SACW | Jan 23-25, 2009 / Sri Lanka, Israel, India, Pakistan: The Cost of War

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | January 23-25, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2600 -  
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net

[1] Sri Lanka: Telling the truth about war (Savitri Hensman)
[2] Israel / Palestine / India: What about “Never again”? (Priyamvada  
Gopal)
[3] Pakistan - India: Peace activists initiatives
   a) Month Long Joint Signature Campaign by Citizens of India and  
Pakistan Against Terrorism, War Posturing : reports
   b) Pakistani Citizens Peace Caravan in Delhi: Media Reports
[4] India: India-Pakistan: Cost of war (Farrukh Saleem)
[5] US - India: India's Stealth Lobbying Against Holbrooke's Brief
[6] India's Milesovic and the BJP leadership crisis (Praful Bidwai)
[7] 10 Questions for Vinay Lal  - Indian community in the U.S. and  
geopolitical events in South Asia (Ajay Singh)
[8] India- Karnataka: Messenger Shot, Bajrang Style (Sanjana)

_____


[1] Sri Lanka:

The Guardian,
19 January 2009

TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT WAR

Ethnic nationalism has a quasi-religious appeal, and in times of  
conflict the state may be treated as a god

by Savitri Hensman

     Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed,  
sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed,  
threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those  
categories and now especially the last.

So wrote Lasantha Wickramatunga, in a chillingly powerful editorial  
published after his death. The editor of the Sunday Leader, a  
vigorous critic of the Sri Lankan government, was gunned down in  
broad daylight in the capital, Colombo, on 8 January.

At times of war, journalists can come under enormous pressure not to  
report inconvenient truths. This comes in part from governments  
intent on appearing in a favourable light. For example, the Sri  
Lankan authorities have been keen to publicise the successes of their  
military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who  
have been battling for a separate state. They have been less willing  
for the cost of the conflict, and the plight of ordinary Tamils, to  
be exposed. Neither side has given priority to the safety and welfare  
of civilians, or seriously sought a political solution based on  
strengthening equality and regional democracy.

This is far removed from the image portrayed by state propaganda of  
heroic and victorious soldiers under a wise and virtuous government.  
The Israeli government, likewise, has been putting much effort into  
its media strategy, with considerable success, though a few  
journalists such as Uri Avnery continue to portray a different  
picture even within Israel. He has been harassed and physically  
attacked for his views.

But it is not only governments which press journalists to distort  
their coverage. Ethnic nationalism has a quasi-religious appeal to  
much of the public, and in times of conflict the state may be treated  
as a god, with government leaders its high priests. Critics are  
widely regarded as traitors, and treated as if they were blasphemers.

"Traitors like you, like your boss, play into the hands of  
terrorists," reads one response to a news report about an opposition  
MP who had dared to question the conduct of the war. According to an  
article published on LankaWeb in early January, "When the whole world  
has engaged in the 'war on terror', Sri Lankan brave armed forces  
have claimed the first great victory for the records [sic]. Within  
few weeks or couple of months Sri Lanka shall be cleaned from the  
menace of terrorism as the terrorists will be eliminated and the  
start of eliminating of other political traitors shall begin. Thank  
you Mr President Mahinda Rajapaksha, secretary of defence, commanders  
of the armed forces, police, all other security forces, institutions  
and all servicemen and women! May you all be protected and guided by  
the noble triple gem and all good guardian deities!"

Though God or the Buddha may be invoked by such "patriots", these  
would seem to serve as little more than mascots: it is the nation  
which must be worshipped and its leaders (or those who claim to  
defend its interests) obeyed. In the course of this, the usual  
ethical rules can be ignored.

Such an approach not only fuels violence but is also profoundly  
morally corrupting, undermining what is best in society, and  
undermining apparent victory.

As Uri Avnery warned, "War – every war – is the realm of lies ... The  
trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist  
himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and  
falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions."

"The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself  
sans mascara and styling gel," wrote Lasantha Wickramatunga.

     From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its  
management by the people you elected to give your children a better  
future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant  
one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the  
journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great  
risk to themselves.

     I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom  
but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts.  
Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in  
a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it  
will open the eyes of your president to the fact that however many  
are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will  
endure and flourish.

Painful truths must be faced if people are to be free to thrive.

____


[2] Israel / Palestine / India:

Magazine / The Hindu
January 25, 2009

Faultline Between Borders

WHAT ABOUT “NEVER AGAIN”?

by Priyamvada Gopal

Israel’s ‘security’ agenda has seen the country come close to a  
tragic re-enactment of the policies of ethnic hatred and  
extermination that accounted for the suffering of its own people.

Several anguished Israeli voices have spoken up against the carnage  
being undertaken in their name.

Photo: AP

Douse the fire: Will the ceasefire hold?

Some years back, a good-natured piece on SatireWire announced the  
birth of a new race, a Hindu-Jewish attempt to form ‘a super-religion  
to fight off the common Islamic enemy.’ Alas for the Hinjews, ‘no  
matter how many times they are reincarnated, can never please their  
mothers’!

Humour can can cut to the truth and, indeed, the ‘textbook alliance’  
parodied here is one that has been advocated perfectly seriously and  
on precisely such questionable ideological terms. SatireWire’s  
pastiche of a cow wearing a yarmulke was scarcely more surreal than  
that picture of Ariel Sharon, general-turned-politician held to  
account by an Israeli commission for two infamous massacres, laying  
flowers on Gandhi’s samadhi. In 1992, an apparently ‘pragmatic’  
security agenda prompted BJP-ruled India to restore full diplomatic  
relations with Israel (accompanied by vast arms purchases) after  
nearly 50 years of a principled stand against Israel’s expansionist  
occupation of Palestinian territories. We now hear distinctly  
spurious talk of special ‘cultural affinities’ between Judaism and  
Hinduism. Surely Judaism can hardly have less affinity with Islam, a  
religion with which it shares Semitic origins and languages,  
scriptural insights, prophets, dietary taboos and ritual practices?

Leaders like Gandhi and Nehru recognized Israel but also believed  
that an India emerging from under the colonial yoke could scarcely  
endorse the forced occupation of other lands and the exodus of  
thousands of its inhabitants to make way for European settlers. The  
1948 formation of Israel on the British Mandate of Palestine was  
itself brokered by an Empire which had developed a habit of offering  
other people’s lands, including parts of East Africa, for the  
establishment of a Jewish homeland (which would conveniently excise  
Europe of her centuries-old Jewish presence).

To understand Palestinian sentiments, it is worth imagining what  
might have happened had India, also a British imperial possession,  
been offered to and accepted by Zionist leaders. What might our  
feelings be, not only if North India had been handed over for  
establishing the nation of Israel, but also, if after those borders  
had been drawn, the new entity proceeded, say, to take over parts of  
Gujarat and Bengal, as Israel did with the Golan Heights, Gaza and  
the West Bank in 1967? Would we, who still nurse the terrible wounds  
of our own Partition, be sanguine in the face of the loss of homes,  
livelihoods, farms, and orchards as we wandered for lifetimes as  
exiles in neighbouring countries or raised entire generations in  
refugee camps?

Rethink endorsements

To ask this is not for one moment to forget the terrors inflicted on  
the Jews of Europe, the horrific suffering that necessitated their  
own flight, their incalculable loss of homes and families. But having  
looked on as Israel pulverised Gaza into near nothingness, also  
killing hundreds of young children, we as a nation must rethink our  
now uncritical endorsement of Israel’s ‘security’ agenda. In the  
hands of an unscrupulous leadership, Israel has come close to a  
tragic re-enactment of the very policies of ethnic hatred and  
extermination that underlay the suffering of its own people. Even  
steadfastly neutral organisations like the Red Cross have now  
criticised Israel’s wilful violations of international law in the  
bloody collective punishment inflicted on civilians and aid  
organisations. By tacitly sanctioning a vengeance described by one  
appalled Israeli commentator as ‘an eye for an eyelash’, we are  
supporting an ethno-religious nationalism which, far from having  
‘affinities’ with India, has nothing in common with our own proudly  
plural foundations. Israel is a state which officially elevates a  
single religion; India is not and we should resist every force that  
bends us in that direction, not least because we have seen the  
effects of that narrowness at our doorstep.

