./We
stand accused, and condemned to be declared kari/ And murdered.
*(Khalid Hasan is a senior Pakistani journalist-columnist hailing
from Jammu and Kashmir based in Washington).
-(Courtesy: The Friday Times)
_____
#2. INDIA ADMINISTERED KASHMIR: THE FOLLY CONTINUES
domain b
HOW INDIA LOST THE KASHMIRIS
30 August 2008
With the prime minister determined to maintain his vow of silence,
with the home ministry determined to negotiate with criminals in
Jammu, while it shoots their victims in Kashmir, only the absurdly
optimistic can believe that the Kashmir movement will fizzle out when
the curfew is lifted.
by Prem Shankar Jha
Prem Shankar Jha On 25 August the Indian State 'reasserted its
authority' over the valley of Kashmir. The 'authorities' gave Praveen
Swami of The Hindu a detailed explanation of why it had become
necessary to do so. The valley-wide crackdown that occurred on
Sunday and Monday August 24 and 25 , was crafted by one man: M.K
Narayanan, the National Security Adviser to the Prime minister.
On Wednesday August 20 he descended upon Srinagar accompanied by a
team of security chiefs including P C Haldar, the director general of
the Intelligence Bureau, and (reading between the lines of Swamy's
report) roundly criticised the governor, N N Vohra for taking a 'soft
line' towards the 'Islamists'.
Detailing the number of bunkers from which the crowds had evicted
the security forces, the state government's decision to pull down
the national flag prematurely on 15 August at Lal Chowk, the
frequent hoisting of a Pakistani flag, the chanting of pro-Pakistan
and pro-Lashkar slogans, and the jeering and taunting of Indian
forces in the bunkers by the crowds.
So on 24 August, nine districts were handed over to the army, 20
battalions of CRPF moved into Srinagar, and curfew was imposed on
the valley. But this was no ordinary curfew. Local newspapers were
banned and foreign journalists were rounded up and sent out of
Kashmir, cable TV was shut down and internet temporarily disrupted.
The SMS facility on mobiles had already been withdrawn.
As an exercise in crowd control, the crackdown has been a success.
Far fewer people were killed than had been feared - only eight in
all - although hundreds were injured. But it is difficult to
divine what the government hopes to gain from it. Will it douse the
anger that people are feeling? Will the people go quietly back to
normal life when it is lifted? Or will the curfew only bottle up
anger, and turn Kashmir into a pressure cooker, bringing ever larger
numbers out on the streets when it is lifted?
Both the central and state governments have persuaded themselves
that, with the leaders under arrest, the movement would fizzle out.
Relying mainly on 'intelligence' reports and intercepts of messages
from Pakistan they convinced themselves that the agitation over the
shrine board land was created by 'separatists' who had been
marginalised by the valley's return to normality and the prospect of
a high turnout in the October elections. It did not therefore have
much support among the people.
This may well have been true in the early stages of the agitation.
For, there can be no doubt that by mid-July, a fortnight after
governor Vohra had revoked the 26 May land transfer decision of the
Azad cabinet, Kashmir had returned completely to normal. Kashmiris
were bemoaning their loss of earnings from tourism, and the Hurriyat,
which had capitulated to Geelani, had egg all over its face.
But the economic blockade imposed by the Jammu Sangharsha Samiti and
the Sangh Parivar on 28 July changed all this. In an astounding
display of ineptitude the central government allowed it to carry on
unopposed for 11 days before ordering the army to open the National
Highway.
By then an estimated 150 Kashmiri trucks had been attacked, their
drivers savagely beaten and in one case killed, their goods burned,
and their money stolen. Day after day they arrived in Srinagar with
their tales of woe and vows never to drive through Jammu again, and
the anger in the valley mounted.
The pear crop in the valley ripened and began to rot, coal ceased to
arrive and the cement plants had to shut down. Gasoline became scarce
because, even after the army began to patrol the highway truck
traffic remained at a quarter to half of what it used to be. Other
shortages began to appear as milk powder, medicines and newsprint
became scarce or began to be hoarded.
The establishment of an air bridge between Srinagar and Chandigarh
for perishable fruit, and essential supplies, and an announcement
that henceforth the army would protect convoys of trucks plying to
and from the valley would have destroyed the very basis of the
anger, and sent the Kashmiris the powerful message that the central
government did not only coerce Kashmiris but also protected them from
harm.
But the central government said and did nothing. It said and did
nothing even when the Kashmir fruit growers association announced
that it would take its fruit to Muzaffarabad.
But that was the lesser part of the reason for their anger and
sudden unity. The greater part was the openly communal nature of the
agitation in Jammu. From its very first day, the Jammu Sangharsha
Samiti demanded not the unrestricted use of land to cater to the
needs of the pilgrims but its permanent transfer to the Shrine Board.
The coercive nature of this demand was apparent. But it was its
takeover by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and Shiv Sena, and its use of
every symbol of a new Fascist version of Hinduism, from swords and
trisuls to saffron flags and the tricolour national flag, that
finally convinced Kashmiris that 'Hindu India' had declared economic
war on the Muslims of Kashmir.
As Ali Shag Geelani told an all-faith delegation composed of every
branch of India, Islam, a Christian and Dr J K Jain, formerly of the
BJP, '' I had closed my shop and gone home. It was the people who
pulled me out. What I had not been able to achieve in 50 years was
done for me in a fortnight by the Sangharsha Samiti.
The 'fruit' march to Muzaffarabad was a result of all of these
pressures --- part anger at a betrayal, part a desperate attempt to
break an economic stranglehold, and part political opportunism. But
the resulting 40 deaths completed the delegitimisation of Indian
rule in Kashmir. But all was even then not lost. For the governor's
determination, shared by the prime minister, that there must not be
any more deaths in Kashmir, and the consequent restraint, had begun
to mend fences once more.
Had Narayanan and his cohorts had even a slightly open mind, they
would have seen the restraint exercised by the state government on 16
and 18 August had already tilted the balance of power within the co-
ordination committee decisively back in favour of the moderates.
At its meeting on Thursday20 August, a day before the eidgah prayers,
the Mirwaiz had dropped Naeem Khan and Shabbir Shah, both close to
Geelani and, it was suspected, to the Lashkar e Tayyiba, from the
coordinating committee. What is more, he had replaced them with
Gilani's bete noire Sajjad Lone. Sajjad was the person who had, over
his father's body in 2002 openly accused the ISI and its protégé in
Kashmir (Geelani) of having murdered his father.
Finally in another significant shift, this was the first meeting of
the coordinating committee that was not held at Geelani's house but
at Mirwaiz Manzil.
