SACW | Mar. 26-30, 2009 / Sri Lanka: War / India: Coming Elections . . .

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | March 26-30, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2614 -  
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net

[1] Sri Lanka: The silent horror of the war in Sri Lanka (Arundhati Roy)
    - Daily Massacre of Civilians, Can the Trade Union Movement  
Remain Silent?
    - Ethnic Strife, Fratricide, and the Peace vs. Human Rights  
Dilemma (Rajan Hoole)
[2] Bangladesh: Our dirty little secret (Zafar Sobhan)
     - Concerned citizens seek probe into custodial deaths of BDR men
     - Address core realities that feed Islamist militancy  
(Editorial, New Age)
[3]  At the heart of Pakistan’s crisis is arbitrary power (Asma  
Jahangir)
    +  Pakistan-Media: Pondering Risks Covering Conflict, Crime,  
Corruption (Beena Sarwar)
[4] India's Coming Parliamentary Elections: Views
   - A Changed DNA (Tanika Sarkar)
   - Congress crowding out its supporters (Shiv Visvanathan)
   - Afraid of Behenji? - Time to give alternative experience a  
chance (Ashok Mitra)
   - 'Operational framework of NREGA needs overhaul' - Jean Dreze  
Interview
   - The Issue India Won't Vote On (J. Sri Raman)
   - The Left and the Third Front (Pritam Singh)
   - 'I trust the aam-aadmi and aam-aurat' (Mallika Sarabhai)
   - Support Mallika Sarabhai's Campaign
   - Electoral contest between Mallika Sarabhai and LK Advani is like  
Gandhi vs Godse (K G Kannabiran)
   - Citizens Appeal - Rally Behind Mallika Sarabhai In Her Fight  
Against Communal Fascism
[5] India: Hindutva hard and soft. . .
   - Hatred Justified? (Manoj Mitta)
   - Who’ll silence Varun? (Soli J. Sorabjee)
   - India Needs A Law To Check Hate Speech (Rajeev Dhavan)
   - Farzana Versey on Varun Gandhi's Nice Touch
   - LSE-SOAS Statement Against the Campaign of Varun Gandhi
   - A hawk dressed as a dove: The marketing of a repackaged L. K.  
Advani (Subhash Gatade)
   - Saffron power in Gorakhpur
   - Full Text of the Gujarat High Court’s order rejecting the bail  
application of a Minister
[6] Campaign for the Release of Dr Binayak Sen
   - Free, Free Binayak Sen!" -- Report on U.S. Actions in Solidarity  
with the Raipur Satyagraha
   - Varun Gandhi roams free and Binayak Sen in prison: The  
scandalous double standards
   - Update on Second Raipur Satyagraha, 23 March
[7] Miscellanea:
    - Walking Between Worlds: An Conversation with Pireeni Sundaralingam
    - The Mysterious "Amar Singh"- What Did Hillary Clinton Do?   
(Vijay Prashad)
[8] Announcements:
   -  “Isn’t It Time to End this Injustice? Free Binayak Sen!” -  
solidarity meeting and film (Bombay, 2 April 2009)
   -  A Public Conversation - Mumbai, Terror, and Islamism (New York,  
7 April 2009)
   -  Nuclear Threat to India - Press Conference (New Delhi, April  
13, 2009)
   -  CFP: The Anxiety of Belonging: Partitions, Reunifications,  
Modernity (Cardiff, 15-17 July 2009)

_____


[1] Sri Lanka:


The Times of India
30 March 2009

THE SILENT HORROR OF THE WAR IN SRI LANKA

by Arundhati Roy

The horror that is unfolding in Sri Lanka becomes possible because of  
the silence that surrounds it. There is almost no reporting in the
mainstream Indian media — or indeed in the international press —  
about what is happening there. Why this should be so is a matter of  
serious concern.

 From the little information that is filtering through it looks as  
though the Sri Lankan government is using the propaganda of the ‘war  
on terror’ as a fig leaf to dismantle any semblance of democracy in  
the country, and commit unspeakable crimes against the Tamil people.  
Working on the principle that every Tamil is a terrorist unless he or  
she can prove otherwise, civilian areas, hospitals and shelters are  
being bombed and turned into a war zone. Reliable estimates put the  
number of civilians trapped at over 200,000. The Sri Lankan Army is  
advancing, armed with tanks and aircraft.

Meanwhile, there are official reports that several ‘‘welfare  
villages’’ have been established to house displaced
Tamils in Vavuniya and Mannar districts. According to a report in The  
Daily Telegraph (Feb 14, 2009), these villages ‘‘will be compulsory  
holding centres for all civilians fleeing the fighting’’. Is this a  
euphemism for concentration camps? The former foreign minister of Sri  
Lanka, Mangala Samaraveera, told The Daily Telegraph:
‘‘A few months ago the government started registering all Tamils in  
Colombo on the grounds that they could be a security threat, but this  
could be exploited for other purposes like the Nazis in the 1930s.  
They’re basically going to label the whole civilian Tamil population  
as potential terrorists.’’

