SACW | Sept. 20-21, 2008 / Hizbut Tahrir in Dhaka / Ahmedis in Pakistan / India: Muslims & Christians as 2nd class citizens / Bangaldeshi immigrants in North East

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | September 20-21, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2570  
- Year 11 running

[1] Bangladesh: The Hizbut Tahrir issue (Edit, Daily Star)
[2] Pakistan: Not in the name of faith (Kunwar Idris)
[3] India: Hard Questions about the Counter-Terror Operation at Jamia  
Nagar, New Delhi (Shabnam Hashmi, Satya Sivaraman, Manisha Sethi,  
Tanweer Fazal, Arshad Alam, Pallavi Deka)
[4] India: Is there a Muslim mindset? (Mohammed Wajihuddin)
[5] India and Kashmir (Editorial, EPW)
[6] India and Kashmir : Scrap draconian laws - No Double Standards  
(Editorial, Kashmir Times)
[7] India: Terrorism and the State (Harsh Mander)
[8] India - Karnataka:
(i) Karnataka: Attacks on Christians (Sugata Srinivasaraju)
(ii) Teesta criticises Catholics’ accord with Hindu groups
[9] India: Hindutva groups war over Ramayana in Delhi University  
course (Editorial, The Telegraph)
[10] Bangladeshi Immigrants in North East India: Virtual citizens,  
real problems (Sanjoy Hazarika)

______


[1]

The Daily Star
September 21, 2008

Editorial

THE HIZBUT TAHRIR ISSUE
Government must deal with it firmly

Everybody must have the right to practice his or her religion. But  
nobody can impose it on others. It is the tone of force or the tenor  
that concerns us and the sheer audacious manner in which some of  
those involved with it have been going about speaking of the  
objectives of the outfit.

The teachers arrested in Rajshahi the other day were carted off to  
prison because they happened to be distributing leaflets propagating  
the overthrow of the government. As if that were not enough, some  
other leading members of the outfit in the capital have now  
threatened to wage a movement and not allow anyone in Bangladesh to  
live in peace if the arrested teachers are not released in forty- 
eight hours.

The attitude smacks of intolerance and contradicts the outfit's claim  
that it does not believe in violence or force. Obviously, it is a  
situation that calls for tough handling, given the fact that threats  
are undermining the fundamental constitutional and political premise  
upon which the country functions.

The members of Hizbut Tahrir, which has been at work in Bangladesh  
since 2001, have of course claimed no links with terrorism or  
terrorist organisations. And yet the reality is that the outfit has  
been proscribed in a number of countries in the West as well as the  
Middle East. The question, therefore, is why?

Whatever be their goal, there is little for it to justify its  
publicly stated goal of overthrowing the government or any government  
based on democratic political principles. The organisation's chief  
coordinator has contemptuously rejected democracy. That attitude in  
itself is symptomatic of the potential for disorder. The unfortunate  
part of the story is that successive governments in Bangladesh have,  
in spite of the facts before them, always chosen to soft-pedal on the  
issue. The approach has been as mystifying as it has been  
disquieting. Hizbut Tahrir followers can be found holding responsible  
positions in such reputed bodies as private universities. Just how  
the organisation has managed to acquire such space leaves one wondering.

We believe that it is now extremely important for the government to  
deal with the problem, firmly and without losing time. There can be  
no denying that the contents of the statements and leaflets coming  
from Hizbut Tahrir are a frontal assault on the constitutional  
process and democracy. It is values -- those symbolised by the ideals  
of free speech, tolerance, equality, et al -- that are now under  
threat. If we are opposed to military coups or any other types of  
intervention in democracy, we are equally opposed to democracy being  
threatened with destruction in the name of our religion. Only  
firmness on the part of the government and an increased sense of  
awareness among citizens about the lurking danger can prevent this  
country from sliding into despotism.
	

______


[2]

Dawn
September 21, 2008

NOT IN THE NAME OF FAITH


by Kunwar Idris

LAST week three funerals took place on three successive days. The  
dead came from different backgrounds, belonged to different places  
and professions. Common to the three was their faith.

They were Ahmadis — and that was good enough reason for the unknown  
gunmen to kill them.

The first to be shot dead — on Sept 8 — was Dr Abdul Mannan Siddiqui  
at Mirpurkhas during a midday round of his hospital wards. Seth  
Yusuf, a Nawabshah trader, was shot dead the next day as he headed  
home after saying his prayers. The third funeral was Sheikh Saeed’s  
who was shot, like the other two during the day while at his pharmacy  
in a lower middle-class colony of Karachi.

Ahmadis as a community are not new to murder. It is only that more of  
them are now being murdered than ever before and more brazenly as the  
murderers enjoy a kind of impunity. None of them has ever been caught  
and convicted. The tragic irony of it all is that the 1974 amendment  
to the constitution declaring Ahmadis “not Muslims”, which was  
intended to settle the ‘problem’ for all times to come, (as the PPP  
leadership then claimed and still boasts of) had in fact exacerbated  
it. According to the Ahmadiyya central office since 1974, 105 Ahmadis  
have been murdered. Among them have been scientists, doctors and  
educationists. In the 26 years, before the amendment (1947 to 1973)  
their number was only 18. The destruction of their properties and  
places of worship increased in even larger proportion.

This month’s gunning spree (three wounded are still struggling for  
their life) followed soon after a prime-hour discussion on one of the  
more popular television channels commemorating the 1974 amendment.  
That programme ended with a verdict by a participating mufti of an  
extremist school that for deviating from the conventional view of the  
finality of the prophethood of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) the Ahmadis  
deserved to be murdered. A condescending compere followed it up with  
a lyrical oration heaping insults on the founder of the Ahmadiyya  
movement.

If festering prejudice needed an impetus to murder, the compere of  
the Sept 7 programme and his chosen scholars provided it. A measure  
of understanding, perhaps, can be shown to politicians and priests  
when they are persuaded to whip up religious emotions to the point of  
violence only to divert the attention of the people from other woes.  
But the mass media that stands for full freedom of expression with  
matching social responsibility should not be seen as joining them.

The union of international journalists must have studied the contents  
and tenor of the broadcast in question before advising its  
counterpart here to abide by its code of honour and isolate the odd  
offenders rather than invite intervention by the government.  
Sensibly, the freedom to project one’s own religious views does not  
imply the freedom to instigate violence against others. This  
stipulation must stand at the core of both the ethics of the media  
and the law of the land.

The three men murdered were peaceable, law-abiding citizens. Those  
who knew Seth Yusuf, as the people of Nawabshah indeed had for 50 or  
more years, would not have ever thought of doing him the slightest  
harm. He was a God-fearing man in his seventies. His murderers were  
obviously strangers who were either indoctrinated or paid to kill him  
only because he was the chief of the district’s Ahmadiyya community.

