SACW | Oct. 3-5, 2008 / Sharia in NWFP / Bangladesh: Surveillance / Hindutva's Bombers / Nanavati subverts the truth

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Sun Oct 5 00:27:39 CDT 2008


South Asia Citizens Wire | October 3-5, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2576 -  
Year 11 running

[apologies for the resending this dispatch - the reason being an  
erroneous date in the headers of the previous post]

[1] Pakistan:
   (i) Much sorrow, some joy too (I.A. Rehman)
   (ii) Islamabad’s Margala Towers Tragedy (Margala Towers Victims)
[2] National ID Cards: In the Interest of Surveillance? (Rahnuma Ahmed)
[3] India: Malegaon, Modasa and Mehrauli Blasts : The Hindutva  
Connection ? (Subhash Gatade)
[4] India: The Nanavati Mehta Commission Report 1 Exposed
(i) In Truth, Dark Times (Tarun J Tejpal)
(ii) Manufacturing A Conspiracy (Ashish Khetan)
(iii) What Nanavati Did Not See (Teesta Setalvad)
(iv) Modi let off the hook? (Kuldip Nayar)
[5] India: Stop the violence against Christians  (The Hindu)
[6] India: The nation state's sexual inadequacies (Sadanand Menon)
[7] USA - Bangladeshi Diaspora: Hindu-Muslim Family's Choice of  
Cremation Arouses Anger (Anne Barnard)
[8] Announcements:
(i) The Road to Happiness" featuring the work of Hawra Harianawalla  
(Karachi, 5th Oct 2008)
(ii) Madan Gopal Singh  - Reflections on Culture: of Resonance and  
Resistance (New Delhi, 11 October 2008)
(iii) Sustainable Communications Technology in India's villages: Lee  
Thorn / Vickram Crishna (Bombay, 15 October 2008)

______


[1] Pakistan:

Dawn
October 4, 2008

MUCH SORROW, SOME JOY TOO

by I.A. Rehman

PAKISTANIS seem to have forgotten the joys of unadulterated  
celebration. Quite often one joins obligatory festivities full of  
doubts about their justification or under advice to reflect on the  
sobering aspects of the individual’s or the state’s condition. This  
happens on all national days and religious festivals.

This year’s Eid was observed by Muslim Pakistanis with a heavy heart,  
heavier than on many past Eids. A last-minute fit of sanity made  
agreement on having Eid on the first of October possible but this  
annoyed many who were caught unprepared.

A roaring inflation had spoiled the prospects of pleasure limited- 
income families used to derive from buying happiness for their little  
ones. The rush in markets did not conceal the fact that business had  
declined. A large number of producers of small pieces of decoration,  
indigenous playthings for children and hundreds of colourful trivia  
to add to the festivities did not receive as many customers as needed  
to cover costs.

Almost all those going to Eidgahs, parks and mohalla mosques for Eid  
prayers were praying for their safe return home and for the  
effectiveness of the security personnel under whose guns they offered  
prayers. At the same time it was impossible to banish from one’s mind  
either the feeling of grief at the loss of life in the conflict-torn  
north-western part of the country or the plight of the survivors who  
had lost all reason to smile. Above all every conscious citizen was  
weighed down by the seriousness of the threat to the state’s  
integrity. The attack on Asfandyar Wali’s home on Thursday again  
showed how serious this matter is.

There is no doubt that the multi-dimensional threat to the state is  
more serious than anything it has faced in the past, including the  
1971 crisis that led to the state’s dismemberment. The militants have  
resolved to assume control of not only the tribal area but also the  
whole of the Frontier province.

Despair is writ large on the actions of the Frontier government, e.g.  
the proposal to again enforce Sharia in Malakand division and the  
governor’s reported advice to the US to start negotiations with  
Mullah Omar. What makes the present threat to integrity especially  
grave is the push to knock down the basic features of the Pakistan  
state and the apparent acceptability of the challengers’ thesis among  
fairly large sections of the people.

Quite a few other things are adding to public anxieties over  
Pakistan’s drift towards stormy seas. The US-Nato forces are not  
going to stop their air/missile attacks on Pakistan’s territory  
despite all the noise about our sovereign rights that were mortgaged  
long ago. The hopes of a political and economic turnaround aroused by  
the popular verdict of February last have largely dissipated. Even  
the feeling of relief at the change in the presidency has been  
replaced by the painful realisation that the more things seem to  
change the more they remain the same.

For a large number of Pakistanis the lawyers’ movement for the  
restoration of judges unjustifiably sidelined by the outgoing  
president was at the top of prestige issues, for which they had  
struggled as best they could for more than a year. Most of these new  
fighters for justice and rule of law feel frustrated to the extent of  
withdrawal from social activism.

At the same time, hardly a day passes when one does not hear of  
utterly horrible acts of bestiality against the weak and the  
underprivileged. Some of the most heart-rending reports in recent  
days included the disclosure of a cellar-prison in the city of Lahore  
where a man, literate enough to be a government employee, had  
imprisoned his father and sisters for over a decade, a treatment they  
did not deserve especially because of being infirm in mind, and the  
plight of an old man in Arifwala who had been chained in the street  
like a dog for several decades.

Stories of little girls being given away as vani and women bludgeoned  
to death under jirga orders appear every other day. A wretched man  
sold his newborn child for Rs100 and the nation was not outraged, so  
used it has become to wanton killing, sale of children and human  
beings’ brutality to fellow beings.

All this is grist to the mills of a dirge-loving people. But this is  
not all that is happening in Pakistan. The cup of sorrow may have  
filled up to the brim but nothing should make us forget that  
humankind, Pakistanis included, is moving forward despite the efforts  
of warmongers and agents of death and doom to push it back into a  
dark age.

There is no need to lose heart if all expectations of change after  
Feb 18 do not appear to have materialised. For one thing some change  
has taken place. For another the people never give up. They have  
survived many electoral disappointments and they will show their  
ballot power again.

Likewise, post-Musharraf disappointments cannot obscure the people’s  
role in the battle for the presidency, for it was they who paved the  
way to change. They had done this more than once earlier and they  
will do so again whenever required.

The lawyers and their supporters should be celebrating their triumph  
instead of lamenting their imaginary failures. They have succeeded to  
a greater extent than many other civil society movements operating on  
a comparable (and quite small) base. They have deprived their  
opponents of all decent excuses. They have carried the day even if  
losses on their side are unwelcome. And the struggle goes on. The  
loss of a battle or two does not matter so long as the war is not  
finally lost.

The stories of brutality against and oppression of the marginalised  
are surely having some effect, though not as quick and dramatic as  
some expect. The pressure on the government to treat violence against  
women and children as social problems and not merely as law and order  
matters is growing.

Even in the conflict-torn northern territory public resistance to  
terrorists is taking shape. This offers better hope of salvation than  
gunfire and appeasement of the pseudo-religious clerics.

Then quite a few positive things are happening. For the first time  
the Sindh government is offering land to hari women. One hopes the  
scheme will be carried out as promised. The Punjab government’s  
decision to open a library at each union council is the medicine  
needed to save the nation from falling victim to Alzheimer’s disease.

This will surely provoke all those who recognise change only when it  
occurs at the macro level. But there is no harm in doing one’s bit at  
the micro level without giving up the tools that will be needed when  
the time for revolution comes.

o o o

(ii)

http://www.sacw.net/article106.html

ISLAMABAD’S MARGALA TOWERS TRAGEDY

5 October 2008


This is an appeal to your conscience.

As you are well aware on October 8th, 2005 as a result of corruption  
and negligence Margala Towers collapsed, leaving 72 people dead and  
over two hundred families homeless. Subsequently a case was filed in  
the Supreme Court on behalf of all the victims (Constitutional  
Petition No. 26 of 2005 Saad Mazhar etc vs. C.D.A. etc.) after nearly  
2 years of struggling, the victims were compensated due to an  
historic, precedent setting judgment/order (October 3rd, 2007) by the  
former Chief Justice Chaudry Ifthikhar who ordered the CDA to  
compensate the victims. During this process the Prime Minister  
created an Inspection Commission to evaluate the technical causes of  
the collapse. The final report was made confidential. The victims  
felt that a milestone had been achieved and an element of  
accountability had been introduced into the nation and its  
governance. As a nation we are still grappling with questions of  
social responsibility and social accountability.

However, last month on September 11th, 2008 an order (see attached  
file) was issued from the Supreme Court ordering the release of  
payment/compensation to Ramzan Khokar as well, the corrupt builder of  
Margala Towers whose innate corruption and negligence claimed 72  
precious lives. As you will no doubt notice in the order, the victims  
were not even given the dignity of representation. Subsequently a  
review of the order was filed in the Supreme Court to ensure that  
Ramzan Khokar was not paid by default or inaction on the victims part.