Given its stated objective of ‘‘wiping out’’ the LTTE, this  
malevolent collapse of civilians and ‘‘terrorists’’ does seem to  
signal that the government of Sri Lanka is on the verge of committing  
what could end up being genocide. According to a UN estimate several  
thousand people have already been killed. Thousands more are  
critically wounded. The few eyewitness reports that have come out are  
descriptions of a nightmare from hell. What we are witnessing, or  
should we say, what is happening in Sri Lanka and is being so  
effectively hidden from public scrutiny, is a brazen, openly racist  
war. The impunity with which the Sri Lankan government is being able  
to commit these crimes actually unveils the deeply ingrained racist  
prejudice, which is precisely what led to the marginalization and  
alienation of the Tamils of Sri Lanka in the first place. That racism  
has a long history, of social ostracisation, economic blockades,  
pogroms and torture. The brutal nature of the decades-long civil war,  
which started as a peaceful, non-violent protest, has its roots in this.

Why the silence? In another interview Mangala Samaraveera says, ‘‘A  
free media is virtually non-existent in Sri Lanka today.’’

Samaraveera goes on to talk about death squads and ‘white van  
abductions’, which have made society ‘‘freeze with fear’’. Voices of  
dissent, including those of several journalists, have been abducted  
and assassinated. The International Federation of Journalists accuses  
the government of Sri Lanka of using a combination of anti-terrorism  
laws, disappearances and assassinations to silence journalists.

There are disturbing but unconfirmed reports that the Indian  
government is lending material and logistical support to the Sri  
Lankan government in these crimes against humanity. If this is true,  
it is outrageous. What of the governments of other countries?  
Pakistan? China? What are they doing to help, or harm the situation?

In Tamil Nadu the war in Sri Lanka has fuelled passions that have led  
to more than 10 people immolating themselves. The public anger and  
anguish, much of it genuine, some of it obviously cynical political  
manipulation, has become an election issue.

It is extraordinary that this concern has not travelled to the rest  
of India. Why is there silence here? There are no ‘white van  
abductions’ — at least not on this issue. Given the scale of what is  
happening in Sri Lanka, the silence is inexcusable. More so because  
of the Indian government’s long history of irresponsible dabbling in  
the conflict, first taking one side and then the other. Several of us  
including myself, who should have spoken out much earlier, have not  
done so, simply because of a lack of information about the war. So  
while the killing continues, while tens of thousands of people are  
being barricaded into concentration camps, while more than 200,000  
face starvation, and a genocide waits to happen, there is dead  
silence from this great country.
It’s a colossal humanitarian tragedy. The world must step in. Now.  
Before it’s too late.

o o o

SRI LANKA: DAILY MASSACRE OF CIVILIANS, CAN THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT  
REMAIN SILENT?
http://www.sacw.net/article777.html

SRI LANKA: ETHNIC STRIFE, FRATRICIDE, AND THE PEACE VS. HUMAN RIGHTS  
DILEMMA
by Rajan Hoole
http://www.sacw.net/article782.html

_____


[2] Bangladesh:

(i)

The Daily Star
March 27, 2009

OUR DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
by Zafar Sobhan

March 9: Naik Subedar Mozammel Haq reportedly commits suicide by  
hanging himself from a ventilator fan of a toilet on the third floor  
of the orchestra bhaban at the BDR headquarters in Pilkhana.

March 11: The pesh imam of the central mosque at BDR headquarters in  
Pilkhana, Md. Siddiqur Rahman, reportedly dies of cardiac arrest  
during interrogation. The imam reportedly recited from the Qur'an at  
the start of the mutiny and was a key witness to the incident.

March 15: Sepoy Waheduzzaman reportedly hangs himself in his barracks  
at the BDR battalion headquarters in Joydevpur district.

March 17: Sepoy Munir Hossain dies in hospital in Dhaka after  
unexpectedly falling sick in unexplained circumstances at the BDR  
headquarters in Pilkhana. Seven other BDR personnel are admitted to  
hospital the same day.

March 22: Lance Naik Mobarak Hossain dies at DMCH after being rushed  
there from Pilkhana following an interrogation session.

March 24: Sepoy Md. Mizanur Rahman (age 40) reportedly dies of  
cardiac arrest while stationed at the BDR battalion headquarters in  
Rangamati district.

