SACW | Sept. 9-10, 2008 / Sri Lanka Battle / Azadi in Kashmir - Fascism in Jammu / Disaster on Koshi river

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Wed Sep 10 00:17:12 CDT 2008


South Asia Citizens Wire | September 9-10, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2564 -
Year 11 running

[1] Sri Lanka: Last battle and nationalism (Jehan Perera)
[2] Pakistan:
  (i) More Lal Masjids? (Dawn)
  (ii) Is anyone listening? (Dr Tariq Rahman)
[3] India Administered Kashmir:
(i) The way out in Kashmir - Ending repression and promoting autonomy
(Praful Bidwai)
(ii) The Azadi We Need (Umair Ahmed Muhajir)
(iii) A Dangerous Surrender to the Jammu Agitators: A statement by intellectuals
[4] India/ Nepal: Whither Koshi River? - An interview with Dipak Gyawali
[5] India: Orissa - Laboratory of hate (Kuldip Nayar)
[6] India: Paranoia and Vigilante Attacks Against Migrants in Assam
- On the boil (Sushanta Talukdar in Guwahati)
- Fears over Assam vigilante violence (Subir Bhaumik)
[7] Publication announcement:

______


[1]  Sri Lanka:

New Age
September 9, 2008

LAST BATTLE AND NATIONALISM

Even if the government were to defeat the LTTE on the battlefields of
Sri Lanka, it will not be able to eradicate Tamil nationalism. The
desire of Tamil people to enjoy equal rights and to have real decision
making power in Sri Lanka is not limited to the LTTE-controlled Wanni.
It exists in the same measure in other parts of the north and east, in
Colombo and elsewhere in the country… There is only one answer to
Tamil nationalism and that is a just political solution, writes Jehan
Perera from Colombo


THERE is a growing opinion that the last battle is being fought in the
north. It was the LTTE that popularised this usage of language. This
was in 2004, well before the present phase of war. At that time the
ceasefire agreement was in existence. But it was coming under
increasing stress. The government of Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe which had signed the agreement had been sacked by
President Chandrika Kumaratunga and defeated in the general election
that followed. Around this time the LTTE began a massive fundraising
campaign internationally and recruitment drive locally. Their argument
was that the ceasefire had brought no benefit to the Tamil people and,
therefore, they would fight the last battle to obtain independence.

   The 2002 ceasefire agreement had given the LTTE the space to plan
for war in conventional terms. The LTTE used that time to further
transform its military structures, including a massive recruitment
campaign. The agreement also ensured forward defence lines and
demarcation of borders that separated government and LTTE controlled
territory, and the legitimacy awarded by the peace process was used to
build state-like structures with the support of expatriate and donor
funds. Simultaneously, this development reduced its flexibility to
fight a guerrilla war. Further, the split in the LTTE with its Eastern
Command, led by Colonel Karuna, weakened the organisation's
conventional strength.

   The Asian tsunami of December 2004 led to a postponement of the
last battle. The election of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in November
2005 on an anti-ceasefire platform was facilitated by the LTTE by its
imposed boycott of Tamil voters. With the new president in office, the
open and visible preparation for the last battle commenced anew. The
LTTE repeatedly provoked the new government within a month of
President Rajapaksa's election by ambushing government troops. They
claimed that the attacks were by civilians, frustrated by the
government's lack of interest in taking the peace process forward. The
LTTE prepared the ground for the last battle.
   Ironically, it appears that the LTTE miscalculated its strength in
relation to the resolve of the government and the strength of the Sri
Lankan state. The government forces have proved to be more capable in
conventional warfare than the LTTE, with significantly more advanced
firepower and much larger numbers. With no independent journalists in
the field, the only sources of information are the media releases of
the government and LTTE. But the weight of evidence is that the
government has the upper hand. According to maps produced nearly one
half of previously LTTE controlled territory in the north is now under
government control. There has been speculation about strategic LTTE
withdrawals, meant to lure in the government forces and overstretch
them, as happened in previous phases of war. But every kilometre lost
by the LTTE also brings the firepower of government artillery closer
to key LTTE targets.

   Government advantages
   The government forces have two major advantages over the LTTE in
the present battle for the control over territory. The first is that
the LTTE is being forced to fight like a conventional army in its
defence of territory and its state-like structures, including military
bases, towns and buildings. The government forces are superior in
numbers and firepower to fight a conventional war. The government can
draw on the 19-million strong population that is under its governance,
whereas the LTTE will have less than half a million at the most. The
second advantage that the government has is that it is being backed by
international powers, both in terms of military equipment and
surveillance, whereas the LTTE is finding its members on the run
internationally leaving it to rely largely on its internal resources.

   In the face of these major disadvantages to itself, the only way
that the LTTE can hold the government at bay would be by
unconventional means. Over the decades the LTTE has shown itself
capable of springing surprises. Terrorist and suicide attacks in which
the LTTE has specialised are meant for surprise. The development of an
air wing is another example of a development that caught the world by
surprise, although this has had only limited effectiveness as a
military tool. In addition, the LTTE is also making the task of the
government forces more difficult by using the civilian population as
part of their defence strategy.

   In recent weeks international humanitarian organisations have been
reporting that the LTTE is not permitting civilians to leave the LTTE
controlled areas. Even the family members of the local staff of
international humanitarian organisations are being denied permission
to leave. Instead, the entire population is being compelled to
withdraw along with the LTTE ever deeper into the LTTE controlled
territory. People are forced to live in temporary shelters or under
trees. Repeated appeals by the UN and international humanitarian
organisations to let the civilians leave the LTTE controlled areas,
and to seek shelter in government controlled areas have been turned
down or not responded to by the LTTE.
   The appalling conditions of living of the civilian population are
made much worse by the fact that the LTTE is compelling the people to
join the combat. There are reports of brothers or sisters of wounded
cadres now having to succeed them in the LTTE's ranks. Civilians,
including women and older people, are being given self-defence
training and more members of each family are being pressed into
semi-military service. If the government forces choose to attack LTTE
targets with their long range artillery and air power, they risk
making collateral attacks on the civilians.

   Civil society

   The very term Last Battle suggests a fight to the finish regardless
of the human costs. As the government and LTTE are in complete control
of their respective war machines, there is little that either the
international humanitarian community or local civil society can do to
thwart them. Neither the government nor the LTTE appears to believe in
a political solution with the other. Civil society pleas for
negotiations have gone unheeded, as each of the protagonists places
its faith in its armed forces. But at the conclusion of the very
costly battles for the north there will not be peace, even if more
territory passes from one side to the other. This can be seen even
today in the east. Peace is not only the absence of war, it is about
creating the conditions for human rights and economic growth.

   The government was able to militarily defeat the LTTE and retake
the entirety of the territory in the east that the LTTE once
controlled. The government has even held provincial elections in the
east. However, any visitor to the east would not see any normalcy
there, but a highly militarised environment in which there are
soldiers all over. Periodically there are killings of soldiers, LTTE
cadre and civilians. Tension is rife amongst the people and security
forces. Even if the government succeeds in capturing the entirety of
the north, and driving the remnants of the LTTE into the jungles, the
instability and tension will continue.