Through this open email, we the victims hope to appeal to your  
conscience, your sense of decency and urge you to highlight this  
level of corruption that has crept back into all our lives, on any  
and all platforms known to you. Tell the local or international  
media, Journalists, lawyers, architects, engineers, developers,  
humanitarian agencies, family and friends etc. Tell them that you and  
I have drawn the line. This is where corruption must end. Even if it  
is just you and I left standing. Let this be our legacy.

If your conscience is moved by these few words we also encourage you  
to join us in lighting candles of hope on October 8th 2008 at Margala  
Towers to mark the 3rd year of the tragedy. Always remember, just by  
your mere presence you can make a difference. Be there and become  
part of a new voice of hope. - rising wave of conscience.

Sincerely,

Margala Towers Victims


______


[2]

New Age
September 29, 2008

NATIONAL ID CARDS: IN THE INTEREST OF SURVEILLANCE?

by Rahnuma Ahmed


Official:  “You ought to have some papers to show who you are.”
Protagonist:  “I do not need any papers. I know who I am.”
Official:  “Maybe so. But others are also interested in who you are.”
– Kafkaesque journey of American sailor who has lost his identity  
papers, B. Traven, The Death Ship (tr. 1934)

A non-fraudulent voter list, `a priceless gift to the nation’

Praise was due. And it was given.

Ms Renata Dessallien, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident  
Representative, at a function marking the celebration of the  
successful completion of voter registration, organised by the  
Election Commission on July 22, spoke of it in glowing terms. It was  
“a truly historic achievement,” because never before “have so many  
people been electronically registered in such a short time” in any  
other country in the world. What was impressive was the immense scale  
of the undertaking, the accuracy of the list, the elimination of  
duplicate and fraudulent entries. “If there were a Nobel Prize for  
voter lists, Bangladesh would be the clear winner!”

The Chief Advisor Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed termed it a “milestone,” one  
that would enable not only the upcoming elections to be “free, fair  
and credible” but also, future ones, by setting high standards. The  
Chief Election Commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda, called it a “memorable  
event in the annals of country’s history.” At an earlier event,  
“Celebrating the Halfway Mark of Voter Registration” held in early  
March, the Chief of Army Staff General Moen U Ahmed had voiced hopes  
that it would “lay the foundation for building a meaningful democracy.”

A similar nationwide voter registration venture had failed in 1997  
because the names and pictures of most people did not match, and many  
had failed to turn up to register at the appointed time. The nation,  
as a result, had been Tk 115 crore poorer. A proposed integrated  
project of Machine Readable Passports (MRP) and National Identity  
Cards (NID) in 2005 had been budgeted at Tk 1,400 crore. Its  
completion would take 5 years, the first year would be a “test”  
period. The 2006 voter list, prepared by the past EEC Justice MA Aziz  
for the 2007 elections had been faulty, it had registered an excess  
of 1.2 crore voters, leading to a political impasse that helped usher  
in the current military-backed Fakhruddin government.

In comparison to all previous efforts, the current effort has yielded  
a faultless voter list, one that is computerised, consisting of a  
data-base of 80 million 500 thousand 723 voters with photographs and  
fingerprints. It has cost only Tk 424 crore, one-third of the 2005  
estimate, and has been successfully completed in a mere 11 months.  
The Election Commission was the sponsor and the coordinating agency,  
the Bangladesh army was the operational agency. Together they  
coordinated the huge logistics in a “very tight time frame”, as Major  
General Shafiqul Islam, Military Secretary, Bangladesh Army, said in  
an interview to find Biometrics, `we required 12,000 laptops to be  
deployed throughout the country, 8,000 printers, paper, toner, train  
a staff of 18,000 computer and enrollment personnel, in a situation  
where on an average data was collected on 300,000 to 400,000 people  
daily.’ The resulting electoral rolls, perhaps one of the largest  
electronic databases in the world, will definitely be the largest  
among developing countries.

A survey of the voter registration process funded by the UK  
Department for International Development (DFID) announced it to be of  
international standard, in the words of one of the consultants, “a  
list of quality no less than that of America or England.” The UN is  
said to be considering replicating this model in other developing  
countries.

The current voter list, as one of the national English dailies  
commented in its editorial, is “a priceless gift to the nation.”

The National ID Card, 'an offshoot’

The EC project was titled the Preparation of Electoral Roll with  
Photographs and Facilitating the Issuance of National Identity (ID)  
Card. In the words of Mike DePasquale, Chief Executive Officer of BIO- 
Key International Inc, a US-based company which is a leader in finger- 
based biometric identification and wireless public safety, the NID  
was “an offshoot” of the voter registration project — a “co-operative  
venture” between BIO-Key in the US, Tiger IT in Bangladesh, and the  
Bangladesh army.

Brigadier General (Retired) Shahedul Anam Khan, a defence analyst,  
thinks the government did well to undertake both projects  
simultaneously. Up to a stage, “the modalities involved for the  
preparation of both” like basic data collection and cross checking,  
are similar. The ID Card was a “spin-off,” which, if it had been put  
off for later, would have cost more.

But, for people on the ground, the two were not as separable. M  
Sakhawat Hussain, one of the Election Commissioners, puts it in words  
closer to how we, as potential voters, experienced it, “No one will  
be listed as a voter without the registration of the name on the  
electoral roll and no one will get the national ID card.”

Advocates of e-government are also advocates of national ID cards,  
for instance Farooq Sobhan, M. Shafiullah and others write in a Study  
of eGovernment in Bangladesh (Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, April  
2004), “Bangladesh should take active steps to initiate a project for  
national ID” because it will provide an important base for the  
provision of eGovernment services “efficiently and in a personalized  
way,” to citizens who will have unique ID numbers. I came across  
several Bangladeshi bloggers who seemed to hold similar views.  
According to one, it would be “a solution to many problems,” a  
national database would hold information from voter lists to tax  
records, it would make easier many tasks from machine-readable  
passports to criminal investigations. According to another, the  
digitisation of national-level information would make governance  
procedures “more scientific.”

The EC has drafted an ordinance making national ID cards mandatory  
for citizens, ‘for getting any services from the government, its  
departments and institutions or from any statutory government  
offices.’ Twenty two services are listed, these include the issuance  
and renewal of passport, driving licence, trade licence, tax  
identification number, business identification number and bank  
account. It also states that nobody will get government subsidy  
facilities, allowance and relief if they do not have identity cards.  
Very recently, the council of advisors approved the formation of the  
National Identity Registration Authority Ordinance 2008. It  
authorises the home ministry to provide national ID cards. Under the  
proposed ordinance, the EC will hand over all information that has  
been collected — data and biometric features of the citizens — to  
NIRA, a statutory body. The ordinance declares false information,  
forgery, having more than one ID card a criminal offence, punishable  
by three months to seven years rigorous imprisonment, along with  
monetary fines.

That confusion exists among people in general — the beneficiaries of  
the national ID card — was revealed during the four city corporation  
and nine pouroshobha elections held recently. Voters had come to the  
polling centres with their national ID cards, and were confused over  
why the serial number of their ID cards did not tally with the voter  
serial numbers. This resulted in delays in vote casting, and in long  
queues. Voter identity cards had been given in the 90s, or torn-off  
slips containing registration numbers, and as a newspaper report  
states, during the recently-held local-level elections, the common  
perception had been that the `ID card was to be used for voting  
purposes.’  Reports say, polling officers had been similarly  
confused. M Shakhawat Hossain, Election Commissioner, blamed the  
media for publicising what in effect was a `national ID card’, as a  
`voter ID card’, even though, according to him, the EC had carried  
out a huge campaign to clarify the differences between the two.

The ‘largest biometric database in the world’

What is less public knowledge is that the four fingerprints of each  
voter that was captured with BIO-key’s fingerprint ID software, and  
FBI-certified fingerprint readers, has already generated over 300  
Million ISO fingerprint templates. Combined with the 400 million  
projected to be generated, it will become by far the largest  
biometric deployment in the world.

Duplicate registrations are being accurately identified says Ziaur  
Rahman, Managing Director of Tiger IT BD Ltd. (Tiger IT), a company  
that is a leader in both prepackaged and customized software  
solutions and was BIO-Key’s “systems integrator on the ground,” at a  
speed of “one million matches per second on a single processor.”  
Tiger IT Bangladesh’s website provides further information on the  
national ID card (by the way, the domain tigeritbd.com was registered  
as recently as August 2007). The card includes a standard barcode  
which is encoded with ISO fingerprint templates, and PKI digital  
hash. These can be used to quickly verify the identity of the  
cardholder while ensuring the integrity and authenticity of the ID  
card. The Cognitec Facial Recognition Software has been used to  
capture facial images.

While Renata Dessallien enthuses over how “modern technology” enables  
the prevention of vote theft, and DePasquale prides on how BIO-Key’s  
patented technology is “performing better than anything else in the  
market for finger matching,” I have simple questions to ask: who owns  
my fingerprints? how will it be used? can NIRA transfer it to  
government departments within Bangladesh without my knowledge? or,  
maybe even outside the country’s borders? As the British government  
did when it passed more than 500 samples of DNA to foreign agencies,  
but when asked “no one seemed to know” to which countries.