March 26: Sepoy Sheikh Waliur Rahman, reportedly commits suicide by  
hanging himself at the BDR battalion headquarters in Sylhet district.

Rahman had been present at BDR headquarters during the mutiny but,  
after fleeing the scene, had returned to his battalion headquarters  
in Sylhet rather than Pilkhana as he was ordered to.

There are also unconfirmed reports of two more deaths of BDR  
personnel, one in Barkal district and one in Jaminipara district.

I think we could be excused for wanting to know what -- in the name  
of truth and justice -- or, to be more blunt, in our name -- is going  
on with respect to the post-mutiny investigations and accompanying  
interrogations.

It is one of this country's dirty little secrets that we all know  
that mistreatment of those in custody and torture during  
interrogation, leading to serious damage and even death, happen in  
Bangladesh all the time.

Indeed, so routine is its incidence, as has been amply documented in  
reports of human rights organisations, both within the country and  
outside it, buttressed by reams of inarguable evidence and harrowing  
first-hand and second-hand testimony, that, frankly, it would be  
disingenuous to imagine that it was not going on at this very moment.

Now, in the midst of the most important investigation that this  
country has undertaken in recent memory, the success of which has  
significant implications for our political stability, it is  
nevertheless the right time to once again raise the issue.

First, surely we can all agree that the mistreatment of prisoners and  
suspects is simply wrong, a moral obscenity that has no place in any  
civilised society. In addition, tolerance of this kind of abuse helps  
create a culture of violence and cruelty, and demeans any society  
that acquiesces to it.

The second reason to be concerned about these deaths is that the post- 
mutiny is a very delicate situation and we are a long way to go to  
restoring BDR as an effective border security force. If people are  
dying in custody it is certainly not going to help the process.

Third, this kind of thing does not, in fact, help the investigation.  
Statements elicited under duress are notoriously unreliable and of  
questionable legal significance.

But for me, the deaths raise even more troubling and fundamental  
questions about the investigation. Is it possibly that the deceased  
knew too much? When a witness or a suspect dies, he takes his secrets  
with him to the grave. For all we know, people could be being killed  
to hush up the truth.

Now, we don't know for sure if any of these deaths are anything other  
than what they have been reported to be: suicides and cardiac arrests.

Of course, Mozammel Haq was the proud father of two children and had  
never previously evinced any inclination towards suicide.

And Mobarak Hossain, it is admitted, died following an interrogation  
session, and his wrists, arms, knees, and shoulders showed signs of  
stress and other abnormalities.

Similarly, the imam, Siddiqur Rahman, who reportedly suffered a  
cardiac arrest, also died after collapsing while being interrogated.  
He was 40 years old.

By the same token, the reports of the BDR personnel committing  
suicide by hanging themselves, even if true, seem to me to be even  
more sinister.

It seems axiomatic that anyone taking his own life in such  
circumstances would know something or have something to hide, and, at  
the very least, one would have thought that it would have been  
possible to secure all witnesses and suspects in custody to ensure  
that they stay alive long enough to give their testimony in full.

In short, these nine deaths of BDR men in custody are a blight on the  
critical post-mutiny investigation. It is imperative that we get this  
investigation right and get to the bottom of the massacre. Nine  
deaths in custody are already nine too many.

Zafar Sobhan is Editor, Editorial & Op-Ed, The Daily Star.

o o o

(ii) BANGLADESH: CONCERNED CITIZENS SEEK PROBE INTO CUSTODIAL DEATHS  
OF BDR MEN
http://www.sacw.net/article796.html


o o o

(iii)

New Age
26 March 2009

Editorial  - ADDRESS CORE REALITIES THAT FEED ISLAMIST MILITANCY

The nation is once again confronted with the massive clandestine  
network, resources and capability that radical Islamist groups have  
been building over time. And there is further confirmation of the  
involvement of some so-called madrassahs in motivating and training  
Islamist terrorists. The raid on a militants’ hideout that  
masqueraded as madarassah-cum-orphanage in Bhola only intensifies the  
public concern in this regard. In this latest raid as reported in the  
media, a large cache of arms, ammunition, explosives, grenades and  
bomb making materials and jihadi booklets including photographs of  
Osama bin Laden, were recovered from the madrassah complex supposedly  
run by an NGO named Green Crescent n remote Ram-Keshabpur village in  
Borhanuddin in Bhola. What is further remarkable about this madrassah  
is that this is built on 12 acres of land and the building materials  
used are expensive. It is surrounded by a water-filled moat with a  
drawbridge. The moat, bridge and secure fencing made the activities  
inside easy to conceal and the locals viewed this complex with  
mystification. After the raid it was disclosed that this was a JMB  
den, financed by a Bangladeshi expatriate in the UK who is currently  
in Chittagong. Four suspected militants have been held. It is  
presumed that the militants had plans to perpetrate terrorism on  
Independence Day.
    We are reminded of a similar raid in Tongi last month on a den of  
militants who were planning attack on some Ekushey programmes. We  
commend the security agencies for being able to pre-empt the heinous  
plans but our worries are hardly lessened. Islamist radicalism needs  
to be tackled in totality, not in the formula which seeks to avert  
attacks, but by addressing the core realities that are feeding into  
this phenomenon.
    Next month the Pahela Baishakh joys may be overshadowed by the  
memory of the incident in Ramna Park eight years ago. We have always  
insisted that the Islamist terrorists are not produced in a vacuum;  
they represent a terrifyingly skewed religious teaching,  
indoctrination, training and finance, with possible external  
interests wishing to destroy the country’s ideal of a modern  
democratic polity. The private madrassahs, especially those  
established in recent times should be under close surveillance. A few  
days ago a government high-up revealed that some NGOs and business  
enterprises are helping militancy. It seems that the government now  
has some valuable leads which if sincerely pursued will help trace  
militancy to their very roots.