   The fact is that eradicating a symptom cannot end the cause of the
problem. Even if the government were to defeat the LTTE on the
battlefields of Sri Lanka, it will not be able to eradicate Tamil
nationalism. The desire of Tamil people to enjoy equal rights and to
have real decision making power in Sri Lanka is not limited to the
LTTE-controlled Wanni. It exists in the same measure in other parts of
the north and east, in Colombo and elsewhere in the country. In
addition, there is a reservoir of Tamil nationalism in the Tamil
expatriate community that lives abroad, that no amount of military
solutions in Sri Lanka can ever hope to subdue. There is only one
answer to Tamil nationalism and that is a just political solution.
   The danger also exists that military victory will be seen in ethnic
terms that will be alienating and not unifying. When Jaffna was
retaken from the LTTE in 1995, it was seen as a crushing defeat for
the LTTE from which they would not recover. At that time Jaffna was
the administrative capital of the LTTE, apart from being the cultural
capital of Tamil civilisation on the island and the largest Tamil
city. The manner in which President Chandrika Kumaratunga formally
received a scroll in parliament from Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha
Ratwatte informing her of the capture of Jaffna was like a replay of
ancient history when the Sinhalese kings fought battles. This mistake
must not be repeated. The symbols and agenda of the Sri Lankan state
need to be multiethnic and not mono-ethnic if peace is to be the
lasting outcome.

   Jehan Perera is media director of the National Peace Council in
Colombo, Sri Lanka. jehanpc at sltnet.lk

______


[2]  PAKISTAN:

(i)

Dawn
September 9, 2008

Editorial

MORE LAL MASJIDS?

IT appears that the authorities have learnt nothing from last year's
Lal Masjid episode. It was a trauma caused as much by misplaced — even
ridiculous — concepts of Sharia enforcement as by sheer paralysis on
the part of the authorities. We are forced to refer to the Lal Masjid
affair because, as a Dawn report informs us, 70 new illegal mosques
have come up in Islamabad, and the local administration and the
Capital Development Authority have done nothing about it. Lal Masjid
did not turn into a bastion for militants overnight. The Ghazi
brothers gradually expanded the mosque under their control and built
new structures, including living quarters for their families. The CDA,
to be fair to it, pointed out the illegal activity to the government,
but certain ministers and powerful sections of the bureaucracy looked
the other way. Thus the mosque's transformation into a centre for
militants was encouraged. From here activists were sent into
commercial areas to terrorise CD shop owners. Many other violations of
the law took place. Finally, the government acted on July 3 last year
leading to dozens of deaths.

Unless the government wants more Lal Masjids, it must act now.
Evidently, the CDA and the local administration seem once again
overawed by the power of those who exploit religion for their own
narrow ends. More regretfully, the religious parties tend to keep
quiet on such shenanigans and, thus, indirectly encourage illegal
activity of this sort. The government would be failing in its duty if
it does not act to uphold the law and to reclaim state land that has
been misappropriated in the name of religion. The last elections have
clearly proved that the overwhelming majority of the people reject
Talibanism and stand for the rule of law, moderation and tolerance.
The PPP itself is a party wedded to the ideals of liberalism, and it
must not let corrupt elements masquerading as religious divines spread
chaos in society. In the case of Lal Masjid, the Musharraf government
had acted very late. Let not the present government repeat that
mistake and thus allow criminal elements to defy the state's writ in
the federal capital.


(ii)

Dawn
September 8, 2008

IS ANYONE LISTENING?

by Dr Tariq Rahman

WAS anyone listening to the horrified cries of the three women buried
alive — although the police denies this — in Balochistan?

Can anyone imagine what those women must have felt when they were
dragged by brute force to the place where they would see the light of
day for the last time of their sojourn on this planet? Can anyone
imagine the horror of feeling the earth being piled upon them as they
lay bleeding and in pain? They endured this and their voices were
muffled by the earth. Will they remain muffled forever?

Nor was this the only time that such a callous deed took place. It is
the experience of many other women whose voices from the grave cannot
reach us. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan publishes lists of
women killed in the name of honour; sold in the name of honour;
enslaved in the name of honour; maimed in the name of honour; and
locked up in houses in the name of honour. And each time the voices
are raised to abolish these customs — abolition cannot occur without
widespread condemnation first — someone stands up to defend it.

It has happened in the NWFP, in Sindh and now in Balochistan. The
defence comes in the name of custom, tradition and indigenous culture.
Those calling for the abolition of these barbaric practices are
condemned as stooges of the West.

The same thing happened when the Mughal emperors tried to ban satti.
They did not succeed but the British did. And who was the beneficiary?
Not the British but the people of South Asia — especially Hindu women.
So, no matter who does it, weeding out customs which make the lives of
women a living hell is to be welcomed. And if the upholders of human
rights are inspired by western concepts of human rights they are to be
welcomed because they are trying to prevent murder and torture.

One can think of other people, inspired by narrow and selfish western
interests, who sell their own people to secret western prisons without
a fair trial. So, it is not a question of western or eastern
inspiration, it is a question of people's lives. Human rights are for
all and if we preach them and practise them our people will benefit
from them, not westerners.

Civilisation may be defined as the rise of compassion. And the
indicators of this are that a society has a fair and easily accessible
judicial system; the poor and the weak are protected by legal and
administrative institutions and there is equality amongst creeds,
classes and genders. As we can see, since the Enlightenment Europe
moved away from its medieval cruelty to a concept of equality under
law, fair trials and the abolition of cruel and degrading punishments.

Even war became humanised as the Geneva Conventions made rules for
prisoners of war which gave them both security and dignity. Since 9/11
this is being reversed as Aafia Siddiqui's case demonstrates. She has
been in prison without trial and even her children are not traceable.
This is against the norms of justice in both war and peace in terms of
civilisation. We should condemn this rolling back of compassionate
institutions and the inevitable erosion of the humanitarian values
upon which they are based.

We should oppose them and condemn them whether they are perpetrated by
a western country or by our own rulers in the name of national
interest or by our tribal and feudal chiefs in the name of their
honour or tradition. We should not join the anti-humanist forces of
the world in perpetuating inhumanity in the name of our indigenous
culture.

Sadly enough, our religious leaders never condemn violence against
women. This is probably because they too feel it is a western agenda
to promote women's rights, whereas this is a human agenda not a
western one. What happens in Pakistan in the name of Islam and
tradition is not Islamic by any means. In the case of the Baloch women
it was apparently a case of women having chosen their husbands which
is permitted both by religion and the laws of Pakistan.

But let us take the case of fornication by way of example. Even in
genuine cases of pre- or extra-marital sex there is no provision in
Islam for cutting down a woman as if she were an animal by a male
relative acting as prosecutor and judge. What one would have expected
religious leaders to emphasise is that individuals cannot take these
matters into their own hands.

If there is reasonable doubt that such a thing has occurred even then
no law allows husbands and brothers to chase the victim with a
hatchet. At the most a trial may be held at the end of which the judge
cannot give the extreme (hadd) punishment to the woman and her partner
unless the actual act of penetration has been witnessed by four pious
adult Muslims. As this is an almost impossible condition to meet, the
death penalty is actually ruled out.

This is not what our ulema preach. Instead, they remain silent even
over the most brutal murders of women. The police treat such matters
as if they were not murders at all and the sessions judges are apt to
release prisoners even if there is evidence against them. Moreover, if
the woman had been falsely accused there is no punishment for the
accusers which is in direct contradiction to Islamic law. So, what is
essentially a matter of humanity and compassion has been lost sight of
in this spurious western-indigenous debate.

The values which have made women live under a perpetual reign of
terror in our rural areas belong to a worldview much older than Islam.
It is the ideology of male domination. Honour is the cover-up word for
this domination. In this worldview women are the property of men. If
they exercise their right of choice — even if it is allowed by
religion and the law of the land — they are punished because by doing
so they do not act as 'property'.

If we want to present a better image of Pakistan abroad or make the
claims of democracy credible at home, we should condemn such acts and
call for the punishment of those responsible for them. It is up to
civil society to make rulers listen to the voices of those women who
reach out from their graves asking for justice. We cannot fill our
voices with the pain of the sufferers but can we not aspire to their
anger? Is anyone listening?