The meeting itself lasted for many hours but could not arrive at a
decision --- another indication of the disagreements between the
'separatists'. But the continued restraint by the state during the
massive gathering at the Eidgah the next day tilted the balance
within the coordination committee even further in favour of moderation.
On Saturday, Masrat Aalam, a close associate of Geelani and
spokesperson of the coordinating committee, asked the people in the
strongest possible terms to demonstrate peacefully, respect all
property, and especially not attack civilian cars and ambulances. He
also warned them against being provoked by rumours that the central
government had agreed to transfer the disputed land once more to the
Shrine Board.
As Swamy's report makes clear, Narayanan had never favoured
restraint. But knowing, on Wednesday, that there was no time to
crack down before the Friday prayers at the Eidgah, he allowed the
Kashmiri newspapers to conclude that Delhi would continue with the
policy of restraint provided there was no violence. But all he was
doing was buying time and waiting for an excuse to crack down. This
was provided by the lumpen elements at the fringes of the Azadi
movement.
As the realisation sank into them that the armed police would not
open fire when provoked, gangs of lumpen youth, born and brought up
during the insurgency and filled with hate for India, took to
teasing, insulting and, on occasion, physically molesting the
jawans. They yelled derisive anti-India slogans and began to put up
Pakistani flags. My conversations with several senior officials
suggest that the flags were the last straw.
The Indian state was finally provoked and the only policy that could
have brought Kashmir back on an even keel was abandoned in favour of
naked force.
With the prime minister determined to maintain his vow of silence,
with the home ministry determined to negotiate with criminals in
Jammu, while it shoots their victims in Kashmir, only the absurdly
optimistic can believe that the Kashmir movement will fizzle out when
the curfew is lifted. On the contrary, reports from the valley
suggest that the demonstrators will take a leaf from the Sangharsha
Samiti's book and put women and children in front.
But one firm commitment, given personally to the Kashmiris by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, could still make the difference between
peace and war in Kashmir. This is that India will decisively break
the economic blockade of Kashmir, using army convoys and an air
bridge from Chandigarh; greatly hasten the opening of all the agreed
borders points between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, if Pakistan
cooperates; and invite the members of the coordination committee
to participate in determining the future of Kashmir, with him and
governor Vohra, as soon as normality returns to the entire state.
None of this would break new ground. In 1990 the weak minority
government of V P Singh created an air bridge all the way from Delhi
to Amman with just three Airbus 320s, to rescue the Indian workers
who had been stranded in Kuwait by the Iraqi invasion.
Srinagar is only an hour away from Chandigarh and the Air Force has
huge Ilyushins that can do the job with ease. And in 1994 Prime
minister Narasimha Rao diverted the entire Kashmiri insurgency from
violence into peaceful protest by quietly announcing preparations for
an election. That is the kind of change of direction and focus of
energies, that might still save Kashmir and India from a future that
neither want.
o o o
(ii)
KASHMIR'S SEA OF STORIES
These stories—and their storytellers—are everywhere. Stories which
move and mobilize, with which to irrigate their suffering and their
struggle. We, on the other hand, have no stories to offer, or at
least none that are not hollow, corrupt and coercive... ...
by Suvir Kaul (Outlook, September 3, 2008)
To visit Kashmir, even for a short while, is to drown, slowly but
surely, in a sea of stories. It is impossible to avoid them, for like
the legendary lakes that dot Kashmir’s valleys, these stories—and
their storytellers—are everywhere. I will re-tell some stories here
to suggest one powerful reason why, this summer, in the midst of
seeming calm and teeming tourists, an administrative decision about
land usage has precipitated such a social and political crisis. The
issue is not simply that of land any longer, but of a land so
drenched in tales of suffering and violence that peace is never more
than surface-thin.
There is the story that begins as the snow-melt from the high
mountains, which each year swells the streams, rivers, and lakes, and
brings life to paddy fields and vegetable gardens. For the past
nineteen years, this rush of water has featured strange new fruit--
bodies and faces--mangled or sometimes oddly preserved, as they bob
along the surface. No Kashmiri who watches them pass by, or sees them
being pulled to the side, forgets what they have seen. These visions
sear themselves into the brain, and the only comfort is to tell of
what they have seen, till the vision itself, and the tone of the
story, becomes muted, and matter-of-fact.
There is the story of the Gujjar girl, raped by three paramilitary
soldiers, and left to die in the fields. She lived, the three were
prosecuted, and perhaps punished, but the story does not end with
this intimation of justice, for the restless story-teller still
wonders why no one asked about the seventeen other soldiers who
watched and did nothing? Should they not have intervened, for were
they not in uniform, and supposed to be protecting their own, their
fellow-citizens of the republic? Then there is a tale with many
variations: two brothers, on their way to till their fields, run into
a contingent of soldiers. The soldiers demand that the brothers show
them the route up a hillside, and then, when they are near the top,
tell them to stand by the lip of the river gorge. How many brothers
are you at home, they ask. Four say the brothers. Good, says one of
the soldiers, then we can kill the two of you and there will still be
two others. This will be good population control but your families
will survive. They tell them to raise their pherans and cover their
faces. Two shots ring out, both bodies plummet into the gorge. The
younger one dies, but the older lives, as the shot enters one cheek
and exits the other, shattering one side of his face. Their village
below hears the shots, and then sees, in the stream, the red of
blood. This story too is told without flourishes, for the teller
knows that even as he tells the story of his best friend, the younger
brother who was murdered, he can claim no unique pain, for there are
so many more stories just like this one.
There are stories that feature buildings, Papa 1 and Papa 2, the
notorious interrogation centers in the heart of posh Srinagar. Many
died there, or were mangled in mind and body, and some claim that
their cries still reverberate there. These buildings are now
reclaimed by the civil administration, and house important people.
The administration claimed that this would heal these buildings of
their histories, but the many who were interned there, and the many,
many more, whose loved ones disappeared into the two Papas, see
little healing, only a handing over of property from one set of
rulers to another. This too is one effect of the circulation of such
stories, for those who hear them, and have heard them for almost two
decades now, cannot hear when those in power speak. They stand and
listen—Kashmiris have always stood and listened—but all they hear are
the songs of the disappeared and the dead.
Pictures tell stories too, of course, and there are so many to be
seen, for the world has an insatiable appetite for images of suffering.
Crying women crowd these frames, their sorrow and their anger at odds
with their chunnis and head-scarves of many colours.