Young Sheikh Saeed’s elder brother and his uncle, a professor of  
medical sciences at the Jinnah Postgraduate Centre, were gunned down  
at the same place and for the same reason in the last two years. This  
is a situation in which even an indifferent investigating agency  
could get a clue as to the identity of the killers only if it felt  
concerned, if not about the dead, then about its own credibility.

Most poignant has been the death of Dr Abdul Mannan Siddiqui.  
Tributes to him flowed freely and generously. To the lawyers of the  
district he was a benefactor of mankind. The hospital staff looked up  
to him more as a father than as an employer. The head of the district  
police thought he was a great man the like of whom are not born  
everyday. The association of the doctors summed it all up: Mannan’s  
murder is the murder of humanity.

The treatment of the humblest of mankind often took the deceased  
doctor to the far end of the desert. Holding frequent and free  
medical camps at Nagarparkar, the farthest outpost on the border with  
India, was his wont. The ranas and waderas would swear by his  
professional integrity and humanitarian concerns.

It is a pity, but should cause no surprise, that no leader of the  
government had spoken on Mannan’s death — to condemn the killers or  
to commiserate with the bereaved. The lone and powerful voice has  
been of Altaf Hussain, the MQM chief. His instant condemnation of the  
killers and tribute to Dr Mannan for his selfless service to humanity  
came like a gust of fragrant breeze blowing through a stillness laden  
with the stench of prejudice.

After specialised studies in America, Mannan was planning to settle  
down there when his father Abdur Rehman Siddiqui (also a doctor)  
reminded him that his first duty was to his own people. Mannan  
hurried back and went on, as if in vengeance, to raise his father’s  
humble clinic to the standard of a modern hospital that was free for  
the poor. He was the only son of his late father. It hurts deep  
inside when the life of a man, who is the age of your son, is cut  
short. Mannan was just 44 as is my son. It is now up to his admirers  
and the patients he healed to keep alive the legend of his and his  
father’s service of 60 years.

As for the devout anchorman and his ponderous scholars, they may have  
to go to Mirpurkhas and the desert beyond to learn that the worth of  
a man lies not in schism but in service. After all it is a Dutch and  
Christian woman who takes care of the lepers here whom the faithful  
shun.

To kill a man for his belief is inhuman and cannot be Islamic for  
Islam is a religion of humanity. And it is for our leaders to realise  
that by employing religion in the service of politics they have made  
this Islamic Republic into a world metaphor for dictatorship,  
brutality and terror where the youth are trained to kill and women,  
by many accounts, are buried alive.

______


[3]

SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE COUNTER-TERROR OPERATION AT JAMIA NAGAR, NEW  
DELHI

20 September 2008
http://www.anhadin.net/article55.html

A team comprising activists, academicians and journalists visited the  
site of the police operation against alleged terrorists staying in an  
apartment in Jamia Nagar in the afternoon of 20.09.2008 (Saturday).  
Two alleged terrorists Atif and Sajid, along with Mohan Chand Sharma,  
an inspector of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell died in the operation  
while a third alleged terrorist was arrested.

On the basis of our interactions with the local residents, eye  
witnesses and the reports which have appeared in the media, we would  
like to pose the following questions:

1) It has been widely reported (and not refuted by the Police) that  
in early August this year Atif, who is described by the Delhi Police  
as the mastermind behind the recent terrorist bombings in Jaipur,  
Ahmedabad and Delhi, underwent a police verification exercise along  
with his four roommates in order to rent the apartment they were  
staying in Jamia Nagar. All the five youth living in the apartment  
submitted to the Delhi police their personal details, including  
permanent address, driving license details, address of the house they  
previously stayed in, all of which were found to be accurate.

Is it conceivable that the alleged kingpin behind the terrorist  
Indian Mujahideen outfit would have wanted to undergo a police  
verification- for whatever purpose- just a week after the Ahmedabad  
blasts and a month before the bombings in Delhi?

2) The four-storeyed house L-18 in Jamia Nagar, where the alleged  
terrorists were staying, has only one access point, through the stair  
case, which is covered by an iron grill. It is impossible to leave  
the house except from the staircase. By all reports, the staircase  
was taken over by the Special Cell and/ or other agencies during the  
counter-terror operation. The house, indeed the entire block, was  
cordoned off at the time of the operation.

How then was it then possible, as claimed by the police, for two  
alleged terrorists to escape the premises during the police operation?

3) The media has quoted ’police sources’ as having informed them that  
the Special Cell was fully aware about the presence of dreaded  
terrorists, involved in the bombings in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi,  
staying in the apartment that was raided.

Why was the late Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, a veteran of dozens of  
encounter operations, the only officer in the operation not wearing a  
bullet proof vest? Was this due to over-confidence or is there  
something else to his mysterious death during the operation? Will the  
forensic report of the bullets that killed Inspector Sharma be made  
public?

4) There are reports that towards the end of the counter-terror  
operation, some policemen climbed on the roof of L-18 and fired  
several rounds in the air. Other policemen were seen breaking windows  
and even throwing flower pots to the ground from flats adjacent or  
opposite to L-18

Why was the police firing in the air and why did it indulge in  
destruction of property around L-18 after the encounter?

5) The police officials claim that an AK-47 and pistols were  
recovered from L-18.

What was the weapon that killed Inspector Sharma? Was the AK-47 used  
at all and by whom? Going by some reports that have appeared (see  
’Times of India’, 20.09.08), the AK-47s have been used by the police  
only. Is it not strange that alleged terrorists did not use a more  
deadly and sophisticated weapon like the AK-47, which they  
purportedly possessed, preferring to use pistols?

We feel that there are far too many loose ends in the current story  
of the police encounter at L-18 in Jamia Nagar. We demand that a  
fair, impartial and independent probe into the incident be initiated  
at the earliest to answer the above questions as also any other ones  
that arise from the contradictions of the case.

Signed/- Shabnam Hashmi, Satya Sivaraman, Manisha Sethi, Tanweer  
Fazal, Arshad Alam, Pallavi Deka

_____


[4]


The Times of India
21 September 2008

IS THERE A MUSLIM MINDSET?

by Mohammed Wajihuddin

Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan Qasmi comes from a family of freedom  
fighters. As a hakim (Unani doctor) and head of Anjuman Minhajul  
Rasool, a socio-religious organisation, he is highly respected in  
Mograpada, a Muslim ghetto in Andheri, Mumbai. In the small hours of  
September 1, roughly 50 plainclothes policemen, members of the  
Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), came looking for Subhan  
Qureishi alias Tauqeer, the alleged mastermind of the serial bomb  
blasts in Ahmedabad and Delhi. The cops woke the maulana and began to  
interrogate him.