______


[3]  INDIA ADMINISTERED KASHMIR

(i)

Kashmir Times
September 8, 2008

ENDING REPRESSION AND PROMOTING AUTONOMY
THE WAY OUT IN KASHMIR

by Praful Bidwai

It's no small irony that curfew had to be re-imposed in parts of the
Kashmir Valley the very day the state announced a settlement with the
Sri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti (SAYSS), which ended the
two-and-a-half months-long militant agitation in the Jammu region. The
settlement evoked an apathetic or an adverse response in the Valley.
The Kashmir Coordination Committee, comprised of the All Parties
Hurriyat Conference, and motley groups of traders and professionals,
said it fails to address the real issue, azadi, and called a general
strike. The People's Democratic Party called it "unilateralist" and
"authoritarian".

Yet, even the hurriedly reached Jammu settlement may prove a poor
consolation prize. Had its negotiation taken on board the Valley's
politicians, it would have had a more democratic character and wider
acceptance. After all, the political and physical origins of the
problem that triggered the twin agitations in Jammu and the Valley,
and led to the unseating of J&K's government in July, lie in the
transfer of Valley land for the Amarnath Shrine pilgrimage.

The settlement is flawed. It reserves 100 acres of state land
exclusively for the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board's use, thus barring
sheep-grazers and other traditional users. It doesn't mention the
land's return. And it compensates the Jammu residents for the economic
losses caused by the agitation, but is silent on compensating the
Valley people who suffered from seven weeks of a blockade which cut
off essential supplies and despatch of perishable fruit.
Had the Valley's representatives been involved in negotiating a fair
agreement, they wouldn't have had the luxury of putting the onus for
it solely on the state or Central government. The accusation that the
government acted without consulting all sides to the land dispute is
potentially open to exploitation to rank communal or narrow
regionalist ends. But evidently, our policymakers have learnt very
little from Kashmir's recent history, which shows that such potential
will nearly always be so exploited.

The Valley continues to seethe with anger. The turmoil shows no signs
of abating despite the onset of the holy month of Ramzan. The unrest
could yet again become a serious problem for India, with unpleasant
implications for its fraught relations with Pakistan.

In Jammu, the SAYSS has threatened to take up the issue of the
region's allegedly weak representation in power structures and to
fight for "justice". The settlement has not neutralised the political
agenda of the Jammu agitators, many of them closely allied to the
Bharatiya Janata Party. This agenda favours the state's polarisation
along regional and religious-communal lines-and eventually, its
trifurcation into a predominantly Hindu Jammu region, a
Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, and a primarily Buddhist Ladakh.
Multiple blunders have brought J&K to this pass after six years of
relative peace under an elected Congress-PDP coalition. After
consciously encouraging the yatra, which led to a 25-fold increase in
the number of pilgrims over 20 years, the government extended its
duration to eight weeks-although the ice lingam survives for only two
weeks. All this was seen in the Valley as promoting aggressive
Hindutva "nationalism" to counter Kashmiri separatism.
Then, in an ill-advised move, largely to placate Hindu-communal
sentiment, the government illegally transferred forest land to the
SASB. It failed to anticipate the Islamic-separatist reaction, and an
even more militant counter-reaction in Jammu to the transfer's
cancellation, leading to a violent blockade along the Jammu-Srinagar
highway. It refused to lift the blockade until the entire pear crop in
the Valley had perished.

Meanwhile, the Jammu protests took on an explicitly political and
communal character as the BJP fished in the troubled waters with an
eye on the Assembly elections. Its rough acid-throwing methods drew an
adverse reaction from the rest of India, which is one reason why it
withdrew the agitation with relative ease. But the Congress didn't
play much better. Its Jammu leaders were partisan towards the communal
forces and openly joined the agitation.
The display of trishuls and swords by the Jammu agitators along with
the National Flag, their open espousal of Hindutva, and their
demonisation of all Kashmiri Muslims as "anti-national" only added to
the ferocity of the protests in the Valley, and put separatists in
their forefront.

In the second week of August, the J&K administration cracked down
heavily on the Valley, entering people's homes, and arresting hundreds
without reason. On August 11, it allowed a several lakh-strong
procession to form on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway, and then
opened fire on it. Many Kashmiris say the government handled the Jammu
agitation with kid gloves, but used brute force in the Valley against
peaceful protests: "rubber bullets in Jammu, but live bullets in the
Valley". By then, some 40 people had died in the Valley.

This only heightened the alienation of the Valley's people from the
Indian state and strengthened the separatists, bringing extremists
like Syed Ali Shah Geelani out of the woodwork. It's as if Indian
policymakers had deluded themselves that popular alienation had
disappeared in the last few years with the return of relative
normality: The Kashmir economy improved. Tourism boomed. The
extremists were isolated. Issues of day-to-day governance became
dominant. Why, even The Hurriyat was on the verge of deciding not to
issue a call to boycott the Assembly elections, as it usually does!
Better sense prevailed around August 15-18, when the government
allowed peaceful protests, which are always spirited on India's
Independence Day. Governor NN Vohra was determined that there should
be no more firing. This had a salutary effect and encouraged the
Hurriyat's moderate faction to adopt sober positions.

Soon, however, National Security Adviser MK Narayanan intervened. He
visited the Valley on August 20 along with the Intelligence Bureau
chief and other hardline officials and criticised Governor Vohra for
his "soft line" on the Islamic-extremists. Thus began the massive
crackdown of August 24-25, when nine Valley districts were handed over
to the army, newspapers banned, TV channels shut down, and
mobile-telephone SMS services disabled.
This cost the Indian state a massive loss of legitimacy. Yet, says
Yusuf Tarigami, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) MLA, and a widely
respected J&K leader: "Mercifully, popular alienation is not as severe
as in the early 1990s, and may yet prove transient."

There are a number of differences between the post-1989 climate and
the present situation. Then, a variety of armed groups, including the
indigenous Hizbul Mujaheedin, were hyperactive in demanding Kashmir's
separation from India. They subdued the relatively moderate Hurriyat
leadership. Pakistan armed and financed them, and lent them logistical
support. The savage repression unleashed by Indian forces helped them
build a support base.
Today, militant groups can no longer recruit in the Valley. Until
recently, extremists had become irrelevant. Kashmir hasn't been a live
political issue in Pakistan since the peace process with India
started. It still isn't. The most noticeable difference from the past
is the bitterness and anger among the youth, who grew up in a climate
of violence, humiliation and hatred in the 1990s.

Yet, it isn't too late yet to rescue the situation. Contrary to what
some critics argue, I take the view that the right to
self-determination isn't an absolute right, and must be balanced by
considerations of democracy, pluralism and the rights of "minorities
within the minorities". It's also probably wrong to view the present,
possibly transitory, popular mood in Kashmir as unqualified and
categorical endorsement of azadi, especially azadi interpreted as
considered support for a sovereign, independent state or for Kashmir's
merger with Pakistan.

And yet, business-as-usual is NOT an option in J&K. Hardliners like Mr
Narayanan indulge in dangerous self-delusion when they declare, as he
did on a TV channel on August 30, that Kashmir will become normal "in
10 days' time", presumably without a pro-reconciliation initiative. It
simply won't do to underestimate the seriousness of Kashmiri
alienation and disgust with the overwhelming presence of Indian
security forces in the Valley.
The Indian state must radically rethink its Kashmir policy. It must
reach out to the Kashmiri people with the offer of a dialogue in
earnest and put the issue of autonomy up-front on the table. Such a
dialogue must include even extremist pro-azadi leaders.