The European Comission recently proposed the harmonisation of  
security features on passports across the European Union. The  
proposal, introduced in October 2007, requires Member States to take  
measures to introduce biometric features, including fingerprinting,  
on passports and travel documents. The fingerprints would be stored  
in a centralised database. The European Union Data Protection  
Supervisor, Peter Hustinx, who is in charge of safeguarding the  
personal data and the right to privacy of EU citizens, has expressed  
his concern since it fails to “adequately safeguard the right to  
privacy of EU citizens.” He says, the Commission failed to consult  
with his office prior to submitting the proposal, as required by EU law.

The current regime’s voter registration list has, in all probability,  
lessened the likelihood of fraudulent votes. But it also has, in all  
likelihood, laid the groundwork for installing a new regime of  
surveillance, one that will be deployed against the citizens of  
Bangladesh.

______


[3] India:

sacw.net 3 October 2008
http://www.sacw.net/article92.html

MALEGAON, MODASA AND MEHRAULI BLASTS : THE HINDUTVA CONNECTION ?

by Subhash Gatade

Saba Parveen still repents the fact that she sent her younger sister  
Farheen to Bhikku Chowk to buy some Pakoras. Little she could have  
the premonition that she would never get to see her 10 year old  
sister a class V student alive.

The blast at Malegaon’s Bhikku Chowk, has literally shattered the  
family of Shaikh Liaquat Wahiuddin, Farheen’s father who lives around  
100 feet away from the Chowk near the Kasbapada masjid. A father of  
three daughters and two sons and a wife has seen all the hell broke  
lose soon after the bomb blast.

The couple fainted when they reached Wadia hospital to see their own  
daughter who had suffered severe burns in the blast turned lifeless.  
The latest bomb blasts in Malegaon have seen four deaths wherein a  
motorcycle parked near old SIMI office which was laden with  
explosives exploded killing four people on the spot. It was worth  
noting that the people living in the vicinity of the Chowk had  
informed the police about this unclaimed motorcycle standing there  
for hours together. But the police did not bother to turn up and  
reached the place only after the blast which saw these deaths.

It is not difficult to imagine the palpable anger which exists among  
people about the callousness of the police and the insensitivity of  
the administration. People of this town which has a significant no of  
Muslim population have not forgotten the treatment meted out to them  
by the police and the administration when there were similar blasts  
in the city during their religious congregations killing 40 people in  
2006. Despite enough hints about the involvement of Hindutva terror  
groups in the perpetration of these acts, where a torso with a fake  
beard was also identified, ultimately saw few Muslim youths getting  
booked for this crime who are still languishing in jail. A CBI  
enquiry which was ordered after lot of pressure claims to have  
reached a deadend. In a recent meeting with Baba Siddique, the  
’guardian’ minister of Nasik, representatives of different Muslim  
organisations in Malegaon gave vent to their feelings of disgust and  
deep hurt over the developments. Angry community leaders asked the  
minister "You blame SIMI for blasts in temples, you blame SIMI for  
blasts in market places, you blame SIMI for blast Masjids. The latest  
blast has taken place just below the SIMI office. Now whom will you  
blame ?"( Mailtoday, Oct 3, 2008)

Hemant Karkare, chief of the Anti Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra  
Police, who was instrumental in nabbing the activists of Sanatan  
Sanstha and Hindu Janjagruti Samity for the bomb blasts in Thane,  
Vashi and few other places in Maharashtra (June 2008) and his team of  
officers also shied away from blaming some or the other Islamic  
terrorist organisation for the blast.The perpetrators of the bomb  
blast who had packed a splendour motorcycle with nuts, bolts, nails  
and ballbearings and three kilograms of explosive material, near a  
mosque, beside a SIMI office and the time chosen by them - on the eve  
of Eid - has definitely put local police and ATS groping in the dark.

But according to an investigative report filed by Mailtoday ( 1  
October 2008) : "Police, however, are sure of one thing - that the  
blasts in Malegaon and Modasa in Gujarat were a coordinated effort,  
as both occured at around 9.30 p.m. in Muslim dominated areas.Karkare  
felt that the Gujarat and the Malegaon blasts were similar in nature  
also." In fact any close watcher of the bomb blasts in the country  
cannot miss the fact that bikes have been a favourite instrument of  
the Bajrang Dal to attack Muslims. A narcotest of those involved in  
Nanded bomb blasts (April 2006) which saw deaths of two Bajrang Dal  
activists had clearly revealed that ’mysterious blasts’ in Parbhani  
in 2003 and Jalna (2004) which involved perpetrators on bikes  
throwing bombs at the congregation and fleeing were actually the  
handiwork of a terror module of the Bajrang Dal itself.

The report in Mailtoday further adds " This is similar to the blast  
in Mehrauli market in New Delhi blast on Saturday and also some other  
cases where bombs were placed on bikes."

Of course Mailtoday is not alone in pointing fingers at Hindu terror  
groups for these bomb blasts, a detailed writeup in Indian Express  
( Hindu Extremist Groups on Radar In Malegaon Probe, Sagnik  
Chowdhury, 1 st October 2008) reiterates the line of thinking of the  
ATS officials as far as the particular blast is concerned. " A day  
after the Maharashtra police said it could not rule out the  
possibility of Hindu extremist hand in Monday’s blast in Malegaon,  
investigators are revisiting the crude bombs that were planted in  
auditoriums on the outskirts of Mumbai earlier this year." The ATS is  
planning to question the activists of Hindu Janjagruti Samiti,  
Sanatan Sanstha and other stray Hindu extremist organisations for  
their possible involvement in the act.The 1020 page chargesheet filed  
by the ATS in September against the members of these organisations  
for their terrorist acts is an added reminder for it to pursue the  
case in a balanced manner.

A deeper analysis of terror strikes since 2006 also reveal that there  
are at least five such terror strikes which targeted minorities and  
their religious places and they still remain unresolved. A report  
filed by Aman Sharma ( Mailtoday, October 3, 2008) provides details  
of these blasts and the status of investigations. Jama Masjid blast  
( 14 injured, April 2006 - Friday) where low intensity, crude bombs  
were placed in a polythene bag is still pending with Delhi police, no  
outfit has been named. Malegaon ( 40 killed, September 8, 2006 -  
Friday) which saw four bombs outside mosques on Shab-e-Barat where  
RDX-ammonium nitrate bombs in boxes on bicycles was used, still  
remains unresolved. The investigation in Samjhuta express blasts (66  
killed, Feb 19, 2007) where six bombs were planted inside Indo-Pak  
Samjhauta Express has also not shown any progress and neither any  
organisation has been named. The case of Mecca Masjid blasts ( 11  
killed, May 18, 2007 -Friday) where two bombs were planted inside  
Mecca Masjid in boxes, is also pending with CBI. The enquiry into  
Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts (3 killed, October 11, 2007 - Friday) where  
two bombs in tiffin boxes wee used and where ammonium nitrate bombs  
were triggered by mobile phone has also not made much headway.The  
case at present pending with Rajasthan police has also not named any  
organisation.

Looking at the fact that communal common sense dominates the  
functioning of the police and the media in our country it is  
difficult to predict what will happen next. The investigations into  
the recent Kanpur blast (24 August 2008) which saw deaths of two RSS  
activists, Rajiv Mishra and Bhupendra Chopra, while making ammonium  
nitrate bombs, is an example worth studying. While the police took  
two of their colleagues for narcoanalysis, it did not even bother to  
question their alleged mentors -one of whom happened to be a  
Professor in IIT with RSS background.

______


[4] India:

(i)

Tehelka Magazine
Oct 11, 2008

IN TRUTH, DARK TIMES

The Nanavati report is another depressing sign of Indian democracy’s  
continuing free-fall

by Tarun J Tejpal

DICTATORSHIP WALKS in through the front door, often without a  
preamble, one sunlit morning. Fascism almost never rings the bell. It  
slips in through the backdoor, climbs in over window-sills, pads up  
the basement, locates a rotten rafter to make its covert entry.  
Dictatorship is showy. It lodges itself in the living room, confident  
it commands the house. Fascism is sneaky. It quietly settles into  
every room, knowing it runs the house. Dictatorships can be  
overthrown by the people. Fascism is the people.

Of course we must not be alarmist. We are a great democracy. Look at  
our Constitution. Look at our Parliament. Look at our free and fair  
elections — well, okay, prolific elections. Look at our free and fair  
media — well, okay, prolific media. Look at our free and fair  
judiciary — well, okay, our judiciary. Let us not try and list the  
police and the bureaucracy: we have a consensus of unhappiness about  
them. In a great democracy — well, okay, a great democracy in the  
making — these are minor flaws. No doubt, evolution will make us  
perfect.