When the cleric denied all knowledge of Qureishi or Tauqeer, they  
dragged him like a common criminal to his bakery, a few minutes walk  
from his house. Qasmi was not allowed even to wear a pair of slippers  
and don his customary skull-cap. It was only later that a police  
search of the maulana's house yielded a photograph album showing the  
cleric with several senior Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi.  
The police realised he was probably well-connected. They left in a  
hurry, issuing dire warnings of hell to pay if Qasmi spoke out about  
the raid.

Though ATS Chief Hemant Karkare later apologised to the residents of  
Mograpada, especially its much respected cleric, the damage had been  
done. Random searches. Arbitrary arrests. Fake encounters. Muslims in  
India today live in fear. Fear of a state they think is becoming  
increasingly communal, and a media they regard as biased (except the  
Urdu press, also called the Muslim press).

“It is tough to be a Muslim today. The main concern is security,”  
says Mumbai-based activist and Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer,  
who is currently travelling around the country. “Everywhere I go, I  
see how upset the Muslim intelligentsia is with the way the community  
is being treated.”

It is not hard to figure out why. It was Faiz Ahmed Faiz who  
described Independence after the pain of Partition with the memorable  
line: “ Yeh daagh daagh ujala, yeh shabguzida sehar/Woh intezar tha  
jiska, yeh woh sehar to nahi (This black-smeared light, this night- 
ridden morning/This is not the morning we had waited for).”  
Tragically, the darkness seems only to have spread over the years.

Urdu-language columnist Hasan Kamal says, “Just after Independence,  
Muslims were afraid to keep Urdu books in their homes lest they were  
labelled Pakistani sympathisers. After the 1971 war, the community  
shook off the guilt it had been carrying from the days of Partition.  
Now Muslims are once again being made to feel guilty — this time  
they're seen as sympathetic to the bombers.”

What has made matters worse is that the community hasn't benefited  
from India's rapid economic progress. Just recently, the Rajinder  
Sachar Committee report reinforced a truth many of us knew: Muslims  
are worse off than most other Indians. According to the committee,  
the literacy rate among Muslims in 2001 was 59.1%. This is far below  
the national average of 65.1%. The percentage of Muslim graduates  
from poor households going on to study further is lower than SCs/STs:  
16% and 28% respectively. Shockingly, the only place where Muslims  
are “over-represented” is the country's prisons. In Maharashtra, the  
percentage of Muslim prisoners in all categories (17.5%) was way  
above their share of population (10.6%). In Gujarat, the ratio of  
Muslim population to jail inmates was 9 to 25.

“If the trend continues, we will have to soon build idgahs in jails,”  
says Pasha Patel, the BJP's lone Muslim MLC in Maharashtra, with  
ironic emphasis. But there is little sign that anything will change  
for the better. Most Muslims know the Sachar report is unlikely to be  
implemented in full. “The backward castes get reservations. Muslims  
get commissions,” commented a senior journalist in a recent column.

The cause of Muslim anger is not deprivation alone. It is also the  
sense of justice discriminating against them. “The conviction rate in  
Mumbai's 1993 blasts was over 80%, while in the post-Babri demolition  
riots in the city it was not even 0.8%. Many police officers whom the  
Srikrishna Commission found guilty were promoted,” says Javed Anand,  
co-editor, Communalism Combat and general secretary, Muslims for  
Secular Democracy.

When the state discriminates against a section of its citizens, it  
prepares fertile ground for retaliation. The disaffected easily twist  
a sacred idea, say jihad in the case of the Indian Mujahideen, and  
tailor it to justify inhuman acts. This is why the Students Islamic  
Movement of India (SIMI), which started life in the womb of the  
peaceable, almost dull, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in the 1970s, succeeded  
in exploiting many aggrieved Muslims' sense of insecurity. Playing up  
Muslim fears of being treated as the 'Other', SIMI radicalised a  
section of educated Muslim youth.

“ Hum yeh maan chuke hain ki hum do number ke shahri hain (We have  
now accepted that we are second-class citizens),” rues an otherwise  
moderate cleric, Maulana Zaheer Abbas Rizvi, secretary, All India  
Shia Muslim Personal Law Board. He says, “Intelligence agencies which  
are quick to discover the hand of Muslim terrorists after every blast  
don't show similar enthusiasm in investigating terrorist acts where  
Hindus are involved.”

It is obvious the agencies go soft when it comes to blast cases  
involving Hindu organisations. “In Nanded, in April 2006, two Bajrang  
Dal workers were killed while making crude bombs. A similar incident  
took place in Kanpur last month. Why haven't the authorities taken  
any action?” asks activist Ram Puniyani.

The sense of insecurity has further ghettoised the community.  
Ironically, these infrastructure-starved ghettos are labelled “mini- 
Pakistans”. Their residents don't get bank loans, a fact recognized  
by the Sachar report. Shabana Azmi may have sounded controversial and  
peevish when she recently revealed that she found it hard to buy a  
house in Mumbai with her husband Javed Akhtar because they were  
Muslims. But, ask any Muslim, and they will affirm it is true.  
Muslims do face discrimination when it comes to buying and renting  
houses in “Hindu” areas.

Some sociologists say Muslims are treated like pariahs in many  
places. Nobody knows this better than Vadodara-based scholar-activist  
J S Bandukwala. After he miraculously escaped a frenzied mob during  
the Gujarat riots of 2002, Bandukwala's university allotted him a  
government house in a block of four. “The moment I shifted there, all  
the occupants of the three houses in the block left. I felt as if I  
was an untouchable,” says Bandukwala, who has done a study on  
Juhapura, India's biggest Muslim ghetto with a population of over  
three lakh.

After the riots, Muslims from all over the city moved there. But  
despite the area boasting such a large number of potential customers,  
no bank wanted to open a branch in Juhapura. “After two Muslim MPs  
raised this question in Parliament following my appeal, Bank of India  
opened its branch there,” says Bandukwala.

Unfortunately, most Muslim ghettos across the country don't have  
crusaders like Bandukwala.


_____


[5]

(Economic and Political Weekly, September 13, 2008)

INDIA AND KASHMIR
  India has been unable to make the Kashmiris feel they are part of  
the Indian Union.