For a dialogue to succeed, four things are essential. First, an
opening of the border with Pakistani Kashmir. This will not only
facilitate trade and people-to-people exchanges, but also allow the
Valley Kashmiris to critically evaluate the quality of life and
politics in "Azad Kashmir". Second, genuine implementation and
strengthening the special status for Kashmir under Article 370 of the
Constitution, which has been greatly diluted.
Third, discussion of the regional and interregional autonomy proposals
made 10 years ago by the Balraj Puri committee, recommending
devolution of power to local/regional bodies. And finally, a thinning
out of the presence of Indian security forces in the Valley. The
Indian state must gather the courage to take these steps as necessary
preconditions to build confidence among the Kashmiris. Or, the Kashmir
problem could soon become intractable.

o o o

(ii)

Outlook Web |   September 04, 2008

Response [to Arundhati Roy]

THE AZADI WE NEED

The azadi demanded by the Kashmiri movement, and used by Roy as a
rallying cry, is not the answer. The freedom we need is azadi from the
mindset that thinks of peoples and communities only in terms of
nation-states; and equally, an azadi that demands that the Indian
state honour its promise, to itself and to us.

by Umair Ahmed Muhajir

Towards the end of her impassioned piece calling for azadi for
Kashmir, Arundhati Roy pauses to reflect on what might follow azadi in
Kashmir, wondering what an independent Kashmir might mean, including
what the independence demanded by the state's Muslim majority might
mean for the state's religious or other minorities. She does well not
to linger, because the thought experiment illustrates precisely what
is most problematic about "national movements", namely that they are
unable to think the political except through the prism of
nation-states.

National movements, that is to say, see themselves as
nation-states-in-waiting, and do not see any political horizon beyond
that of the nation-state. So was it with the Indian national movement,
and its inability to think the difference that might have been
capacious enough to house the country's Muslim-majority regions; so it
definitely was with the Muslim League and its two-nation theory, even
more wedded to the siren song of European-style nationalism
transplanted to a colonial setting; and so it is with the "copycat"
nationalisms that have followed, be it Kashmir, or Punjab, or
Nagaland. The failure to imagine a nation-state different from the
traditional European model, the shoe-horning of Indian communitarian
identities, into models conceived with the likes of Germany and
England in mind, paved the way for the catastrophes of partition. The
"belated" nationalisms of the post-partition sub-continent demonstrate
the truth of Marx's depressing observation, namely that we learn from
history that we do not learn from history.

The point is worth making given Roy's trenchant critiques of the
Indian state (in the context of Kashmir, but not only of Kashmir; her
essay on the Indian state and dams, The Greater Common Good, is
astonishingly powerful). That is, much of Roy's critique -- of the
Indian state's indifference, its callousness, its inhumanity, its
cruelty -- is (or certainly ought to be) animated not by her target's
Indianness, but by the fact that it is a nation-state, and as such,
does what nation-states do: in the final analysis, sacrifice humanity
in the service of a larger political project. The distinction is an
important one, because nothing in the Kashmiri independence movement
suggests that it will throw up anything different; indeed given that
the movement aims at a traditional nation-state just like all the
others, I submit that it cannot yield a different result. Minority
rights? Justice for different communities, and between genders? The
outcomes will be better than they are now, we are told by the
movement, not because the aims are different from those of the
existing Indian state, but because the movement will simply do a
better job.

I am skeptical, and not because of the identity (religious or
otherwise) of those who comprise the Kashmiri independence movement; I
am skeptical because the aim of that movement is congenitally
incapable of producing a result that is "better" in some cosmic sense
-- at most the identities of those disadvantaged will shift, as new
disfavoured minorities, new "outsiders", new "insiders", and new
identity policemen are created. Roy is too sophisticated not to see
this, but doesn't bother to delve into it, pretending that this is
merely a question of the Kashmiri separatists not having spelled out
their agenda in greater detail as yet.It is not: over half a century
ago, Hannah Arendt wrote (in The Origins of Totalitarianism) of the
masses of refugees and victims that seemed to accompany the birth of
every new nation-state, and nothing has changed, not in the age of
South Ossetia, Kosovo, Rwanda, ad nauseum.

Certainly, those of us from the sub-continent should be especially
wary of political projects that promise us clean solutions to
intractable political problems: we live with the legacies of the
bloodbaths of the 1940s, not to mention innumerable later, "lesser"
massacres. By all accounts, the leaders of the new nation-states of
India and Pakistan were caught by surprise by the scale of the
violence in 1947; they had evidently internalized the logic of
colonialism, pursuant to which communitarian difference presents a
political "problem" that may be solved by means of creative
cartography and judicious population transfers. Conceptual neatness is
one of the hallmarks of the colonial mindset (thinking of Cyril
Radcliffe, who could doubt it?).

Unfortunately, reality is anything but, and the sub-continent's
leaders -- and, even more importantly, its people -- should have
learned long ago that partitions are not the solution to people's
inability to live together; rather, the mindset that vests its faith
in drawing easily-policed borders is a mindset that demands enemies.
It is a mindset that, in the final analysis, demands that facts on the
ground correspond to the political project of the nation-state (and
not the other way around). A nation-state for Muslims thus becomes a
state virtually free of non-Muslims; a sub-national state where Hindu
pride is honoured above all else becomes a state where non-Hindus must
know their place.

Why would one ever hope for anything different from a nation-state for
Kashmiris, as far as those who don't fit the bill are concerned?
Certainly the region is not short of candidates for stigmatisation
(some of this is because India is fantastically diverse; some of it is
because nation-states are rather gifted at manufacturing "problematic"
identities): Buddhists; Shiites; Gujjars; perhaps even Sunni Muslims
who will be deemed insufficiently supportive of the independence
movement (the last is hardly far-fetched, as even a casual glance at
the history of Algeria or the Khalistan movement, or Kashmir itself
during the 1990s, makes clear). Indeed, several hundred thousand
Kashmiri Pandits have already been driven off, and it is hard not to
see in them a harbinger of more to come.

The above might seem like an odd place from which to maintain a
defense of India vis-à-vis Kashmir. It is, on the contrary, a natural
vantage point: the idea of an independent Kashmir for Kashmiris must
be resisted precisely because, as the experience of the once-colonised
has amply illustrated, nation-states are appallingly inhuman. Equally,
however, they are not all inhuman in precisely the same way; nor are
they all equally inhuman, by which I simply mean that they are not all
equally incapable of accommodating human difference, whether
communitarian or otherwise. The Germany of 2008 is manifestly not the
Germany of 1938; but nor does the Germany of 2008 accommodate ethnic
minorities as comfortably as the United States does.

None of this relieves any state of moral responsibility for the
horrors it perpetrates; but in order to agitate against horrors, one
must first understand what they are.And within the range of
nation-states on offer -- all of them problematic, all of them
complicit in cruelty -- it is apparent to me that those premised on
explicit notions of religion, language, ethnicity, blood in some
sense, are more problematic, more complicit, than those with far more
modest litmus tests.  The contemporary United States, Brazil, South
Africa, and, yes, India, are among the latter group of nation-states;
Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Pakistan, and, based on the logic of the
movements, the would-be nation-states of Kashmir or Khalistan, are
not. Theoretically, one does not need to be other than "wholly
Bengali", "wholly Tamil", or "wholly Muslim" in order to be utterly
Indian; one cannot say the same of Pakistan and its Hindus citizens,
and the religious colour of the Kashmiri movement means it is almost
inconceivable that this won't be true of an independent Kashmir as
well (even leaving aside the obvious ethnic dimension).

