SACW | Sept. 18-19, 2008 / Blowing in the Wind / Democrats vs Taliban / Bomb-hunters and Hindutva

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | September 18-19, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2569  
- Year 11 running

[This issue of the wire is dedicated in the memory of the progressive  
writer and critic Indu Kant Shukla.  IK Shukla died on the 15th of  
September 2008, at his base in Los Angeles, California. In his death  
we have lost a friend deeply committed to supporting all forward  
looking causes. He was a goldmine of stories on progressive debate,  
dissent and action from early years of newly independent India. Many  
will remember IKS for passionately raising his sharped edged voice  
over the last 15 years against the rising influence of  
fundamentalists of all stripes across South Asia.

He was one of the first people to join the SACW list; he would write  
often here and on so many other South Asia related lists. We would  
like to build a page of tributes to IK Shukla. People who knew him  
and interacted with him are requested to send their contributions,  
suggestions]

[1] Sri Lanka: Blowing in the Wind (Shanie)
[2] Bangladesh: End The Grand Experiment (Saher Zaidi)
[3] Pakistan: Democrats vs Taliban
(i) Taliban’s anti-state agenda needs early response: Afrasiab Khattak
(ii) The real choice before Pakistan (Beena Sarwar)
[4] India's Hindu Taliban in Full swing
(i) Gujarat State intimidation for forced conversion
(ii) The fire is spreading  (Editorial, Times of India)
(iii) And now, Karnataka… (Editorial, Herald)
(iv) How Bajrang Dal built its muscle (Rishikesh Bahadur Desai)
(v)  Attacks On Christians in Karnataka (Statement by CPM)
[5] India: War on Terror etc
(i) Bomb-hunters (Saeed Naqvi)
(ii) India’s urban war: through the smoke (Ravinder Kaur)
(iii) Democracy undermined: Chattissgarh, the state backed civilian  
militias - electoral rolls for the upcoming elections
(iv) The Campaign to Free Dr Binayak Sen: Web resources
[6] Book Review: And So The Qawwali Meets The Meera Bhajan (Alok Rai)

______


[1]

The Island
13 September 2008

BLOWING IN THE WIND

by Shanie

Soldiers push a trolley carrying an injured for treatment at a  
hospital in Vavuniya, after Tiger rebels launched an air and ground  
assault on a military complex. (AP)

How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? Yes,  
‘n’ how many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the  
sand? Yes, ‘n’ how many times must cannon balls fly Before they’re  
forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, The answer is blowin’  
in the wind. How many times must a man look up Before he can see the  
sky? Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have Before he can hear  
people cry?

Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows That too many  
people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, The  
answer is blowin’ in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist Before it’s washed to the sea?  
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist

Before they’re allowed to be free? Yes, ‘n’ how many times can man  
turn his head, Pretending he just doesn’t see? The answer, my friend,  
is blowin’ in the wind, The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

It was this lyric composed and sung by Bob Dylan in 1963 that  
launched him into fame. It was instantly picked up by the civil  
rights movement as their anthem. Even in Sri Lanka, in the mid  
seventies, a slightly modified version of it was included in an  
anthology of poems for use in schools by students of English.

Dylan’s protest lyric fired the imagination of the civil rights  
movement of the sixties. A contemporary commented how inspiring it  
was that a young white man could write something which captured the  
frustrations and aspirations of black people so powerfully. Denying  
or ignoring violence, death and peace is like blowing in the wind  
that is all around us. Blowing in the wind makes no difference to the  
wind. Peace, which like the wind is unseen but real, is so obviously  
the answer to violence and death – not more violence and more deaths.  
Not war but peace. As it was so powerful to the civil rights movement  
in the US in the sixties, it has relevance to us in Sri Lanka today.

Scores of our people – soldiers, LTTE fighting cadres, other  
militants and civilians – are getting killed, maimed or injured, not  
only in the northern warfront but in other parts of the country as  
well. It is true that no sovereign government can tolerate terrorism  
or an armed insurgency. But the terrorism that the Government is now  
fighting has a political background that we need to be mindful of, if  
we are to resolve the conflict.

Background to the conflict

Ethnic tensions were exacerbated soon after independence with the  
disenfranchisement of the plantation workers and with the enactment  
of the Sinhala only legislation – both done with party political  
motives. The first because the UNP feared it would be weakened by the  
plantation workers lending support to the opposition left parties;  
and the second because the SLFP wrongly thought they could ensure  
defeat of the UNP only by appeasement of majoritarian chauvinism.

But post 1956, the leaders of our two major parties, true to their  
conscience, made a sincere effort to resolve the nascent ethnic  
conflict. Both Bandaranaike and Dudley Senanayake were frustrated not  
so much by the chauvinists but by the petty political agendas of the  
opposing political party. The Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact in 1957  
was abrogated not because of the Buddhist monks staging a sit-down  
protest outside Bandaranaike’s Rosmead Place residence, though that  
may have been the immediate precedent to the abrogation. Abrogation  
was because of the opportunistic, unprincipled and chauvinistic  
opposition of the then UNP led by J R Jayawardene. Similarly, the  
Dudley Senanayake - Chelvanayakam Agreement of 1965 had to be  
abrogated due to the unprincipled and opportunistic chauvinism of the  
then SLFP, shamelessly supported by the LSSP and CP.

Two opportunities to resolve the conflict had then been lost due to  
petty party politics. Parliamentary elections have repeatedly shown  
that the country will back one or the other of the two main political  
parties, irrespective of their stance on the ethnic issue. In 1965,  
it was known that the the UNP and the main Tamil party were entering  
into an agreement to resolve contentious ethnic issues, even though  
the agreement was actually inked two days after the election date.  
Yet the electorate returned the UNP with a clear majority. It did not  
neeed the support of the Federal Party with which it signed an  
agreement to claim a majority in Parliament. In 1977, the UNP went to  
the polls accepting the positon that numerous problems confronted the  
Tamil-speaking people. Their manifesto pledged that the party, when  
it came to power, would ‘take all possible steps to remedy their  
grievances in such fields as education, colonisation, use of the  
Tamil language and employment in the public and semi-public  
corporations.’ The people voted the UNP in with a five-sixth  
majority. In 1994, the SLFP/PA under Chandrika Bandaranaike  
Kumaratunga went to the country on a pluralist agenda pledging to  
resolve the ethnic conflict with justice to all communities. Despite  
a chauvinistic campaign by the UNP, all except four districtts voted  
overwhelmingly for the SLFP/PA.

It is quite clear that if the two major national parties took a  
common principled stand to resolve the ethnic issue on the basis of  
equality and justice for all communities, the country would whole- 
heartedly support them. Such a stand would isolate all racists on  
both sides of the ethnic divide. We came close to that with the 2000  
package of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. That opportunity was  
squandered as a result of intrigue and opportunistic politics. It is  
still possible for the two major parties to negotiate an acceptable  
political solution. It only requires a national mind that is greater  
than a narrow party political one. Such a common stance will put to  
rest for ever the need for any one party to try and appease the  
racists and the fascists to opportunistically defeat the opposition.  
It will free the country from a war that is destroying our human and  
economic resources. It will reverse our downhill slide into  
lawlessness, fear and poverty.