A fortnight ago the Jammu and Kashmir government signed an agreement  
with the Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti (SAYSS) on the use of  
forest land for the annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath shrine. The  
protesters are now off the streets in Jammu, the criminal road  
blockade the Jammu protes- tors had imposed on Kashmir has ended, a  
nine-day long curfew imposed in late August throughout the Kashmir  
Valley was lifted on September 2 and the Election Commission has even  
held dis- cussions on the possibility of holding elections in D  
ecember. But, far from there being any “peace” in Jammu and K ashmir,  
the state is now in the midst of yet another troubled phase which  
poses new and major challenges to its relations with the rest of the  
Indian Union. Elections in the state at this point will have two  
distinct faces: in Jammu they will be the site of a contest between  
shades of Hindutva; in Kashmir they will be held only under the  
barrel of a gun. Yet, not to have elections now will be an open  
admission that the state can be administered only with the rule of  
force. The upheaval in both Kashmir and Jammu over land for the  
Amarnath yatra has changed politics irrevocably in these divi- sions  
of the state, but the two very different movements were only symbols  
of deeper trends. In Kashmir, it is now self-evident that the  
relative calm since 2004 was a false peace, the product more of ennui  
with 15 years of violence than of a movement for- ward in settling  
people’s grievances. All that was required was a spark for people to  
return to the streets. That spark, however misrepresented it may have  
been by the fundamentalists in Kashmir, was provided by the allotment  
of 40 hectares of land to the A marnath yatra by the former governor,  
S K Sinha, who was allowed by a sleeping New Delhi to take a decision  
that everyone realises, in retrospect, to have set the Valley on  
fire, and then, with its revocation, Jammu as well. In Jammu too, the  
Amarnath issue was only a symbol. Hindutva groups were quick in that  
part of the state to take advantage of an issue that gave vent to  
anger about widespread perceptions of the region being discriminated  
against and to long-standing complaints of a lack of autonomy. The  
agreement between the state government and the agitators in Jammu was  
about the use of land in Kashmir for the Amarnath yatra; yet the  
negotiations did not involve anyone from the Valley. The accord may  
not go as far as the May 2008 order which transferred the land to the  
Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), but because of the way it was  
negotiated and because of the tactics the agitators in Jammu used to  
pressure the government (such as choking the Valley), the “agreement”  
will never enjoy legitimacy in Kashmir.

The larger developments go beyond the Jammu accord. First, one  
outcome of the chain of events over four months from the May decision  
on allocation of land to the SASB is that Jammu has been strongly  
communalised. There was always an undercurrent of communalism in the  
Jammu division, but even in the worst years of insurgency it was held  
in check. Now though, the A marnath issue has allowed Hindutva forces  
to become deeply entrenched in that part of the state. This  
communalisation forebodes ill for the Muslims of Jammu and for the  
future of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. The second, and perhaps the more  
important development, has been in Kashmir. The anger in the Valley,  
first over the allocation of land, then over the blockade of the only  
road into Kashmir from the rest of the country, and finally, over the  
brutal clampdown in late August must force the State to confront a  
certain reality. The upsurge in May and more so in August was  
distinctly different from the past in that there were no “external  
forces” involved and if there was violence it was perpetrated by the  
administration. The turnout of lakhs of people on the streets in  
early August – demanding ‘azadi’ – was remarkable for the largely  
peaceful manner of protests. After an initial attempt to not  
interfere with people having their say peacefully, the governor’s  
administration – under prodding from the bureaucrats in New Delhi who  
had taken over decision-making from a bankrupt political class – came  
down with a heavy hand. A state-wide curfew for as long as nine days,  
more than 35 people killed in police firing, the arrest of hundreds  
for participating in the demonstrations, attacks on the local media  
and even restrictions on movement of ambulances, together conveyed an  
ugly message about state power to the people of Kashmir. The  
consequence is that the fundamentalists have become more powerful in  
Kashmir and in the process what remained of the ‘Kashmiri insaniyat’  
has been destroyed. It is apparent that with the peace process in  
shreds, New Delhi and its representatives in the state have no idea  
about what to do other than to exercise force. The only item  
currently on the agenda is the early opening of the Srinagar- 
Muzaffarabad road for movement of goods (thereby reviving the old  
links within un divided Kashmir). Even if Pakistan were to oblige  
with expediting the opening of this route, it is unlikely that, at  
this point, this will mean much to the Kashmiris.

Since 1947, the government of India has lurched from one form of  
control to another in the state. Barring a few brief episodes,  
relations between New Delhi and the people of Kashmir have steadily  
deteriorated. In the tragedy that is Kashmir, what is truth and what  
is a lie can no longer be known for sure. But what we do know with  
reasonable certainty is that the people of Kashmir are now resentful  
of what they see as an “occupying power”. The calm after 2004 offered  
an opportunity to alter this perception, but this was wasted since  
the ruling consensus in New Delhi on the “Kashmir problem” is such  
that no serious attempt beyond the convening of “round table  
conferences” was made. Since 1947, the idea of India as a democracy  
of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society has faced serious  
challenges on a continuing basis. While Punjab in the 1980s, the  
north-east since the early 1950s and Assam in particular since the  
1990s have asked major questions of India, there has hitherto been  
only one threat with the potential to tear asunder the very idea of  
India. That threat arose from the processes that led up to the  
destruction of the Babri masjid in 1992 and the events thereafter,  
which posed a fundamental question mark over the nation-building  
project, a question which is yet to be settled and continues to  
strain the country. Now another such question is before us – the new  
upheaval in Kashmir and the State’s inability to respond to it in a  
civilised manner. One argument that is now clearly irrelevant is that  
as the only Muslim-majority state in the Union, Kashmir offers proof  
of India’s multi-ethnic, multi-religious character. If that means the  
State needs to continuously exercise force to administer Kashmir,  
then there is little to be said for this “multi-ethnic, multi-  
religious” character. Instead, India must now face the fact that  
after six decades, it has not been able to make the people of the  
Valley feel they are part of the Indian Union. During these decades,  
opportunities have been repeatedly squandered and mistakes multi-  
plied so that, today there are no “moderates” left, mainstream  
parties lack legitimacy or relevance, and both polity and society are  
under constant pressure from the fundamentalists. The question that  
matters now is how state and society in India respond to the “Kashmir  
problem”, for that will define – if it has not already – the kind of  
society we are going to be in the future.

_____


[6]

Kashmir Times
September 21, 2008


Editorial

SCRAP DRACONIAN LAWS
No justification for double standards

The recent government action in releasing one of the persons detained  
under the Public Safety Act (PSA) during the Shri Amarnath Yatra  
Sangarsh Samiti agitation (SAYSS) and withdrawal of case under the  
infamous law against another, who escaped arrest, had generated the  
hope that all those detained under the PSA in the State in general  
and the Valley in particular will similarly be set free. The PSA  
against two sangh parivar activists in Jammu was slapped for their  
inciting communal passions, making inflammatory speeches and  
resorting to other violent activities during the prolonged agitation.  
Action could have been taken against those released and several  
others who indulged in acts of violence or incited communal passions  
under normal laws by registering cases against them. There are indeed  
sufficient provisions available under the penal law, which too are  
quite stringent , and other ordinary laws to book all those who  
resort to violence, incite communal passions, make inflammatory  
speeches or indulge in acts prejudicial to the security of the state.  
This makes a clear case for scrapping the PSA, which has been  
frequently and indiscriminately used by the state to haul up those  
found inconvenient and to curb civil liberties. There are several  
instances where people have been detained under PSA even without  
serving them the grounds of detention. In many cases people have been  
kept in jails even after the expiry of their terms of detention by  
rearresting them under the draconian law within the jail premises.  
Even there are instances where the authorities have violated the  
orders of the courts for releasing the detainees by keeping them  
behind bars on one pretext or the other. Clearly the process of law  
is subverted in their cases.