Indeed, even if one were to take the likes of Yasin Malik at their
word, they promise no more than Jawaharlal Nehru did, that is to say a
secular state where all who live in Kashmir, of whatever ethnicity or
religious persuasion, will be equal in the eyes of the state; why and
how could such a project -- essentially the same Nehruvian show on a
smaller stage -- yield a better result? On the contrary, all the signs
are that an independent Kashmir would be more like Pakistan than
India: not because both are Muslim majority (that is irrelevant to the
point I am making), but because both movements are explicitly
predicated on a favoured community that is less than everyone who
lives within the state's borders.

Why does any of this matter? Because nation-states where
"second-class" citizenship is implicit -- think the United States
prior to de-segregation; I assume Roy would include India; but really
one could argue some are always more equal than others in all
nation-states -- can be called out on their failures. Such
nation-states are guilty of hypocrisy, but hypocrisy is not the worst
sin; indeed hypocrisy, by opening up a gap between theory and
practice, between promise and reality, makes it possible to hold a
mirror up to the state, to try and compel it to honour its own promise
to itself; and enables us to argue that the nation-state is only
imperfectly itself until it takes a good long look in that mirror.

In short, the point is that while the Jim Crow South is unforgiveable,
the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream"
moment are possible in a USA where actual practice made a mockery of
the nation-state's constitutional guarantees of equal protection under
the laws; they would not be possible in the face of apartheid South
Africa, which could not be reformed, simply destroyed. It is far more
difficult, perhaps insurmountably so, to call the nation-state to task
where it has promised and can promise nothing different than what it
offers (one can rebel and try and dismantle the state, but one can't
make it see the problem): beyond a point, a "Pakistan for Pakistanis",
that is to say for Pakistanis of all religious persuasions, would make
no sense, and would undermine the national idea (substitute
"ethnicities" for "religious communities" and the idea of Pakistan
becomes more flexible; it should come as no surprise that the movement
for ethnic justice, greater federalism, and rights for smaller
provinces, has far more legs in Pakistan than any movement for the
rights of religious minorities; ethnicity illustrates the potential
flexibility, but also the limits, of the idea of Pakistan; and even
with respect to ethnicity, the difference of even a Bengali Muslim
identity that was deemed "too Hindu" could not be accommodated within
the state).

A "Kashmir for Kashmiris" is far closer to the idea of Pakistan than
to the Nehru's India, and perhaps closest of all to Bangladesh,
seeking to compress both 1947 and 1971 in one secessionist moment. Roy
would do well to remember the "Biharis" stranded in refugee camps in
Bangladesh since 1971, Muslim but not Bangladeshi enough; and she
herself mentions the 1971 genocide of Bengalis by the Pakistani army,
who were not Muslim enough. The promise of the Kashmiri movement
combines both of these nightmares.

None of this is about the decency or lack thereof of Mirwaiz Farooq,
or Yasin Malik, or anyone else. The question isn't whether these are
or are not upstanding politicians who genuinely believe that Kashmir
belongs to all Kashmiris, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or Sikh, or not;
the more important question concerns the logic of what they let loose
in the world (more accurately, the logic that they and would-be
nationalists of all stripes have attempted to replicate for decades).
The azadi demanded by the Kashmiri movement, and used by Roy as a
rallying cry, is not the answer to that question; the freedom we need
is azadi from the mindset that thinks of peoples and communities only
in terms of nation-states; and equally, an azadi that demands that the
Indian state honour its promise, to itself and to us.

The nation-state as political Alpha and Omega was problematic in its
European birthplaces to begin with; to continue to cling to it as the
last best hope of ethnic or religious minorities in milieus like
India's (or Africa's, or the Balkans'; pick your poison), in the wake
of the man-made disasters that have befallen us over the last century,
is nothing short of bankrupt.

Umair Ahmed Muhajir is based in New York City. When not blogging at
qalandari.blogspot.com or contributing to naachgaana.com, he makes a
living as a lawyer.

o o o

(iii)

9th September 2008

PRESS STATEMENT

The Land Deal in Kashmir: A Dangerous Surrender to the Jammu Agitators

We the undersigned academics, and others express grave concern at how
the dispute over grant of land to the Amarnath Board in Kashmir is
being handled by our political authorities. Over four weeks the
agitators in Jammu were allowed by the administration to impose a
blockade of Kashmir, which, despite official denials practically
continued till the end of August. Those whom Mr LK Advani and others
call "nationalists", committed crime, arson and mayhem in Jammu, while
waving the national flag. They have themselves proved to the most
effective separatists since they entirely separated Kashmir from the
rest of the country, and tried to starve out the people of the very
area they are never tired of pronouncing an integral part of India. By
allowing them to do so and by making concession after concession to
them the Government of India cannot escape the stigma of colluding
with them. When on the other hand, driven to desperation, the people
of Kashmir valley protested against the blockade, as many as forty
persons were shot dead by the military, para-military and police
forces. In the talks with the Jammu agitators through an all-party
delegation headed by the Home Minister, the agitators secured the
exclusion of the representatives of the Kashmir parties (PDP and NC)
despite an invitation issued to them. No compensation for those killed
and injured by army and police firings in the Kashmir valley has been
so far announced, in contrast to what was done swiftly in Jammu. And
now the final act of collusion with the Jammu agitators has taken
place, by the revocation of the Governor's own order of 29 June and
the re-allotment of the 800 kanals of land "exclusively" to the
Amarnath Shrine Board. The agreement was announced at a "joint" press
conference of the Governor's representative and the Jammu agitators on
31 August. The deal's details made it clear that limitation to "the
duration of yatra" is a mere formality, since no power is given to the
Government of Jammu and Kashmir over how the Shrine Board deals with
the land "from time to time". It is also clear that the special
concessions, under paras 9 and 10 of the agreement, about withdrawal
of cases and compensation to agitators are confined to Jammu and not
made applicable to the Kashmir Division.

No persons sincerely interested in opposing the movement for Kashmir's
secession can support this deal, which is naturally seen in Kashmir as
an unjust and provocative act. If we wish to retain Kashmir as part of
our country we should stop treating the Kashmiri people as aliens and
let them decide what to do with their land. We therefore call upon all
fellow-citizens to join us in demanding a revocation of the deal and
the establishment of a proper rule of law in the whole State of Jammu
and Kashmir.

Professor R.S. Sharma (Patna)
Professor Suvira Jaiswal (Hyderabad)
Professor Keshavan Veluthat (Mangalore)
Professor R.L. Shukla (Delhi)
Professor Irfan Habib (Aligarh)
Professor H.C. Satyarthi (Muzaffarpur)
Professor Shireen Moo svi (Aligarh)
Professor D.N. Jha (Delhi)
Professor Pradeep Saxena (Aligarh)
Professor Iqtidar Alam Khan (Aligarh)
Dr Ramesh Rawat (Aligarh)
Professor Sayera I. Habib (Aligarh)
Dr Prabhat Shukla (New Delhi)
Dr S. Ali Nadeem Rezavi (Aligarh)
Professor Rajan Gurukkal (Mangalore)
Dr Shamim Akhtar (Aligarh)

Released by

IRFAN HABIB
Professor Emeritus, AMU

______


[4]


Interview with Dipak Gyawali

The Kathmandu Post
1 September 2008,

 Whither Koshi River?

Dipak Gyawali, former Minister of Water Resources, heads Nepal Water
Conservation Foundation. He has been working on water resources for
the past two decades. He has written several books on water. He claims
that Nepal is not the second richest country in hydropower but has
adequate energy to meet its demand.

For this week's Interview, The Kathmandu Post caught Dipak G at his
office and discussed about the breach of Koshi embankment and
consequent man-made disaster that has swept four VDCs in Nepal and the
entire north Bihar bordering Nepal.

DipakG spoke with Puran P Bista and Ghanashyam Ojha of The Kathmandu Post.