This catalogue of virtues is only enumerated by those of us who live  
inside India’s charmed circle. To whose privileged lives the soaring  
idea of democracy can provide a glittering embroidery. It’s the  
banquet hall view of the state — cosy with good food and fine  
conversation. And it is articulated only by those of us who have  
somehow managed to grab a seat at the table, even if it is a low one.  
It’s useful to remember, every ruling class from Caesar to Stalin has  
believed it was doing right by its people.

Today to read the Indian state through the banquet hall is to read a  
crocodile through a handbag. Only those who confront the beast know  
its true nature. A thousand handbags cannot tell you how mercilessly  
the jaws of a crocodile clamp. But all around the country there are  
numberless Christians, Muslims, displaced tribals, turfed-out  
farmers, brutalised dalits, disputing citizens, who can give you a  
clear idea of its brutal force. Each of their accounts tears the  
heart out of the idea of India.

Experience is a gift for anyone. Especially for journalists. Seven  
years ago some of us at TEHELKA were accorded a special opportunity  
by the Indian state. For blowing a sharp whistle we were dragged into  
the entrails of the beast. How fearsome its innards were — with not a  
hint of the beauty of the handbag! Among the many intimate journeys  
we were taken on was a special starring role in a commission of  
inquiry. This is a special trick of the beast — an invite to a  
lengthy palaver at the end of which, when no one is looking, the  
guest is eaten. For 19 months we participated, along with more than  
15 lawyers including some of India’s finest, in a burlesque of lies  
and immorality against us. It was a rare education. We were forever  
cured of the banquet hall view of the state

IN GUJARAT last week, a commission of inquiry has just eaten up its  
guests. Justice Nanavati, mandated to inquire into the Godhra tragedy  
and its violent aftermath, has delivered an astonishing verdict.  
Flying in the face of all evidence, he has perilously declared that  
the bogey burning was the result of a local Muslim conspiracy. At the  
best of times such a conclusion would have called for caution. To do  
so in a time of ratcheting communal tensions, with all the facts  
suggesting otherwise, is nothing short of disastrous.

The truth of Godhra is awful, but it’s not a conspiracy. All the  
evidence indicates that neither the state nor the local Muslims  
played any premeditated role in the horrific assault on the train.  
Once the dastardly event was over, a sinister attempt began to give  
it a political colour. In the pages that follow, a six-month-long  
TEHELKA investigation reveals how the establishment and the police  
broke every rule in the book to manufacture a conspiracy theory.  
Nanavati was meant to snooker the state’s unlawful conduct. Instead  
he has endorsed it!

The chances are he will get away with it. As it is universally,  
India’s secure classes have a charitable view of the system they run.  
Breathless with carving out the pie, they have little time for  
distant niceties. In a country of a billion people, a few hundred  
Muslims mouldering in jail can arouse only so much concern. Citizens  
move on slogans not on details. Politicians and policemen bank on  
that.Terrorism is a headline; individual innocence is a nuance. And  
anyway all those Muslim names sound the same after a while. As do the  
tribal. And the dalit.

Fascism keeps padding in into our rooms on animal feet. We know the  
answers. Enforce the law. Ensure justice. Follow the Constitution.  
The beast knows them too. Only too well. It knows these are the very  
leash by which it should be bound. But the stake anchoring the leash  
— public will: as represented by media, intelligentsia, civil society  
— has come loose. It has badly splintered, lost its sense of  
anchorage, and it believes the beast will maraud elsewhere and never  
round on it. The fables of the world are full of such foolishness.

Once, a few good men had a good idea. The idea of India. It resulted  
in the most magical political experiment of the 20th century. It  
allowed a complex, ancient, trampled civilisation an enviable entry  
into modernity. The experiment is still on. In truth, there are dark  
days — increasingly too many — when it seems to be sliding towards  
failure. In their roster of virtues, the original visionaries had a  
gift that made their grand experiments possible. Like the finest  
literary writers they had the gift of empathy. The ability to  
intimately imagine the life of another. It took them to a place  
beyond caste, community, and religion. It made the idea of India  
possible. It is a gift we need to rediscover again, at every level.  
To imagine once again the life of one man, one woman. One people.


o o o

(ii)

MANUFACTURING A CONSPIRACY

The Nanavati Commission Report is based on untenable theories and  
statements of bribed witnesses. In a painstaking investigation,  
ASHISH KHETAN rebuts the report and uncovers the deliberate and  
malicious subversion of the truth by the state
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne111008coverstory.asp


o o o

(iii)

Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 40, Dated Oct 11, 2008

WHAT NANAVATI DID NOT SEE

by Teesta Setalvad

The fire was described as an accident. Chargesheet by chargesheet, it  
became a conspiracy

THE ALLEGED deliberate torching alive of 59 persons in coach S-6 of  
the Sabarmati Express, returning from Faizabad (Ayodhya) to Ahmedabad  
at the Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, became the sordid  
justification for unleashing the post-Godhra carnage across Gujarat.  
The incident was first described by the district collector, Jayanti  
Ravi, as an accident. But from 7.30 pm onwards the same evening,  
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, started portraying it as a  
conspiracy inspired by Pakistan’s ISI.

On the afternoon of February 27, in Parliament, the then prime  
minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, also described the incident as an  
accident. Weeks later, at the BJP’s national meet in Goa, he too fell  
in line, justifying the post-Godhra carnage with his famous “agar  
Godhra na hota to Gujarat na hota” (If Godhra had not happened  
Gujarat, too, would not have happened). The Sangh Parivar’s  
Goebbelsian propaganda machine relayed this message of ‘Muslim  
aggression’ and ‘Hindu retaliation’ throughout the country and  
abroad. Modi, worried that an independent investigation into Godhra  
and post-Godhra (directed by the Supreme Court) may indict him for  
conspiracy and mass murder, pushed the compliant Justices Nanavati  
and Mehta to release part one of their report, on Godhra.

The judges have swallowed the Gujarat Government’s untested but  
widely-publicised theory of a preplanned conspiracy in toto. They  
have not been so meticulous in contextualising Godhra and the post- 
Godhra genocide.

VHP’S ‘CHALO AYODHYA’

It had all begun with the VHP’s mobilisation for a programme in  
Ayodhya, which they called ‘Purnahuti Maha Yagna’. Three groups from  
Gujarat, consisting of about 2,000 Ram bhakts (devotees) each, were  
to go to Ayodhya for karseva. The first group of about 2,200 Ram  
sevaks was to leave Ahmedabad on February 22, 2002. They left for  
Ayodhya, as planned, on February 22 and began their return journey to  
Ahmedabad by the Sabarmati Express on February 25, 2002.

There is no clear evidence that any person in Gujarat (except,  
perhaps, members of the VHP) knew of the specific date on which the  
karsevaks would travel from Ayodhya to Gujarat i.e., on February 25.  
Central, state and local intelligence agencies have, in fact, deposed  
before the Nanavati-Shah Commission stating that they did not have  
any information about the karsevaks’ travel plans. State IB  
officials, including former ADGP RB Sreekumar, have produced detailed  
records to reveal that while Gujarat intelligence had recorded the  
unruly and provocative behaviour of karsevaks, the Central IB had  
issued no information or directives on their movements. Neither had  
the UP state intelligence. The only letter that arrived from Central  
intelligence about the karsevaks’ return was received by the Gujarat  
SIB a day after the Godhra tragedy i.e., on February 28, 2002. In the  
absence of specific information about the karsevaks’ return journey,  
there is little likelihood of a conspiracy hatched to burn coach S-6  
of the Sabarmati Express on February 27.

CHIEF MINISTER SETS THE AGENDA

Yet, on February 27, the chief minister made the following press  
statement which was widely publicised all over Gujarat: ‘The  
abominable event that has occurred in Godhra does not befit any  
civilised society...it is not a communal event but is a one-sided  
collective terrorist attack by one community…’ He further said that  
this was not a simple incident of violence or a communal event but a  
‘pre-planned incident’. Who could fit the ‘international terrorist’  
label?

They found a maulana — Maulana Umarji — and booked him a whole year  
after the incident had occurred. Who was this ‘terrorist’? An old,  
semi-invalid, respected Muslim figure from the Ghanchi community in  
Godhra who ran a riot relief camp at the Iqbal Primary School from  
March 2002 until August 2002. The maulana was a senior and respected  
member of his community who had consistently galvanised resources for  
national tragedies, including the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984, from  
Godhra’s citizenry. Bilkees Bano and hundreds of other victims and  
survivors from the minority community, humiliated and attacked in the  
Panchmahals and Dahod districts, had found succour in this relief  
camp. Justice JS Verma of the NHRC also visited this camp.

A SUDDEN ABOUT TURN FROM KEROSENE TO PETROL

It is in the second chargesheet, filed on September 20, 2002, that  
(i) the burning from inside story evolves into a conspiracy carried  
out by a core group; (ii) the spontaneous collection of a mob on  
hearing that a girl was pulled into the train is alleged; (iii) Chain- 
pulling is said to have been done by Anwar Kalandar, who is not made  
an accused because it is tacitly accepted that he did this to protect  
the girl. The first chargesheet, which details the altercations  
between the karsevaks and the vendors, has no mention of a conspiracy.