Following the revocation of the order for detaining some persons  
involved in the violent agitation with communal overtones in Jammu it  
was naturally expected that all those who had been detained under the  
PSA in Kashmir too will be set free. A number of persons including  
Shabir Shah were detained recently though there were no charges of  
inciting communal passions or resorting to violence against them.  
While their detention under PSA cannot be justified there is  
certainly no reason against setting them free, particularly when a  
different attitude has been adopted against some parivar activists in  
Jammu. This clearly sends a wrong message that the PSA and other  
draconian laws are only meant for the members of a particular  
community and that the authorities have double standards in this  
regard. In fact all those still behind bars under the PSA need to be  
released forthwith. In case there are any substantial charges against  
any one he can be dealt with under the normal laws .

There is a strong case for scrapping the PSA and other draconian laws  
like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and several others,  
which violate the basic rights of the people and which give a license  
to the security agencies to resort to unabashed human rights abuses.  
Even two of the working groups, one on ensuring good governance and  
another on the human rights, set up by the Prime Minister in the wake  
of the round table conferences of the mainstream political parties  
had unambiguously recommended the revocation of the AFSPA, which  
makes the forces immune from any action in killing the people and  
setting their property on fire or resorting to other similar acts.  
The PDP-Congress coalition government kept these reports in cold  
storage, setting aside all demands to implement the recommendations  
of the working groups. This despite the fact that the coalition in  
its common minimum programme had committed itself to abrogate AFSPA  
and other draconian laws and put an end to the grave human rights  
abuses committed by the state agencies. The scrapping of AFSPA, PSA  
and other draconian laws can be an important confidence building  
measure in creating a conducive climate for pursuing the peace  
process to resolve the prolonged crisis.

_____


[7]


Magazine Section / The Hindu
September 21, 2008

TERRORISM AND THE STATE

by Harsh Mander

A People's Tribunal held recently found out that many innocent lives  
get destroyed or traumatised when the State presumes an entire  
community to be responsible for terror attacks.

PHOTO: K. RAMESH BABU

UNEASY RELATIONSHIP: Police personnel keep watch as Muslims offer  
prayers in the wake of the blasts in Hyderabad last year.

As bombs explode in crowded market places and places of worship -  
whether in Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Mumbai or Delhi -  
many innocent lives are abruptly snuffed out, while others are marked  
for life, maimed or traumatised. Television screens in our living  
rooms are inundated with images of bloodstains on sidewalks and  
weeping family members unable to even comprehend their loss. The  
success of the shadowy organisations which plant these explosives  
runs deeper, as the engineered mistrust between people of diverse  
faiths further consolidates with each blast. Millions of men and  
women, merely because they happen to be born into Muslim homes -  
believers and non-believers, students, working people, home-makers  
and the aged, the wealthy and the impoverished - are all, with each  
blast, dragged into the dock of the hearts and minds of people of  
other religious persuasions. Here they are charged with guilt at  
least of solidarity if not active complicity for the horrible crimes  
that the overwhelming majority of them intensely abhor. They find  
their eyes lowered, their spirit crushed, for heinous offences which  
they oppose no less than their neighbours.

This labelling and blanket condemnation of people merely because of  
their Muslim identities - now a global phenomenon - is not confined  
to lay people. It extends more dangerously to how States respond to  
terror attacks, in effect holding the entire Muslim community guilty  
unless they can prove their innocence. How this can destroy innocent  
lives forever was illustrated starkly in a series of devastating  
testimonies in a People's Tribunal on atrocities committed against  
minorities in the name of fighting terrorism, organised by Anhad and  
the Human Rights' Law Network from August 22 to 24, 2008 in Hyderabad.

The tribunal, comprising respected retired judges, human rights  
activists, lawyers, academics and journalists, confirmed that "a  
large number of innocent young Muslims have been and are being  
victimised by the police on the charge of being involved in various  
terrorist acts across the country. This is particularly so in  
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan,  
though not limited to these States". It concluded that "this  
victimisation and demonisation of Muslims in the guise of  
investigation of terror offences, is having a very serious  
psychological impact on the minds of not only the families of the  
victims but also other members of the community. It is leading to a  
very strong sense of insecurity and alienation."

In a hurry

The problem begins immediately after a bomb attack, when governments  
are under great pressure to produce "results". The pattern in India  
has been that just hours, sometimes even minutes after an attack, the  
police claim irrefutable proof that an Islamist organisation is  
behind the terror act. For many years, they would declare that this  
is the Pakistan intelligence agency ISI, or Pakistan-based terror  
groups. For geo-political reasons that one can only speculate on,  
governments more recently shifted their instant indictments eastwards  
to Bangladesh, particularly to a till recently little-known  
organisation called HUJI. Now the "foreign hand" seems to have  
receded; and the prime culprit has become even more worryingly the  
"enemy within", the home-grown Indian Mujahideen, supported by the  
controversially banned SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India). If  
the government indeed had such conclusive evidence in every case  
about the guilty, why did it not act on time to prevent the terror  
attack? And even when a mosque is bombed, as in Hyderabad, the  
possibility that some of the terror attacks could have been  
engineered by extremist organisations of other persuasions than  
Islamist is not even considered. The State seems tacitly to subscribe  
to the canard that terrorists can only be Muslim, forgetting that in  
India itself we lost the father of the nation and two Prime Ministers  
to terror attacks, and none of their terrorist attackers was Muslim.

In the name of interrogation

The police then begin to interrogate its suspects, mostly Muslim  
youth. Testimonies from Hyderabad spoke of their experience of being  
illegally abducted by police in civil uniforms and unmarked vehicles,  
blindfolded and driven to locations where they are tortured. In other  
States, the experience of torture is common, also in "legal" police  
custody and sometimes even in judicial custody. They are undressed,  
beaten relentlessly with belts made from old tyres or sticks, given  
electric shocks including on their genitals, their faith humiliated,  
their loved ones such as a pregnant wife or an aged father repeatedly  
summoned to police stations, and ultimately they agree to sign on  
blank confession papers.

If they are picked up from their homes, people report midnight  
knocks, violent searches and beating even of children and old women.  
Many testify to the ransacking of their homes and shops. If they are  
picked up from elsewhere, their families are not informed, and they  
run from one police station to another to find their loved ones.