The unpalatable truth is that our new-found national friendship with  
Israel has not been based on solidarity with the historical suffering  
of Jews or on a real dialogue with Israeli people. We have come to it  
via the seductive allure of ‘War on Terror’ discourse which lumps all  
resistance to the practices of the U.S. and its Israeli satellite  
state (a status India should not covet) under the undifferentiated  
category of ‘terrorism’. While Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israeli  
civilian areas are reprehensible, their impact is fairly contained  
and is certainly not comparable to the indiscriminate brutalities of,  
say, al-Qaeda.

Where al-Qaeda’s leadership appropriates and perverts the rhetoric of  
liberation, Hamas’ credibility among Palestinians derives from its  
participation in a very real struggle against occupation in the face  
of near international isolation. Troubling though its Islamism might  
be, that too has to be understood in the context of an occupation  
that has been conducted in insistently ethnocratic terms touting the  
supremacy of the Jewish state.

This exemplifies the self-fulfilling prophecies of civilisational  
clash at the heart of the U.S.’s highly selective counter-terrorist  
rhetoric which not only fosters such damaging Islamism but guarantees  
that this narrow ideology finds support among ordinary people who  
otherwise have little to gain from it. At the end of the day,  
Palestine is not a Muslim issue — though often deemed so by both  
supporters and detractors — but a simple question of the right of a  
people to freedom from occupation.

While both countries are undermined by hawkish nationalists and  
religious zealots, Israel and India fortunately share powerful and  
humane dissident traditions. Several anguished Israeli voices have  
spoken up against the carnage being undertaken in their name. Like  
Hindus who refuse to concede Hinduism to the travesties of Hindutva,  
these Jews point out how Talmudic tenets of ‘truth, justice and  
peace’ have been debased by Israel’s leadership. Given their vastly  
lucrative trade ties, it is morally incumbent on India to use its  
leverage to bring Israel back from the war of extermination it is  
waging. The great number of decent people in both nations — and in  
ravaged Palestine — must now make common cause against hatred and  
violence. It is time to reaffirm and extend to all peoples, the  
world’s powerful post-Holocaust vow. ‘Never Again’ must not die,  
dishonoured, in Gaza.

The writer teaches in the Faculty of English at the University of  
Cambridge.

_____


[3]  PAKISTAN - INDIA:

[Kudos to Peace activists for two recent efforts. First a (month  
long) joint Pakistan and India signature campaign aimed at a direct  
citizen involvement at a popular level launched on 9 January 2009 ;  
followed by second effort which took the form of a 3 day 'Peace  
Caravan' from Pakistan to India. see reports below]

A)   JOINT SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN BY CITIZENS OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN  
AGAINST TERROR AND WAR
          http://www.indopakcampaignagainstwarnterror.org

Joint Signature Campaign by Citizens of India and Pakistan against  
terrorism, war posturing and to promote cooperation and peace between  
India and Pakistan was launched on 9th January 2009 simultaneously  
from 22 cities in India and 17 cities in Pakistan.

Public Meetings and signatures on large banners are being organised  
on 22nd January 2009 in over 50 cities and towns of India and 20  
cities and towns of Pakistan as part of the ongoing Joint Signature  
Campaign and in solidarity with a delegation of 20 peace activists  
from Pakistan that is visiting Delhi from 21-24 January 2009 to  
promote peace and goodwill between the two countries. The Joint  
Signature Campaign will conclude on 8th February 2009.

Large number of news papers in India and Pakistan and media in  
different countries like US, UK, Mexico, Middle East, Ghana,  
Thailand, South Korea, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Nepal and others  
covered the Launch.

Sign the Petition online at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/indopak/ 
petition.html

More info from indopak.jointcampaign at gmail.com

o o o

[SELECTED MEDIA REPORTS ON JOINT SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN]

http://www.sacw.net/article476.html

The News International
January 18, 2009

[Karachi] City Council to also join in

By our correspondent

Karachi

War is not the solution of any problem and for durable peace one has  
to ultimately sit on the negotiating table, City Naib Nazim, Nasreen  
Jalil, said on Saturday.

She said that Pakistan was against terrorism in any form and  
Pakistani and Indian leaders should do their best to restore peace in  
the region. She said the members of the City Council Karachi were  
also ready to play their role in this regard.

She made these observations while talking to a delegation led by  
Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) director  
Karamat Ali who called on her on Saturday.

PILER members Sharafat Ali and Zulfiqar Shah were also present. The  
PILER delegation apprised the Naib city Nazim about the signature  
campaign their organisation has launched to restore peace in the  
subcontinent. The delegation told her that the signature campaign  
commenced on January 9 simultaneously in different cities of Pakistan  
and India and would continue till February 8. They said that the aim  
of the signature campaign was to combat terrorism and discourage war  
and encourage peace. After the conclusion of the signature campaign,  
the documents would be presented to the prime ministers of Pakistan  
and India. Jalil also signed the document and assured that members of  
the Council would also sign it.

Talking to PILER delegation, Jalil said that Pakistan was facing many  
dangers and therefore it was necessary that all political parties and  
leaders set aside their differences and give priority to the security  
of Pakistan and consolidate stability in the country because at the  
moment Pakistan could not afford internal differences. She said that  
war was not in the interest of either country and all disputes should  
be resolved through negotiations.


o o o

Mail Today
January 10, 2009

Citizens launch campaign against ‘ war’
By Mail Today Bureau in New Delhi

PEACE activists of India and Pakistan gathered at Jantar Mantar in  
New Delhi on Friday to launch a joint signature campaign against the  
26/ 11 terror attack. The signature campaign would continue until  
February 8 across both countries.

The activists demanded that the governments practise zero tolerance  
for religious extremism and terrorism in the interest of both  
nations. The speakers included Swami Agnivesh, chairman of Delhi  
Minorities Commission Kamal Faruqui, noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan,  
Pakistani trade unionist Karamat Ali, Mazhar Hussain, Kamla Bhasin,  
Alka Punj, Mala Bhandari and several other activists.
Welcoming Pakistan’s acceptance of the nationality of Mumbai gunman  
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman aka Qasab, Faruqui said the country needed  
to shed its ostrich- like approach and fight terrorism, which was  
posing a major threat to it.
However, war is no solution, and the coming together of so many  
people of the two countries simultaneously vindicates the fact that  
citizens do not want war, he added.
Child rights activist Swami Agnivesh said the initiative was to  
showcase how many people on both sides wanted the crisis to be  
resolved peacefully — against the war rhetoric that has been building  
up since the Mumbai attack.
Ali said even though theoretical joint mechanisms existed between the  
two countries, implementation mechanisms were yet to be put in place.  
“ The common people on the two sides still have bread and butter  
issues to think of. If the sound of the war drums was real, common  
people like us would also have said the same,” Ali said.
The signature campaign was launched simultaneously in 21 Indian and  
17 Pakistani cities. Besides Delhi, these cities include Mumbai,  
Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata and Chennai in India, and Islamabad,  
Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi in Pakistan.
The citizens joining the campaign demanded setting up of a joint  
action and investigative agency for cooperation on the issue of  
terrorism and strict adherence to the conventions and resolutions of  
the UN and SAARC on terrorism. The campaign will culminate with the  
signatures being submitted to the governments of both countries.