The fourth chargesheet, filed by a willing Noel Parmar (an officer  
who has been given four extensions just for this case after his  
retirement) added the terrorist conspiracy angle. Thereafter, up to  
the present 16th supplementary chargesheet, the police version has  
not changed qualitatively. The case made out in the second and third  
chargesheets was ‘refined’ by adding a ‘conspiracy’ story. According  
to the police, the conspiracy was hatched by Razzak Kurkur, Salim  
Paanwala, Haji Bilal and a few others in room no. 8 of the Aman Guest  
House (owned by Razzak Kurkur) at around 9 pm on February 26, 2002.

The alleged conspiracy included the plan to set fire to the Sabarmati  
Express on February 27, 2002. For that purpose, 140 litres of petrol  
was allegedly bought from Kalabhai’s petrol pump the previous night  
and kept in Kurkur’s house. It is alleged that at around 9.30-10 pm  
on February 26, 2002, Maulana Umarji had directed that coach S-6  
should be set on fire.

The entire charge by the prosecution (Gujarat Government) that coach  
S-6 was burnt down in pursuance of a pre-planned conspiracy rests on  
a forensic science laboratory report, which mentions that some  
residual hydrocarbons were found in samples collected from the site  
and that petrol was found in two carboys.

The reliability of the FSL report on samples collected from the site  
is highly doubtful. Hundreds of onlookers and visitors, including the  
chief minister and other ministers, had visited the site and also  
entered coach S-6 before the samples were collected. Suspect material  
could easily have been removed from inside the coach. Equally, what  
the FSL found inside the coach could well have been planted from  
outside.

The FSL report dated March 20, 2002, was accessible to the  
investigation officer (IO), KC Bawa, before he filed the first  
chargesheet on May 5, 2002. Yet, the chargesheet made no specific  
allegation about the use of petrol in torching coach S-6. Bawa’s  
first chargesheet was quite vague: ‘At that time the accused armed  
with deadly weapons and highly inflammable fluids filled in cans and  
shouting slogans, ‘Pakistan Zindabad’, ‘Hindustan Murdabad’, burnt  
down the coach S-6’.

The big question is, why did the IO refuse to specify the fluid that  
was allegedly used by the ‘conspirators’? It appears therefore, that  
initially the investigation began in right earnest. The two petrol  
pumps near Godhra station were sealed off by the police on February  
27, 2002. The first petrol pump, on Vejalpur road, was owned by MH &  
A Patel, while the other was owned by Asgarali Qurban Hussein  
(Kalabhai). On April 9, 2002, seven samples of petrol and diesel were  
collected from these petrol pumps and panchnamas were made. These  
samples, four samples of diesel marked A, B, E and F, and three  
samples of petrol marked C, D (from Kalabhai’s pump) and H (from MH &  
A Patel’s pump), were sent for forensic examination to find out  
whether the petrol or diesel from these pumps had been used to burn  
coach S-6.

In his report dated April 26, 2002, DB Talati, assistant director,  
FSL, said that samples A, B, E and F contained diesel while C, D and  
H contained petrol. He added, however, that he could not give a clear  
opinion on whether the petrol detected in some samples in and around  
coach S-6 as per the FSL report dated March 20, 2002, and the petrol  
detected in samples C, D and H came from the same source.

The fatal blow to the prosecution’s ‘petrol theory’ was delivered by  
two employees of Kalabhai’s petrol pump, Prabhatsinh G Patel and  
Ranjitsinh J Patel. In their statements recorded on April 10, 2002,  
the two men flatly denied having sold loose petrol to anybody, adding  
that they did not sell loose petrol from their pump. (Ranjitsinh told  
the TEHELKA undercover reporter that the police had paid him Rs  
50,000 to change his statement).

The chargesheet filed by KC Bawa on May 22, 2002, therefore,  
‘created’ evidence to establish that coach S-6 was burnt from outside  
using some inflammable liquid. Bawa ‘recorded’ the statements of nine  
important eyewitnesses between February 27 and March 15, 2002,  
namely, Janaklal K Dave, Rajeshbhai V Darji, Nitinkumar Harprasad  
Pathak, Dilipbhai U. Dasadiya, Muralidhar R Mulchandani (reportedly,  
the current vice-president of Godhra Nagarpalika), Dipakbhai M Soni,  
Harsukhlal T Advani, Chandrashekhar N Sonaiya and Manoj H Advani.

All nine of these eyewitnesses, who declared themselves to be active  
members of the VHP, made identical statements to the effect that they  
had gone to Godhra station on the morning of February 27 to meet the  
karsevaks who were returning from Ayodhya and offer them tea and  
breakfast (The judges do not mention their political antecedents).

After making out a case that coach S-6 was burnt from outside, Bawa  
started discovering any number of carboys containing traces of  
kerosene from around the A cabin. Between March 29 and April 5, three  
carboys were allegedly recovered from three of the accused, Haji  
Bilal, Abdul Majid Dhantiya and Kasim Biryani.

Since Bilal was considered to be the main conspirator at the time,  
along with Kalota, the kerosene theory was accepted. In his report  
dated April 26, 2002, DB Talati said he had found traces of kerosene  
in the three carboys that were sent to him for examination! The  
kerosene theory prevailed until the beginning of July 2002. From then  
on the new investigation officer, Noel Parmar, had more refined ideas  
and fuel in mind.

THE FOURTH CHARGESHEET

It is the fourth chargesheet that outlines the Gujarat Government’s  
theory in full.

The primary motivation to introduce ‘petrol’ as the ostensible fuel  
used by the alleged conspirators along with the theory that coach S-  
6 had been set alight from inside was the May 2002 report by Dr MS  
Dahiya, director of the FSL, Ahmedabad. Dahiya said that coach S-6  
could not have been burnt from outside. His report also said that it  
would take 60 litres of petrol poured inside the coach to burn the  
same. Dahiya’s report apparently did not reach Bawa in time for him  
to realise that his theory that the coach was burnt from outside  
using kerosene would contradict a report based on scientific analysis.

So one year after the incident, the kerosene theory was suddenly  
abandoned in favour of petrol as the inflammatory fuel used. But the  
problem lies precisely in this double switchover: from kerosene to  
petrol, and from the earlier claim that the coach was burnt from  
outside, to the new theory that the coach was set afire from inside!  
The contradictions are so glaring they make the investigation a  
complete charade. Truth, of course, is the biggest victim.

Another significant point is that the carboys containing traces of  
petrol were not found near coach S-6 but some distance away. They  
were found at a distant location adjacent to a Muslim-owned garage  
that was burnt down by karsevaks at around 11 am on the same day  
(February 27, 2002) as a reaction to the burning of coach S-6.

WHOSE CONSPIRACY?

Modi had obviously decided on the motives and identity of those who  
had set coach S-6 on fire by the evening of February 27, 2002 itself.  
The conspiracy theory has been developed without the slightest  
application of mind. By using torture, coercion and the draconian  
provisions of the POTA law, absurd confessions have been extracted  
whereby a person ends up confessing to having done something that it  
was impossible to do. As pointed out earlier, it was impossible to  
stop the train by rotating the alarm disc from outside because of the  
modifications in design. Yet the investigators forced such a  
‘confession’ to support their claim that Salim Paanwala had  
instigated Muslim hawkers to stop the train near the A cabin as part  
of a ‘pre-planned conspiracy’!

The most glaring omission in the prosecution’s tale is, however, in  
its silence about what the conspirators’ original plan was, had the  
train not been delayed by several hours. The VHP has alleged that if  
the train had arrived at the correct time, the plan was to set fire  
to the entire train at Chanchelav, a village about 12 km to 14 km  
from Godhra (towards Dahod) around midnight. But the Sabarmati  
Express has no scheduled halt there. The VHP has so far not disclosed  
how, in its view, the conspirators planned to stop the train at  
midnight when its activists had not allowed anyone to even board the  
train from Lucknow onwards!

The fact is that if the karsevaks had not pulled the chain to pick up  
their colleagues who had been left behind at Godhra station, the  
Sabarmati Express would have passed through Godhra without a hitch  
and saved the nation one of its greatest tragedies.

While the prosecution’s entire theory revolves around the allegation  
that several Muslims, including Jabir Binyamin Behra, had cut through  
the vestibule canvas of coach S-7 to get onto the train, there is  
absolutely no proof of such a claim.

It is evident from their statements that the nine active members of  
the VHP who were standing next to the A cabin right from the  
beginning did not see or make any allegations about anyone climbing  
onto coach S-7 and cutting through the vestibule canvas. The ASM,  
Rajendra Mina, who was in the A cabin at the time, also does not make  
such an allegation. In fact, his deposition stated that he had not  
seen anyone climbing onto the train. If the slashed canvas was the  
most vital piece of evidence in their case, why didn’t the police  
preserve it? Why was it allowed to be sold as scrap for a few rupees?