The youth come from diverse backgrounds, mostly with no previous  
criminal records. They maybe students, auto rickshaw drivers, ice  
cream sellers, clerics or computer professionals. But as soon as they  
are targeted by the police, they are disgraced, usually their  
employment is terminated, their livelihoods boycotted, and even  
Muslims are scared to associate with the family, for fear that they  
also maybe tarnished with the same crimes. The media usually accepts  
the police version uncritically, and broadcasts it with shrill  
sensational overtones which affirm the guilt of the accused persons  
to the general public, aggravating their stigmatisation.

The courts are also usually more than willing to go along with the  
police version, extending remand, denying bail, often responding with  
little urgency even in habeas corpus petitions, and most gravely,  
wilfully failing to act on even visible signs of torture on the body  
of the young men produced before them, refusing to act and take on  
record their complaints of torture, let alone actively confirming  
from them that they were not tortured. They also allow criminal  
proceedings to persist against minors. Sardar was 17 when he was  
charged with complicity in the Coimbatore blasts. He was 27 when he  
was acquitted, but only after nearly a decade of harrowing  
incarceration.

Destroyed lives

Many young lives are destroyed forever by the police labelling them  
as terrorists. The charges are often flimsy and far-fetched. It  
matters little that eventually the police is, in most cases, unable  
to prove the charges, and it sometimes itself drops the charges or  
the youth accused of terror crimes are eventually freed by the  
courts. But no one is held responsible for the lost years of  
dishonour, incarceration, and the crumbling of families. Many of the  
arrested are sole bread-earners: sons caring for aged parents and  
siblings, or for a young wife and small children. The tribunal heard  
tens of testimonies from every State, of families reduced to pitiful  
destitution because those who earned for them were detained for many  
long years. Most are ultimately acquitted, but return heartbroken to  
crushed and diminished families. Some die in custody, never to  
return, some lose their sanity.

There is no doubt that the governments and people of this land need  
to combat terrorism, and to track down and punish those who randomly  
take innocent lives. But in this battle we must not sacrifice our  
convictions, of democracy, law, justice and humanity. We must not  
profile people because of their faith. We must not incarcerate people  
without evidence and torture them to extract spurious proof. If we  
do, our jails may overflow with men we dub to be terrorists, but the  
terrorists would still triumph, victorious in their battle of  
enabling fear and hate to extinguish our sense of goodness and fairness.

______


[8] India: Karnataka

(i) Outlook Magazine
September 29, 2008

Women flee as the police enter Kulashekara church
KARNATAKA: ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS
Preying Hard

Borders blur between the state and the anti-Christian aggressors ......

by Sugata Srinivasaraju

In hindsight, it would seem that the attacks on Christians in  
Karnataka were waiting to happen. A fortnight before 17 Christian  
prayer halls were targeted on September 14 in four of the state's  
districts—Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Chikballapur and Chikmagalur—with  
Mangalore as the epicentre, the Sangh parivar and the BJP government  
had been sending ominous signals. Primary and secondary education  
minister Vishweshwara Hegde had directed the public education  
department to issue showcause notices to Christian educational  
institutions that had shut down on August 29 to protest the violence  
against Christians in Orissa.

A Christian institution in Shimoga, Karnataka CM B.S.	
	
	Yediyurappa's home district, received this notice from the education  
ministry: "The VHP and Bajrang Dal have conducted a protest against  
the closure of schools and criticised your action. They have  
submitted letters requesting action against you for this. In this  
context,
you are asked to show cause as to why action should not be initiated  
against you for using religion as an excuse to announce a holiday and  
as to why permission to run your institution should not be withdrawn."

The damaged crucifix at Mangalore's Milagres Church

Protest marches and demonstrations against the notices left the  
government unmoved. In fact, the minister in his public utterances  
was stubbornly against making any concessions. This, in a way, formed  
the backdrop to Sunday's events, but neither the government nor the  
Sangh parivar is willing to concede that.

State home minister V.S. Acharya told Outlook there was no need to  
read much into the notice. "To issue a showcause notice was a normal  
thing," he said. "All Christian institutions are grant-in-aid  
institutions of the government and they should have had the courtesy  
to inform us before declaring a holiday. Their decision to act  
unilaterally cannot be tolerated." The Christian organisations in the  
state feel differently. They think the government's "intolerance"  
towards the community served as a signal to the parivar outfits "to  
do what they please", the fallout being the attacks last fortnight.

In a petition it sent to the National Human Rights Commission, the  
Global Council of Indian Christians said: "It is not difficult to  
understand why only institutions in Karnataka are being treated in  
this fashion, while they were just a few among the 45,000  
institutions in India which participated in this day (Aug 29) of  
prayer for peace and communal harmony. When a bandh call was given by  
the VHP in the cause of the Sri Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti, several of  
these same institutions had indeed been closed in deference to the  
bandh call."

However, BJP legislator from Dakshina Kannada, Ganesh Karnik,  
insists: "We may have to own up to the attacks, but then they were  
not planned and had no linkages to anything that happened earlier.  
The attacks were also not on mainstream churches but prayer halls  
that were blatantly proselytising poor Hindus." What Karnik says may  
be true as the attacks specifically targeted the centres of the New  
Life evangelical order, allegedly into "forcible proselytisation".  
The parivar claims it didn't target Roman Catholic churches, except  
for one case of "mistaken identity" when the nuns of the Adoration  
Monastery, near the Milagres Church in Mangalore, were attacked.

But the state's Christian population is not buying the parivar's fine  
distinction. The attacks are seen as a move to bring pressure on the  
entire community.

In fact, the church bells of all the churches were rung in panic in  
Mangalore when the attacks took place on Sunday and all retaliation  
was claimed to be in self-defence. The pent-up hostility and mistrust  
between the community and the state showed on Sunday when the people  
congregated at the churches perceived the police as "aggressors" and  
pelted stones. The police, in turn, entered the sanctum sanctorum of  
the churches to pull out the assaulters.

Empty gestures? The Karnataka CM meets a Christian delegation in  
Bangalore

"We were seen as educators and respected, but the honeymoon period  
for Christians in Mangalore is over," says Fr Prashant Madtha, the  
former principal of the century-old St Aloysius College in Mangalore.  
"The retaliation from the Christian community you saw was happening  
for the very first time in the history of the state," he adds. "It  
was not the correct response, I condemn it, but then our youth have  
started imitating the enemy." The nervousness that has set in the  
community is evident in what one schoolteacher said: "There is a lot  
of fear. We don't know when stones will rain on our roofs. We are  
even scared to talk."