A mature and visionary leadership

We believe we have leaders among both our main parties who have the  
vision and the understanding of what is required – the need for both  
main parties to get together to take a common stand on this one  
single issue. But they need to assert themselves and free themselves  
from a narrow mindset that thinks of party and power before country.

In 1973, when the SLFP Government was well entrenched in power after  
having crushed the first JVP insurgency, Bishop Lakshman  
Wickremesinghe wrote protesting about the continuing use of emergency  
regulations to stifle political dissent. He concluded by stating:  
"When there is no vision among the leaders, the people remain  
apathetic and stagnant. Where there is no self-sacrifice by those in  
power, the people grow cynical and rebellious under the burden of  
corruption. Where there is no mutual confidence, a People’s  
Government steadily deteriorates into a People’s Dictatorship. It is  
of advantage to those in power to remind themselves for whose benefit  
the people entrusted them with power." How apt these words are for  
political leaders at all times! It is good for them to always remind  
themselves as for whose benefit the people entrusted them with power.

Our country can move forward only by uniting all our people, by  
offering them equality and justice. Offering this does not have to  
await the defeat of one set of fascists and chauvinists. When that is  
done, the other set will ensure that there is no offer on the table.  
An offer now supported by the two main parties will hasten the defeat  
of both sets of fascists. How many times can a person turn his head  
and pretend that he does not see? The answer is blowing in the wind;  
blowing in the wind.

_____


[2]

[This is an expanded version of a blog that originally appeared on  
drishtipat.org]

Daily Star,

September 15, 2008

END THE GRAND EXPERIMENT

by Saher Zaidi

“It’s time — it’s time you were gone”
- Anton Chekhov [Agafya]

Sitting in traffic and calculating how long it would take my 10  
minute ride to mutate into 2 hours, I thought about traffic as a  
metaphor for the country. Then I cracked open the newspaper and found  
I was not the only one. H Khondker calls it “Spaces of Despair” in  
The Daily Star, although his recommendations (headlights on  
rickshaws, teach rickshaw pullers the rules) smell like the same  
philosophy (danda mere thanda, and always blame the subaltern) that  
landed us in this national mess.

Putting hard facts to the exploding traffic crisis, Kailash Sarkar of  
Daily Star informs us that a 10 km ride (Bangla Motor-Bangla College)  
is now a 3.5 hour ‘odyssey’. People are using apocalyptic language:  
“Commuters say the entire city traffic system has collapsed”. But  
here is the key statistic that will make the metaphor even more  
solid: 1 lakh vehicles out of 6 lakh were withdrawn by CTG after  
1/11, but all those vehicles have now returned. 175 community  
policemen were deployed by CTG, but they have no reporting to police  
and are now seen as totally ineffective. DCC has licensed 87,000  
rickshaw, but there are 5 lakh rickshaws now in Dhaka with another 1  
lakh expected before Eid.

As I ditched my transport and walked (something I do every morning  
now to get to work on time) I kept thinking of traffic. I thought of  
those vehicles that the CTG boldly banished, which are all now back.  
Actually, everything is back. Everyone is out. Everyone is well (or  
sick)? Everyone regrets! Everyone has learnt a lesson!

And while a natok plays out on the national stage, I look at  
gridlocked Dhaka city, and come to this realization: No one is  
running the country.

[Image: Driknews/Reza]
Weekly Shaptahik wrote after the latest round of bails to  
politicians: “Special Special Bail and 2 Years of System Loss”.  
System Loss. It sounds like a cruel joke. The CTG is in its last days  
and all that remains is a human-spirit/life-electricity siphoning  
system loss?

Some hoped against experience that something good would come of all  
this. Actually many did (more than will admit now). Even AL/BNP  
grassroots workers were heard saying, the rot at the top will be  
removed, and we the honest workers will rise in the ranks. But now?

All the things that we saw over the last twenty months are all  
starting revert. Jailing the bigwigs, reforming the parties, creating  
a Third Force, trying War Criminals, War on Corruption, ending black  
money, demolishing illegal Rangs Building, separation of judiciary,  
independence of TV and Radio. Promises made, process started, and  
back to square one.

Another Daily Star columnist called it “round trip ticket from status  
quo to status quo”. An architect friend said to me, “It’s as if we  
took off from an international airport, and now as we are coming back  
to land, the runway is overgrown with grass and some of the control  
tower lights have been stolen.” Faruk Wasif, one of the dynamic  
writers on the left, in discussing the community that initially had  
high hopes for CTG, writes a bitter coda in Prothom Alo: “I bathed in  
ambrosia/but it turned to poison”

An optimist said to me “Listen no one likes spending a year eating  
jail rice. I think all these people will think twice in the future.”  
Maybe, maybe. Several politicians have already said the last year in  
jail was a “fire test” and a “learning experience”. But what if some  
take the opposite lesson: that we are the only game in town. Some  
have achieved a glow after their time in jail, a heroic tint to their  
face.

A civil servant pointed out another dangerous side effect. He feels  
that in the future no government officer will take the risk of  
championing any project. If someone is efficient and pushes through a  
large infrastructure project involving a lot of procurement, they  
will fear that one day this will be dragged up in a national witch- 
hunt. But, says honest civil servant, I was an honest officer! The  
problem is the CTG years have given the distinct feeling that  
corruption cases can also be arbitrary and politically motivated.  
Even anti-corruption has become a dirty word.

I usually curse our dysfunctional democracy nonstop. But all trump  
cards have been played and failed. The country is a patient, sliced  
open on the operating table. But the medicine is killing him. And the  
longer it stays open, the more infections spread. The gangrene has  
reached all the way to the head.

And let’s not even indulge any more force-fit solutions like National  
Security Council. NSC would be another disastrous experiment. No more  
of this laboratory testing please. Let’s end this experiment and get  
back to the messy business of political governments. It seems this  
dysfunctional democracy is all we have, and we have to fix it through  
democracy. There are no short cuts left.

_____


[3]  PAKISTAN: DEMOCRATS VS TALIBAN

(i)

Daily Times
September 17, 2008	

TALIBAN’S ANTI-STATE AGENDA NEEDS EARLY RESPONSE: Afrasiab

* NWFP govt peace envoy says Taliban repeating Afghanistan  
experiments in Pakistan
* Nizam-e-Adl will be enforced in Malakand by the end of Ramazan

Staff Report

PESHAWAR: The Taliban are pursuing an ‘anti-state struggle’ and  
Pakistan must take this threat seriously before it causes an  
irreparable damage to the country, NWFP government’s Peace Envoy  
Afrasiab Khattak said on Tuesday. “They (Taliban) want to defeat the  
state and their success starts where the state fails,” Khattak told  
Daily Times in an interview on Tuesday.