Their faces, and those of the little ones, who cry not because they
know who has been lost but because their mothers and aunts are
distraught, are the new face of Kashmir. They weep as one for their
gun-toting insurgent son, who climbed the high mountains in pursuit
of a dangerous dream, or their carpenter-brother, who left the house
for supplies and never returned home. There are pictures of buildings
aflame, the end result of a skirmish between violent men, or the more
spectacular one of the precise moment when the military blows up two
homes from which militants fire at them. The tone of the photograph
is uncannily like the tone of the stories: the roar of the blast is
muted into the visual whoosh of debris flying high, with the quiet,
understated certainty of death. Pictures and poetry, stories and songs
—who could have known that two decades of violence could have made
these the weapons of the weak? And then there are other pictures that
are almost as inspiring: masses of men, and of women, mobilized into
processions, surging forward, arms in the air and mouths open with
slogans, storming into a future that holds few promises except for
the certainty of more pain.
There is another set of stories though, that is told less and less
often as the years go by, but whose power to haunt and to vex does
not fade. They too feature people who were killed, but they are
mostly about exile, about leaving homes and hearths in fear. These
are Hindu stories, or at least stories of Hindus, and of their horror
at hearing, in their neighbourhoods, the strident voices of hate.
There is no compensation for their loss, which is also the loss of a
set of stories that complemented and completed Kashmir’s web of
enchantments. They will never be replaced, but, slowly but surely,
their telling will fade in the face of the other more urgent, more
recently painful, stories Muslims have to tell.
And finally, when all the policy planners, the politicians, and the
military men have done their work, it is these stories that will defy
their logic. We—I now write as an Indian and a democrat—have no
convincing stories to offer Kashmiris, no narratives of inclusion and
oneness. We have watched, and listened—but not really done either—as
large sections of "our" Kashmiri population are brutalized and
reduced to the status of supplicants. We think our promises of
development, and of belonging to an India burgeoning into a
superpower, will wean them away from the stories they now imbibe. We
should know that we have in fact, no stories to offer, or at least
none that are not hollow, corrupt and coercive. And they now have a
sea of stories, stories which move and mobilize, with which to
irrigate their suffering and their struggle.
I will be keenly affected by the outcome of this struggle, I know,
but I know also, even more forcefully, that we have lost the moral
right not to let Kashmiris compose their own stories. We do not know
what form those stories will take, nor what conclusions they will
offer. They might tell of the coming of an Islamic state, or of union
with a Muslim neighbour, or they might imagine a future of continuing
toleration and exchange, a reassertion of the Islam and Hinduism of
the sufis and the rishis. Or they might yearn (and I hope this will
be the case) for a secular polity in which Kashmiris of all religions
and of none can participate fully. We cannot know in advance what
those stories might be, but they need to be conceived, shared, and
debated.If we value democracy, we can encourage no less.
Suvir Kaul is A. M. Rosenthal Professor and Chair, Department of
English, University of Pennsylvania, USA
o o o
(iii) Jammu and Kashmir: Abject surrender to communal forces
AN IMMORAL & ILLEGAL ACCORD
by A G Noorani (in: Greater Kashmir, September 3, 2008)
Srinagar, Sep 2: The accord between the Jammu and Kashmir government
and the Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti on 31 August is far
worse than the government’s order only three months earlier on 26
May. It grants the SAYSS concessions beyond what the May order did.
It is one-sided and marks an abject surrender to violence, blockade
and to communal forces. The differences between the order and accord
are glaring. Here is a list:
1. The order was made pursuant to a decision on 20 May by the cabinet
in which both Jammu and Kashmir were represented. The accord
completely ignores Kashmir where the land is to be given. Jammu alone
was represented. A week earlier, there was a clampdown in the Valley
and top leaders were arrested.
2. Even the controversial order nowhere used the word “exclusive”.
The SAYSS felt so emboldened as to demand it and threaten to wreck
the deal if it was not conceded. The government yielded in the early
hours of 31 August. Para 6A says that the Government “shall set aside
for use by Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board exclusively the land in
Baltal and Domail”. This order unknown anywhere in the world is
cloaked under a lie by calling it “traditionally under use for the
annual yatra purpose”. The traditional route for over a century is
the Pahalgam route. The Baltal route is a recent demand. It was
regarded by the Army and Nitish Sengupta Report as dangerous. It is
also unnecessary if the limit of yatris set by the Report (1 lakh) is
observed.
3. This violates the citizen’s fundamental right under Art. 19 (1) D
to move freely throughout India. The demand of exclusivity was not
made even in May 2008 or in decades earlier. It is pure communal
aggression using the yatra for political demonstration not religious
piety.
4. The duration of use is widened to cover pre and post yatra period.
Para 6 C first says that the land will be used “for the duration of
the yatra” including the period of preparations and winding up. But
the very next para has these sinister words: “The aforesaid land
shall be used according to the Board’s requirements from time to
time, including for the following”. There follow 9 measures including
construction, setting up of the sheds and shops etc. These can be
done even beyond the yatra period “from time to time” and “according
to the Board’s requirements”; may be all the year around.
5. Para 8 of the order insisted that the land “shall return” to the
State. This is dropped in the accord. This accomplishes S.K. Sinha’s
objective— permanent use the year round.
6. Also dropped totally is Para 4 on payment for user.
7. Dropped too is Para 6. An undertaking of “foolproof measures
against water pollution and Para 7 on payment of fine for damage to
the forest. There is a pious provision in accord Para 6 C (ix) among
the objectives of land user; namely “undertaking measures relating to
… preservation of ecology” etc. Breach entails no fine.
8. The order of 26 May was rescinded on 1 July. The accord will
require a fresh order to implement it. By itself the accord has no
legal force. Section 2(a) of the J&K Forest (Conservation) Act 1997
says “the Government shall not, except on a resolution of the Council
of Ministers based on the advice of the Advisory Committee”
constituted under the Act “make any order directing that any forest
land or any portion thereof may be used for any non-forest purpose”.
The earlier phrase “Council of ministers” merely was revised by an
amendment in 2001 and the Forest Advisory Committee’s advice was
added and made mandatory. “Council of Ministers” is specific. It is
different from “J&K Government” whose powers vest now in the governor
alone. The law intentionally provides the resolution as a safeguard.
This Council can come into existence only after the next elections.
In any case the Forest Advisory Committees advice on 12 July 2007
cannot apply to this new accord which must be vetted afresh by that
Committee. It was given before the Supreme Court’s final judgment in
the T M Godavarman case on 23 November 2007 which lays down the law
and makes important observations on balancing development with
protection of environment. Failure to consider it vitiates the
decision. Precisely based on misrepresentation of opinion of the
deputy CM Muzaffar Hussain Beg and advocate general Altaf Naik both
of which were given in entirely difference cases.
The accord lacks legal efficacy as well as moral and political
legitimacy. Any order in its implementation will be void in law. It
is a pity that the state should bend all rules to buy peace with
communal forces including promise to consider compensation for law-
breakers. What of compensation to the Valley for the blockade? The
parivar in Jammu has already begun asking for more. The Government
has not bought peace but trouble. It is gunah-e-bey lazzat (sin
without any taste.)