_____


[3] Pakistan:

At the heart of Pakistan’s crisis is arbitrary power
by Asma Jahangir
http://www.sacw.net/article781.html


MEDIA-PAKISTAN: Pondering Risks Covering Conflict, Crime, Corruption
by Beena Sarwar
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46304

_____


[4]  India's Coming Parliamentary Elections: Views

Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 13, Dated Apr 04, 2009

A CHANGED DNA
The UPA discarded its initial pro-people stance to adopt NDA-style  
governance. Not enough was done to combat communalism

by Tanika Sarkar

THIS WAS a government that came to power with positive new departures  
that were pro-people, like the Right to Information Act and the  
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. What was problematic was the  
rest of the term, in which the government pursued hard neo-liberal  
policies that were dangerous for the common man. The logic of these  
policies has also been rendered tenuous and invalid by the current  
worldwide recession.

The aftertaste, however, of the Manmohan Singh years is the blinkered  
determination to ally with the US. This was the unmaking of the  
government’s alliance, and its foreign
Illustration : Anand Naorem

relations. We became singularly US-focused, even when it was  
committing and condoning the worst human rights tragedies in the  
Middle East and Palestine. US policy was in a shameful phase: Iraq  
had been conquered, there was war in Afghanistan, prisoners were  
being tortured, and Israel’s activities in Gaza were being endorsed.  
India kept quiet. The US pardons Israel’s violence against Palestine  
and by shutting its eyes to it, India became a part of this  
appeasement. As the war on terror escalates, the Taliban is gaining  
new recruits, and India has put itself in the firing line.

As for the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, it was proposed with the  
justification that it would solve some of India’s power issues. As  
far as I understand it, there are many different opinions about the  
use, effectiveness and risks of using nuclear power. India did not  
consider these sufficiently. There was no transparency when there  
should have been a full-fledged public debate about the use of  
nuclear power. Instead, it became a political exercise. Many western  
countries, which had gone in for nuclear power, are now backtracking  
and giving up its use. So, to go the whole hog for nuclear power may  
not actually lead to progress. It does not meet India’s massive power  
requirements. Even if it did, the price that India paid by becoming  
dependent on the US was too high.

The Manmohan Singh Government overestimated the favours it would  
accrue by being Big Brother’s friend. But these are matters beyond  
practical advantages. They’re issues of human rights, morality and  
ethical foreign policy. It’s extremely wrong to even wonder about a  
mutually beneficial trade-off.

Moreover, not enough was done to combat communalism. It was left to  
state governments to do so. What also bothers me is the PM’s civil  
rights record. He repeatedly said that India’s biggest internal  
problem was the Maoists — not caste, not poverty, not power  
struggles. This led to human rights activists like Binayak Sen to be  
arrested as Maoists.

To correctly judge the Manmohan Singh Government, I cannot but draw a  
comparison. Manmohan and his team did do a lot of NDA-like aggressive  
war talk after 26/11 due to pressure from the BJP, but I give credit  
to them for being wise enough not to really launch a retaliatory  
attack. Except for this, and the pro-people laws that were passed in  
the early part of its government, the UPA has not been any different  
from the NDA. Overall, I believe a large portion of the UPA’s  
governance has been exactly what the NDA would have done if it were  
in power. The mistakes have only been repeated.

(Sarkar is a historian and professor at JNU, Delhi)

o o o

Asian Age
March 27, 2009

CONGRESS CROWDING OUT ITS SUPPORTERS

by Shiv Visvanathan

In 1964, the political scientist Rajni Kothari wrote a critical essay  
on the Congress system in which he argued that the Congress was not a  
single political identity but a coalition of interest groups,  
minorities and castes.