Excerpts

Q: Why did the Koshi breach its embankment? Who was responsible for
the repair work-- India or Nepal?

 DipakG: It is important to step back a bit to realize that this
catastrophe happened because of the unholy confluence of three things:
wrong technological choice for this kind of a hydro-ecological regime,
wrong institutional arrangements resulting from the Koshi Treaty that
are not right for managing this kind of a trans-boundary river system,
and wrong conduct in public service over the last half-century, which
includes aspects of corruption as well as what people in Delhi like to
deride as "Bihari politics", but has been an intrinsic part of
Independent India. After all, when the British left India, Bihar was
one of the most advanced states of India, Patna University one of the
top universities (which helped found Tribhuwan University), and when
my grandmother was ill in Taulihawa, my father and grandfather took
her, not to Lucknow nearby or Delhi but to Patna for treatment because
the hospital there was the best. Today can we say the same for
Independent India's Bihar? I argue that this decline in Bihar's
prosperity absolutely matches the rise in "Bihari politics" brought
about in no small measure by the Koshi project.

But let us start with the technological aspect, when the lateral,
left-bank embankment (not the barrage across the river) collapsed on
18th August: it was not a natural disaster, but a man-made tragedy.
The river flow at the time was lower than the minimum average flow for
the month of August, and hence not even close to a normal flood, which
had not even begun during this monsoon. In the Koshi, it generally
occurs from mid-August to mid-September, and when this natural stress
is added to a man-made tragedy, together they have all the potential
to become a major calamity of a generation.
Q: Why is this project the wrong technological choice?

DipakG: Koshi is one of the most violent rivers in the world because
it is not just a river with water in it but also a massive conveyor
belt of sediment from the Himalaya to the Bay of Bengal. This is a
natural geological process that is responsible for creating not just
Bangladesh but also much of Bihar out of the ancient Tethys Sea. Some
one hundred million cubic meters of gravel, sand and mud flow out of
Chatara every year. Lest we forget, all the collected water and matter
brought by Tamor, Arun and Sun Kosi rivers, all the way from
Kanchenjunga in the east, through Makalu and Everest to Langtang in
the west have to pass through this one gorge at Chatara. And as the
river slows down in the flat Tarai plains, the sediment settles down
raising the river bed and forcing the river to overflow its bank
before finding a new course.

This process has essentially created the inland delta over which the
Koshi has swung from Supaul in the west to Katihar in the east, like a
pendulum suspended at Chatara. In the last half century, this process
has been arrested by "jacketing" the Koshi within embankments at the
western extreme of the delta; but this has only forced the river to
deposit all the sediment within this narrow "jacket", raised the river
bed, perching the river some four meters above the surrounding land.
It was a recipe ripe for this kind of catastrophe to eventually
happen, as it has now.

You have to be extremely careful when you start fooling around with
such awesome forces of nature. What happens when you do so without
proper understanding can be easily studied on the Tinau, south of
Butwal: in 1961, India built the Hattisunde barrage on the Tinau's
inland delta to supply irrigation water to Marchawar in the south, but
the river changed course in the following year and the barrage has
been standing high and dry since then, a tribute to man's stupidity,
and an equally great tribute to his incapacity to learn from mistakes.
You don't build such hydro-technical structures on an unstable delta
fan, and the Koshi today is just Tinau repeated at a more massive
scale.
Q: What do we know of the science behind these things?

DipakG: We have been studying the Tinau and its problems since the
mid-1990s, which is just the same as the Koshi except at a much
smaller scale. For the Koshi, the best example is the comparison of
current river flow conditions of the lower Ganga with the map prepared
in 1779 by Colonel Rennel for Governor General Warren Hastings. His
map shows us that the Koshi actually joined the Mechi-Mahananda, which
joined the Teesta. While the Koshi has swung west, the Teesta itself
has swung east to meet the Brahmaputra, while the Brahmaputra has
swung from meeting the Megna to meeting the Ganga. This shows how
extremely volatile the dynamically shifting pattern of this region's
hydro-ecological is.

This disaster was waiting to happen because the intervention into the
natural regime through the Koshi project was bad science that ignored
the problem of sediment in the river. As regards science, we should
also remember that deforestation has really no significant linkage
with Koshi sedimentation: we have more forest cover in the Koshi
catchment today, thanks also to community forestry, than we ever did
in our past history; and the Myth of Himalayan Degradation (that
floods in Bangladesh are due to poor farmers in Nepal cutting trees)
has been scientifically debunked over two decades ago. It is Himalayan
geo-tectonics coupled with the monsoon regime that is the cause of
Koshi sedimentation and floods, and that cannot be battled against
with bad science and even worse policy prescriptions of indiscriminate
embankment building following from such bad science.
Q: Can we repair the breach once the monsoon is over?

DipakG: I doubt it, simply because the breach now is no longer a
rupture in the side embankment that can be plugged once the water
level goes down and the Koshi starts flowing along its original main
channel. What we are seeing is the main stem of the river itself
flowing through it, capturing centuries' old channel and changing its
course. To change it back is like damming the Koshi anew with a new
barrage, in addition to making the river do a "high jump" of at least
four meters to flow along its recently abandoned bed. Believe me, it
won't be too happy doing that now or in the coming years, and will
find some way to continuously breach the embankment in other weak
spots, and no engineer can guarantee that this won't happen, although
they will have lots of fun playing with all kinds of expensive toys
"to tame the Koshi".

The problem now is no longer just the breach at Kusaha in Nepal: it is
totally uncertain where the new Koshi channel will be in the middle
and lower delta in Bihar. Currently, satellite pictures show that it
might be moving along the Supaul channel; but I think this might just
be a massive ponding that is occurring with Koshi filling every
depression, canal, old oxbow lake or the space between the
indiscriminately built embankments. Since the land naturally slopes
eastwards, depending upon whether the coming September floods are a
four lakh cusecs flood or a nine lakh one (as happened in 1968) the
new Koshi could be as far east as Katihar. Even if it does not go that
far this year, it is inevitable it will do so in the years to come.
This river morphology dynamics has to be looked at before any new
embankments or repairs of old ones can be considered.
Q: What might be correct technology then?

DipakG: First, let us put to rest another wrong technology, a high dam
on the Koshi. It is wrong because it would take two or more decades to
construct, thus failing to address problems of current and immediate
future concerns, is extremely expensive, does not address the primary
problem of sedimentation (the reservoir will fill up too soon with
Himalayan muck), has no convincing answer regarding the cost of
attending to high seismicity in the region as well as diversion of
peak instantaneous flood during construction (it is a major
engineering challenge with no easy solution), and will create more
social problems when indigenous population in Nepal have to be evicted
from their ancestral homes. A Koshi high dam would be tantamount to
Nepal importing downstream seasonal floods as permanent features of
its landscape for questionable benefits to it. I think neither India
nor Nepal is in a position to afford the technical, economic and
social costs associated with it.

The immediate requirements of Nepal and Bihar (and by immediate I mean
from now till ten or so years) will have to be met by new and
alternative technologies suited to an unstable but very fertile flood
plain. Such adaptive technologies with strong social components have
been traditionally used by people in the form of houses on stilts and
building villages with raised plinth levels that keep life and
property safe but allow the flood to easily pass by leaving fertile
silt behind. It will also call into serious question the current
design practices in the transportation, housing, agriculture and other
sectors, forcing the adopting of new approaches that look not so much
to the watershed but to the 'problemshed' for answers. There is
nothing called a permanent solution (how 'permanent' is a permanent
concrete dam, after all?); but building houses on stilts is a cheaper,
more 'doable' and thus a better solution.

Q: Why do you say that the current management setup of the Koshi
barrage and embankments was a wrong institutional arrangement?