Mail Today
9 January 2009

DESPITE WAR HYSTERIA SOME CAMPAIGNERS HOPE FOR PEACE
By Swati Sharma in New Delhi

THE WAR hysteria on both sides of the subcontinental divide may be  
showing no signs of abatement, but some campaigners are working  
overtime to make the voice of the peace heard above the din. The  
Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy will launch a  
signature campaign on Friday for people who strongly oppose the idea  
of the two nations going to war but are serious about wiping out the  
menace of terrorism from the subcontinent.
And Karamat Ali, who is leading this campaign from Pakistan and is in  
New Delhi to drum up support, says the beginning must be made by  
Islamabad owning up to the fact that the perpetrators of 26/11 were  
from that country.
“There are vested interests in both countries who want the neighbours  
to be at war and don’t want the devil of terrorism to die,” said Ali,  
Pakistan’s leading trade unionist who is married to an Indian  
general’s daughter. “Among the dialogue wars and diplomatic  
offensives, no one has time to hear what common people want. People,  
both Indians and Pakistanis, want peace.”
Ali made a strong plea for a no-war pact between the two countries.  
“India and Pakistan should act as responsible members of SAARC. They  
should stop bickering and help each other in this moment of crisis,”  
he said.
A couple of months ago, Ali’s words would have found support. But  
post-26/11, the scene has changed dramatically. With evidence  
mounting against Pakistan’s role in the terror attack, and Islamabad  
remaining in denial mode, India can’t afford to appear friendly.
Responding to this argument, Ali said, “If the evidence proves the  
militants were from Pakistan, our government should own up to it and  
show its seriousness in the fight against terrorism.”
Ali, a founder-member of the Pakistan Peace Coalition, said  
Pakistanis also wanted that “the perpetrators of this heinous crime  
should be brought to book”. He said Islamabad was presenting a  
negative image of itself by calling these people non-state actors.  
“If we let the hardearned trust die so easily, it would mean victory  
for the jihadis. And we can’t let that happen,” he said.
The Pakistan-India Forum is working overtime to get people in 15  
Indian and 20 Pakistani cities to sign an online petition, available  
at www.petitiononline. com/indopak/petition.ht ml. The petition,  
which urges the two governments to have zero tolerance for religious  
extremism, will be handed over to the presidents of India and  
Pakistan simultaneously on February 8.

o o o o o

B) MEDIA REPORTS ON THE THREE DAY PAKISTANI CITIZENS PEACE CARAVAN TO  
DELHI

Mail Today
January 24, 2009

‘ Renew peace process between India and Pak’
by Neha Tara Mehta in New Delhi

PAKISTANI civil society members concluded their three- day peace  
mission to India on Friday and issued a statement calling for renewal  
of the peace process under the aegis of South Asians for Human Rights.
“ Building peace is far more difficult than going to war,” said Asma  
Jahangir, the chairperson of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission.
Exhorting the Pakistan government to extend all cooperation to India  
in the Mumbai attack investigation, Imtiaz Alam, executive director  
of the South Asian Free Media Association, said: “ Many ears in India  
are receiving our voice as the voice of their own hearts.” The  
delegation, which comprised 24 prominent civil society members from  
Pakistan, arrived in India on January 21, crossing the Wagah border  
on foot.
“ The main purpose of our visit was to tell the Indian establishment  
that the war hype will only strengthen the military and militants in  
Pakistan,” said Dr A. H. Nayyar, research fellow at Islamabad’s  
Sustainable Development Policy Institute.
“ We faced very harsh comments and angry, sometimes brutal, questions  
on our visit.
But we also noticed a readiness to listen to us and to take the  
dialogue process forward, which had been continuing till the day of  
the Mumbai attack,” said Nayyar.
Speaking about the visit of retired Pakistani soldiers to Mumbai as  
part of the India- Pakistan soldiers’ peace initiative in April 2008  
— just months before 26/ 11 attack — Pakistani peace activist Brig  
( retd) Rao Abid said: “ There is an urgent need for retired army  
officers of both countries to renew their contacts and work towards  
the common objective of civility, peace and mutual trust.” He added,  
“ India and Pakistan have to decide whether they wish to live as  
civilised neighbours or continue with their jingoism.”


Daily Times
January 23, 2009

Indian media plays mischief with Pak peace delegation

NEW DELHI: The Press Trust of India (PTI) – the official news agency  
of the Indian government – deliberately concocted a statement and put  
it on the wires, attributing it to a ‘Pakistani Peace Delegation’  
visiting India these days, following a closed door conference between  
peace activists of both countries. “The statement attributed to a  
member of our delegation that the Pakistan Army had close links with  
the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is mischievous, false and out of context,” said  
Imtiaz Alam, secretary general of SAFMA – who is accompanied by Asma  
Jahangir, chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a  
21-member delegation. “The conference was out of bounds for the media  
and PTI made up the story without even talking to any person in the  
delegation,” said Alam. “We condemn this malicious effort by the  
official organ of the Indian state to create misunderstandings and  
undermine the peace mission,” said an angry Jugnu Mohsin, managing  
editor of Friday Times, “we deny the remark completely”. The  
hostility of the Indian media was marked throughout the stay of the  
peace delegation even though Indian peace activists went out of their  
way to show solidarity to their friends from across the border, said  
the delegates. After a meeting with the Indian peace activists, Asma  
called for joint Indo-Pak efforts to counter terrorism. She commended  
the Indian government for acting with restraint, and said Pakistani  
political parties wanted peace with India. IK Gujral, former Indian  
prime minister, said the peace process should not be allowed to  
derail. staff report


Mail Today
January 23, 2009

Pak team in India with peace message
By Neha Tara Mehta in New Delhi

ATTEMPTING to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan in the  
aftermath of 26/ 11, a visiting Pakistani delegation mixed soaring  
rhetoric with a generous dose of Faiz’s poetry at a public meeting  
organised by South Asians for Human Rights.
“ I have been asked whether our visit will make any difference. I am  
confident it will. When I had come to India many years ago, I was  
slapped by an Army captain. Now, I am served biscuits by the Colonel  
at the border. That’s how things have changed,” said Asma Jahangir,  
chair of the Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, at the public  
meeting held in the Constitution Club.
“ We hear from the Indian media that there will be surgical strikes  
in Pakistan if a Mumbai (- like attack) happens again.
Pakistan is being destroyed by the Taliban.
Please tell your government not to become one with the Taliban and  
destroy Pakistan,” said Haji Muhammad Adeel, senator of the Awami  
National Party.
Slain Pakistan People’s Party ( PPP) leader Benazir Bhutto’s aide,  
Choudhry Manzoor Ahmed, said, “ The PPP lost our leader to terrorism.  
How can we support it in any way? We have come here to hear your  
voice. We need people’s forums between the two countries and speak in  
one voice at a time like this.” In the spirit of the occasion,  
Pakistani women’s rights activist Samina Bano Rahman gifted three  
cartons of sweaters knitted by poor Pakistani women for children in  
India to Abha Bhaiya of Jagori Grameen, an NGO. The dominant  
sentiment of the meeting was — it is possible to mend fences, despite  
Mumbai.
“ There’s a globalisation of terror and we need to fight it together.  
Unfortunately, there will be many Mumbais, many suicide bombings.
We need to be forewarned and fore- armed to deal with them,” said  
Said Imtiaz Alam, executive director of the South Asian Free Media  
Association.
“ After 26/ 11, advisories are being issued to Indians not to go to  
Pakistan. We assure you that you will get the same love and respect  
you always got in Pakistan.
We will take the bullets on ourselves, but not let them fall on you,”  
he added.
Former Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral remembered his days in  
Pakistan, where he was born and thanked the Pakistanis for “ coming  
and sharing our grief with us”. Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt made a strong  
pitch for marginalising anti- Pakistan voices in India. “ When we  
don’t feed and clothe our children, are we going to rob morsels from  
our kids and buy bombs and attack our neighbour?”
neha.mehta at mailtoday.in


THE HINDU
	January 23, 2009
http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/23/stories/2009012350110100.htm
http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/23/images/2009012350110101.jpg


The Hindu
23 January 2009

http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/23/stories/2009012360861200.htm

Activists launch India-Pakistan peace offensive

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: As the governments of India and Pakistan split hairs over  
Islamabad’s slackness in taking action against terror groups, it is  
civil society that ends up as the worst casualty. This was the  
refrain at the end of a daylong peace initiative set off in the  
capital on Thursday by people from both sides.