Mr Kothari’s argument was subtle, hard-headed and profound. His  
thesis was that the idea of the Congress party need not be singular  
or homogenising. Order was not its primary source of unity. In fact,  
it was the "uses of disorder", the ability to muddle through that  
made Congress politics the powerful and seductive force it was.

Mr Kothari also hinted that the Congress mimicked the nation and not  
the nation-state because it subconsciously realised that its  
differences were founded on a deeper idea of unity. Fundamental to  
this was the argument that the Congress was not a majoritarian party  
but wedded to the idea of marginal and minority groups playing a  
proactive role. Secondly, the Congress was secular in a raucous way  
but still committed to the notion that, like Hinduism, it allowed for  
different forms of secularism — not as a dogma but as a way of life.  
Thirdly, the Congress as an idea was systemic i.e. it was  
interconnected and it was the continuous creativity of connections  
that made the Congress politically inventive.

The Kothari thesis suggested that the Congress could be visualised as  
a communication model, a party with many voices and hearing aids. It  
possessed a shrewdness that knew how to listen and access demands.  
Such a process created the unintended symphony of the political that  
made democracy a robust possibility. The Congress of that time had a  
wonderful sense of both, politics and the political.

Politics provides a sense of the key issues that concern and hold a  
polity together. Secondly, politics is a process. The political is  
not a given, it emerges through constant negotiation, compromise,  
adjustment and conversation which approximate but never match the  
ideal. This version of the Congress broke down in the last two  
decades as the pieces of the original Congress jigsaw saw themselves  
as autonomous wholes. Minorities, regions, special interest groups,  
all realised that the Congress was less than the sum of its parts.  
The OBC, the Dalits, the Muslims, the regional parties, tore the  
Congress apart, creating a new sense of electoral politics where the  
equation between minority and majority, regional and national, part  
and whole changed drastically. Instead of the Congress being a  
coalition internally, politics in India became the politics of  
coalitions.

Such a process saw the rise of regional satraps like Lalu Prasad  
Yadav, Narendra Modi, Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Dravida Munnettra  
Kazhagam (DMK). The Congress was a pale image of itself. What it had  
patented as internal dynamics became externalised as a new kind of  
politics.

India is entering a third decade of politics where coalitions create  
a new dynamic. The richness of the parts is now searching for a more  
convincing whole.

In this phase the Congress appears to have lost both, a sense of  
politics and the political. It is time to revive the Kothari thesis  
and apply it not as a reified logic but as a heuristic for politics,  
especially of democracy.

The Congress’ idea of India was the vision of diversity and  
difference that led to a flexibility of order. It was anchored on  
three grammars: The grammar of nation and region, the logic of  
secularism as a proactive approach to minorities and, three, a  
coalition of castes, minorities and regions tied by an adherence to  
the Preamble of the Constitution. All evidence shows that the  
Congress deepened these spines into fault lines.

It is no longer truly secular. Its behaviour is almost apologetic  
about secularism and voyeuristic about fundamentalism. An  
opportunistic secularism is hardly convincing in the long run. The  
Congress is no longer socialist because it threw the baby of justice  
and welfare out with the socialist bathwater. Instead of mummifying  
bureaucracy and corruption, it got rid of a great vision. As a result  
it can talk of poverty and eliminate the poor. Such hypocrisy is a  
part of its new structural adjustment. Thirdly, the sense of regional  
parties and the richness they add to politics is lost. The Lalus, the  
Mulayams, whatever their rough edges, have added to politics and  
especially democracy.

As an argument for the future, the Congress may make sense. The voter  
has changed; we need new issues and new leadership. Yet, what it  
actually projects is dynastic politics where the young leader or his  
technocratic cohorts might have visibility in a rock concert but no  
recall in a voting booth. Rahul Gandhi still appears like a boy scout  
in an akhada. Till he understands the logic of the Congress, Mr  
Gandhi remains a thing of beauty and a toy forever.

The recent headlines about seat-sharing between the Congress and Mr  
Lalu Prasad Yadav had poignancy. Mr Yadav claimed that the Congress  
was not letting regional parties survive. A headline hides history  
while reporting it, for Mr Yadav’s complaint was that the Congress  
was no longer the party it once was.

The Congress is now caught in a game of musical chairs of seat  
adjustments. It has lost its sense of tactical, not just of politics  
as a vision but of the political as a process. It appears to be  
crowding out its old supporters, the Paswans and the Lalu Prasad  
Yadavs, without realising that like an alloy its strength comes from  
coalitions. The sadness is that it has lost its sense of hearing. The  
fact that Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav still stands by it seems to have no  
bearing. The Congress, which was master of the quilt patch and whose  
politics understood the power of the suture as alliance, is turning  
the suture into a rift. Such politics turns allies into rivals and  
creates a lose-lose situation which only benefits the BJP.