How does the prosecution explain the statement it recorded from the  
parcel office clerk on March 1, 2002, to the effect that after the  
first chain-pulling at the Godhra station, passengers in the train  
were pelting stones at the people behind the parcel office?

Where are the black plastic 20-litre carboys that were supposedly  
filled with petrol and brought on a tempo to a spot behind the A  
cabin and from which petrol was allegedly poured into the coach? The  
FSL has found three carboys containing traces of kerosene and three  
small carboys containing traces of petrol. Why didn’t the police find  
a single one of these 20-litre carboys? The FSL report clearly stated  
that the burnt residue of materials inside the coach did not contain  
any residue of a ‘plastic container’.

How will the prosecution explain the fact that the two small plastic  
containers that were found to have petrol in them were found not near  
the coach but across the tracks near the Mallas Auto garage which was  
burnt down by passengers and kar sevaks on the Sabarmati Express  
around 11 am on February 27, 2002? Two trucks outside the garage were  
burnt using petrol. From where did the passengers get the petrol?

Why did police inspector Barot from the police control room,  
Gandhinagar, inform the DGP’s office at 9.35 am on February 27, 2002,  
that karsevaks had set fire to three coaches of the Sabarmati Express  
train at Godhra and that the number of injured was not yet known?  
Barot, therefore, asks the police to be vigilant.

It is no one’s case that Godhra is not communally sensitive, that  
Godhra’s Ghanchi Muslims, as Hindus and Muslims unfortunately in many  
parts of the country are quick to react, assemble, even commit acts  
of violence. The moot question is whether here in this case on  
February 27, 2002, the act of burning alive 59 persons was a  
preplanned act designed and executed meticulously? While the state of  
Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar has  
booked the guilty without trial, fair or unfair, better sense was  
expected from retired members of the higher judiciary. If meticulous  
judicial examination and judgement thus fall prey to ambitious  
political design, where will the victim turn, for justice?

o o o

(iv)

Dawn
October 4, 2008

MODI LET OFF THE HOOK?

by Kuldip Nayar

I SUSPECTED some design when the Justice Nanavati Commission  
submitted only a part of the inquiry report on what was known as the  
Godhra incident. I could see the contents written on the face of a  
gleeful Gujarat Chief Minister Narender Modi in a photograph at the  
time of the report’s presentation.

It was clear that Modi had been exonerated. Was it necessary for  
Justice Nanavati to suggest this or even release a part of the report  
if he did not want to favour Modi and the BJP? Nanavati has clarified  
after heavy criticism that his first report was confined only to the  
burning of the Sabarmati Express.

He has said that he did not give a clean chit to Modi or his  
government, and that he was still working on the rioting after the  
Godhra incident. Why should the Nanavati Commission which has had as  
many as 16 extensions submit an incomplete report? There was no  
pressure on the commission. Then why hurry?

It looks as if Nanavati is a party to the travesty of justice:  
separating the report into two parts when it should have been one  
document. True, the BJP and Modi wanted it that way. But I cannot  
comprehend why Nanavati has done so. He knows that nobody can condone  
the killing of some 2,000 Muslims, not even his commission. The  
ethnic cleansing in Gujarat has been recorded visually and there are  
many witnesses and documents to corroborate it. Are compulsions  
stemming from the second part the reason for splitting the report?

Maybe Nanavati has a point. But he has already held local Muslims  
guilty of “conspiracy” in the burning of the Sabarmati Express. The  
manner in which he has exonerated Modi and his officials suggests  
that Nanavati was discussing the Gujarat carnage, not the burning of  
the train’s bogie.

Since the full report will be ready only by the end of the year, this  
gives an opportunity to Modi and the BJP to go to town on what  
Nanavati has already said and exploit the findings in November’s  
assembly elections in five states.

It was clear that Nanavati was more or less repeating the version  
which Modi and the BJP had projected to provide an alibi for the  
massacre of Muslims soon after 59 kar sevaks were burnt alive in the  
compartment that caught fire.

The report released by Nanavati is no different. He too says the fire  
was “a pre-planned conspiracy” by local Muslims. Justice Nanavati has  
also ruled out the involvement of any religious or political  
organisation, exonerating the BJP, the Bajrang Dal and the like.

The version which Nanavati has relied upon is in stark contrast to  
what another Supreme Court judge, Justice U.C. Bannerjee, had  
reported. According to him — he was appointed by the railways — the  
fire was not ignited from outside the coach but from within it,  
either by accident or design. Bannerjee has repeated his findings  
even after Nanavati’s report.

The special investigation team appointed by the Supreme Court to  
reinvestigate the riots is still at work. Nanavati should have waited  
till it had given its report. By not doing so, Justice Nanavati,  
himself from the Supreme Court, has shown scant respect to the apex  
court. Even the petition challenging the Bannerjee Committee’s  
findings is still pending before the state high court. Should  
Nanavati have still gone ahead?

The conflicting reports bring no credit to the judiciary. Had such a  
thing happened at the level of two judges in a subordinate court, the  
high court would have taken them to task. I cannot say anything more  
but I do feel intrigued by the spectacle when the judges involved are  
from the Supreme Court.

It is obvious that Nanavati wanted to favour Gujarat, the state which  
appointed him to head the inquiry commission. He knows he cannot but  
criticise the state in the post-Godhra report. Did he intentionally  
separate the two incidents, which are really one? Since the first  
report is favourable to the state, he let it go as if it were  
independent of the other.

Legally, there is nothing wrong in releasing the report in parts. But  
ethically it is not correct because people are now expected to make  
up their mind on the basis of a partial report.

I have a nagging feeling that the post-Godhra report, which is bound  
to hold Modi and the Gujarat administration guilty, and corroborate  
the thesis that there was a prior plan to cleanse the state  
ethnically, will be released after the general elections due early  
next year. Wittingly or unwittingly, Nanavati has helped Modi and his  
party.

The Jan Sangarsh Manch (JSM), a Gujarat NGO, is the first to react to  
the submission of an incomplete report. It has criticised the  
Nanavati Commission for being hasty in presenting an incomplete  
report to the state government. The JSM’s convenor, S.H. Iyer, has  
questioned the urgency of releasing the partial report.

He asks: “Don’t the thousands of victims of the post-Godhra riots  
have any right to know why their lives and property were destroyed?  
And which minister, politician, police officer or organisation was  
responsible for the massacres”?

I recall talking to Justice Nanavati before he submitted his report  
on the 1984 riots in which 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi alone. He  
told me what happened in Delhi could happen anywhere in India and at  
any time because the police knew no limits and politicians no norms  
of behaviour.

He even commented on the probe that he was conducting into the  
Gujarat killings. He said “I have seen the same pattern in Gujarat.”  
He also said he had no good word either for the politicians or the  
authorities. Therefore, I find it difficult to understand when he  
gives a clean chit to Modi, his council of ministers and police  
officials.

Former Chief Justice J.C. Verma, who has also served as chairman of  
the National Human Rights Commission, has released a letter which  
shows that he had cautioned Nanavati. In his statement, Justice Verma  
has said that Nanavati’s clean chit is far from the truth.

In the report on the 1984 riots, Nanavati had expressed his  
helplessness. After 20 years, he said, there was no concrete evidence  
to pursue, nothing to bring the killers to book. I hope he does not  
take the same line on the post-Godhra killings and expresses his  
helplessness once again. The 1984 killings were two decades old when  
Justice Nanavati was asked to probe. The killings in Gujarat are only  
six years old. The nation expects him to do a better job.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

______


[5] India:

The Hindu
Oct 04, 2008

Editorial

STOP THE VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS

The continuing large-scale violence targeting Christians in Orissa’s  
Kandhamal district is indicative of a constitutional breakdown in the  
area. More than a month after organised violence broke out in the  
wake of the August 23 murder of an anti-conversion Hindutva activist,  
Swami Lakshmanananda, by suspected Maoist elements, the district  
continues to be out of bounds for the secular Constitution and the  
rule of law. Numerous atrocities have been committed — inc luding  
murder, rape, arson, assaults on Christians, their churches, and  
service institutions, the intimidation of Dalits to make them give up  
the Christian faith, and the conversion of large numbers of people  
into refugees. This reign of terror, which has been reported in depth  
and with fresh detail in the columns of The Hindu, calls for the  
strongest action by the State government. Chief Minister Naveen  
Patnaik professes modernity and secularism but his Biju Janata Dal is  
locked in a political alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. In  
consequence, the coalition’s response to the crisis has been worse  
than inept. If it is to regain credibility, the State government must  
act urgently to stop the semi-fascist attacks carried out by  
extremist saffron organisations. It must protect the people and  
places targeted, restore public order in Kandhamal district, ensure  
the safe return of the internally displaced, and enforce the rule of  
law. At another level, the situation calls for effective intervention  
by the Central government. Up to this point, it has done precious  
little to stop the mischief, with its Article 355 advisories failing  
to have any effect on the ground. As many as 77 companies of Central  
paramilitary forces are available to the State government but it has  
avoided their effective deployment to act against the thugs and  
protect their target. Now, after enormous damage has been done, the  
Central Cabinet has bestirred itself over the “very grave situation”  
and Home Minister Shivraj Patil has issued a stern warning to the  
Patnaik government.