The “Aman Karwan,” meaning a caravan of peace that includes senators,  
civil rights activists and journalists from Pakistan, has reached  
India with a message of fostering peace and forging friendly ties.

“When India threatens us with surgical strikes where should we go and  
complain, who should we threaten? We are as much victims of terror,  
we have Taliban bombers razing schools to the ground, stopping our  
girls from going to school, we have children dying too,” said Haji  
Muhammed Adeel, Senator of the Awami National Party.

He said blaming Pakistan for terror attacks was easy, but the country  
had its own share of terror, which was not indigenous. “We have  
people from Sudan, Chechnya; we have Afghans, Uzbeks and Arabs, there  
maybe Indians and Bangladeshis too.”

Organised by South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) and the South Asian  
Free Media Association (SAFMA), the initiative, spread over two days,  
is aimed at bringing about a thaw in the strained relations between  
the neighbours. Delegates said the recent “upheaval” in bilateral  
relations called for increased involvement of civil society.

Earlier in the day, the Pakistani delegation took part in a closed- 
door, round-table discussion with a cross-section of Indian opinion  
makers including the former Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal; the  
former High Commissioner to Pakistan, G. Parthasarathy; and eminent  
journalist Kuldip Nayyar.
“Stop buying arms”

“If terrorism has no religion, it certainly has no country. If India  
has its share of mercenaries, Pakistan has its own insurgents. We  
need to stop purchasing arms, we need to stress friendly ties,” said  
social activist Swami Agnivesh at the public session.

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt also referred to the need for taking peace- 
building measures away from the confines of the bureaucracy and  
politics into the sphere of arts, culture and journalism.

The former member of the National Assembly and Pakistan People’s  
Party working committee member, Choudhry Manzoor Ahmed, echoed his  
views and said there was need to create pressure groups on both sides  
to ensure an end to the scourge of terrorism.

The former member of the Provincial Assembly and member of the  
Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), Ali Haroon Shah, drew attention to  
the setbacks Pakistan’s development and progress faced because of the  
continued terror attacks. “Pakistan is a victim of suicide bombings,  
children are dying and people are suffering but as long as this  
malaise continues in Pakistan, India too will suffer.”

Making a passing reference to India’s stern messages to Pakistan in  
the wake of the Mumbai attacks, Asma Jehangir, Chairperson of the  
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, cautioned that war was not an  
option to end violence. She recalled the rejection faced by the  
people who spoke of peace between the two nations in the past. “I was  
slapped by a Captain in the army, I was abused for trying to bring a  
change in our relations, but today the same people are optimistic  
that there will be peace in the region.”

The former Prime Minister, I.K. Gujral, appreciated the efforts made  
by the peace activists and said India rejoiced when Pakistan recently  
went to the polls and elected its government.

The 20 delegates from Pakistan earlier met Communist Party of India  
general secretary A.B. Bardhan and apprised him of their mission,  
which, they asserted, was not punctuated by “briefs from anybody.”

The peace activists unequivocally criticised the Mumbai attacks and  
urged Indians to reciprocate their feelings. They pointed out that a  
peace accord between India and Pakistan was a critical means of  
securing peace and stability in South Asia.

o o o

newstrackindia.com

Pakistan peace mission to India emphasizes on unity against terrorism
New Delhi, Fri, 23 Jan 2009 ANI

New Delhi, Jan.23 (ANI): The peace mission from Pakistan led by Asma  
Jahangir, chairperson of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission (PHRC)  
has emphasized on unity against the worldwide menace of terrorism.

Jahangir said both India and Pakistan are facing the same problem of  
terrorism and a war between the countries is not a solution to it.

"You and me both share the same thing; limited or unlimited, war or  
attacks are not the answer. We also agree that we have to live  
together. We are mindful of this fact that we can give you no  
assurances on behalf of our government neither would we want to," She  
said.

All the members of the peace delegation, which arrived here on  
Thursday (January 23), condemned unequivocally and unreservedly, the  
November 26 terrorist attack on Mumbai as the most heinous crime  
against innocent people.

Veteran Congress leader Karan Singh also met the delegates of the  
peace mission here.

He said the people of India want that the perpetrators of 26/11  
Mumbai attack are actually brought to book.

"They haven't done anything terribly dramatic so far except that they  
have arrested apparently quite a large number of people. They have  
banned some organisations but whether they have taken action against  
any specific person, I am not personally aware. One hopes that they  
will because it is only when the perpetrators of that crime are  
actually brought to book, are brought to trial, then there will be  
some feeling in India that justice is being done," Singh said.

The delegates of the mission will stay in India till January 24.

This is the first Peace Mission with political representatives of  
Pakistan visiting India after the November 26 Mumbai attacks last  
year.(ANI)

--

thaindian.com

We seek renewal of the peace process: Pakistani delegation

January 23rd, 2009 - 9:15 pm ICT by IANS

Barack ObamaNew Delhi, Jan 23 (IANS) Three days after they arrived in  
India with the message of peace, a Pakistani delegation led by noted  
human rights activist Asma Jahangir Friday said it’s time civil  
society here too asked questions about the slow progress of the peace  
talks between the two nations.While admitting that the Pakistan  
government has an obligation to play a key role not to derail the  
peace process between the two countries, which took a backseat after  
the 26/11 Mumbai attack, Jugnu Mohsin, journalist and a member of the  
delegation, said that it’s not enough to simply point fingers.

“We understand the Indian people’s emotion after what happened in  
Mumbai. But we have not been unaffected by it as well. It’s the same  
monster terrorizing both the nations. And the solution can be arrived  
at only by cooperation,” he said.

“I, therefore, urge the civil society and each one of you here to ask  
questions about the slow progress of the peace talks. Why is that  
during the eight years of Musharraf regime, and he was supposed to be  
India’s blue-eyed boy, not a single agreement was signed between the  
two countries?” Mohsin said at a press meet in the capital Friday.

While he said the delegation members do not represent the Pakistani  
government, they met various political leaders like Karan Singh,  
chairperson of the foreign affairs department of the Congress party,  
A.B.Bardhan, secretary general of the Communist Party of India,  
Mulayam Singh Yadav, president of the Samajwadi Party, and Foreign  
Secretary Shivshankar Menon.

And although the response from the political quarters here was  
“lukewarm”, the delegation said it is more important to ensure that  
the talks don’t stop.

“What we are calling for here today is a renewal of the peace  
process. War is never a solution because that will impact both the  
nations severely,” Asma Jahangir said.

“All that we can say is that we, as civil society, are going on  
pressurising our government to cooperate for fair investigation into  
the Mumbai attack. We do think that the government should have  
admitted that the lone surviving terrorist captured after 26/11 was a  
Pakistani national,” she added.

To US President Barack Obama’s remarks that Pakistan and Afghanistan  
are the epicentres of terrorism, Imtiaz Alam, another member of the  
delegation, said: “We have every interest in removing terror from our  
country. For this, we call upon cooperation from all the South Asian  
countries”.
--

The News International
January 22, 2009

Peace mission to interact with Indian civil society

By Our Correspondent
LAHORE

A 24-MEMBER delegation of Pakistanis, under the banner of the South  
Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) and the South Asian Free Media  
Association (Safma), crossed the Wagah border in a bid to defuse  
tension between India and Pakistan on Wednesday.

The delegates will interact with the civil society, the media and  
political leaders of India to stress the need for keeping the peace  
process going, fighting terrorism at all levels jointly and avoiding  
war in the best interests of the peoples of the sub-continent. The  
peace mission will explore the possibilities of reciprocation with  
the civil society of India.

According to a press release issued by Safma, the peace mission  
condemned the Mumbai attacks terming them heinous crimes against  
innocent people.

“We share the grief of the families of victims and the people of  
India whose friendship we cherish.

Unfortunately, this outrage has brought India and Pakistan to a  
dangerous crossroads and we hope we will not be diverted from the  
path of peace.