DipakG: The answer to that question can come from looking at the
highly undiplomatic and breathtakingly ill-informed statement that
came out from the Indian embassy in the immediate aftermath of the
breach by blaming Nepal for it. When forcing the Koshi Treaty on Nepal
in the 1950s, India took upon itself all responsibility for design,
construction, operation and maintenance of the Koshi project, leaving
Nepal absolutely no room to do anything except allow India to quarry
all the boulders they like (which incidentally are rarely used in the
Koshi but find themselves black marketed to all the aggregate crushers
from Muzzafferpur to Siliguri!!)

The Koshi Treaty has been criticized very often for many reasons, but
the reason some of us from the socio-environmental solidarity to
criticize it is because of the neo-colonial mode that is built into
its institutional make-up. Instead of a proper bi-national management
arrangement, Nepal can only be a by-stander even for matters within
its own territory: it can't order the opening of gates during floods
or the supply of irrigation waters to its fields during the dry
season. Everything is in the hands of the Delhi hydrocracy, which has
conveniently (and to my mind, illegitimately) washed its hands off it
by hiving it off to the Bihar hydrocracy. There is institutional
irresponsibility built into the treaty at every level, which was seen
at the time of its signing as a "construction" treaty rather than a
management one, hence you can never get sustainable and scientific
management out of it. In a tragic and perverse way, the current
catastrophe has washed away the very foundations of that treaty and
calls for revisiting the management of the Koshi in a more sane and
equitable manner.
Q: What exactly did you mean by "bad conduct", then?

DipakG: Even if you had a wrong institutional arrangement, right
conduct could have still got things done more than semi-right. What
happened here was that the entire Koshi project has become a synonym
for the corruption that goes by the name of Bihari politics, which
"New Nepal" seems to be importing with glee. Consider the following
quote  from an Indian scholar studying the problem.

 Such is the racket of breaches that out of the 2.5 to 3 billion
rupees spent annually by the Bihar government on construction and
repair works, as much as 60 percent used to be pocketed by the
politician-contractors-engineers nexus. There is a perfect system of
percentages in which there is a share for everyone who matters, right
from the minister to the junior engineer. The actual expenditure never
exceeds 30 percent of the budgeted cost and after doling out the fixed
percentages, the contractors are able to pocket as much as 25 percent
of the sanctioned amount. A part of this they use to finance the
political activities of their pet politicians and to get further
projects sanctioned. Thus the cycle goes on. [The result is that...]
the contractor's bills are paid without verifying them. The same lot
for boulders and craters are shown as freshly purchased year after
year and the government exchequer is duped of tens of millions. Many
of the desiltation and repair and maintenance works shown to have been
completed are never done at all and yet payments are made....So much
is the income of the engineers from the percentages that the engineers
do not bother to collect their salaries.

(Fighting the Irrigation Mafia in Bihar, by Indu Bharati in the
Economic and Political Weekly from Bombay in 1991, quoted by Dipak
Gyawali in his book Water in Nepal/Rivers, Technology and Society, Zed
Books, London and Himal Books, Kathmandu, 2001.)

This is what I mean by "wrong conduct". My understanding, based on
information filtering out of Saptari and Sunsari and on local FM
channels, is that local cadres of ruling political parties got wise to
the corruption practiced from across the border and began to demand a
share, which was difficult for the Bihari contractors to agree to
because of the high rake-in demanded by their traditional political
and civil servant bosses in Patna and higher up. There were, it seems,
tough negotiations going on before the start of the monsoon season,
but no agreement could be reached. No formal approach was made by the
Koshi officials to the most India-friendly government in power in
Nepal because the issue to be resolved was not doing the work but
sharing the booty. Which is why the complaint that the contractors had
come on August 8 to strengthen the embankment but were not allowed to,
itself begs the question: how come you come to do the repair works (if
that is what you wanted to do) in the middle of the monsoon and not in
January?
Q: What should be the priority now?

DipakG:  There are three things needed to be done on a war footing in
order of priority:

First, this is a major humanitarian tragedy of global proportions, and
it should be attended to with an open heart, generous pockets and
caring hands. If Biharis are coming into Nepal because that is where
the only high ground is, they should be welcomed, all relief should be
provided to them too, but a record should be kept and they must be
handed over to the Indian government soon after the monsoon. It must
be recognized that the displaced fifty thousand or so Nepalis are in
all probability permanently displaced (over their village, the new
Koshi probably runs and will do so for the forseeable future) and need
to be housed in camps before a permanent settlement is found. Perhaps
the now emptying Bhutanese refugee camps should be used for the
purpose.

Second, a bridge should be constructed over the Koshi at Chatara on a
war footing and the traffic along the Mahendra highway restored to
connect east Nepal with the rest of the country as soon as possible.
The current Kosi barrage bridge will in all probability remain as the
Hattisunde barrage on the Tinau, a defunct monument of interest to
future archaeologists; but even if restored, we will need a ferry
system over the new Koshi channel before we can get to it.

Third, a serious public review and debate must ensue over the Koshi
project and the treaty that brought about this catastrophe. The
investigations and debate must be conducted jointly by civic movements
in Nepal and India so that a sane path forward can be charted.
Hydrocracies of both countries can contribute to this exercise, but
their judgment and legitimacy are now in question, as is their
hitherto unchallenged policy hegemony.
	 	
	
[Dipak Gyawali, former Minister of Water Resources, heads Nepal Water
Conservation Foundation. He has been working on water resources for
the past two decades. He has written several books on water. He claims
that Nepal is not the second richest country in hydropower but has
adequate energy to meet its demand.]


______


[5]

Kashmir Times
September 10, 2008

LABORATORY OF HATE

by Kuldip Nayar

HOW cruel is the coincidence that the birthday of Mother Teresa, who
embodied love for Indian children, should have fallen in the same week
of August when two Christian children and their mother were burnt
alive by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) at Khandmal district in
Orissa. True, the naxalites have claimed that they have killed the
Hindu mahant (priest), Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, because he had
indulged in crimes against the Christians. But the naxalites'
statement is taken with a pinch of salt. The Hindu extremists are said
to be the real culprits. Orissa is the same state where a leading
Christian missionary Graham Staines, and his two sons, was burnt alive
a few years ago. His brave wife is still working for the amelioration
of the poor. The same state chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, was in
power and even then he had failed to take appropriate action against
the Hindu extremists. Christian missionaries have been imparting free
education and treating patients in this area. But that has not made
the Hindu extremists tolerant. They have been attacking the Christians
for decades for their evangelical.

The central government too has done very little to guarantee the
Christians their constitutional rights. A Union Minister has said that
the Orissa government has once again failed in its job. Such
statements do not bring chief minister Patnaik to book or punish the
government which has failed in its constitutional obligation to
protect the minorities.

This time the state did not wake up for five days. The VHP spread its
vandalism to Khorapur and some other parts of Orissa. They destrbyed
and burnt houses. The Christian tribal sought refuge in jungles.
According to official figures, some 16 persons were killed and 558
houses and 17 churches burnt. The chief minister refused to hold an
inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation because he naturally
found more at home with his setup.

That the central government failed to dismiss chief minister Narendra
Modi in Gujarat after the pre-planned killings of Muslims is
understandable because the BJP-led government was at the helm of
affairs at New Delhi. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee stopped
after expressing his indignation because the RSS instructed him not to
go beyond.

Why has the Manmohan Singh government faltered in dismissing the
Patnaik government cannot be comprehended. It is obvious that the
centre is afraid of the BJP which supports the Biju Janata Dal
government in the state. Probably, the impending general election has
enfeebled the Congress, not knowing how to react against the VHP and
such other organisations lest there was an adverse impact on the Hindu
mind.