Experiments: He said the Taliban were trying to replicate the same  
model in Pakistan they had experimented in Afghanistan. “Mullah Omar  
could become ameerul momeneen after the failure of the Afghan state  
and that is what they are trying to do in Pakistan,” he warned.  
“Those who support them for ‘strategic reasons’ should think 100  
times before going ahead with this policy,” Khattak said, but did not  
elaborate.

Asked how he views the US incursions in South Waziristan, the peace  
envoy said Afghanistan had long been ‘complaining’ against  
“sanctuaries of militants on Pakistan’s soil”. “The real problem is  
that we have not taken those complaints seriously. We face a serious  
situation and we have to deal with it seriously,” Khattak, who also  
heads the ruling Awami National Party at the provincial level, said.

“While we are justifiably sensitive to US incursions into our  
territory, we should be equally sensitive to the loss of sovereignty  
to the militants in FATA.” “A myth has been created that the violence  
we have is because we support the US. This duality has created the  
problem. Militant sanctuaries should be disbanded. They are the root  
cause,” Khattak said.

The peace envoy said the Tribal Areas had ‘literally exploded’. “The  
military operation in Bajaur has resulted in massive dislocation of  
civilians. There is no military operation in Kurram Agency, but  
fierce fighting is going on in that tribal region. Parts of Kurram  
are worse than Somalia.” He conceded that a peace accord with the  
Swat Taliban in May last year had helped militants reorganise and re- 
equip. “They have got new weapons coming from Waziristan, including  
sniper rifles,” he said.

Nizam-e-Adl: The provincial government has almost finalised  
arrangements for the enforcement of Islamic laws and the focus of new  
courts in Malakand is to ‘shorten process’ for dispensation of  
justice. “Nizam-e-Adl will be enforced [in Malakand] by the end of  
Ramazan,” Khattak said. He said the current military actions in Swat  
district and Bajaur tribal region were ‘harder’ than the previous  
ones, adding that good results would soon follow.

o  o  o

(ii)

The Hindu
September 18, 2008

THE REAL CHOICE BEFORE PAKISTAN

by Beena Sarwar

Pakistani politicians are today exhibiting a rare maturity in their  
apparent appreciation of the democratic process.

Sabre-rattling among some sections of the media and the Army  
notwithstanding, is political opposition in Pakistan finally being  
tempered by the realisation that the only alternative to the current  
democratically elected dispensation is military rule?

There is surely no shortage of issues to oppose the elected  
government on: skyrocketing food inflation; law and order breakdown;  
power shortages; its refusal to restore the judges by executive  
order; rising sectarian violence and militancy; American military  
incursions into Pakistani territory… the list can go on.

On the other hand, there lurks the danger of a 1977-like situation  
when all those opposed to Z.A. Bhutto and the Pakistan People’s Party  
(PPP) — right, left and centre — came together in the Pakistan  
National Alliance (PNA). Many of their complaints were entirely  
justifiable. There were good reasons to suspect that Bhutto was  
taking the country towards autocracy (Nawaz Sharif made similar moves  
in his second term). Many PNA activists, although they were clearly  
for democracy, allowed their dislike of the PPP and Bhutto to cloud  
their judgment, creating conditions for a military takeover. Their  
argument that Bhutto was equally or even more responsible for the  
situation bears weight, but after General Zia overthrew and hanged  
him, many of the same PNA activists had to join hands with the PPP in  
the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) to oppose Zia.  
But by then the damage had been done.

In 1999, too, there were many grounds for complaint against Nawaz  
Sharif. There was great relief, particularly among liberals and left- 
wingers who initially applauded General Musharraf’s military takeover  
(with the honourable exception of the Human Rights Commission of  
Pakistan). For the next eight years, until Musharraf suspended Chief  
Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry in March 2007, with the political  
leadership having been pushed abroad there was little opposition to  
his diktat.

The PNA movement termed Bhutto a threat to democracy (just as Benazir  
Bhutto’s and Nawaz Sharif’s opponents did). But, ultimately, the  
greater threat was Army intervention. There is now a consensus that  
this was a historic mistake that is best not repeated. Those who  
criticise the Asif Zardari presidency as a threat to democracy might  
consider again what the real threat actually is. Many do now seem to  
realise that the real issue is not who the President is but the need  
to keep the Army out of the political arena.

Pakistani politicians are today exhibiting a rare maturity in their  
apparent appreciation of the democratic process. As long as the PPP,  
the President and the Prime Minister stay together, the only threat  
to Parliament can come from outside it. For the first time in  
Pakistan’s history, the Army has taken a neutral political position  
and appears reluctant to step in. Keeping it out of politics is one  
of the basics of the Charter of Democracy signed by the PPP and the  
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in May 2006 in London, although  
critics say the Charter is now meaningless.

The PPP, traditionally anti-establishment, finds itself in the  
unenviable position of protecting the system it has long been pitted  
against, allowing others to steal the populist thunder. But that is  
perhaps the need of the hour: realpolitik, ensuring that power stays  
in political hands.

There are other signs of political maturity. The ruling party’s  
refusal to restore the judges by executive order prompted its  
coalition partner the PML-N to withdraw from the government,  
something that many say should have happened long before it did. The  
withdrawal happened in a civilised manner. The government stayed in  
place, the PPP forging alliances with other former political rivals,  
however unpalatable they may have been. To the credit of all  
concerned, this change, too, is taking place peacefully, with  
everyone stressing the importance of taking the democratic process  
forward.

Most deposed judges have been ‘restored’ after taking the  
controversial new oath that critics say validates Musharraf’s  
November 3, 2007 emergency orders and legitimises the Abdul Hameed  
Dogar-led judiciary. The deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Choudhry,  
along with some other senior judges, has steadfastly stuck to  
principles, refusing to take this oath. The lawyers’ movement has  
lost steam but as some analysts note, the non-restoration of the  
judges does not necessarily mean they have ‘lost.’ The movement,  
mobilised by lawyers, students and civil society since March 9, 2007,  
can take credit in large part for catalysing the subsequent political  
transition. Credit also goes to the political parties, particularly  
Benazir Bhutto, although detractors claim otherwise. In any case,  
once elections had taken place and a new government had been formed,  
it was time to hand over the torch to the political parties.

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, who was active in the movement, reminded the  
people recently that it was to restore the democratic process that  
they took to the streets against a military dictatorship. Not liking  
the outcome only underlines the need to further engage with and  
deepen the democratic process. “There is no short-cut. If we try too  
hard to find one, we might be back to another military  
dictatorship.” (‘The Perils of Democracy’, TNS Political Economy,  
September 7, 2008).

‘Religious militancy’ on the western borders and within the Pakistani  
heartland poses a major threat to democracy. The American military  
incursions into Pakistani territory on September 3 underlined not  
just American highhandedness and shortsightedness, but also  
Pakistan’s ineffectiveness in dealing with the militant threat.  
Pakistan has lodged a strong protest, its Army at the ready to  
retaliate if the raids do not end. Fair enough. But Pakistan must  
simultaneously step up its own efforts on this front. In any case,  
realistically speaking it is in no position to militarily combat the  
U.S. There is also the other small matter of the Army’s dependence on  
U.S. military aid.