The two countries must not allow the terrorists to hijack the peace  
agenda and they must resume the composite dialogue process, and the  
sooner the better. War or even a state of suspended hostility between  
India and Pakistan will blight the whole region’s future,” the  
statement said.

The statement added India must eschew anger and engage in  
negotiations with Pakistan on the basis of verified facts of the  
Mumbai attacks. Whoever, planned the Mumbai carnage wanted to cause a  
conflict between both the neighbouring countries and prevent the  
Pakistan from securing peace in its north western region. “We  
appreciate the role of the international community in helping to  
defuse tension. It is important that both India and Pakistan accept a  
South Asian cooperative methodology to resolve inter-state disputes.

We must insist on evolving a SAARC mechanism for solving our common  
problems,” the statement said.

The Mumbai attacks should not threaten Indo-Pak relations rather they  
should compel South Asia nations to seek solutions to problems that  
were bound to become more trans-border, the statement said, adding  
that terrorism had engulfed Afghanistan, spread to Pakistan and its  
traces were visible in India too.

Instead of accusing each other of terrorism, the SAARC states must  
get together and discuss it as a common problem to form a strategy to  
fight against it.

To tackle terrorism, the method building high walls on borders and  
blocking communication to make the calamity stay on the other side of  
the border had not worked, the statement said, adding that SAARC  
countries should open up their borders to trade routes and transport  
networks allowing free movement of people, goods and information.

The statement said change in South Asia could not come through war  
and it must come through cooperation at bilateral and regional levels  
and SAARC must evolve regional mechanisms and institutions to  
collectively fight terrorism, cross-border crimes, smuggling,  
narcotics’ trade and evolve a judicial forum to prosecute terrorists  
and criminals.

The people must unite against terrorism and war and persuade their  
governments to forge unity against the common enemy

--
Pakistani peace mission in India BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7845435.stm

Inter Press Service

PAKISTAN/INDIA:  Women Beat Unorthodox Paths to Peace
By Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Jan 24 (IPS) - As high-profile delegations from Pakistan  
visit India after the launch of a month-long cross-border signature  
campaign to press for resumption of dialogue between the two  
countries and call for peace, IPS interviewed three Pakistani women  
who are pushing this agenda in their own unorthodox ways.

Taranum Ilahi, a yoga teacher and Reiki master is asking Reiki  
colleagues and students to "send Reiki to help heal Pakistan and  
bring about peace with India," as she puts it. "I ask them to  
visualise people happy and smiling, with green fields around them,  
stretching out to shake hands across the border with Indians".

Reiki, a spiritual healing practice developed in Japan, 1922, is  
based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flowing through  
people causes us to be alive. Although Reiki is most often  
administered using the palms to transfer healing energy, it can also  
be sent ‘long distance,’ says Ilahi.

She estimates that there are thousands of Reiki masters in Pakistan.  
Although Reiki is most often used as complementary and alternative  
medicine for all kinds of physical and mental ailments, "it can also  
be used to send positive energy to the world at large".

"Every night I send Reiki to Pakistanis, to Indians, and to the  
planet in general," she told IPS. "It’s great that the peace  
delegation is visiting India. We must all do what we can".

Relations between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, have been  
tense since the November 26-29 terror attack in Mumbai which left 180  
people dead.

India’s has blamed the attack on the banned Pakistan-based militant  
group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and demanded that its leaders be brought  
to Indian justice.

The Indian demand and Pakistan’s refusal to comply have been grist  
for the media in both countries to hype up hostility to a point where  
there has been talk of ‘surgical strikes’ on LeT camps by India and  
warnings of retaliation by Pakistan.

Many people cautioned Sheema Kermani, the well-known dancer and  
activist who runs the Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) theatre  
group against going to India to participate in the National School of  
Drama (NSD) festival, the Bharat Rang Mahotsav, earlier this month.

"At times like these it is all the more important to make the effort  
and go there, to show that artists and people like us bring goodwill  
and have the courage to fight these bad feelings," said Kermani.

She took a 17-member group to the festival, making the arduous 18- 
hour train journey to Lahore in near freezing night-time  
temperatures, crossing the Wagah border on foot and then taking a bus  
to New Delhi. Still, "it was a wonderful experience, we got a  
standing ovation, and so many people thanked us for coming".

Tehrik-e-Niswan performed the powerful ‘Jinnay Lahore Nahin  
Vekhiya’ (One who has Not Seen Lahore) on Jan. 11 in New Delhi.  
Written by the Indian playwright Asghar Wajahat, the play was made  
famous by iconic Indian theatre director Habib Tanvir when he first  
directed it in 1989.

The play is based in an old house in Lahore allotted to Muslim  
migrants from India after Independence and Partition in 1947. After  
the actual house-owner, an old Hindu woman, emerges and refuses to  
leave, the initially antagonistic family develops a relationship with  
her. Tension mounts when local goons try to whip up sentiment against  
the woman on the basis of her religion.

Tehrik first staged the play in November 2007 in Pakistan where  
audiences appreciated its relevance in terms of how certain sections  
of society continue to misuse religion for political purposes, giving  
rise to an increasing culture of intolerance.

The NSD had invited noted theatre director and actor Salman Shahid  
from Lahore with two plays, but his group was unable to make the trip  
"due to logistical and organisational problems rather than Indo-Pak  
tensions," NSD director Anuradha Kapoor told journalists.

Another woman-headed group from Lahore, Ajoka Theatre, run by the  
feisty Madeeha Gauhar, filled the gap with "Hotel Mohenjodaro", based  
on a prescient 1967 short story by the gifted Pakistani short story  
writer, the late Ghulam Abbas.

Abbas’ futuristic four-decade old story (written before the U.S.  
astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon) opens with  
a celebration at the fictional Hotel Mohenjodaro as Pakistan becomes  
the first country to send a man to the moon. Mullahs (Muslim priests)  
condemn the astronaut as a heretic and whip up a frenzy that topples  
the government.

They take over power and ban music, art, English, and modern  
inventions, destroy universities, schools and libraries and impose  
gender segregation. When their infighting leads to anarchy, a  
neighboring country invades. Years later, a tour guide points to the  
spot in a desert "where, before the enemy struck, stood the hotel  
Mohenjodaro with its 71 storeys."

Pakistani audiences who saw Ajoka’s adaptation of the story last year  
were struck by its relevance to the current situation, first with the  
Taliban in Afghanistan and now with such elements overrunning  
Pakistan’s northern areas and mirroring what the fictional mullahs of  
Abbas’ short story did in terms of brutalising society.

Reactionary elements here regularly accuse Kermani and Gauhar along  
with other theatre activists, of being ‘anti-national’ and ‘anti- 
religion’. In India too, their groups performed under threat from  
extremist elements there.

Kapoor told journalists that the NSD had received threats for  
including the Pakistani plays in its repertoire. Both groups decided  
to take the risk, performing under tight security "reminiscent of a  
visit by a head of state", as one journalist put it. "...Yet not a  
complaint could be heard" (‘Harmonies of dissonance at Bharat Rang  
Mahotsav’, Anjana Rajan, The Hindu, Jan. 16).

"I told her (Kapoor) that we receive many threats here in Pakistan  
too. We face them, and we are ready to face such threats in India. We  
cannot be deterred by them," said Gauhar.

"Not going would amount to giving in to the pressure by extremists on  
both sides," Kermani told IPS. "When there is a fight in the family,  
you stop talking to each other but then you come back and talk."

"India’s cricket tour of Pakistan may be off, but the presence of the  
two groups affirms that cultural dialogue has survived despite the  
current diplomatic freeze," wrote another reporter (‘Across the  
Border, Dipanita Nath, The Indian Express, Jan. 11).

However, the city government in Lucknow, where the Tehrik play was to  
be performed as part of the festival repertoire, said it could not  
guarantee security to the group. "Local elections are coming up, and  
they were jittery," shrugged Kermani, taking the cancellation in her  
stride. "But the Delhi experience was so wonderful that it’s okay we  
could not go to Lucknow."