Such fears are unfounded and reflect cowardliness. Had the state
government been dismissed, the impression would have gone around that
the Congress, heading the affairs at New Delhi, was willing to go to
any length to uphold the rule of law. This would have rehabilitated
the party in the minds of the people, particularly the minorities, who
want to refurbish the country's secular credentials which are at
present clouded.

The disconcerting aspect of the Indian society is that the sense of
tolerance and the spirit of accommodation are wearing thin. They have
provided for centuries the glue to the country's ethos of pluralism.
This glue should never be allowed to dry up. This keeps the country
together. Yet it is unfortunate that there is no political party which
sees beyond the next election. There are not many credible persons
left in the country to enunciate, much less retrieve, old values. The
political parties do not realise that there is no alternative to
pluralism in a country where the dialect changes after 100 kilometres
and where the complexion of the population is different from the one
left behind at a short distance.

Parties have an obsession to acquire power by hook or by crook. The
sanctity of methods had gone and with it the pull of the Gandhian
philosophy. The government has been concentrating for the last two
years on the nuclear deal with the US. New Delhi has had no time for
anything else.

[. . .]
In the same way, the measures for enforcing secularism should be
implemented. Secularism does not mean that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or
Christians cease to pursue their religion. It only means that religion
will not be allowed to play a part in civil affairs. We cannot afford
to let the traders of hatred to have their way. The minorities are the
nation's trust, not for consignment to the laboratory of hate.



______


[6]

Frontline - August 30 - September 12, 2008

ON THE BOIL

by Sushanta Talukdar in Guwahati
A court observation sparks off another anti-foreigner agitation in Assam.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20080912251803600.htm

o o o

BBC news
8 September 2008

FEARS OVER ASSAM VIGILANTE VIOLENCE

Some of the people made homeless by the vigilantes Photos: Subhamoy
Bhattacharjee

The BBC's Subir Bhaumik reports from the north-east Indian state of
Assam on how thousands of young vigilantes from indigenous communities
have been hounding out people they denounce as "illegal migrants" from
Bangladesh.

At least 10 Muslims were found dead in various districts of Assam in
the last two weeks of August and many more are missing after being
kidnapped.

Some Assamese and tribal people have also died in clashes during
strikes by minority groups.

Hundreds of Muslims of Bengali origin have been handed over to the
police by the vigilantes. The veteran Assamese Communist leader
Promode Gogoi has even demanded the setting up of camps to accommodate
them.

The Assam government enforced a curfew and imposed shoot-on-sight
orders in the violence-hit districts of Udalguri, Sonitpur and
Darrang, with the army put on alert.

"The situation is very tense in these areas," admitted Assam police
chief RN Mathur.

'Law into own hands'

Organisations representing minority groups in Assam, most of whose
members are Muslims, held strikes to demand protection, claiming that
most of those hounded out are "bonafide Indian nationals".

map

"We are against anyone from Bangladesh settling down in Assam, but why
should these youth groups take law into their own hands?" asked
Badruddin Ajmal, chairman of the United Democratic Front which
represents minorities in Assam.

"They are nabbing poor Muslim labourers from various districts and
taking them to the police, but most of these are Indian nationals who
are being harassed and deprived of their livelihood."

But youth groups like the All Assam Students Union (AASU) say the
government has done nothing so far to check the "illegal infiltration
from Bangladesh" and young Assamese are now getting restive.

"Assam's demography has changed drastically over the decades and most
of our border districts have a Bangladeshi majority now," the AASU's
chief adviser, Samujjal Bhattacharya, argues. "Unless we stop the
flow, the Assamese will become foreigners in their own land. We will
be reduced to a minority all over Assam.

"Our boys have taken to the streets because the government does
nothing, except chase votes," Mr Bhattacharya alleged.

Motorcycle attacks

Students organisations from tribal groups like the Karbi and the
Dimasa have joined six Assamese student-youth groups to hound out the
so-called illegal migrants.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is facing elections next year

>From Dibrugarh and Tinsukia in the north to Kokrajhar in the west,
supporters of the regional youth groups go round on motorcycles,
looking for "Bangladeshis".

"They enter Muslim settlements and ask for documents. If we cannot
produce them, we are beaten up and dragged to police stations, but if
we do, the papers are torn to shreds," said Akhtar Ali, a
rickshaw-puller evicted from the northern district of Sibsagar in
August.

Tribes like the Bodos and Adivasis (descendants of central Indian
tribes brought to Assam by the British to work in the tea gardens)
have also joined the anti-migrant drive.

In places like Rowta, former Bodo and Adivasi guerrillas, once sworn
enemies, have joined hands to kidnap and kill Muslims.

Some Muslim imams have been kidnapped by the motorcycle gangs.

"Loss of land to Muslim migrants has always been a major issue with
the indigenous tribes in these districts and it could spark
large-scale violence again," warns Assamese scholar Uddipana Goswami.
"The government has to be very, very careful."

Hard-hitting judgement

In 1951, Muslims made up a quarter of Assam's population. Now the
figure is close to one-third.

Justice BK Sarmah
Justice BK Sarmah said illegal Bangladeshis were all over Assam

Nine of Assam's 27 districts now have Muslim majorities and most of
these are migrants of East Bengali origin.

This time, the spark for the Assamese vigilante action came from a
hard-hitting judgement by Justice BK Sarmah of the Guwahati High Court
in July.

Justice Sarmah ordered the deportation of more than 50 Bangladesh
nationals who had "fraudulently acquired" Indian citizenship and had
even become voters in Assam.

"It is no longer a secret that illegal Bangladeshis have intruded
every nook and corner of Assam, including forest land. They have
become kingmakers in Assam," the judge observed in his verdict, in
which he criticised police and civil authorities for inaction.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is critical of the verdict because it
has sparked an anti-migrant drive that could disturb the state's
fragile law and order.

Mr Gogoi needs the support of both indigenous Assamese and migrants to
win most of the state's 13 seats in next year's parliamentary
elections.

"We will detect and deport all illegal Bangladeshis but nobody should
take the law into their own hands. We will not tolerate that either,"
Mr Gogoi told the BBC.

But unless Mr Gogoi and his administration act decisively and
speedily, some fear that Assam could again slide into chaos and
conflict - as it did in the early 1980s, when more than 3,000 people
died during an anti-migrant campaign that lasted some six years.

______


[7]

THE HISTORY OF PAKISTAN has just come out this week and hopefully
should help in imparting your foundation courses on South Asia, as the
effort has been to avoid thick jargonistic approach while seeking out
the history/prehistory of ancient Indus lands until more recent
political developments in Pakistan. Greenwood Press (London- Westport:
www.greenwood.com) has the following insert about this work:
 -------------------
 Series Title: The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations
Description: The History of Pakistan explores the rich and intricate
past of a highly diverse nation still in the process of determining
its own identity. Rooted in the ancient Indus Valley Civilization,
shaped by the cultures of both the Middle East and South Asia, and now
predominantly devoted to Islam, Pakistan has emerged as a unique
Indo-Muslim community, viewed with caution and curiosity by the rest
of the world. In this latest volume of Greenwood's History of Modern
Nations series, readers discover the foundations of modern Pakistan,
from its earliest empires and shared history with India to the coming
of Islam and its successful fight for independence in 1947. This
highly informative guide also examines the key issues and attitudes
guiding Pakistan today: their volatile feud with India over the region
of Kashmir and the right to nuclear development, internal debates over
the role of Islam in Pakistani society, and the unbreakable dominance
of the military in political affairs. Poised between a radically
changing India and the politically unstable Middle East, Pakistan is
an important nation to understand as it determines its course in a
rapidly changing world.

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
Bibliography


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

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/
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