The reality that this is not ‘America’s war’ but Pakistan’s, sinks in  
with the realisation that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban pose a threat not  
just to the U.S. and Afghanistan but also to Pakistan as a nation,  
and to any democratic system. In some areas there is a sectarian  
bloodbath. Thousands have had to flee their homes. This issue has to  
be tackled now, for our own sake, and without ambiguity. There should  
be no more Lal Masjids. If Pakistan cannot, or would not, tackle the  
matter effectively, others will surely step in. Obviously military  
action alone is not the answer: there must be a political roadmap.  
That is why it is imperative that a political government is in place.

The outcome of the February elections and the widespread support for  
the democratic process, visible even in the normally bickering  
political factions, reflect hopes that now finally the Army will be  
pushed back, the intelligence agencies reined in, and peace  
established with India and Afghanistan, the eastern and western  
neighbours. Despite all the risks involved, it is a good time to try  
for these goals because for once Pakistan’s aims are aligned with  
those of the U.S. The U.S. is doing this in its own interests, of  
course, but Pakistan stands to benefit, too.

It is imperative that Pakistan’s political leadership employ the  
political skill and courage (not bravado) that it needs to build  
public opinion and steer the country out of the imbroglio it is  
currently in.


______


[4] INDIA - THE HINDU TALIBAN IN FULL SWING

(i)  GUJARAT STATE INTIMIDATION FOR FORCED CONVERSION: LETTERS FROM  
SECULAR ACTIVISTS

--
a)

Forcible Conversion of Muslims by Gujarat Administration

Dangs, Gujarat

Urgent Attention

September 16, 2008

To
The Prime Minister
Dr Manmohan Singh
Government of India

Dear Sir,

Two villages in the Dangs district, dominated by the Muslim minority  
have been subject to brute police torture (photographs attached) and  
villagers forced into the forests. Speaking to the writer IG Gujarat  
Shivanand Jha said that everything was under control but this appears  
to be administrative gloss.

The Combat Human Rights Forum (CHRF) has dispatched a factfinding  
team late last night consisting of Shri Suresh Bhosle, a Dalit  
Panthers activist, Sumedh Jadhav and Avinash Kamble. The report will  
be submitted before the media at the earliest.
[. . .]
Teesta Setalvad, Suresh Bhosale, Sumedh Jadhav, Avinash Kamble
Citizens for Justice and Peace
Combat Human Rights Forum

Full text at: http://www.sabrang.com/gujarat/2008/dangconversion.htm

o o o

b)

Repression by police, forest officers - villagers under VHP, Govt  
pressure to convert from their religion or face eviction

URGENT ATTENTION

National Human Rights Commision (NHRC)
  National Commission for Minorities
  Political Leaders
  National Media

Today morning a battery of Forest officers and police descended on  
the village of Nandapeda near Ahwa in the Dangs, Gujarat. They pulled  
out the doors and the windows, pulled out the wooden ballis which  
support the roof; they pulled out wood from the roof of the huts of  
the villagers. The forest department decided late night that it was  
illegal wood and they must recover it.

The ATS meanwhile rounded up a few people.

Nandapeda is the only village with majority Muslim population in the  
Dangs district, considered the poorest district in the whole of India.

The government has been pressurizing the Muslims to convert to the  
Hindu religion or face eviction from their land.
[. . .]

Shabnam Hashmi
17 September 2008

Full text at: http://www.anhadin.net/article54.html

o o o

(ii)

Times of India
16 September 2008

THE FIRE IS SPREADING

First it was Orissa, then Madhya Pradesh. Now, Karnataka has emerged  
as the new battleground for the sangh parivar. Twelve Christian  
prayer halls in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Chikmagalur districts of  
Karnataka were targeted by mobs on Sunday.

These attacks could not have come at a worse time. The serial bomb  
blasts, first in Jaipur, then in Bangalore and Ahmedabad and now in  
Delhi, have created a climate of uncertainty and fear. We need to set  
aside our political differences and stand together to fight forces  
that threaten to weaken the secular fabric of this country.

A new arena of communal violence is the last thing this country needs  
now. State governments should realise the gravity of the situation  
and act accordingly.

The Orissa government was slow in reacting to the sangh parivar-led  
mobs that indulged in murder and arson after the murder of one of its  
senior leaders in the state. The minuscule Christian community in the  
tribal pockets of the state was blamed by the sangh parivar for the  
murder despite Maoists claiming responsibility for the killing.

Victims of the violence continue to live in a state of fear. As in  
Orissa, the sangh parivar has blamed religious conversion as the  
provocation for targeting the prayer halls. Religious conversion is  
legal in India. At the same time, legal measures are available to  
prevent forced conversion, or for that matter, forced reconversions.  
No religious group or political body can subvert the rights  
guaranteed under the Indian Constitution or the legal system and  
force its writ on the people.

It is time that the BJP reined in its affiliate outfits. Or, is it  
that these groups have now gathered a momentum of their own? The  
likes of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal operate outside  
parliamentary democracy, unlike the BJP that aspires to form the  
government at the Centre. The VHP and the Bajrang Dal have no faith  
in the liberal framework of the Indian Constitution. Does the BJP  
subscribe to the VHP-Bajrang Dal idea of India? Leaders like L K  
Advani, the BJP’s PM-in-waiting, ought to be worried about the  
actions of the party’s affiliate groups.

Communal violence is primarily a law and order problem. A strong  
response from the state government should bring the situation under  
control in Karnataka. Chauvinists could be under the impression that  
a BJP government in office is an opportunity to break the law. The  
state government should not allow such perceptions to linger and  
crack down immediately on troublemakers. The country can't afford any  
delay on that.

o o o

(iii)

Herald, 16 September 2008

Editorial

AND NOW, KARNATAKA…

The ongoing communal violence against Christians in the Kandhamal  
district of Orissa and the Bajrang Dal-led attacks on Christians in  
Dakshina Kannada, Davanagere and Chikmagalur districts of Karnataka  
can no longer be seen as 'spontaneous' occurences. Obviously,  
violence against Christians seems to be part of a new, sinister  
offensive on the part of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its  
militant wing, the Bajrang Dal, as well as a number of front  
organisations of the so-called Sangh Parivar.

Attacks on Christians are being sought to be justified on the ground  
that people are being forcibly converted from Hinduism or indigenous  
tribal religions to Christianity. But there is little or no  
justification for this. In Orissa's Kandhamal, for example, there was  
not a single complaint of 'forcible conversion' lodged with the  
police. Bishop of Mangalore Dr Aloysius DSouza has clarified that not  
a single case of conversion has been reported in any of 158 churches  
under the Mangalore Diocese.