In Lahore, another committed woman peace-maker is attempting to do  
her bit to counter hostilities between the South Asian neighbours.

Two days after the Mumbai attacks, Syeda Diep, who heads the  
Institute for Peace and Secular studies  
(www.peaceandsecularstudies.org) was among the 25-30 people who  
gathered in front of the Lahore Press Club to express solidarity with  
Mumbai.

"We held another slightly larger protest a few days later," says  
Diep, "and then a third which was better attended with maybe a  
hundred people."

The group held a meeting on Jan. 2, attended by a cross-section of  
society - teachers, journalists, activists, students and others -  
aimed at launching "a bigger front along the lines of the big anti- 
war groups elsewhere," said Diep. "Yes, they weren’t able to stop  
war, but they did raise a voice and make an impact on society, and  
today Obama is President."

The resulting Aman Tehreek (Peace Movement) describes itself as a  
broad-based citizens' alliance working for the restoration of peace  
and security in our troubled region. Their first event will be a  
peace rally on Jan. 31 in Lahore, Diep told IPS over the phone as she  
headed for an organisational meeting for the rally.

Already an Aman Karwan (Peace Caravan), consisting of leading  
politicians, civil rights activists and journalists from Pakistan, is  
in India shoring up ties between the two countries.

Meeting over Thursday and Friday members of the 20-member delegation  
emphasised that Pakistan was as much a victim of terrorism as India.  
‘’We are seeing the Taliban demolishing schools and preventing our  
girls from going to school. Who do we turn to?’’ said Haji Muhammed  
Adeel, a leader of the Awami National Party.

Asma Jehangir, chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission  
of Pakistan, spoke of the difficulties faced by people trying to  
build peace. ‘’I have been slapped by an army officer and abused for  
trying to bring about peace between the two nations,’’ she told  
Ranjit Devraj, IPS correspondent in New Delhi.

Organised by South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) and the South Asian  
Free Media Association (SAFMA), members of the Peace Caravan hope to  
soothe relations between the neighbours, strained by the Mumbai  
attacks through increased civil society engagement.

"The peace delegations to India are very positive steps," Diep said.  
"But we want people from India to come to Pakistan too, and join us  
to condemn the media for its very negative role in fanning  
hostilities,’’ she said.


_____


[4] Pakistan India:

The News, January 25, 2009

COST OF WAR

by Dr Farrukh Saleem

We are 6.7 billion. Of the 6.7 billion, 1.2 billion are extremely  
poor (at or below $1 a day). Of the 1.2 billion extremely poor  
citizens of the world, some 550 million live in India and Pakistan  
combined. Wow; India and Pakistan are home to half of the world's  
population that lives at or below $1 a day. The single largest chunk  
of extremely poor human beings lives in India --some 500 million.  
Should India and Pakistan be fighting each other or fighting poverty  
together?

Pakistan's newly elected civil administration, on a marathon begging  
expedition, begged Saudi Arabia, urged China and pleaded with the  
Sheikhdoms for a billion dollar donation. We begged, urged and  
pleaded but to no avail. If it wasn't for General David Petraeus, the  
10th Commander of the U.S. Central Command, we couldn't have  
qualified for an IMF handout. On November 24, IMF Executive Board  
approved the release of $3.1 billion. Then came 26/11. Do you know  
the cost of a 100-hour war with India? Answer: Some $3 billion to $5  
billion.

India and Pakistan have been fighting the Siachen War--the highest  
battlefield on the face of the planet--for the past 25 years.  
Pakistan has some 3,000 troops and around 150 manned posts. The War  
has already consumed 1,025 Indian and 1,344 Pakistani lives--and that  
too mostly from frost bites and avalanches (very few casualties from  
enemy fire). Pakistan and India each spend an estimated $200 million  
to $300 million per year on Siachen. How much have India and Pakistan  
spent on the Siachen War so far? Answer: An estimated $10 billion.  
What was Pakistan's budgetary allocation for education? Answer: $300  
million.

Look at all the money gone down the drain during the Kargil War: A  
strike fighter of the Indian Air Force (IAF) takes off from Awantipur  
AFS and returns after dropping its bomb-load. The cost of the return  
trip: $1.1 million. And, there were a total of 350 air-sorties for an  
accumulated expenditure of $416 million. The cost of the army  
operation was estimated at an additional $2 billion.

Imagine; 44 percent of India 's population lives at or below $1 a  
day. What is India's defence expenditure? Answer: $25 billion a year.  
At the same time, 31 percent of Pakistan's population lives at or  
below $1 a day and Pakistan spends a colossal $4 billion every year  
in buying and maintaining killing machines. Should India and Pakistan  
be fighting each other or fighting poverty together? At least 77  
million Pakistanis are food insecure. And, Pak Army buys a roti for  
Rs10 and then spends an additional Rs75 in transporting that roti to  
feed soldiers fighting in Siachen.

Imagine India's annual trade deficit is a mind-boggling $100 billion.  
To be certain, India is heavily dependent on foreign investment in  
order to bridge its trade deficit but General Deepak Kapoor, India's  
23rd Chief of Army Staff, continues to fuel war hysteria. In  
Pakistan, the de jure Chief Justice is campaigning for reinstatement  
while Pakistan insists that the suspects of the Mumbai tragedy will  
be tried in Pakistani courts.

On 13 December 2001, five terrorists managed to enter the Rajya Sabha  
and Lok Sabha and undertook indiscriminate shooting, killing five  
policemen, a security guard and a gardener. India ordered Operation  
Parakram, mobilizing and deploying troops along the international  
border as well as the Line of Control. Pakistan followed suit. Cost  
incurred by India: Rs65 billion (deployment and withdrawal). Cost  
incurred by Pakistan: $1.4 billion (deployment and withdrawal).

How long well India and Pakistan continue to beg, borrow and steal to  
fight each other? Guns or butter? Schools or bullets? Tanks or  
hospitals? Gunpowder or milkpowder?


The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and  
Security Studies (CRSS).

_____


[5]     INDIA - US:

INDIA'S STEALTH LOBBYING AGAINST HOLBROOKE'S BRIEF
Fri, 01/23/2009 - 7:12pm
Foreign Policy
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/23/ 
india_s_stealth_lobbying_against_holbrooke

_____


[6] INDIA:

The News
January 24, 2009

  MODI’S LIES AND THE BJP LEADERSHIP CRISIS

by Praful Bidwai

It’s nauseating that some of India’s topmost businessmen have stooped  
to orchestrating a campaign to make Gujarat’s Narendra Milosevic Modi  
India’s Prime Minister. Barely two months ago, businessmen had made  
Modi their poster-boy at the opening of the Vibrant Gujarat Global  
Investors’ Summit. They included the Ambani brothers, Adi and Jamshyd  
Godrej, and many others.

At the Summit’s conclusion last fortnight, Ratan Tata led corporate  
honchos in lavishing praise upon Modi: “Under Mr Modi’s leadership,  
Gujarat is head and shoulders above any [other] state.” A state  
normally takes 90 to 180 days to clear a new plant but, gushed Tata,  
the Nano car project got its “approval in just two days.’’

One might wonder about the rationality of this speed which isn’t  
enough even to evaluate a project’s fiscal, land-use or environmental  
implications. However, that didn’t prevent Tata from famously hugging  
Modi, or Anil Ambani and Sunil Mittal from declaring him India’s  
future Prime Minister who would run the nation like a corporate CEO.

The sell-Modi campaign has nothing to do with Gujarat’s development  
record, but is explained by three factors. Indian businessmen, faced  
with a domestic and global economic slowdown, feel insecure, and  
crave for order, authoritarianism, protection via blatantly partisan  
bailouts and brazenly pro-business policies of the Modi variety.  
Second, they are lured by the Modi-Tata Nano model of government- 
business collusion. That model means subsidies on a Rs 2,000-crore  
investment totalling Rs 30,000 crores over 20 years, including a Rs  
9,750-crore loan at 0.1% interest, exemption from 15% VAT, stamp-duty  
waiver and subsidised land. The subsidies work out to an astounding  
60% of the car’s promised price of Rs 100,000! This is not  
capitalism, but predatory risk-averse feudal jagirdari. Third, there  
has been a massive degeneration in Indian business culture since  
neoliberal policies were launched in 1991. Pampered businessmen  
exploit their political connections to profiteer and loot the  
exchequer criminally, as Satyam and other recent scams illustrate.