If the state can thus bend its knees before the Sangh parivar on an
issue like this, what hopes of justice can Kashmiris entertain when
it comes to restoring the raped Article 370 to a status of worth and
respect?
o o o
(iv) Q&A: 'RESTORE AUTONOMY ORIGINALLY ENJOYED BY J&K'
The Times of India, 3 September 2008
Ajit Bhattacharjea has been writing on Jammu and Kashmir ever since
he went there in 1947 to report the invasion of Pathans sent in by
Pakistan. In his 80s, Bhattacharjea has completed a biography of
Sheikh Abdullah to complement his previous book ‘Kashmir: The Wounded
Valley’. Humra Quraishi talks to Bhattacharjea:
How has Kashmir changed?
I went to Srinagar the first time in 1947, soon after our troops
landed there. I saw how Kashmiris helped to resist the invasion by
Pathan tribals sent in by Pakistan. The same Kashmiris are now crying
for azadi from India.
When i was there last year, temples were open in the heart of
Srinagar and people were visiting them. There were so many
publications about the culture and history of the Valley and there
were tourists. There was hope. There’s little hope left today as the
situation amounts to a form of occupation because of our repressive
law and order approach.
How did the situation deteriorate?
Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru believed in secularism and in
socialism. Kashmiris were with India and rejected Pakistan because
for them it didn’t stand for either socialism or secularism. Over the
years Hindutva outfits have exerted their influence over the
government of India. With that several factors came up. The
assurances given to Sheikh Abdullah were taken away, the special
autonomy promised to J&K was gradually eroded. There’s a sense of
alienation among Kashmiris. That sense of alienation had always been
there but today it has increased. Blocking the highway and connecting
roads to the Valley was a disaster. It made Kashmiris feel that they
are not part of the country. And now, this news of curfew being
imposed in the entire Valley.
The way forward is to invite all concerned for discussions on
specific, time-bound measures to revive the autonomy J&K had enjoyed
when it joined the Indian Union.
What kind of political solution do you think will be acceptable in
the Valley?
People tend to forget that Jammu and Kashmir cannot be treated like
any other state. It acceded to India on October 27, 1947, on the
condition of being given internal autonomy. Though Muslims were in a
majority, they supported acces-sion and helped Indian troops resist
Pakistan. But gradual erosion of the state’s autonomy planted the
seeds of alienation. Azadi became a popular slogan, that could mean
independence or full autonomy.
I do not see any prospect of early resumption of talks on autonomy
after this heavy dose of repression. Prospects had improved after
General Musharraf made his out-of-the-box proposals to increase
cooperation between the two halves of Kashmir. But he, too, is gone.
Even so, if the Centre offers talks on restoring the level of
autonomy originally enjoyed by the state, a new beginning can perhaps
be made. But it must seem to be sincere.
_____
[3] Hindutva Terror - Orissa Pogrom Today, What's the Next Target?
For more see: http://communalism.blogspot.com/
(i)
Asian Age
September 4, 2008
INERT ORISSA GOVT ACCOMPLICE IN CRIMES AGAINST CHRISTIANS
by Antara Dev Sen
Wherever you look, there is some Hindutva hungama. Till this week,
you had Hindu-Muslim violence up in Jammu and Kashmir as the bizarre
BJP-inspired bickering over the Amarnath land controversy dragged on
for over two months. In Orissa, Hindutva goons are killing Christians
and destroying churches, homes, schools and shops. In Madhya Pradesh,
fundamentalist Hindus assaulted and killed Muslims to commemorate a
bandh on the Amarnath land issue. In Gujarat, Narendra Modi’s
demonising of Muslims continues as he urgently presses the Prime
Minister for special security laws to further harass them.
In Maharashtra, Bal Thackeray calls for Hindu suicide bombers who
would blow themselves up among Muslims and thus make India safer. In
Uttar Pradesh, two men closely linked to the Bajrang Dal are blown to
bits when the bombs they were making explode. And in Delhi, several
politicians and activists call for a ban on the right-wing Hindu
Bajrang Dal, like the ban on the Muslim Simi (Students’ Islamic
Movement of India). And there are always the sulking saffron-wallahs
who must attack M.F. Husain.
This time they vandalised an exhibition of his photographs organised
by Sahmat in Delhi. Hemmed in by all this, it is impossible to miss
the palpable Hindutva terror closing in on non-Hindutva Indians.
Take the Christian killings in Kandhamal, Orissa. Rampaging Hindu
mobs brandishing guns, swords, bombs and stuff targeted Christians.
Thousands of Christian homes, scores of churches and several convents
were destroyed. We won’t get to know the exact figures till much
later — if ever. Till now, the official death toll is 16. And after
more than a week of bloodshed and vandalism, in spite of curfews and
police presence, thousands of terrified Christians are still hiding
in the forests.
The bloodshed started with the murder of VHP leader Swami
Lakshmananda Saraswati on August 23 by Maoists. The rowdies of the
Hindutva parivar immediately launched their "revenge" killings of
Christians. No, the fact that their Hindu supremacist leader was not
killed by a Christian, but by Naxalites who were probably Hindu by
birth, was irrelevant. As it is, the logic of revenge killings —
hitting back at imagined "attackers" — is spectacularly wrong. And
when the violence is part of drumming up sectarian hatred for ethnic
cleansing, the target group can be blamed for no reason.
The Maoists have explained that they killed the swami because he was
a "rabid anti-Christian ideologue and persecutor of innocent
Christians who was responsible for the burning down of over 400
churches in Kandhamal district alone." In fact, this Hindutva leader
was known for his fierce resentment of the success of Christian
missionaries in winning over people with healthcare, education, food
and dignity in this desperately poor tribal area. He had apparently
organised thousands of "reconversions" into Hinduism, and had been
encouraging violence against the "Other" for decades. Apart from
conversions to Hinduism (often forced), Christians, Muslims, adivasis
and Dalits in Orissa have been attacked physically (rape, abuse,
vandalising homes, torching places of worship are common) and through
social and economic boycotts. They have also been harassed through
the peculiar use of law, like the Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter
Act (1960) being used to harass primarily Muslims and Dalits.
Last December, the Hindutva brigade launched a furious attack on
Christians which left around 10 dead and hundreds missing.
Apparently, it was retaliation to an assault on the swami, but it is
widely believed that it was pre-planned, with state connivance, after
a hate campaign was built up against Christians as "conversion
terrorists".
The National Minorities Commission stated it was a premeditated
attack. But nobody has been punished — or is even close to being held
guilty for the cold-blooded murder of Indian citizens. "How long will
we go on killing the dead?" asked poet Jayanta Mahapatra (Gujarat,
2002). "How long will we see the same truth with different eyes?/ Is
this evening or a dark, hard, elusive darkness/ where the God I
choose suits one better than a lie?"