The one common factor in both states is that the Bharatiya Janata  
Party (BJP) is in power; as part of a coalition in Orissa and as the  
sole ruling party in Karnataka. The attitude of the Karnataka  
government can be seen in yesterday's statement by Minister for Power  
K S Eswarappa who, while condemning the violence, said in the same  
breath that the state will not tolerate forceful and illegal  
'religious conversion' in the state. He said the state government has  
ordered an 'inquiry' into the incidents of violence and would not  
spare anybody who was behind it, "Be they activists of the Bajrang  
Dal or anybody else". However, the administration's efforts have  
inspired little or no confidence in the minority community. "We don't  
want any assurance. The police should act swiftly and arrest the  
culprits. They have not acted in a proper manner," the Bishop has said.

Police in Karnataka have been instructed to take action against all  
those who were responsible for violence as well as against any  
"organisations or individuals who were found guilty of encouraging  
and promoting illegal and forceful conversions from one religion to  
another". Does this make any sense when the state has an anti- 
conversion law, and the police are bound to take action if there is a  
complaint? The fact is that there haven't been any complaints.

Former Bangalore city police chief and BJP MP H T Sangliana, who  
revolted against his party and voted with the UPA during the recent  
trust vote in the Lok Sabha, has clearly said: "The impression among  
the people is that attacks on Christians have increased since the BJP  
government came to power in the state." Sangliana debunks charges of  
conversion, saying: "No one has produced any evidence." The BJP in  
Karnataka is trying to wash its hands off the violence by claiming it  
is the handiwork of unnamed 'miscreants' who are out to tarnish the  
name of the new government. If that is the case, why is it that the  
culprits are not being rounded up? What is the sense in asking the  
police to crack down on those responsible for the violence as well as  
those involved in 'illegal conversion'?

Now that the Union Home Ministry has sought an immediate report from  
the Karnataka government about the attacks on churches and instructed  
it to tighten security in the state and take all necessary steps to  
deal with the situation, we hope that the violence will end.   
Otherwise, the centre should contemplate taking action against state  
governments that take a policy of deliberate inaction in the face of  
religious violence.

(iv)

The Times of India
17 September 2008

HOW BAJRANG DAL BUILT ITS MUSCLE

by Rishikesh Bahadur Desai, TNN

BANGALORE: In just 12 years since its birth in Karnataka, the state  
unit of the Bajrang Dal has gained ground to make its forceful  
presence felt, particularly in the coastal and Malnad regions.

Pramod Mutalik Desai, from Belgaum, who was a full-time worker of RSS  
and later VHP, was chosen as its first state convener. Years before  
he settled in Mysore, Mutalik had dropped his caste-indicative last  
name. He served the VHP by narrating stories of Shivaji and his  
mother Jijabai to children in the Kishor Vibhag (children's wing). He  
went on to become one of the most vociferous proponents of the Hindu  
right. Over 100 cases were filed against him in the eight years that  
he headed the organization. However, he was shown the door in 2004  
after the Bajrang Dal national leadership felt that he was developing  
political ambitions.

Riding on social-polarisation drives, the unit has grown now to have  
branches in over 3,400 towns and villages with most of its members  
hailing from the merchant class. All the while it pursued its agenda,  
the chief among them were two controversial movements - one to fight  
conversion and to liberate Datta Peetha, a sufi Shrine also called  
Baba Budan Giri in Chikmagalur district. The first one took various  
forms: barging into prayer meetings, damaging church property and  
assaulting alleged converters. The cadre's agenda also included  
closing down abattoirs and stopping inter-religious marriages.

The Datta Peetha campaign has virtually gained national attention.  
Mutalik had once claimed he wanted to make the it the Ayodhya of the  
South.

Chikmagalur, the district that helped former PM Indira Gandhi find  
political redemption post-Emergency, has now become a BJP stronghold.  
Mahendra Kumar, the present state convener of the Bajrang Dal, hails  
from the district. The Bajrang Dal also claims to have brought back  
over 2,000 converts to Hinduism. "We have also started de-addiction  
campaigns among the youth and banned gutkha in several villages,"  
says Kumar. Mangalore: Mahendra Kumar claimed that that there were  
45,000 cases of forceful conversions in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and  
Chikmagalur districts that have come to their notice.

As for the 'satyadarshini' literature which was being distributed by  
the New Life Fellowship as claimed by Bajrang Dal and VHP, he was  
unable to specify the exact place from where it originated as he was  
unable to get details from the local convener , Sharan Pumpwell.

"It has come to our notice that conversions take place by exploiting  
the economic status of the person/family, chiefly by giving them aid  
during exigencies (medical emergency). We oppose such acts of  
'encashment' exploiting a person's weakness,'' he asserted.

Conversions are breaking up families, he said.

On the attack on the Adoration Monastery, Kumar said vandalisation of  
the statue of Jesus Christ was unfortunate. The Bajrang Dal, he said,  
has lodged a complaint against conversion activities for the first  
time with the police after Sunday's incident.

(With inputs by Stanley G Pinto)

o o o

(v)   ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS IN KARNATAKA

September 18, 2008

Press Statement

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued  
the following statement:

The CPI(M) strongly condemns the continuing violence against  
Christian minorities in Karnataka. It is a matter of deep concern  
that instead of controlling the violence against the Christian  
community in Mangalore the BJP State Government is providing  
patronage to the criminals of the Bajrang Dal who are spreading the  
violence to other areas across the State. It is shameful that the  
violence has continued for days, religious functionaries including  
nuns are being attacked, and churches and houses of prayer and idols  
sacred to the community are being broken. Instead of arresting the  
culprits the State Government is threatening members of the Christian  
community who were protecting the churches and has subjected them to  
brutal police lathi charges in which scores including women have been  
injured.

The violence and threats against the Christians is an assault on the  
Constitution, yet the Central Government appears to be a silent  
spectator with not even a statement leave alone any action emanating  
from senior Government functionaries. The violence in Orissa and now  
in Karnataka by the Bajrang Dal in the context of the clear evidence  
of their guilt in making bombs and planning communal attacks calls  
for immediate action against the Bajrang Dal by the Central  
Government. The Manmohan Singh Government has to answer the people  
why it is utterly failing to protect the security of minority  
communities mandated by the Constitution.


_____


[5] INDIA'S WAR ON TERROR LOBBYISTS AND ACTORS

(i)

The Daily Times
September 18, 2008

BOMB-HUNTERS

by Saeed Naqvi

In this mysterious discovery of bombs, the second name is that of BJP  
Corporator Bhimji Budhna. He turned out to be an even greater “bomb”  
hunter than Bhalla. With his team of followers he spotted no fewer  
than eleven bombs

We now have it on good authority that tougher laws to fight terrorism  
are in the works. In fact, the election season could well be  
decorated by further, tougher steps like Guantanamo Bay in the  
Andamans or even renditions to the real place!

I would, personally, invite as many people as I can for a show of  
solidarity with the government for its new resolve provided I can  
obtain answers to some nagging questions.

For example a correspondent of the Hindi daily Hindustan has written  
a story from Surat which begs a few questions. Once I have the  
answers to this submission, I reserve the right to ask, say, two more  
questions before I begin to mobilise cheerleaders for tougher anti  
terror laws.