The Congress needs to put on its hoardings what the philosopher  
Santayana once said in a different way: "Those who forget the past  
are condemned to repeat the present". And at present the politics of  
the Congress is resoundingly silly and shortsighted.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist

o o o

The Telegraph
March 27, 2009

AFRAID OF BEHENJI? - Time to give alternative experience a chance
Cutting Corners - Ashok Mitra

The pre-poll season is tailor-made for cynical thoughts, with a  
cabinet minister in the United Progressive Alliance government  
discovering a wonderful human being in the Shiv Sena chieftain and  
the Left finding itself in the seventh heaven of happiness on account  
of freshly gained insights regarding the comradely attributes of  
Shrimathi Jayalalithaa. There is, however, another way of looking at  
the unfolding spectacle. The two principal ‘national’ parties are  
having a harrowing time; for the first time, their pretensions are  
being put to the test. Neither of them can claim primacy in more than  
a handful of the major states in the country; everywhere else they  
are either in the opposition or a junior partner in a tenuous  
coalition regime. Both nonetheless take it for granted that it is  
their prerogative to occupy the prime ministerial slot in the event  
that the alliance they head scrapes through to a majority, even if it  
has as many as eight or ten constituents.

The pre-nomination hassles have brought both these parties down to  
earth. In clashes between prima donna airs on the one side and we- 
could-not-care-less-for-your-hoity-toity bravura on the other, by and  
large the ‘national’ party concerned has been forced to yield ground;  
where it has not, the regional parties have gone their own way,  
dampening the prospect of the ‘national’ party. And this is only the  
beginning of the fun. Should the April-May polls eventuate in a  
considerably fewer number of seats for both the Congress and the  
Bharatiya Janata Party than they had in the 14th Lok Sabha, the fat  
would really be in the fire. Either party would be hard put to claim  
the position of head of government as its natural prerogative, or to  
appropriate the lion’s share of the important portfolios. A regional  
party like the one Behenji presides over could actually then emerge  
as a serious contender for the post, for the number of members of  
parliament she controls would be decisive for the stability of any  
regime.

Even in case either of the ‘national’ parties forming the government  
on the prop of lesser parties is allowed to name the prime minister,  
the partners in the alliance could still have the gall to insist that  
the person chosen for the post must be specifically endorsed by them.  
That would be an effective antidote to the presumptuousness of the  
grandchildren and great-grandchildren from habituated-to-rule families.

If reports of current trends in public opinion are even partially  
correct, the installation next May of a prime minister who did not  
belong to either the Congress or the BJP seems a fair possibility. A  
government led by a prime minister with affiliation to a regional  
party may or may not last very long. Even if it capsizes quickly, the  
chances are that it will be succeeded by a look-alike coalition. In  
any event, the regional parties will continue to hog the limelight.

There is hardly any reason to feel tragic over such a dénouement. If  
parties with their focus on problems in the regions come to power at  
the Centre, the agenda in New Delhi will of course undergo a  
qualitative change. The character of the Union budget will be  
transformed. More money will flow, for instance, to the rural  
employment guarantee scheme. The obsession over export-led growth  
will be played down with the emphasis shifting to programmes which  
generate growth within particular regions. Portfolios such as  
external affairs, defence and commerce will turn out to be of lesser  
significance; ministries which deal with problems of daily living in  
the nooks and corners of this vast country — agriculture, irrigation,  
railways, surface transport, power development — will command greater  
attention. The regimes may be unstable, but growth of the gross  
domestic product could still accelerate.

Why not also mention one particularly lovely outcome of the regional  
parties capturing power in New Delhi? The agenda of these parties are  
essentially parochial, their prime interest is their parish. They  
will therefore work up a frenzy only when regional issues are  
involved; they can be expected to make much less ado over other  
matters. Their concern for national security, it follows, will not  
reach the level of paranoia. The bogey of global terror will not be  
their cup of tea either. This will induce the hope that, during the  
tenure of such a regime, defence would get reasonably curtailed,  
releasing resources for activities that contribute to balanced  
economic growth.

There is certainly scope for yet another speculation. The  
Constitution had arranged at the national level for a second chamber,  
the Rajya Sabha, where the focus, it was hoped, will be on problems  
and issues directly affecting the states. It was to be, so to say, a  
safety valve. To ensure that it adequately fulfilled that role, the  
Representation of the People Act, put on the statute in 1950, made it  
explicit that only persons ‘ordinarily resident’ in a state were  
eligible to represent that state in the Rajya Sabha. The proviso made  
ample sense: if you were to discuss matters pertaining to a state,  
you must be conversant with such matters, and you could be so only if  
you are a permanent resident in that state, no outsider will fit the  
bill. But, over the decades, the original purpose for which the Rajya  
Sabha was conceived was rudely ignored; the different political  
parties combinedly agreed to cock a snook at the RPA; someone  
ordinarily resident in Karnataka pretended to represent Orissa in the  
Rajya Sabha, someone from West Bengal represented Gujarat, someone  
from Delhi represented Assam.