What is evident from the published accounts of the victims, clerical  
and lay, is that in several instances the police have watched the  
atrocities in silence. They have refused to register cases — even  
when the crime was murder — on the basis of complaints made by the  
affected families. Such extreme indifference suggests complicity of a  
dangerous political kind. So bad was the situation that the Orissa  
High Court had to direct the Superintendent of Police of Kandhamal to  
take stringent action against policemen found sympathising with the  
rioters. The rape of a 28-year-old nun and the brutal assault of a  
priest on August 25 at K. Nuagaon took place in front of a police  
outpost. It was only after the media began to focus on this shocking  
case that it was handed over to the State police’s Crime Branch, four  
persons were arrested, and the inspector in charge of the Baliguda  
police station was placed under suspension. Unfortunately, under the  
circumstances, there will be little confidence that any arm of the  
State police can uphold the law, free from political interference. In  
the interest of an objective and speedy investigation, pressure must  
be brought on the State government to hand over the case to the  
Central Bureau of Investigation; if this fails, the higher judiciary  
can be approached through a petition seeking the transfer of the  
case, by court order, to the CBI. Equally important, tough  
disciplinary action must be taken against senior police officers  
guilty of dereliction of duty. This will send out a salutary signal  
and help turn the situation around.

______


[6] India:

Business Standard

THE NATION STATE'S SEXUAL INADEQUACIES

by Sadanand Menon / New Delhi October 03, 2008, 0:38 IST

Shyam Benegal is not my favourite filmmaker. I find his insipid,  
timorous treatment of gratuitous political themes, very compromised.  
His flirtation with issues of feudal oppression, gender conflicts,  
class struggles and rural resistance have been elaborate cover-ups  
against any serious show of commitment or any radical departure.

In his latest film, Welcome to Sajjanpur, however, Benegal has chosen  
to move out of his customary tokenism. One of its telling moments is  
the suggestion of a sexual/political revolution through the agency of  
a new party of hijras (transgenders), which trounces the routinely  
corrupt and violent ‘normal’ parties — with their rousing election  
song, Ab aayi hamaari baari (“It’s our turn now”). It might not be  
such a bad idea, after all, to explore this political alternative.

The timing is impeccable, considering the subtext of the film is  
framed by the utter confusion being exhibited by the Union Law and  
Home Ministries on the one hand and the Union Health Ministry on the  
other, in the case in the Delhi High Court over the anachronistic  
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which violates the rights  
of transgenders and homosexuals and punishes “carnal intercourse  
against the order of nature” with imprisonment of up to ten years.  
Home Minister Shivraj Patil, in particular, has found time in between  
combing his whiskers to make homophobic remarks, too illiterate and  
Jurassic for comfort.

The Public Interest Litigation in the Delhi Court was brought by an  
NGO, the Naz Foundation, in 2001, arguing that Section 377 violated  
the constitutional rights of sexual minorities in India and  
interfered with the provision of HIV/AIDS prevention services. It  
asked for a reading down of 377, to de-criminalise consensual sex  
between adults of the same sex.

In 2005, the High Court dismissed the petition on a flimsy  
technicality. The Lawyer’s Collective, representing Naz Foundation,  
filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the  
dismissal. In February 2006, the SC ordered the High Court to hear  
the case on merits and it is here that the government has exhibited  
comical reticence to rectify a 150-year-old colonial law, routinely  
employed to harass those with alternate sexual orientation.

Even the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) has impleaded  
itself in the case with a progressive affidavit claiming that the law  
contributes to pushing gays into hidden spaces, thereby rendering the  
sensitive issue of monitoring and treatment of some 8 per cent  
prevalence of AIDS in that community all the more difficult.

Section 377 is also used extensively to subject hijras to brutal  
violence, sexual abuse and extortion at the hands of the public as  
well as the police, even as it denies same-sex partners legal  
protection or recognition within the law.

It is not just Health Minister A Ramadoss who has now openly placed  
his weight on the side of revising the obnoxious law. In recent  
years, even official bodies like the Law Commission, the Planning  
Commission and the National Commission for Women have advocated the  
deletion of the Section.

Of course, the task is still uphill. There is a prevalent  
patriarchal, homophobic mindset of the State that has to be dealt  
with. Readers might have forgotten, but in 1987, there was a  
disgusting manifestation of this affecting a film made by the  
charismatic Malayalam director, Aravindan.

Dancer/Choreographer Chandralekha was commissioned to conceptualise  
Stree, a massive exhibition on Indian women, for the Festival of  
India in the USSR. She devised it around five exceptional concepts of  
women. It concluded with a futuristic statement on gender parity,  
referring to the older concept of ‘Ardhanarishwara’. She wanted to  
illustrate this through film on Indian dance vocabularies where male  
dancers perform female roles and, in the process, transform or ‘become’.

Some of the great names of the Indian dance pantheon like Kelucharan  
Mahapatra and Vedantam Satyanarayana Sarma, were lined up. Based on  
Chandralekha’s script, Aravindan made a flowing 30 minutes film  
called Sahaja, with Shaji Karun and Sunny Joseph on the camera.

After clearance from ministers-in-charge P V Narasimha Rao and  
Margaret Alva, when the film was mounted in Moscow, ambassador T N  
Kaul flew into a white rage and famously went on record saying, “Hum  
in hijron ko yahaan nahin dikhayenge. Hum hijre nahin hain; hum poore  
mard hain (We will not allow these eunuchs to be shown here. We are  
not eunuchs; we are 100 per cent males).”

To which Chandralekha’s equally famous rejoinder in the press was,  
“Mr Kaul must be an oddity. The rest of humanity is either 51 per  
cent male or female. Some may be 50 percent. Only he’s the unique 100  
per cent.”

Sahaja was stopped and substituted with a hagiographic film on Indira  
Gandhi — in the exhibition section titled ‘Ardhanarishwara’.  
Ironically, Aravindan went on to enter the film at the next National  
Film Festival, in Hyderabad, and won the award for the ‘Best Short  
Film’ category.

But in the government, the ‘hijra’ mindset still prevails.

______


[7] USA - Bangladeshi Disapora:


New York Times
October 4, 2008

HINDU-MUSLIM FAMILY'S CHOICE OF CREMATION AROUSES ANGER

by Anne Barnard

Friends and family remember Shafayet Reja as an affectionate young  
man who stayed up late to write poetry, danced exuberantly at  
weddings and explored the faiths of his father and mother with an  
openheartedness that led him to declare on his Facebook page, "I  
never get tired of learning the new things that life has to offer."

But within hours of his death on Sept. 10 after a car accident, his  
memory — in fact, his very body — had become the object of a tug-of- 
war over religious freedom and obligation. It began when his mother,  
who was raised Hindu, and his father, who is Muslim, decided to have  
his body cremated in the Hindu tradition, rather than burying him in  
a shroud, as Islam prescribes.

His parents, Mina and Farhad Reja, say a small group of Muslims who  
do not understand their approach to religion are trying to intimidate  
them over the most private of family choices. "This is America," Mrs.  
Reja said. "This is a family decision."

The couple say that people accosted them at their son's funeral, that  
an angry crowd threatened to boycott a shopping center they own in  
Jackson Heights, Queens, and that on Sept. 13, two men they know  
threatened to bomb and burn down the building.

The men they accused in a complaint filed with the police — one is a  
doctor and the father of a close friend of Shafayet Reja, the other a  
Bangladeshi business leader — say that they made no threats and deny  
that they have called for a boycott. They say they and others simply  
expressed their concern about what they see as a deep violation of  
their religion and of the wishes of the son, who, according to some  
of his college friends, had recently chosen Islam as his sole religion.

The Police Department's hate crimes unit is investigating whether the  
threats took place, whether they would constitute aggravated  
harassment, and whether they qualify as bias crimes, which carry  
tougher penalties, a spokesman for the department said. No charges  
have been filed.

What is not in doubt is that the episode is a source of  
consternation, from the Queens neighborhoods where Mr. Reja's parents  
live and work to their native Bangladesh, one of the world's most  
populous Muslim countries, where it has been national news.

The dispute has especially swept up several bustling blocks in  
Jackson Heights, where dozens of businesses are Bengali. It had  
business owners on edge during the busy shopping season before this  
week's Id al-Fitr festival. The festival marks the end of the Muslim  
holy month of Ramadan and brings throngs of shoppers to dine and to  
buy jewelry and sparkling traditional dresses.