Herewith the Hindustan story published on page one in August, after  
the Surat “bombs” had been located.

“Another live bomb has been found in Surat bringing the number of  
such bombs to 28. The bomb was found in a bag at the bus stand  
adjacent to Chaupati. Seven days after the Ahmedabad blasts, such  
bombs have been found and defused with unusual frequency. Not one of  
these ‘bombs’ exploded.”

Obviously Surat has been saved by a miracle or by eyes more vigilant  
than those of the police.

All praise to the experts who, in an instant, reduced “live bombs” to  
“duds”. Should the citizen not thank these gentlemen who actually  
informed the police about the existence of these bombs?

After the Ahmedabad blasts so overstretched was the otherwise alert  
police that it was unable to find any bomb in Surat. But some  
committed people performed near “miracles”. Wherever they placed  
their probing hand, they found a “bomb”.

The first such citizen of Surat whose name the police knows well is  
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Praveen Bhalla. It was Bhalla who  
informed the police about a car laden with bombs at Varcha. He learnt  
about the bomb after over hearing the conversation between some  
shopkeepers. After the car was found, Bhalla yet again informed the  
police of another bomb. Bhalla had learnt about this bomb from a  
friend whose name he has forgotten.

In this mysterious discovery of bombs, the second name is that of BJP  
Corporator Bhimji Budhna. He turned out to be an even greater “bomb”  
hunter than Bhalla. With his team of followers he spotted no fewer  
than eleven bombs.

The first tip-off by Budhna to the ever-eager police was actually  
information he had received from one of his workers. Like Bhalla,  
Budhna too has forgotten the name of this informant. The next bomb  
Budhna discovered was masterly investigation. He was talking on his  
mobile when, lo and behold, his roving eyes settled on a “bomb”  
hanging behind a hoarding. This was just the beginning. In rapid  
succession he found more bombs dangling from hoardings. It is  
difficult to conclude if the “terrorists” were trying to draw  
attention to some merchandise of their preference.

The startling fact is that in this fashion with uncanny precision,  
Budhna reported and defused eleven bombs.

Little wonder Police Commissioner of Surat, RMS Brar, describes these  
spectacular discoveries as “good luck”. Before he says anything else  
on the record, Brar would like to wait for the forensic reports.  
Forensic investigations are being conducted in Gandhinagar. An  
official involved in these investigations has told Hindustan that the  
circuit of the bombs was complete. This does not explain why the  
bombs did not explode. This only the investigations will reveal.

Meanwhile the citizens of Surat are thanking the rain gods for  
continuous rain, and the foreign country that produces the chips that  
go into bombs, for having cluttered the market with “dead chips”.  
Both these facts may explain the almost benign nature of the  
discovered bombs.

The Hindustan reporter then asks the question: “What lesson do we  
learn from the discovery of bombs in Surat which did not explode?”

Indeed, all that the Home Ministry needs to do is to obtain directly,  
or through the reliable agency of Narendra Modi, the role of Bhalla  
and Budhna, their profiles, to shed some light on their remarkable  
commitment towards the people of Gujarat, a commitment for which they  
must be given bravery awards or, at least, membership of the Rajya  
Sabha from the government quota.

The writer is one of India’s leading columnists

o o o

(ii)

opendemocracy.net
17 September 2008

INDIA’S URBAN WAR: THROUGH THE SMOKE

by Ravinder Kaur

The assimilation of India's urban terror attacks into a global  
narrative of Islamist violence carries the danger that their domestic  
social and historical roots will be missed, says Ravinder Kaur.

The five bomb-blasts on 13 September 2008 in New Delhi represent the  
latest in a series of such attacks in the country's main cities. The  
police and political experts described the bombs, which killed twenty- 
five people and injured at least ninety within a span of forty-five  
minutes, as "low-intensity" devices aimed less at inflicting maximum  
casualties and more at creating maximum terror at the heart of  
India's capital city.
Ravinder Kaur teaches at the University of Roskilde, Denmark. She is  
the editor of  Religion, Violence and Political Mobilisation in South  
Asia (Sage, 2005) and author of Since 1947: Partition Narratives  
among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi (Oxford University Press, 2007)

Indeed, what makes the Delhi blasts particularly disturbing is their  
place in a pattern of similar assaults where bombs are placed in  
close proximity to one another and timed to explode in sequence  
across crowded market-places and office-complexes across a given  
city. Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad have been among the recent  
targets, with over 160 deaths in these cities since May 2008. Now it  
is Delhi's turn, and there is every prospect that others will follow
[. . .]
FULL TEXT AT: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/india-s-war-on- 
terror-through-the-smoke


o o o

(iii)

Mainstream
13 September 2008

The following is the memorandum submitted on behalf of the Campaign  
for Peace and Justice in Chhattisgarh (CPJC) to the Chief Election  
Commissioner on concerns regarding preparation of electoral rolls for  
the forthcoming State Assembly elections in Chhattishgarh.

Dear Sir,

We are writing to you on behalf of the CPJC. The Campaign for Peace  
and Justice in Chhatisgarh is a campaign group formed by individuals  
and organisations who are deeply concerned about the recent  
happenings and gross violation of human rights going on in Chhattisgarh.

We are aware that he Election Commission is in the process of  
preparation for the State Assembly elections which are to take place  
towards the end of this year. We would, through this representation,  
like to raise our concern regarding the preparation of electoral  
rolls and other matters in Dantewada and Bijapur districts of South  
Chhattisgarh.

As you know, in the districts of Dantewada and Bijapur many tribals  
have been living in government run Salwa Judum camps as IDPs  
(Internally Displaced Persons) for the last two-to-three years.  
According to recent media reports, the government of Chhattisgarh  
claims that more than 57,000 people are living in these camps and  
their names are getting included in the electoral rolls for the  
camps. We have learnt through media reports that the government has  
initiated a process of including their names in the electoral rolls  
for the camps.

As per the reports we have received from local civil society members  
and fact findings done by the CPJC members, a majority of the people  
who were living in these relief camps have gone back to their homes  
in their respective villages. According to our information, the  
number of residents in camps is not more than 10,000.

The Government of Chhattisgarh has closed down most of Public  
Distribution System (PDS) shops in these villages. Therefore people  
have to come back to the Salwa Judum camps to buy their ration. We  
are told that details from the camp ration shops have been shown to  
prove that 57,000 people are still living in these camps. This is  
misleading.

We are also aware of several other discrepancies existing in the  
preparation of electoral rolls: many names in the voters’ list have  
been dropped and in some cases names of children aged 13-16 have been  
included. Moreover, names of several people who have fled to Andhra  
Pradesh and other neighbouring States have been added or maintained  
in the electoral rolls of Salwa Judum camps when they never lived there.

We are concerned that while many genuine voters would be deprived of  
their right to vote, the free and fair nature of the elections would  
be affected due to these discrepancies. We request you to look into  
the issue and make sure that the people who have gone back to their  
villages get a chance to vote from their own villages and their names  
are included in the electoral rolls for their respective villages and  
not in the camps where they used to live. We also request you to look  
into other discrepancies in the electoral rolls.