In candid self-reflection, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, president of the  
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, says that  
liberalisation hasn’t produced “a new type” of entrepreneur with  
“good corporate governance and honesty…Actually, the reverse is true…  
increased opportunities and … political influence … on the creation  
of wealth [have] created more greed and far too many corporates [who  
cheat]. This is the ugly side of liberalisation”, attributable to  
weak enforcement of “deliberately ambiguous” regulation. India’s  
greedy, profit-obsessed Big Business is now whitewashing the butchery  
of 2000 Muslims over which Modi presided in 2002 and is sanctifying  
his communal authoritarianism and contempt for the rule of law.

What of Modi’s claims about Gujarat’s stellar development? Gujarat  
attracts investment not because of its dynamic policies but a  
historical accident--business invested there early on and it has a  
fairly developed infrastructure. But now, it lags behind Orissa and  
Andhra in investment.

Contrary to Modi’s claim that 61% of investment promises were  
implemented between 2003 and 2007, Gujarat’s Industries Commissioner  
has revealed that only 21% were so translated. Gujarat’s industries  
aren’t doing well. Diamond workers are committing suicide and their  
children are dropping out of school. In the past year, over 60,000  
small and medium enterprises have shut down. Gujarat has higher per  
capita debt than UP or Bihar. Agrarian distress has driven hundreds  
of farmers to suicide. In social sector spending as a proportion of  
public expenditure, Gujarat ranks a lowly 19 among India’s 21 major  
states.

As its official Human Development Report (2004) points out, “Gujarat  
has reached only 48 percent of the goals set for human development”.  
Its human development ranks have fallen in recent years. Although  
it’s Number 4 among all states in per capita income, it has fallen to  
Number 6 in education, Number 9 in health, and Number 12 in  
participation.

According to the National Family Health Survey, child malnutrition  
incidence in Gujarat is 47%, higher than the national average. Its  
proportion of stunted children under 3 years is 42%. An alarming 80%  
of Gujarati children between 6 and 35 months are anaemic. Gujarat has  
seen a steady decline in learning indicators. Only 59.6% of its rural  
children (Class 3-5) can read Class 1-level text (all-India average,  
66.6). Only 43.1% could do subtraction (national average, 54.9).  
Gujarat similarly lags behind in the percentage of children who can  
recognise numbers, tell the time or do currency tasks. Gujarat is  
frighteningly patriarchal. Its female-male sex-ratio is an abysmal  
487:1000 in the 0-4 age-group and 571 in the 5-9 group (national  
averages, 515 and 632). Gujarat’s health indices are barely higher  
than Orissa’s, HDR co-author Darshini Mahadevia told me.

According to environmentalist Rohit Prajapati and economist Trupti  
Shah, some 5 million livelihoods have been lost in Gujarat owing to  
water-related, mining and industrial projects--a very high 10% of the  
population. Gujarat has India’s highest number of pollution “hot  
spots”. Groundwater is contaminated in 74 out of its 184 tehsils with  
salinity, chlorides, heavy metals, and persistent organic pollutants.  
The industries that have flourished the most in Gujarat are all  
highly hazardous: poisonous chemicals--Vapi is the world’s fourth  
most toxic hub--, textile dyeing, shipbreaking, and diamond  
polishing. In Gujarat, labour rights are virtually nonexistent. On  
minimum wages, it ranks eighth among Indian states.

This, then, is the story of Modi’s “dynamic leadership”. Big  
Business’s clamour to make him the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime  
ministerial nominee badly rattled LK Advani. Modi had to clarify that  
Advani would be the candidate. But the controversy has strengthened  
Modi’s claim to be Advani’s political successor--the undisputed  
Number Two in the BJP.

Modi’s clarification hasn’t fully settled the BJP’s leadership issue.  
Former Vice President of India Bhairon Singh Shekhawat says he wants  
to contest the next Lok Sabha election--in violation of the  
convention that constitutional office-holders shouldn’t return to  
competitive politics. Shekhawat has let it be known that being 5  
years older than Advani, he considers himself his senior.

Even if Shekhawat stands down, the disquiet his move has generated is  
bound to further affect the BJP’s morale. As will the resignation of  
Kalyan Singh, which deprives the party of its pre-eminent OBC leader  
in the Hindi heartland. This is liable to hit BJP in the 11 Lok Sabha  
constituencies of Uttar Pradesh in which Singh’s Lodh caste matters.

The BJP was extremely upbeat politically a year ago, but finds itself  
on the defensive after the Assembly election defeats in Rajasthan and  
Delhi. The National Democratic Alliance, which once boasted of 24  
member-parties, is now down to just 7 members, 3 of them small. The  
BJP’s most important ally, the Janata Dal (United), has distanced  
itself from it on issues of communalism, the Hindutva terror network  
centred on Pragya Singh and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, and the  
new National Investigation Agency Act and the Unlawful Activities  
(Prevention) Amendment Act. The BJP’s crisis of strategy is  
compounded by the fact that the RSS has tightened its grip on its  
organisation just when the party thinks it must give the appearance  
of moderation and inclusiveness, rather than Hindutva extremism. This  
is the right moment for the secular parties to take on the BJP--if  
only they could muster the will and the strategy.

The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and  
human-rights activist based in Delhi. Email: prafulbidwai1 at yahoo.co.in


____


[7] INDIA / US

22 January 2009

10 QUESTIONS FOR VINAY LAL

Going by the title of a witty and insightful book by Vinay Lal,  
associate professor of history, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and U.S.  
Surgeon General-designate Sanjay Gupta are among "The Other Indians,"  
distinct in many ways not just from native Americans but also from  
India's 1 billion people. Lal's book was recently published by the  
UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press and HarperCollins (India).  
Here, he discusses the Indian community in the U.S. and geopolitical  
events in South Asia.

UCLA Today

By Ajay Singh

How do you think Barack Obama's presidency will shape U.S. relations  
with India?

There is a feeling among Indian elites that the Obama presidency may  
not be as much in India's interest as the Bush presidency. Even  
though there are people who are delighted over the prospect that  
Obama would get tougher on Pakistan, they nonetheless fear that any  
escalation in Pakistan and Afghanistan would have repercussions on  
India. Obama's promise to keep more jobs in America has also  
unsettled outsourcing businesses in India.

The Other Indians

What were the recent attacks in Mumbai about?

Mumbai 2008 clearly had geopolitical ramifications. It wasn't just  
about the injustices against Muslims in India, but also about the  
global status of the 'war on terror,' disputes within Islam and the  
ascendency of terrorism movements. Pakistan's drumbeat is that the  
rest of the world is hounding us and we need to put all our options  
on the table. It has said it's willing to engage in conflict, if  
necessary, with India.

India's options?

It can attack terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. But these  
are likely to be have been emptied out by then. Anything India does,  
by the way, is in consultation with the U.S. Thankfully, India does  
not have the prerogative of shock and awe.

But it aspires to become a superpower.

India's a long distance from being a superpower. A very clear sign of  
that is the fact that it must consult the U.S. before launching a  
military strike against Pakistan. There's a lot of talk, some of  
which the rest of the world has accepted, about 'India shining'. But  
it's also in serious distress: 80 percent of its population lives on  
an absolute pittance – roughly a dollar a day.

Is India's superpower potential largely a media myth?

That's part of it, but the desire to become a superpower is also part  
of the aspirations of the middle class. It sees the kind of status  
that people of Indian origin enjoy in the U.S. and Britain, and that  
creates an aspiration to see India on a standing that they think an  
ancient civilization deserves.

China has made a very conscious decision to pursue superpower status.  
Does India know what it wants to be?