There has been a sustained hate campaign against Christians in Orissa
for decades. Churches have been destroyed, idols broken, the Bible
burned. This criminal hatred had stormed into our national conscience
10 years ago, in 1999. That year, in January, Australian missionary
Graham Staines and his two little boys were burned alive in Keonjhar.
In February, Catholic nun Jacqueline Mary was gangraped in
Mayurbhanj. In August, Shiekh Rehman, a Muslim merchant, was
mutilated and burned to death in public in Mayurbhanj. In September,
Arul Das, a Catholic priest, was murdered, also in Mayurbhanj. Hard
to believe that this Mayurbhanj was once the glorious centre of
culture, renowned for its artistic sensitivities, the pride of Orissa.
When chief minister Naveen Patnaik finally bestirred himself and went
to visit the victims this week, they told him to go away. He had
failed them miserably. And many blamed his alliance with the BJP for
his inability to control the violence against Christians.
His shameless failure of governance was also evident the last time
round — when he celebrated 10 years in power with pomp and glory
while Kandhamal burned over Christmas 2007. The Hindutva goons were
given a free hand as the police were called away from the districts
to help in the celebrations in the capital.
The sustained attacks on Christians in Orissa reminds one of the
ferocious attacks on Muslims in Gujarat earlier. State support seems
evident, apparently the police had been asked not to intervene.
The rule of the Hindutva brigade was also clear in the violence
against Muslims in Indore in July, where the police seemed complicit
and the violence was drummed up out of nowhere.
When we have such terrible precedents like Gujarat 2002, can we
afford to look dispassionately at these cauldrons of sectarian
hatred? By turning away we are inviting more terrorism, as helpless,
desperate people turn to inhuman means to counter the inhuman
treatment we mete out to them.
"And what do we pray for at the end of all this?/ That man may not
run to thatch,/ veils may not be torn, heads should not be
severed?... / And if severed, no one should play football with
them…" (Keki Daruwala, On the Horror in Gujarat, 2002)
We have really hit rock bottom. We need to climb back up into human
society. And banish this "hard, elusive darkness where the God I
choose suits one better than a lie".
Antara Dev Sen is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted
at: sen at littlemag.com
o o o
(ii)
Herald, Panjim,
3 September 2008
Editorial
CROCODILE TEARS?
Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik says recurring communal violence
has tarnished the image of his state. In an interview with Indian
Express, Patnaik yesterday said: "The attack on the ashram, as well
as what happened thereafter, I repeat, what happened after that, both
are deplorable. Those who indulged in these savage acts... stern
action will be certainly taken against them."
These are fine words, but why aren't they backed by action? Why has
an avowedly secular politician become a prisoner of his coalition
partner, the BJP? Why is his government preventing political leaders
and human rights activists from entering Kandhamal? He has even ruled
out a CBI probe into Swami Laxmanananda's murder, proposed not only
by the Church, but also by Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, saying
the judicial inquiry he has ordered is "adequate", though we all know
it will take years to reach a verdict.
Orissa needs more central forces, Patnaik says. But the state already
has enough. Seven companies were stationed in Orissa as reserve.
Subsequently, 10 companies of the CRPF were pulled out from Jharkhand
and Bihar, and sent there. Another six companies of the Rapid Action
Force (RAF) stationed in Hyderabad and Jamshedpur were subsequently
diverted to Orissa. The central paramilitary presence in Orissa
stands at 33 companies, or five-and-a-half battalions. According to
The Economic Times, it is almost half of the number deployed in
Chhattisgarh to fight the Naxalites!
The real problem, according to Archbishop of Cuttack Raphael
Cheenath, who filed a writ before the Supreme Court yesterday
demanding its intervention, is that they are all being deployed in
district towns and not being sent to the remote areas, where armed
gangs of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) goons are running amok. On
Monday, the Orissa Government admitted that over 558 houses and 17
places of worship had been burnt in the riots. Chief Secretary Ajit
Kumar Tripathy said that the situation was 'under control'. But even
as he spoke, VHP mobs burnt down at least 20 houses of Christians,
and destroyed a church, a convent and two hostels, apart from 10
prayer halls. Police recovered three bodies in Kandhamal on Monday.
Claiming that the situation had "substantially improved", authorities
suspended the curfew from 6 am to 6 pm yesterday. But, according to
The Hindustan Times, at least 80 houses were torched in fresh arson
in villages of the Tikabali and Sarangada areas of Kandhamal district
between noon on Monday and Tuesday afternoon. Yesterday, for the
very first time since the violence broke out, Secretaries to the
government visited Kandhamal district to see the situation. Patnaik
visited Kandhamal just a day earlier. And Union Home Minister Shivraj
Patil will be visiting Orissa today. That all these 'honourable men'
could not get moving earlier, exposes the real level of their concern
about the situation.
Worst of all, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) has
said the Church "is shocked" to learn that the Christians are "forced
to become Hindus and destroy their own Churches, in which they have
been worshipping so long." To force people to 're-convert' to
Hinduism and then tear down or burn their places of worship is an act
of medieval savagery.
And what should one say about organisations like the Hindu
Janajagriti Samiti, which attacked the Church for keeping its
educational institutions closed on 29 August in protest against the
slaughter. Are we to interpret it as their support for these acts of
savagery? Can India progress with primitive thinking like this?
o o o
(iii)
VIOLENCE IN INDIA IS FUELED BY RELIGIOUS AND ECONOMIC DIVIDE
by Hari Kumar And Heather Timmons
New York Times, September 3, 2008
TIANGIA, India — Those who came to attack Christians here early last
week set their trap well, residents say.
Christian villagers who had fled attacks waited for food on Saturday
at a relief camp in Orissa, a poor state in eastern India.
First, they built makeshift barricades of trees and small boulders
along the roads leading into this village, apparently to stop the
police from intervening.
Then, villagers say, the attackers went on a rampage. Chanting “Kill
these pigs” and “All Hindus are brothers,” the mob began breaking
into homes that displayed posters of Jesus, stealing valuables and
eventually burning the buildings. When they found residents who had
not fled to the nearby jungle, they beat them with sticks or maimed
them with axes and left them to die.
A local official said three people died as a result of the attack on
Aug. 25. The carefully placed roadblocks accomplished their purpose;
residents say a full day passed before help arrived.
One villager, Asha Lata Nayak, said, “I saw the mob carrying sticks,
axes, swords, knives and small guns. They first demolished the
village church and later Christian houses. Nobody came forward to
help us.”