We would also like to state our concerns about the voting rights of  
IDPs who have had to flee to the nearby States of Andhra Pradesh,  
Maharashtra and Orissa due to the atmosphere of fear in their  
villages in Dantewada and Bijapur for the last two-to-three years.  
Estimates of people who have fled to these States range from 50,000  
to 1,50,000. As we have stated earlier, names of several people who  
have fled to Andhra Pradesh and other neighbouring States have been  
added or maintained in the electoral rolls of the Salwa Judum camps  
when they never lived there. We are afraid that this will inevitably  
result in fraud voting while the citizens themselves are deprived of  
their right to vote.

We would like to understand the arrangements the Election Commission  
is making so that these IDPs are able to exercise their right to vote  
even if they are not able to return to their homes due to the  
atmosphere of fear. We request that Election Commission makes special  
arrangements for these IDPs so that the they can exercise their  
franchise in Andhra Pradesh itself.

According to media reports, the Communist Party of India has also  
raised their objections with you on similar points. They have  
informed that 50 polling booths in Bijapur and 92 polling booths in  
Dantewada have not been inspected by the Election Commission. They  
feel the inspection staff have refused to do their duty, probably due  
to threats from the Salwa Judum. We believe the same can be performed  
with the help of civil society and local NGOs.

We hope that you will take cognisance of these concerns which have a  
serious bearing on the conduct of free and fair elections in the  
region and take appropriate action. Sincerely,

Sumit Chakravartty, Vijayan M.J., Shubhranshu Chaudhary, Sridevi  
Panikkar, Pravin Mote
  (On behalf of the Campaign for Peace and Justice in Chhattisgarh)

o o o

(iv)

New York Times

India’s Novel Use of Brain Scans in Courts Is Debated

by Anand Giridharadas
Published: September 14, 2008

MUMBAI, India — The new technology is, to its critics, Orwellian.  
Others view it as a silver bullet against terrorism that could render  
waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods obsolete. Some  
scientists predict the end of lying as we know it.

Now, well before any consensus on the technology’s readiness, India  
has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on  
evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that  
produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal  
signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question.

For years, scientists have peered into the brain and sought to  
identify deception. They have shot infrared beams through liars’  
heads, placed them in giant magnetic resonance imaging machines and  
used scanners to track their eyeballs. Since the Sept. 11 attacks,  
the United States has plowed money into brain-based lie detection in  
the hope of producing more fruitful counterterrorism investigations.

The technologies, generally regarded as promising but unproved, have  
yet to be widely accepted as evidence — except in India, where in  
recent years judges have begun to admit brain scans. But it was only  
in June, in a murder case in Pune, in Maharashtra State, that a judge  
explicitly cited a scan as proof that the suspect’s brain held  
“experiential knowledge” about the crime that only the killer could  
possess, sentencing her to life in prison.

Psychologists and neuroscientists in the United States, which has  
been at the forefront of brain-based lie detection, variously called  
India’s application of the technology to legal cases “fascinating,”  
“ridiculous,” “chilling” and “unconscionable.” (While attempts have  
been made in the United States to introduce findings of similar tests  
into court cases, these generally have been by defense lawyers trying  
to show the mental impairment of the accused, not by prosecutors  
trying to convict.)

“I find this both interesting and disturbing,” Henry T. Greely, a  
bioethicist at Stanford Law School, said of the Indian verdict. “We  
keep looking for a magic, technological solution to lie detection.  
Maybe we’ll have it someday, but we need to demand the highest  
standards of proof before we ruin people’s lives based on its  
application.”

Law enforcement officials from several countries, including Israel  
and Singapore, have shown interest in the brain-scanning technology  
and have visited government labs that use it in interrogations,  
Indian officials said.

Methods of eliciting truth have long proved problematic. Truth drugs  
tend to make suspects babble as much falsehood as truth. Polygraph  
tests measure anxiety more than deception, and good liars may not  
feel anxious. In 1998, the United States Supreme Court said there was  
“simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable.”

This latest Indian attempt at getting past criminals’ defenses begins  
with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, in which electrodes are placed  
on the head to measure electrical waves. The suspect sits in silence,  
eyes shut. An investigator reads aloud details of the crime — as  
prosecutors see it — and the resulting brain images are processed  
using software built in Bangalore.

The software tries to detect whether, when the crime’s details are  
recited, the brain lights up in specific regions — the areas that,  
according to the technology’s inventors, show measurable changes when  
experiences are relived, their smells and sounds summoned back to  
consciousness. The inventors of the technology claim the system can  
distinguish between people’s memories of events they witnessed and  
between deeds they committed.

The Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature test, or BEOS, was  
developed by Champadi Raman Mukundan, a neuroscientist who formerly  
ran the clinical psychology department of the National Institute of  
Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Bangalore. His system builds on  
methods developed at American universities by other scientists,  
including Emanuel Donchin, Lawrence A. Farwell and J. Peter Rosenfeld.

Despite the technology’s promise — some believe it could transform  
investigations as much as DNA evidence has — many experts in  
psychology and neuroscience were troubled that it was used to win a  
criminal conviction before being validated by any independent study  
and reported in a respected scientific journal. Publication of data  
from testing of the scans would allow other scientists to judge its  
merits — and the validity of the studies — during peer reviews.

“Technologies which are neither seriously peer-reviewed nor  
independently replicated are not, in my opinion, credible,” said Dr.  
Rosenfeld, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Northwestern  
University and one of the early developers of electroencephalogram- 
based lie detection. “The fact that an advanced and sophisticated  
democratic society such as India would actually convict persons based  
on an unproven technology is even more incredible.”

  After passing an 18-page promotional dossier about the BEOS test to  
a few of his colleagues, Michael S. Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist and  
director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the  
University of California, Santa Barbara, said: “Well, the experts all  
agree. This work is shaky at best.”

None of these experts have met the Indian inventors and the  
investigators using the test. One British forensic psychologist who  
has met them said he found the presentation highly convincing.

“According to the cases that have been presented to me, BEOS has  
clearly demonstrated its utility in providing admissible evidence  
that has been used to assist in the conviction of defendants in  
court,” Keith Ashcroft, a frequent expert witness in the British  
courts, said in an e-mail message.

Two states in India, Maharashtra and Gujarat, have been impressed  
enough to set up labs using BEOS for their prosecutors.

Sunny Joseph, a state forensic investigator in Maharashtra who used  
to work with Dr. Mukundan as a researcher on BEOS in Bangalore, said  
the test’s results were highly reliable. He said Dr. Mukundan had  
done extensive testing, as had the state.

Here in Maharashtra, about 75 crime suspects and witnesses have  
undergone the test since late 2006. But the technique received its  
strongest official endorsement, forensic investigators here say, on  
June 12, when a judge convicted a woman of murder based on evidence  
that included polygraph and BEOS tests.