For now, the Catholic establishment in the state has distanced itself  
from evangelical orders like New Life. The Bishop of Mangalore  
Diocese, Aloysius Paul D'Souza, told the media that the 158 churches  
under the diocese or the educational institutions were in no way  
connected with religious conversions. But for local engineering  
college professor and rights activist Phaniraj, who interviewed many  
of those attacked by parivar men, the phrase "forcible conversions"  
itself appears problematic. "The state should define what it means by  
forcible conversions," he says. "Because many of those whom we  
interviewed said they went to these prayer halls only to seek some  
emotional solace and had not actually converted. One should check if  
the police, who tried to proactively implement law and order by  
barging into churches this time, have booked any cases of forcible  
conversions in recent years?"

Asked the question, home minister Acharya said the police had not  
registered any case. "People don't come to the police station to  
register cases," he declared. "But in the last few days our police  
have collected plenty of very derogatory material pertaining to  
conversions. We will look into it and initiate action."

The minister may find a lot of material on conversions but can he  
establish cases of "forcible conversions", which he and his chief  
minister have been harping on? When Acharya was asked if his  
government was contemplating an anti-conversion law, he said he'd  
seek "legal opinion" after things settle down. But before that  
happens, there is the VHP and Bajrang Dal itching to settle scores  
with the Church.


o o o

(ii)

The Hindu
September 21, 2008

TEESTA CRITICISES CATHOLICS’ ACCORD WITH HINDU GROUPS

Staff Correspondent

’There can be no peace without justice’

Police charged with bias against Christians

Activist to press for stern action against two inspectors

MANGALORE: Human Rights activist Teesta Setalvad criticised sections  
of the Catholic order, led by the Bishop of Mangalore, for entering  
into a “compromising” agreement with Hindutva groups in the aftermath  
of the attacks on churches in the region.

Ms. Setalvad said: “There can be no peace without justice. Throughout  
the history, sections from the victim community have been co-opted by  
the oppressor.” She termed as “opportunistic” and “lacking in  
character” the concessions made by the Catholic leadership in which  
they had purportedly agreed to climb down on certain issues in  
exchange for peace offered from the Hindutva groups. Presenting the  
Gujarat example she said that in the several years that the activists  
such as herself had been fighting for justice, several victims of the  
post-Godhra incident had turned hostile towards the activists. “The  
common refrain of the victims is that they do not want any more  
trouble after what they have already gone through. But that is what  
the oppressor wants. Violence and intimidation leads to fear which  
leads to submission,” she said.

Reacting to the recent spate of attacks on Churches and prayer halls  
in Dakshina Kannada she alleged that the police had been neutralised  
by some forces. “There have been no all-round transfers of police  
officials in the district for over 15 years. The police, therefore,  
act partisan,” she said.

She said that she was going to press for strict action against  
Inspectors Jayanth Shetty and M.K. Ganapathy, who allegedly used  
excessive force in their attempts to quell the retaliatory violence  
from Christian community on Sunday and Monday. She alleged that the  
events that were happening over the last few weeks were an indication  
of the partisan attitude of the district administration as it was  
under duress from the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the State.

_______


[9]

The Telegraph, September 21, 2008

Editorial

ON A NEW BATTLEFIELD

The wonder that is India may or may not have many Ramayanas, but it  
certainly has a magnificent array of idiots of colourfully variegated  
stupidities. The colour on display in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi  
Parishad’s campaign against the inclusion of A.K. Ramanujan’s essay,  
“Three hundred Ramayanas: five examples and three thoughts on  
translation”, in Delhi University’s history course is saffron. The  
Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad have been protesting on campus  
because, according to them, some references to Hanuman in the essay  
are offensive. Approached by petitioners, the Delhi High Court turned  
down pleas to have the essay removed, saying that it was not the  
legitimate or competent authority to pronounce on the matter.  
Undeterred, ABVP petitioners went to the Supreme Court, which has  
said that it is up to the vice-chancellor and the academic council of  
the university to decide whether or not a text should be included in  
a syllabus.

The point that the higher judiciary has made may seem obvious, but it  
is important when its petitioners are arrogantly armed in ignorance.  
One, it is the responsibility of the university to decide on its  
syllabi, and that responsibility cannot be evaded. Two, the judiciary  
would not encroach into specialist areas, just as teachers would not  
judge and sentence criminals. But more generally, the courts’  
responses have another moral — they cannot be made into instruments  
of partisan politics. This moral is particularly relevant when the  
petitioners believe that using religion as excuse will cow  
individuals and institutions alike.

The incident is not just a tussle between opposing ideologies in the  
academia. The focus of the attack was Upinder Singh, the daughter of  
the prime minister and a teacher in the history department. She was  
supposed to have compiled the collection that includes Ramanujan’s  
essay. That the prime minister’s office issued a statement saying  
that she had nothing to do with it seems strange under the  
circumstances, since a teacher is normally defended by her  
institution, not by her father’s office. But the PMO’s statement  
brings the political game out into the open, and makes it easy to  
connect Kandhamal and Karnataka with Delhi University as the time for  
the Lok Sabha election draws closer. Such a connection would also  
explain why Mayawati has jumped into the fray on the pretext of a law  
and order problem in Lucknow, and has said that she is against the  
essay if it distorts the Ramayana.

The incident may seem absurd, but it is a bad omen. If a scholarly  
elucidation of the sources and emphases of the various retellings of  
the Ramayana in different cultures and languages is attacked in the  
name of religion, only to be used in politics, India would soon have  
to bid adieu to its scholars, to intellectual freedom and the  
dedicated pursuit of knowledge.


______


[10]

The Telegraph
September 16 , 2008

VIRTUAL CITIZENS, REAL PROBLEMS
The Centre needs more pragmatic policies to deal with the influx of  
Bangladeshi migrants into the north-eastern states, writes Sanjoy  
Hazarika

Research over rhetoric

A high court judgment on illegal migrants from Bangladesh has once  
again raised the thorny issue of influx into the Northeast,  
especially into Assam, where it has always been a sensitive matter.  
Underscoring the scale and the depth of the problem, which has been  
troubling Assam and other north-eastern states for decades — and has  
now created challenges in places as distant as Mumbai, Jaipur and New  
Delhi — the Guwahati High Court has declared that illegal  
Bangladeshis “have a major role in electing the representatives. They  
have become the kingmakers”. The basis of this statement is not  
clear, but it may have been arrived at from various media reports and  
from the fact that a Bangladeshi actually stood for elections to the  
Assam state assembly in the Nineties, or even from the general view  
prevailing in Assam that the Muslim vote holds the key to nearly one- 
third of the state’s 126 assembly constituencies. This is, in turn,  
interpolated to mean that Bangladeshis are in a majority or are  
critical to the vote in these constituencies — they often blur the  
line between indigenous Muslims, who speak both Assamese and Bengali  
and have lived in Assam for generations (and are bona fide Indian  
citizens), and those who came to the state after the creation of  
Bangladesh in 1971.