The safety valve was not allowed to function, aliens who hardly knew  
the language and culture of a state were incapable of articulating  
its problems. The problems were there, but there was no outlet for  
expressing them. The rise of regional parties all over the country,  
it can be very well maintained, is at least in part a consequence of  
the debasement of the Rajya Sabha and the increasing concentration of  
power and resources in the hands of the Centre; it is the persona of  
states which is trying to assert itself under the mask of caste,  
ethnic or linguistic grievances and aspirations.

The capture of power in New Delhi by regional political formations  
could therefore be a precursor to the restructuring of Centre-state  
relations by tilting the balance in favour of the states —  
progressive decentralization of the polity emerging as the new  
reality. The end of monopolization of power by ‘national’ parties  
flaunting the dogma of the Union having precedence over the states  
could, at the same time, be a blow against authoritarian political  
trends too.

True, habitual non-believers will be ready with their cynical  
riposte. If perchance regional leaders come to sneak into power at  
the Centre, the overall picture, they will argue, need not change at  
all. Commission agents thrive in all climates. Regional bosses,  
enthroned in the national capital, will soon discover the meaning of  
meaning; they will grasp the significance of, for instance, defence  
contracts and petroleum deals, and be persuaded to perceive the  
virtue of letting sleeping dogs lie: the allure of getting corrupted  
will duly weaken their resolve to further regional causes.

The cynics may be all-knowing. Even so, why not give a chance to an  
alternative experience? If it is this nation’s fate to be led by the  
corrupt, why not the corruption be diffused, and let everybody have a  
share of the pie? And any way, a country which survived Indira  
Gandhi’s Emergency should not be scared of, say, a Behenji on the  
rampage.


o o o

The Times of India
30 March 2009

'OPERATIONAL FRAMEWORK OF NREGA NEEDS OVERHAUL'

Jean Dreze is one of the initiators of the National Rural Employment  
Guarantee Act (NREGA) and has tracked its implementation with social  
audit
teams. Currently associated with the department of economics at  
Allahabad University, Dreze spoke to The Times of India:

NREGA has become an election issue. What needs to be done now to  
maximise its benefits?

The first task is to ensure that NREGA does become an election issue,  
as you put it. The fact that most political manifestos include major  
commitments to NREGA is encouraging. But it is one thing to make  
promises in an election manifesto, and another to turn them into  
convincing messages that resonate with the public around the country.  
NREGA could easily get lost in the din of elitist debates, mud- 
slinging and security concerns. Also, the winning parties are likely  
to need a reminder about their electoral promises, after they take  
charge.

The operational framework of NREGA needs radical overhaul. The  
support structures required to make NREGA work are simply not in  
place. For instance, there is no grievance redressal process. The  
Central Employment Guarantee Council has been disbanded, against the  
law. No independent evaluation worth the name has been conducted. And  
so on.

How has the state machinery responded to the attacks on social audit  
teams?

The response of the state, in most cases, has ranged from apathy to  
complicity. I am not aware that anyone responsible for such attacks  
has been punished. More often than not, the culprits are part of the  
same nexus of power and privilege as the agents of the state the  
police, block development officer, forest department, and so on. For  
state authorities, it is almost a reflex to turn against the victim,  
because it is safer to side with the stronger party. For instance,  
when Lalit Mehta was murdered in Palamau district last year, the  
deputy commissioner targeted the social audit team, instead of  
tackling the local mafia. If you think that class struggle is a myth,  
try to make NREGA work.

Why are NREGA activists demanding that the work guarantee of 100 days  
per year should be an individual entitlement rather than a household  
entitlement?

It is important for several reasons. First, the household approach  
has caused much confusion, especially as the term household is not  
well defined in the Act. Second, taking the individual worker as the  
basic unit throughout the system would greatly help to streamline the  
records and achieve transparency. Third, this would facilitate full  
and equal participation of women in NREGA: women would have their own  
job card and bank account, instead of depending on the goodwill of  
their male relatives. Last but not least, individual entitlements  
would enable poor families to work for more than 100 days, if  
required. One person, one job card, one bank account should be the  
basic principle.

o o o

truthout.org, 26 March 2009


THE ISSUE INDIA WON'T VOTE ON

by J. Sri Raman

Just nine months ago, the issue threatened to defeat (and thus  
dislodge) India's government in its Parliament. The question of the  
US-India nuclear deal, however, is conspicuously absent from the  
otherwise loud and heated campaign of the main opposition for the  
nation's parliamentary elections less than a month away.