The neighborhood is a place where business rivalries and family  
arguments often intersect with disputes over Bangladesh politics,  
especially in the case of Mrs. Reja, a prominent property owner and  
outspoken advocate of the rights of Bangladesh's religious  
minorities. Her 1999 self-published book, "God on Trial," angered  
some Muslims in the neighborhood with its critique of Islamic  
fundamentalism.

The cremation dispute goes to the heart of a debate among Muslims in  
America about what makes someone a Muslim — to some of the critics,  
the fact that Shafayet Reja listed Islam as his religion on Facebook  
is enough — and how to reconcile this country's freedom of religion  
with what some Muslims see as a communal obligation to uphold  
religious observance.

But to the family, the dispute is a frightening imposition that they  
say violates their civil rights.

"We have freedom of religion, and we have the Constitution," said the  
Rejas' son Mishal, 19, who studies at Washington University in St.  
Louis. "Why would they bother us? It's none of their business. Even  
if he was the most hard-core Muslim."

To some Muslims, the fact that Shafayet Reja prayed and attended  
mosques trumps his family's wishes.

"It was the community's business because the community knew he was a  
Muslim," said Junnun Choudhury, secretary of the Jamaica Muslim  
Center, one of several mosques around the city whose worshipers came  
to the funeral to plead with the family. "It is our job to bury him  
in the Muslim way."

Neither he nor any other mosque leader has been accused of making  
threats, and there have been no further protests.

Abu Zafar Mahmood, an adviser to the Jackson Heights Bangladeshi  
Business Association, said he was disturbed by the cremation but was  
urging people not to confront Mrs. Reja. "It would be harmful," he  
said. "We have a multicultural community."

Mrs. Reja said she brought up her children by attending both Hindu  
temples and Muslim mosques. "Humanism is what I taught my children,"  
she said. "I want to see my son as a perfect human being, and not as  
a perfect religious person."

Whether or not her son was beginning to move closer to Islam is  
another thread in the tangle of hurt feelings and disagreements.

Shafayet Reja, 22, graduated from the State University of New York at  
Stony Brook in 2007. He was living with his parents in Richmond Hill,  
studying to be a licensed insurance broker.

He was also spending a lot of time at the Long Island home of Dr.  
Khondeker Masud Rahman — who was eventually accused of threatening  
his parents — and Dr. Rahman's daughter, Farah, a friend from Stony  
Brook.

Farah Rahman said that he had begun praying more often and talking to  
Dr. Rahman about Islam, and that he had quarreled with his mother,  
saying she blamed the religion unfairly for the mistakes of some of  
its followers. He had even, she said in an interview, mentioned that  
he wanted a Muslim burial. His family members and childhood friends  
say he would have wanted his mother to choose.

On Sept. 2, Shafayet Reja broke the daily Ramadan fast with friends  
at Stony Brook's Muslim Students Association. Afterward, Farah Rahman  
was in the car behind his when he lost control on a wet road. He was  
hospitalized, and died on Sept. 10 without regaining consciousness.

When word spread that the family would hold both Muslim and Hindu  
rites for their son and then have him cremated, the Rahmans and  
others were upset. Father and daughter both asked the family to give  
him a Muslim burial. They said the conversations were polite; the  
Rejas said they were hostile.

Several dozen people, including the imams of the Jamaica Muslim  
Center and other mosques, came to the funeral home in Richmond Hill  
on Sept. 12, to attend the Muslim rite and express objections to the  
cremation. The Rejas say people crowded around them to press their  
case as they wept beside their son's body. "I was having my last  
moment with my son," Mrs. Reja said. "What gave them the guts to do  
that?"

The funeral staff called the police in part because the Rejas feared  
the crowd would try to block the hearse going to the crematorium.  
Mishal Reja stood in the door of the funeral home, asked the group to  
leave the family in peace, and promised he would try to get the  
cremation canceled — just to get them to leave, he said. The crowd  
dispersed peacefully.

Later that day, Dr. Rahman, an anesthesiologist at Elmhurst Hospital  
Center in Jackson Heights, spoke to a group of people breaking the  
daily Ramadan fast at a restaurant across the street from the  
family's Bangladesh Plaza mall.

According to the Rejas, and a report in a local Bengali-language  
newspaper, he called for a boycott of the mall and for shop owners  
there to stop paying rent, though he denied that in an interview.

Afterward, some of the people from the restaurant gathered outside  
the mall, waving their sandals in an insulting gesture and  
threatening to boycott the mall, according to two men who run shops  
there, who did not want to be quoted by name for fear of damaging  
business relationships. One said that at least one person in the  
crowd threatened to burn the building.

In the crowd, according to the merchants, was the secretary of the  
Jackson Heights Bangladeshi Business Association, Zakaria Masud. Mr.  
Masud, too, denied calling for a boycott, but said that protesting  
the cremation was "a social obligation and a religious obligation."

The next day, Mina Reja held a press conference at the mall, at which  
she denounced the critics and asked for privacy.

Afterward, according to complaints the Rejas made to the police, Dr.  
Rahman told Mishal Reja, "We will bomb your building," and Giash  
Ahmed, a real estate broker and former Republican candidate for state  
senator, told Farhad Reja it would be burned.

Dr. Rahman and Mr. Ahmed said in interviews that they never  
threatened anyone and were not even at the mall that day. Mr. Ahmed  
said Mrs. Reja's decision was her business.

Dr. Rahman said expressions of anger at Mrs. Reja should wait: "She  
should have a time of healing." He accused her of orchestrating the  
scandal and fabricating the threat.

Meanwhile, under the neon signs and rainbow lights of Bangladesh  
Plaza, shopkeepers worry that a boycott even by part of the community  
will hurt their holiday business.

"Why should they involve people who are not involved? How will we  
survive?" one of the shop owners said. Another said of the cremation:  
"It's a family matter. The parents, they decide."

Toby Lyles contributed research.


______


[8] Announcements:


Join us for the opening of "The Road to Happiness" featuring the work  
of Hawra Harianawalla
Launch Date: 5th Oct 2008  |  Time: 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Hawra, a Peshawar native, trained at NCA Lahore, and started her  
career in Toronto. This body of work is a collection of mindscapes  
that recount her tumultuous adjustment to Karachi, where she now  
makes her home.

Surrealist in style, Hawra's work is the result of an expedition into  
the subconscious mind - and the awe, enigma and infuriation that  
follow - emotions that the artist so enjoys. This progression is  
continual. Hawra's canvases develop in layers - each one helps her  
discover something new about herself, each canvas holds a clue to the  
next one …

Date: Sunday, 5th October 2008

Time: 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Venue: The Second Floor (T2F)
6-C, Prime Point Building, Phase 7, Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA, Karachi
538-9273 | 0300-823-0276 | info at t2f.biz
Map: http://www.t2f.biz/location

__


As part of its 20th year anniversary, SAHMAT presents the second  
event in its series

Reflections on Culture: of Resonance and Resistance

Sufi Music....Travelling Margins
Madan Gopal Singh

Madan Gopal Singh will perform and speak on the history, language,  
and musical traditions which shaped Sufi poetry in its 800 year  
journey across India. The songs of Amir Khusro, Bulle Shah, Baba  
Farid, Sultan Bahu, Shah Abdul Latif, Sachal Sarmast and so many  
others which live in the hearts of millions will be discussed in  
their cultural and historical context. Sahmat had presented the  
landmark Anhad Garje Sufi-Bhakti performance in 1993 in the immediate  
aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. Madan Gopal was a key  
conceiver of that incredible gathering of poetry and musicians from  
across India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Please Join Us
In Defence of Our Secular Tradition


11th October,
Saturday, 6pm
Speaker’s Hall, VP House,
Rafi Marg, New Delhi

__


(iii)

Asia Society India Centre invite you to

Sustainable Communications Technology in India's villages
A presentation by Lee Thorn, Chairman, Jhai Foundation

followed by a conversation with

Vickram Crishna, Founder, Radiophony

on

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Registration will commence at 5:30pm

in

The American Center Auditorium, 4 New Marine Lines, Churchgate, Mumbai

(opposite Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work)

RSVP: programs at asiasociety.org.in / +91-22-6615-4103

What are the elements of a sustainable Information Communications  
Technology for Development (ICT4D) solution for India's schools,  
clinics and community centres? Lee Thorn believes that nurturing  
participatory development practices are critical for the eventual  
success of innovative and flexible software solutions in a low power,  
low cost and low bandwidth context.

Lee Thorn is Chairman, Jhai Foundation, and a Stockholm award winner.  
Thorn has worked as a strategist in three movements (war veterans  
working for peace, disabled people working for rights and livelihood,  
and rural poor people using ICT to better their health and  
education). He co-founded Jhai Foundation a 10-year old, sustainable  
ICT4D NGO with offices in Vientiane, Lao PDR, and San Francisco, USA.

Vickram Crishna co-founded Radiophony with Arun Mehta, after more  
than three decades in business, the media and technology development.  
Radiophony developed eLocutor, a software solution for persons with  
near total motor disability, and helped set up India's first village- 
run radio station.

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

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.





More information about the SACW mailing list