Much confusion arises from these issues. B.K. Sharma, a judge of the  
Guwahati High Court, spoke of the need for strong political will to  
tackle the situation and also of how easy it is to gain virtual  
citizenship and outmanoeuvre the police as well as the legal  
processes. The ruling — which came up in a case when the court  
dismissed appeals by 49 persons, who had challenged a tribunal  
finding that they were Bangladeshis and should be deported — has  
triggered an outburst against Bangladeshis, perceived or real. A  
surge of activism has been reported against alleged foreign nationals  
and there are allegations that minorities have been harassed after  
being labelled as Bangladeshis.

Vigilantism is no answer to such a crisis: it can exacerbate local  
tensions and play into the hands of political groups, especially of  
the Right, which seek to exploit such confrontations. It is important  
that not a single Indian citizen is discriminated against on the  
basis of religion, ethnicity or background. Detection and deportation  
have to be done by the agencies of the State in consonance with law,  
although public frustration on the issue and the failure of the State  
over nearly 30 years are understandable.

Assam is a complex ethnic mix, not only does it have a wide range of  
tribes but it is also home to different Muslim groups, just as it has  
“indigenous” Sikhs and Buddhists. The division among the Muslims is  
three-way: the older Assamese speakers who have strong affinities  
with the Assamese Hindu majority; the Bengali-origin Muslims, many of  
whom speak Assamese as their own language and have lived in Assam for  
decades; and the Bangladeshi immigrants, who have been coming to  
Assam since 1971, when East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan in  
the War of Liberation. While political and public antagonism is  
largely focused at the last group, confusion sets in at times because  
of the rhetoric that calls for the expulsion of “all Bangladeshis”,  
without making any difference between the pre-1971 group and those  
who came afterward.

Indeed, Muslim populations in six districts of Assam — Dhubri,  
Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Barpeta and Nalbari — have surged.  
Migration is a major factor here; so are high fertility rates,  
combined with poverty, poor education levels, low health access and  
family planning measures. These high-growth districts were carved out  
of the older districts of Goalpara and Kamrup, where there have been  
extensive settlement of Muslims in the pre-Independence era.  
According to the 2001 census, Assam’s Hindu population has grown at  
14.95 per cent against 29.30 per cent for the Muslims. The figure was  
far higher between the Sixties and the Eighties, when large numbers  
migrated to and settled in Assam.

The powerful All Assam Students’ Union, which first brought the issue  
to national and international attention in 1979, says the state and  
Central governments have failed to protect Assam from “external  
aggression and internal disturbance”. Aasu’s ire is also directed at  
the Asom Gana Parishad, which emerged from its womb in 1985, and also  
at the Left: all are guilty, it says, of supporting the influx  
because they are dependent on these votes, and also because they  
support cheap labour.

Conflicting figures float around as to the number of “Bangladeshis”  
in Assam, as well as in India. But there is little doubt that there  
are no less than 20 lakh illegal migrants in Assam (a figure  
extrapolated from fertility rates and demographic growth of different  
religious groups), with a majority being Muslim. This is a  
substantial number, about seven per cent of Assam’s total population  
of 30 million. It is also larger than the populations of small states  
such as Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh in the Northeast,  
which comes to a total of 40 million. The overall figures for illegal  
migrants in India is said to be not less than 20 million. Some assert  
that this is a conservative figure.

Yet, development and the potential of conflict and violence are  
intertwined. If the state and Central governments do not wake up to  
the abysmal human development index levels in Lower Assam (and that  
covers both tribals like the Bodos, groups like Koch-Rajbongshis, as  
well as Muslims), the populations there — Bangladeshi or not —may be  
tempted to align with groups that are inimical to the interests of  
Assam and also of India. It is in our short- and long-term security  
interests to bridge service delivery gaps. This is the soft  
underbelly of the Northeast and of India, a 4,000-km belt that  
stretches from the narrow foot of Mizoram that plunges into the tri- 
junction of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, up to the Sunderbans and  
the Bay of Bengal. The issue today is not that there are a large  
number of illegal migrants in India. The question, more importantly,  
is what can be done about them.

For 30 years, various movements in Assam have demanded vigorous  
action against immigrants. Although a national concern, the issue  
gets little more attention than a district problem. Bangladesh  
conveniently declares, on the one hand, that none of its nationals  
migrate to poor countries like India (of course, they only work as  
street-cleaners and waiters in the United States of America and  
Europe!) and, on the other, through its founding father, Sheikh  
Mujibur Rahman, proclaims that the “fertile lands” of Assam are a  
Lebensraum for its people, who now are packed at 1,400 persons per  
square kilometre, the highest population density in the world.  
Despite the Assam Accord of 1985 after the student-led movement  
against Bangladeshis, the number of those ousted is barely a few  
thousand. There are several reasons for this, the predominant one  
being that Bangladesh denies that any of its nationals slip into  
India illegally. Thus, the shrillness of the campaigns against  
Bangladeshis fails to turn up specific answers. Even a Bharatiya  
Janata Party-led coalition failed to do anything about deportation.  
It is better, in my view, to develop a three point action plan that  
has the support of all political parties and groups instead of  
continuing to agitate without end or put off a decision for as long  
as possible, as the government is doing now.

Provide constitutional guarantees to enable political control of the  
state and its future by ensuring reservations of not less than 65 per  
cent for all local ethnic groups in perpetuity. There is no need to  
quibble over what constitutes an “Assamese” — provide the protected  
status to all recognized scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, other  
backward classes and to general citizens who are voters, but who can  
also be traced through the 1951 National Register of Citizens matched  
with the 1971 electoral lists. It is here that the definition of Asom- 
bashis (residents of Assam) by the United Liberation Front of Assom  
becomes maybe more appropriate than Asomiyas — efforts to define the  
latter has tied governments and organizations up in knots for decades.

Back this up by issuing multi-purpose identity cards to all who  
qualify under the process and then provide temporary work permits to  
those of Bangladeshi-origin who are already here. The TWPs would not  
be a license to settle down, but only provide access to work and  
incomes for a fixed time, as in a visa regime — one year to start  
with, to be extended to a second but non-extendable further — since  
the northeast region is a labour-strapped area, constantly depending  
on labour from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Bangladesh. The TWPs could be  
issued to groups of not more than 25. The individuals in the groups  
could be identified through software that gives each person a unique  
identity through finger-printing and eye detection.

An alternative to the TWP, and a simpler one, is to develop a  
separate category of identity cards, as proposed by Prakash Singh, an  
eminent police official, with a different colour coding for  
Bangladeshi/foreign nationals.

It is better to temper rhetoric with research and realism and develop  
“implementable” policy approaches instead of continuing to live  
either in denial or repeating the story of the past 30 years. Far too  
much time has passed, and too many lives have been expended.


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

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.