The scene in Tiangia was repeated in villages throughout the
Kandhamal district and several other areas of Orissa, a remote and
destitute state in eastern India, witnesses and the police said. The
violence, which left at least 16 dead, was among the worst in decades
against Christians in this Hindu-dominated nation and appears to have
been fueled, at least in part, by discontent at a time when the gap
between India’s haves and have-nots is growing.
Orissa has long suffered from government neglect, and Christian
missionaries provide services, including schooling, much better than
most residents receive from the government. While that has caused
friction before, the stakes are higher now that better-educated
people have more of a chance of joining the economic boom.
The attacks in Kandhamal have destroyed or damaged about 1,400 homes
of Christians and at least 80 churches and small prayer houses, which
were set on fire, a local government official said. Clergymen say
orphanages were also destroyed. Estimates from Christian groups put
the death toll at more than 25, though a state official in Orissa
said 16 were killed.
“I am afraid and will not go back to my village,” said Ms. Nayak, 25,
who took shelter in a crowded relief camp in Raikia. She is among an
estimated 13,500 people who have fled to refugee camps, according to
Krishna Kumar, the top state official in Kandhamal.
Ms. Nayak says that her husband, Bikram, was fatally wounded while
she hid and that her house was destroyed.
The violence in Orissa continued this week, with the media reporting
more prayer halls being burned. The federal government pledged
Tuesday to send more paramilitary troops to the area to reinforce the
local police.
But on Wednesday, India’s Supreme Court ordered Orissa’s government
to submit a report about what it is doing to control the area, after
reports by Christians that the police were not doing enough to stop
attacks.
[. . .]
Full text at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/world/asia/
04christians.html
______
[4]
CHILDREN DIE IN AN OUTSOURCING BOOM
by J. Sri Raman, (truthout.org 26 August 2008)
Stories of children's deaths do not shock India too much. Over
2.1 million kids die every year in the country before they reach the
ripe age of five, according to a count by the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) in its State of the World's Children 2008
report. The fate of 49 babies, however, fell in a different category.
They died during clinical trials at New Delhi's All-India
Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which it is obligatory for the
nation's media to describe as either "premier" or "prestigious,"
during the last two and a half years. The institute parted with this
news in response to a query from a non-profit organization that
sought it under a recently enacted law investing the citizen with a
"right to information."
The AIIMS pediatrics department conducted 42 sets of trials on
4,142 babies - 2,728 of them below the age of one - since January 1,
2006. As if to soften the impact of the information, the institute
added that the deaths amounted to a 1.18 percent mortality rate.
The belated announcement of the unmourned baby deaths has
brought to light a major issue that sections of the media and the
middle class - busy hailing India's "economic boom" - have preferred
to ignore. Can they continue to evade the issue of the outsourcing of
clinical trials of drugs and therapies by the US and other Western
pharma giants and the outrageous health and human costs of such
operations?
The man who has made it a public issue minces no words about the
meaning of the cradle deaths - the guinea-pig role reserved for the
country's poor in the scheme of things of the elite set on making
India a glittering "economic power." Rahul Verma, founder of New
Delhi-based Uday Foundation for Congenital Defects and Rare Blood
Groups, reiterates that he and his foundation were mainly concerned
about the "socioeconomic conditions" of the strata that provided the
tender subjects of the clinical trials.
The AIIMS did not answer his question on this count, but Verma
points out that the poor of India alone could be tempted by the
trials as they could not afford private medical care, while public
heath care was in a pathetic state. The institute provided no
information about the reasons for the babies' deaths, their ages or
their gender, since he had not specifically asked for it.
Talking on the telephone to Truthout, Verma confided that he had
named his foundation after his son Uday, suffering from congenital
defects and undergoing surgical treatment since his birth just two an
a half years ago. "You can watch your father die, but not your child
die," said Verma. He cannot watch the children of the poor die,
either, only to save research and development costs for some of the
world's richest merchants in medicare.
Verma finds particularly "scary" the fact that such a big
proportion of the babies were under one year old. It troubles many
medical practitioners that the trials of at least two of the drugs
involved should be conducted on even the age group of one to 16
years. The drugs - olmesartan and valsartan, meant for reducing blood
pressure - have never been tried on patients below age 18, according
to Chandra M. Gulhati, editor of the Monthly Index of Medical
Specialties.
In a media interview, he asks: "Is hypertension in this age
group a problem in India? If yes, what is the incidence and
prevalence? If it is not a major problem, why conduct a trial in
India and put children at risk without any benefit?"
The AIIMS tragedy has also raised questions afresh about the
official moves afoot to make such clinical trials even easier and
more common than ever - all as a part, of course, of an Indian
economic miracle in the making. Powerful lobbies for local industry
have long pleaded for steps to liberalize the trials, arguing that
the country's earnings from them could increase tenfold if annoying
obstacles were out of the way. The plea has not gone unheeded.
The plea is for revising present regulations of the trials,
conducted in three phases. Phase I trials test a drug's safety on
healthy volunteers. Phase II and III trials test larger numbers for
the drug's efficacy, besides collecting information on its safety and
effective doses. Phase IV trials are conducted once the drug is
marketed to monitor for its safety in larger populations.
According to Schedule Y of India's Drugs and Cosmetics Act,
permission is given for international clinical trials in India one
phase behind the rest of the world. If a drug is going through Phase
III trials elsewhere, for example, it can be tried only in Phase II
trials here. Phase I trials of new drug substances discovered in
other countries can be conducted in India if data of the Phase I
trials in other countries are already available.
All this will change if the regulations undergo the planned
revision. Trials may then be conducted in the same phase as
elsewhere. According to the interim report of the expert government
committee: "Comprehensive revision of Schedule Y, that prescribes
requirements of clinical trials, has been undertaken in order to
harness (the) country's potential to participate in global multi-
centric clinical trials."
Concurrent-phase trials will open up the scope for multi-centric
trials at all phases, currently not possible here. They, however,
will also expose Indians to greater risks since Phase I trials will
be permitted - and since the people have much less access to proper
health care.
According to one report, meanwhile, the Confederation of Indian
Industries is pushing for "automatic approvals" of all applications
with the Drug Controller-General of India if not cleared within a
stipulated time frame. The health of the poor is too petty a
consideration for corporates in a hurry.
The first reaction of the government in New Delhi to disclosure
of the babies' deaths was predictable: Health Minister Anbumani
Ramadoss announced the setting up of a committee to investigate the
entire affair and submit a report soon. Only two days later, however,
he told a newspaper: "The AIIMS is a renowned research institution.
The children must have died because they were already very ill."
At a public function around the same time, while promising a
review of the clinical trial process, the minister added: "We can
have a broad discussion on the subject in the country, but at the
same time, I would say that India has become the hub of a lot of
research activities, which is the need of the hour."