There's always been an ambivalence in India. Part of it has to do  
with the legacy of Indian traditions, which, however materialistic,  
have also urged people to think about the fact that the ultimate  
human condition is not about material progress but about the dignity  
of human life and sound human relationships. I think China has had to  
barter its soul to achieve what it wants to achieve. In India, there  
is still some degree of resistance.

Indians in the U.S. are not particularly known for assimilating. Are  
there demerits to this?

I'm not in favor of assimilation, by which I mean not that a group  
should make an effort to stand out and play identity politics, but  
that there should be no moral onus on any ethnic group to assimilate  
with the dominant mainstream.

How do the 'other Indians' you write about differ from their  
subcontinental brethren?

For one thing, you find larger support for Hindu nationalism in the  
U.S. than you do in India. In contrast, one of the most phenomenal  
stories of Indian politics is the rise of the lower classes through  
very unlikely electoral alliances between upper-caste and lower-caste  
parties. The majority of Indians in India are politically active.  
Among Indians here, there is relatively little political involvement.  
Maybe the Obama presidency will change that, or has already changed  
that, given how various ethnic groups and the young voted in the  
recent election.

Do you think the worst consequences of Hindu nationalism are over,  
given that Hindu nationalists have failed to capture outright power  
in India?

A lot will depend on how things will play out in South Asia over the  
next two or three years. Obama has pledged to escalate the war in  
Afghanistan. I think that's a complete folly. Afghanistan has been a  
quagmire for every foreign contingent that has gone there in the last  
200 years. You also have to consider Pakistan. In the recent attacks  
in Mumbai, there is evidence of Pakistan's complicity. When things of  
this kind happen, Hindu nationalists play upon it. Of course, they  
are projecting, as Bush did in the U.S., that any assault on India  
has to be met with force.

Do you think the old cliché about South Asia being a potential  
nuclear flashpoint has become more alarming than ever?

A famous political scientist, Selig Harrison, wrote a book nearly 50  
years ago, titled "India: The Most Dangerous Decades." What dangerous  
decades was he talking about? The next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?  
There's also the cliché that India is going to fall apart. The  
British advanced it for a long time. Much of this talk isn't  
persuasive. On the other hand, you can't minimize the fact that South  
Asia has two nuclear-armed states and the arsenals could fall into  
the wrong hands. There are people who are willing to barter nuclear  
arms, crazy enough to take the risks.

UCLA International Institute

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[8] India - Karnataka:

 From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 3, Dated Jan 24, 2009

MESSENGER SHOT, BAJRANG STYLE

The arrest of an editor in Karnataka highlights the problems of the  
media, reports SANJANA

ON JANUARY 6, 2009 in a scene straight out of a 1970s Bollywood  
movie, six police vans chased down the car in which the chairman and  
director of Chitra Publications, BV Seetaram, and his wife were  
travelling in Udupi district, Karnataka. Seetaram stepped out to face  
a posse of 25 policemen seeking to arrest him in a two-year-old  
defamation suit against him. It is ironic that the policemen had  
forgotten to bring along the arrest warrant.

Chitra Publications publishes three newspapers, including the  
controversial Kannada news daily, Karavali Ale. A popular read in the  
coastal districts of Karnataka, the newspaper claims 40,000  
subscribers and over two lakh readers.

Shocking treatment The police arrested Seetaram as they would a  
hardened criminal

A day after his arrest, Seetaram was produced before the court of the  
Judicial Magistrate (First Class) in Udupi — handcuffed to an iron  
chain and escorted by several policemen wielding automatic rifles.  
Citing a serious threat to his life from the police and the state  
government, he refused to apply for bail but changed his mind after  
being moved to Mysore.

Seetaram’s arrest follows nearly two months of sustained attacks  
against his newspaper clearly aimed at disrupting Karavali Ale’s  
circulation. On November 17, the newspaper’s printing press in  
Mangalore was attacked and a constable on duty sustained injuries.  
Weeks later, distribution vans were intercepted and over 5,000 copies  
of the paper burnt. Hawkers and shops selling or stocking it were  
ransacked. Though complaints were filed and cases registered, no  
arrests have been forthcoming — something that hardly surprises the  
editor.

Seetaram has consistently held Bajrang Dal activists responsible for  
the attacks — he says they are incensed by his open criticism of  
their role in the attacks on churches in and around Mangalore in  
2008. Seetaram’s accusation of the Bajrang Dal has hardly been  
refuted. The Bajrang Dal’s Dakshina Kannada district convenor, Vinay  
Shetty, while talking to TEHELKA, indicated support for the attacks  
against Karavali Ale. “If people are angry, they will react. He  
(Seetaram) attacks Hindu, Christian and Muslim religious leaders;  
people from the community will come forward to defend their leaders.”  
Days after a series of articles in his newspaper accusing the Sangh  
Parivar of playing a fascist role in the coastal region, Seetaram was  
arrested in a defamation suit filed against him in July 2007.

Bhoja Shetty, a resident of Udupi, filed the defamation charge  
against Seetaram alleging that the editor had blackmailed Shetty for  
a sum of Rs 1 lakh. Shetty states that when he refused to give in,  
the editor portrayed him as a rapist in his newspaper even though the  
charges were unsubstantiated.

IN YET another incident in 2007, cases were filed against Seetaram  
after he carried a series of provocative articles against Jainism and  
the Jain community. Seetaram had questioned the decision of a popular  
Jain saint to participate in public processions in the nude. He had  
argued that religious sanction had to make way for the demands of  
public morality, especially since there was a law

against nudity in India. The language and the tenor of the articles  
had led to his arrest following cases filed from an irate Jain  
community. “On several occasions, we ourselves don’t agree with the  
way our articles are presented. There is unstated yet clear pressure  
to meet a mark that has been set. Crime sells. Sensationalism sells,”  
says a local Karavali Ale reporter on condition of anonymity.

Questions about Seetaram’s brand of journalism notwithstanding, the  
sequence of events and his handcuffing have sparked outrage amongst  
journalists and editors across Karnataka and elsewhere. Protests and  
statements of condemnation against the highhandedness of the police,  
the political manoeuvring behind the timing of the arrest and the  
attacks against Karavali Ale continue to pour in.

The International Federation of Journalists, the Editors’ Guild of  
India, the Delhi Union of Journalists and several journalists’  
representation bodies within Karnataka have called the incident a  
clear threat to the democratic right to a free press. The Editors’  
Guild of India has called for the repeal of criminal defamation  
provisions in the Indian Penal Code saying these provisions force  
editors to make long journeys to courts in small towns and have  
become instruments of harassment misused by influential persons.

The BJP Government and the police have, however, denied the claim  
that Seetaram has been targeted for his anti-communal stance. In  
statements issued soon as condemnations of the arrest began pouring  
in, both the Inspector General of Police (Western Range) AM Prasad  
(Udupi and Mangalore fall under his command) as well as VS Acharya,  
the Home Minister, denied unfair treatment. Delays in acting on  
Seetaram’s complaints of attacks against his publication are  
attributed baldly to “time required to complete due processes of  
investigation.”

These denials aside, there are other instances which suggest that the  
BJP Government and the police are unfairly supporting proponents of  
the Hindutva ideology. No action has been taken in two separate  
complaints lodged in Mangalore against a Kannada daily, Vijaya  
Karnataka. The complaints were filed by PB D’Sa, president of the  
Dakshina Kannada Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties and James Louis  
of the Bharathiya Crista Seva Sanghatane against a rightwing Kannada  
author, SL Byrappa, Vijaya Karnataka columnist Pratap Simha, and the  
editors and publishers of Vijaya Karnataka. Both D’Sa and Louis  
alleged that the articles were highly provocative and defended the  
attacks on the Christian community.

In the communalised atmosphere that has descended on Mangalore and  
the coastal districts, the fact that Seetaram was arrested and  
sternly treated while no action has been taken against the right-wing  
press is significant. Media responsibility and freedom of the press  
appear to be separated in Karnataka.


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