The woman, Aditi Sharma, was accused of killing her former fiancé,  
Udit Bharati. They were living in Pune when Ms. Sharma met another  
man and eloped with him to Delhi. Later Ms. Sharma returned to Pune  
and, according to prosecutors, asked Mr. Bharati to meet her at a  
McDonald’s. She was accused of poisoning him with arsenic-laced food.

Ms. Sharma, 24, agreed to take a BEOS test in Mumbai, the capital of  
Maharashtra. (Suspects may be tested only with their consent, but  
forensic investigators say many agree because they assume it will  
spare them an aggressive police interrogation.)

After placing 32 electrodes on Ms. Sharma’s head, investigators said,  
they read aloud their version of events, speaking in the first person  
(“I bought arsenic”; “I met Udit at McDonald’s”), along with neutral  
statements like “The sky is blue,” which help the software  
distinguish memories from normal cognition.

For an hour, Ms. Sharma said nothing. But the relevant nooks of her  
brain where memories are thought to be stored buzzed when the crime  
was recounted, according to Mr. Joseph, the state investigator. The  
judge endorsed Mr. Joseph’s assertion that the scans were proof of  
“experiential knowledge” of having committed the murder, rather than  
just having heard about it.

In the only other significant judicial statement on BEOS, a judge in  
2006 in Gujarat denied the test the status of “concluded proof” but  
wrote that it corroborated already solid evidence from other sources.

In writing his opinion on the Pune murder case, Judge S. S.  
Phansalkar-Joshi included a nine-page defense of BEOS.

Ms. Sharma insists that she is innocent.

Even as the debate continues over using scans to trip up obfuscators,  
researchers are developing new uses for the technology. No Lie MRI, a  
company in California, promises on its Web site to use the scans to  
help with developing interpersonal trust and military intelligence,  
among other tasks. In August, a committee of the National Research  
Council in Washington predicted that, with greater research, brain  
scans could eventually aid “the acquisition of intelligence from  
captured unlawful combatants” and “the screening of terrorism  
suspects at checkpoints.”

“As we enter more fully into the era of mapping and understanding the  
brain, society will face an increasing number of important ethical,  
legal and social issues raised by these new technologies,” Mr.  
Greely, the Stanford bioethicist, and his colleague Judy Illes wrote  
last year in the American Journal of Law & Medicine.

If brain scans are widely adopted, they said, “the legal issues alone  
are enormous, implicating at least the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth,  
Seventh and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”

“At the same time,” they continued, “the potential benefits to  
society of such a technology, if used well, could be at least equally  
large.”

o o o

THE CAMPAIGN TO FREE DR BINAYAK SEN : Web resources
www.freebinayaksen.org
binayaksen.net/

______


[6]


Outlook Magazine
25 August 2008

Book Review:

AND SO THE QAWWALI MEETS THE MEERA BHAJAN
Don't be distracted by his novelist reputation; Amit Chaudhuri proves  
to be an incisive cultural critic

by Alok Rai

CLEARING A SPACE REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CULTURE AND INDIA
by Amit Chaudhuri
Black Kite
Pages: 336; Rs. 395

	Amit Chaudhuri is a fine novelist. This contributes an occasional,  
faintly illegitimate frisson to the weighty matters that he is  
dealing with in this book. As in this observation about the Birla  
Mandir in Calcutta: "I have never really cared for the Birla temple,  
for its security guards who hover not very far from you once you  
enter, its marble floor and enormous chandelier, its expansive air of  
a lobby in a four-star hotel, its spotless, garish, unimpeachable idols.
" That "four-star", particularly, is very finely judged. However, it  
would be a pity if the novelist’s reputation were to distract  
attention from the fact that he is an insightful cultural critic. I  
must confess to a twinge of disappointment when I learnt that  
Chaudhuri was employed in distant Norwich. Chaudhuri’s title seems to  
imply that there is some kind of jungle of controversy, some  
intrusive undergrowth of argument about these matters in our India.  
In fact, there is a resounding silence. Gossip abounds—and pretty  
young things—but there is hardly any space in our public world for  
the kind of detailed essays, published in sundry heavy-duty Western  
periodicals, in which Chaudhuri has developed his argument.
		
	Chaudhuri bemoans the neglect of a secularism that is an  
experiencing of the modern world through shared cultural artefacts.	
		
	
	So perhaps one should be grateful that the argument is there at all.

The argument? The remarkable thing is that there is an argument,  
because of course this book is an assemblage of pieces that were  
written at different times, for different audiences. Further,  
Chaudhuri is fighting on several fronts at the same time—he is an  
Indian writer in English who must not only overcome "nationalist"  
suspicion, but must also combat "postcolonial" orthodoxy, wherein  
particular histories of cultural creation are lost in a fog of jargon.

Then again, Chaudhuri has important things to say about the manner in  
which the Indian debate on secularism has been dominated by social  
scientists and constitutional experts. This has led to a neglect of  
the process of creating a secular modern culture—at least in Bengal!  
Thus, secularism is accommodated not only in the relatively sterile  
environs of the Constitution, it also finds a place in language, in  
image and metaphor, in ways of feeling, in experiencing the modern  
world—through shared cultural artefacts. Culture makes the Meera  
bhajan and the qawwali available to secular folk, who share some of  
the emotions, but not the framework of belief, whether in Krishna or  
the One and Only.

This secularism, crucially, has room within it for the "spiritual"  
hungers—the existential bewilderment, the unassuaged longing for  
something beyond the prison of the self—that, far from being  
addressed, are unwelcome in official secularism. Despite all the  
constitutional bulwarks, this is a significant default. Because that  
unassuaged longing finds a home, of sorts, in the reinvented  
"religions" with which we are beset. (That "four-star" lobby is an  
important cultural symbol.) This is why it is a cruel twist of fate  
that these reinvented "religions" masquerade as culture and even,  
courtesy their Lordships, as "ways of life". This is Chaudhuri:  
"...the domain of culture, unlike the domain of religion, belongs to  
the modern in a way that doesn’t presume or demand allegiance or  
belief. Surely the principal project of Hindutva is to destroy this  
domain of culture that was created in modernity."

Of course this process did not take place uniformly over a country as  
diverse as India. Thus, in the crucial Hindi region, the creation of  
a modern culture was inevitably inflected by the cultural politics of  
the invention of modern Hindi itself—politics that translated, all  
too fluently, into emergent communalism. But that is not, by any  
means, the whole story, even of modern Hindi. I have little doubt  
that there are similar processes happening elsewhere on the cusp of  
our strangely troubled modernity.And while we are all destined to  
suffer the consequences of these oddly aborted and distorted  
processes, we are not free to call them to mind, to think of how we  
came to be in this crowded, desolate place.

The Indian writer in English, particularly in this age of  
globalisation, is a suspect hybrid, often a performer, sometimes  
merely a puppet. Chaudhuri is neither. He belongs with us, thinks  
with us. Even though he works in East Anglia.




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Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.net/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

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