How proud should a patriotic Indian wax in this case that is so
very different from outsourcing in software or other areas? The
pharma firms make no secret of what lures them to India. Sandhya
Srinivasan, of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, cited an
eloquent example in an article four years ago. Wrote she: "A huge
population with a diversity of diseases that are untreated - yes,
that is the 'India Advantage' identified by iGate Clinical Research
International, commenting that India represents a largely untapped
resource for clinical trials." That the ill in India are largely
"drug naive" (meaning "untreated") is an added attraction.
iGate (with US headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) notes
that India has "40 million asthmatic patients, about 34 million
diabetic patients, eight to ten million people HIV positive, eight
million epileptic patients, three million cancer patients" among
other categories. What a mouth-watering prospect for pharma majors,
especially considering the poverty of this pool! Add to that the
bonus of illiteracy and semi-literacy of the subjects of the trials
that make it so easy to obtain "informed consent."
Just a few figures suffice to explain the glee among the global
pharma players and their local partners over the clinical-trial
cooperation. The average cost of bringing a new drug to market is
estimated at $1 billion. Human clinical trials are the most expensive
phase of drug development. As much as 60 percent of the costs can be
cut by holding the trials in a country such as India.
On the other side, Global consultancy McKinsey and Company
estimates that, by 2010, global pharma majors will spend around $1
billion to $1.5 billion just for drug trials in India. As many as 139
new trials were outsourced to India last year, putting it well ahead
of China, which had 98. The market value for clinical trials
outsourced to India is estimated to stand at $300 million, having
increased by 65 percent over last year.
What does India - as distinct from some of its industries,
institutions and individuals in important positions - gain? The World
Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki Ethical Principles for
Medical Research Involving Human Subjects lays down: "Medical
research is only justified if there is a reasonable likelihood that
the populations in which the research is carried out stand to benefit
from the results of the research." Doctors in India, who have tried
to translate this into practice, say that they got only verbal
assurances from the multinationals in this regard and very little
beyond. The prohibitively priced drugs under trial, in any case, are
beyond the reach of the poor Indians.
The harm that can be done by the trials, however, is far from
hypothetical. In 2002, a trial in India, along with 31 other
countries, of Novo Nordisk's diabetes drug ragaglitazar had to be
suspended after a pre-clinical trial in mice revealed that the
compound caused urinary bladder tumors. In 2003, it was reported that
researchers from India-based Sun Pharmaceuticals had given the
anticancer drug letrozole to 430 young women to see if it would
induce ovulation, despite the fact that the drug is known to be toxic
to embryos.
The deaths in the AIIMS are just the latest in a long series of
cases worldwide that raise serious questions over outsourcing in
clinical trials. We can only watch with concern whether the fate of
the child victims will make the rulers of a "rising India" (as they
advertise it) act like responsible adults.
______
[5]
Tribune India
September 4, 2008
KOSI FLOODING CAN TURN INTO AN OPPORTUNITY:LEARNING FROM ADVERSITY
by B G Verghese
The Kosi crisis should bond India and Nepal as it underlines a deeper
truth, namely, a geo-physical relationship.
A catastrophe long feared occurred on August 18. The wayward Kosi
burst through its eastern embankment in Nepal at Kushaha, by-passing
the Bhimnagar barrage constructed at the international border 12 km
further south, carving out a new course along its historically
easternmost limits from which it had started migrating westwards some
200 years ago. Two districts in Nepal and maybe 10 in Bihar have been
inundated, affecting a population of 70,000 and 2.5 million persons
respectively, with the possibility of these numbers increasing with
any further surge of swollen waters.
The jilted Kosi barrage is reportedly now passing only 20,000 cusecs
of water as against 240,000 cusecs flowing through the Kushaha breach
in Nepal that has widened to something approaching 1.6 km.
Maintenance of the barrage and embankments on both sides of the
border was an Indian responsibility under the aegis of the Ganga
Flood Control Commission which outsourced actual works to the Bihar
government.
The usual blame game has started within Bihar and between it and the
Centre and even Nepal with an eye to electoral advantage when the
need of the hour is a united resolve to overcome the crisis jointly.
Accountability must surely be fixed, but a little later, through an
independent Indo-Nepal commission of inquiry which can do the job
within weeks instead of the months and years normally sought and
given to fudge responsibility. Punishment must be swift and condign
as embankment maintenance has traditionally sustained huge corruption
at the cost of lives and welfare.
The immediate task is obviously relief for and rehabilitation of the
victims and their livestock and the restoration of livelihoods.
Prophylactic health measures must be a high priority if raging
epidemics are to be avoided. The PM has sanctioned Rs 1,000 crore for
relief in respect of this “national calamity,” but more may be
required, apart from the costs of reconstruction. The National
Disaster Management Organisation has to be geared up to deliver
sooner and better, learning from experience.
Concurrently, the Kosi breach must be plugged in collaboration with
Nepal. A quick meeting of relevant Indo-Nepal authorities is
obviously necessary and a joint authority must be designated to
undertake and supervise this massive job. If need be, Nepalese costs
must be borne by India. This will require mobilisation of men and
material and a plan of work to be executed as the flood recedes,
which may not happen for a couple of months or more given late rains.
Simultaneously every effort must be made to coax the river back to
its jacketed course above and below the barrage, itself a fragile
structure in need of renovation.
Finally, India and Nepal must expeditiously discuss the larger issue
of water resource development to mutual benefit. This has stalled for
years and even decades on account of mistrust. Nepal feels it was
wronged on the Kosi and Gandak projects, both later renegotiated.
Charges of bad faith and a periodic souring of Indo-Nepal relations
and political crises obviated bold decision making. The currently
shared Kosi crisis should bond the two sides as it underlines a
deeper truth, namely, a geo-physical relationship and the challenge
of climate change that neither can disavow and only overcome or
convert into opportunity through cooperative action.
A high dam at Barakshetra was proposed as far back as 1946 as the
best hope for “taming” the Kosi and ensuring that the subsequent
barrage and embankments constructed would not break or be by-passed.
A joint team charged with preparing a detailed project report has
made little progress while the Pancheshwar Agreement, a landmark
Treaty signed in 1995, has stalled. India has offered new terms and
these should be considered even as three medium PPP power project
agreed upon, West Seti, Arun-III and the Karnali bend, are vigorously
pursued.
With hundreds of rivers flowing down to India from Nepal, a more
imaginative dialogue is required to promote mutual development and
benefit, including utilisation of power within Nepal along its border
with India, to attract investments and generate employment and
incomes. Multipurpose dams should be conceptualised as area
development programmes that transform both the upper and lower
catchments and trigger social development funded through a cess on
the future stream of project profits, stakeholder participation, and
in situ R&R.
On the Indian side the Kosi flood offers opportunity to rebuild a
vibrant North Bihar countryside, based on new and more equitable land
relationships and an imaginative spatial town and country plan
covering the eight devastated districts, rather than mere restoration
of the rural slum that has gone under water. This calls for the
immediate setting up of a national, multi-disciplinary task force to
which NREGA could be harnessed alongside a national volunteer corps
of professionals to help plan, execute and monitor.
Nepal is planning a new, shorter, all-weather north-south national
highway from Birganj to Kathmandu and a second and larger
international airport en route in the terai. These developments could
dovetail into Bihar’s matching post-flood reconstruction programme to
create synergy in a catalysing Indo-Nepal growth pole within, yet
operationally independent of, any larger Indo-Nepal framework of
cooperation.
Let adversity lead on to fortune.
______
[6]
www.southasiasolidarity.org
South Asia Solidarity Group’s Urgent Appeal
Below is the text of an online petition to the President of India
about the Bihar floods. It can be signed at
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Floods08/petition.html
Smt. Pratibha Patil,
Hon’ble President,
Republic of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi
Urgent Appeal for Intervention in Man-Made Flood Disaster in Bihar
Dear Madam President,
As you are aware, the people of large tracts of Bihar are facing
devastating floods. Several million people have lost their homes. The
situation is grim in over 900 villages with the districts of Supaul,
Saharsa, Madhepura and Araria the worst affected.
Bihar is one of the most flood-affected states of India. This has
been a longstanding problem, but half-hearted flood control measures,
and haphazard development plans have aggravated the problem.
The Chief Minister of Bihar Shri Nitish Kumar and the Prime Minister
Shri Manmohan Singh have both termed the floods to be a natural
calamity – in Nitish Kumar’s words, a ‘pralay’ (mythical apocalyptic
deluge). Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that
the flood disaster which is devastating the lives of millions, is
entirely man-made – a creation of decades of criminal callousness and
negligence on part of governments both in Patna and Delhi. We the
undersigned wish to draw the following to your attention:
* The Bihar administration launched relief and rescue operations
more than a week after the first breach developed in the Kosi
embankment, and till date, there remains an acute shortage of basic
facilities like rescue boats and polythene sheets, and food is yet to
reach most of the affected people.
* Repair and maintenance work on the Kosi barrage and the
embankment along the Kosi river were supposed to be the
responsibility of the Bihar Government, according to the bilateral
agreement with Nepal in 1954. Any attempt on the part of India to
escape responsibility by blaming Nepal is baseless, and cannot in any
way help the people of Bihar.
* The notion propagated by the Bihar Chief Minister that this
year the discharge of water was of ‘catastrophic/deluge’ proportions
is a myth: it is poor maintenance and consequent weakening of the
embankment that is at fault. This year the Kosi embankment has broken
with the discharge of less than 1.5 lakh cusecs of water; in 2004, it
broke at 2.68 lakh cusecs; in past years, it has been known to
withstand up to 9 lakh cusecs.
* Plans for flood management, chalked out right from
independence, have not been implemented in 61 years. Ever since 1947,
flood control measures for the Kosi river have been debated even on
the floor of Parliament. The 1951 Bhabha plan for the Kosi suggested
developing an integral planning framework embracing all the major
rivers of the region and evolving measures like dams, check dams,
barrages, reservoirs, canals and reopening the old natural links
among the rivers. Unfortunately the Flood Control Policy of 1954 was
restricted to building embankments, and the original Bhabha plan was
subsequently discarded on the pretext that funds were not available,
and that the electricity which would be generated was not needed!
Today the Indian government is going for a Nuclear Deal in the name
of power shortage; why has the Bhabha plan not been implemented in
all these years? The Central and Bihar Governments must answer for
the failure to implement any comprehensive flood-management strategy
despite yearly tragedy in Bihar.
* Each year in the name of maintenance of the old embankments
and construction of many more unnecessary new embankments, crores of
rupees are spent to serve the interests of a nexus of engineers,
politicians and contractors. The Government of Bihar has, over the
years, constructed 3438 km of embankments on various rivers. But a
permanent resolution of the problem has never been seriously
addressed, either by the Centre or the State government.
* Successive Bihar governments have retrenched thousands of
seasonal and casual workers in the department responsible for
monitoring the effectiveness of embankments. These workers are local
inhabitants whose job was to collect information regarding the
piping, breaches and erosion on the embankments. Now embankment
security has been abandoned with the retrenchment of these workers.
Due to silting, riverbeds have become higher, while the height and
strength of embankments remains unchanged. No steps are being taken
to overhaul the riverbeds. Such neglect of basic preventive measures
is nothing but criminal negligence.
* The recommendations of the Sanyal Committee have been ignored.
Following the devastation caused by floods in 2007, an expert
committee set up by the Bihar Government and headed by N. Sanyal
recommended restoration of existing embankments to their proper
profiles and levels as a top priority; and observed that there is an
urgent need to enhance the funds for maintenance of embankments to
the required standards. In addition, it had suggested that the
Government procure driving sheet piles and geo-textile bags to be air-
dropped during floods as emergency measures to boost the embankments.
None of the suggested measures were acted upon.
* Relief operations during floods have been a source of loot for
successive Bihar governments. This year, too, people deprived of
relief have angrily accosted the few leaders of ruling political
parties who have toured the villages (most have confined themselves
to aerial surveys) – because they are starved of relief while corrupt
officials make hay while the rain pours!
We appeal to you to intervene urgently in the matter, and ensure that
a) Immediate relief (rescue boats, polythene sheets, food, and
medical care) is made available to the people of the affected areas
b) Comprehensive measures are adopted for river management and flood
control
c) Proper maintenance of embankments with the latest materials and
equipment be taken up as a priority
In addition to this, we appeal to you to order a judicial enquiry
into the negligence by Governments at the Centre and State which have
resulted in the devastating dimensions of the recurrent flood problem
in Bihar.
Hoping for your urgent attention and intervention,
______
[7] Announcements:
(i)
3 September 2008
Donate Relief material and funds: Anhad team of volunteers headed to
Bihar and Orissa
* ANHAD team of volunteers is leaving for Bihar on Saturday September
6, 2008.
Please donate funds: cheques in the name of Anhad, 23, canning lane,
new delhi-110001, tel- 23070740.
We will be working in the relief camps set up in Purnea.
According to the local administration the requirements there are :
mosquito nets/ small steel trunks for keeping the clothes etc/
buckets and mugs/ floor rugs/ thick bed sheets/ blankets/ children’s
food- buiscuits/
* Next week a team will go to Orissa.
please donate whatever you can. send to Anhad, 23, Canning Lane, New
Delhi-110001
shabnam Hashmi/ Mansi Sharma
- - -
(ii)
SOUTHASIAN CARTOON CONGRESS
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