The far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which officially led the  
parliamentary offensive in July 2008, has dropped its opposition to  
the deal for all practical purposes. Jaswant Singh, former minister  
of external affairs and now leader of the opposition in the Rajya  
Sabha (the Upper House of India's Parliament), minced no words on the  
subject while talking to the media in Singapore on March 22. There  
will be "no rewinding" of the deal, he declared, if the BJP returned  
to power following the general elections.

"An era of rescinding [inter-state] agreements," in the event of  
changes of governments, would only "add to the chaos that the world  
already has," he added. There might be "deficiencies with details."  
he conceded, but "we will endeavor to rectify these over time."

The consideration about any chaotic outcome did not prevent the party  
until the above date from promising a "renegotiation" of the deal  
that would amount to its radical revision. Demanding such a  
"renegotiation" after the release of the bilateral "123  
agreement" (named after the provision in the US Constitution covering  
such pacts) in August 2008, the BJP left no doubt that this meant a  
rejection of the deal. The party ruled out any "meeting ground" with  
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government.

The party was not talking of some "deficiencies with details," but  
wanted the deal to be totally rejected or recast. It argued that the  
agreement "compromises long-term strategic programs of India, vital  
for the country's security," and would also not help meet the  
country's energy needs. It charged that the pact would "cap" India's  
"strategic" nuclear program and curb its freedom to conduct nuclear- 
weapon tests.

The BJP, however, took pains to stress repeatedly that it was not  
opposed to US-India "strategic partnership." Indeed, it could not be  
as it was the party-led government of former Prime Minister Atal  
Bihari Vajpayee that had initiated the partnership. The declaration  
made the party's opposition to the deal more than a little doubtful  
right from the outset.

Jaswant Singh's latest statement of the subject lends added credence  
to the theory that the party was indulging in parliamentary shadow  
boxing last July. Cross-voting by some of its members in the House  
helped the government carry the day then. The George Bush  
administration seemed to have secured bipartisan support for the deal  
in India as well as in the US.

Even after the government's success in surviving over the issue, the  
BJP kept up a semblance of strong opposition to the deal. In  
September 2008, the party said, "The future of this deal should not  
be decided by a President in the US who will not be returned to  
office and a Prime Minister in India who may not be returned to  
office. The deal should be left to be renegotiated by future  
governments in both countries."

The party has now dropped the pretense. On the eve of the elections,  
it has found it politic to put all promoters of the deal at ease  
about the prospect, however dim, of its return to power.

There was nothing dove-like about the defenders of the deal either.  
They were for it because, in their view, nothing would really carry  
India's strategic nuclear program further. The agreement, after all,  
allowed New Delhi to keep eight out of the country's 22 nuclear  
facilities beyond the purview of inspections by the International  
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). By allowing India to import nuclear  
fuel, the deal also freed up India's own uranium reserves for use in  
its weapons program.

A certain defensiveness, however, can now be detected in the pro-deal  
camp. After the famous victory of last July, there was much talk of  
the Congress party, heading the Manmohan coalition, making the deal  
an election campaign issue. Nothing of that sort is happening, and  
not only that, the BJP may have dropped its renegotiation demand, but  
the pro-deal camp is displaying reservations and even anxiety about  
the future of the agreement under the new US administration.

Defenders of the deal have not concealed its serious concern over the  
appointment of Ellen O. Tauscher as the undersecretary of state for  
arms control and international security by the Barack Obama  
administration. Tauscher made a mark as a Democrat in Congress by  
opposing the Bush regime's determined efforts to push the deal  
through. She moved an amendment to make a cut in India's fissile  
material production as a precondition for the pact.

After India won a waiver of the Nuclear Suppliers Group's conditions  
for nuclear trade with India, she deplored it as a "dark day for  
global efforts to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction."  
She said the deal would made it harder to "curb the South Asian  
nuclear arms race."

Worries over the deal have gotten worse with New Delhi and its  
security think-tanks perceiving significant changes in Washington's  
idea of a strategic partnership under Obama. The new administration's  
Pakistan-Afghanistan policy is making them nervous indeed. They have  
taken particular umbrage at Washington suggesting efforts by New  
Delhi towards a dialogue with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Even  
"outrage" in the external affairs establishment has been reported in  
the officially briefed media over a US suggestion for  
demilitarization of India's side of the international border in  
Kashmir. The proposal, aimed at persuading Islamabad to focus on its  
border with Afghanistan, a sanctuary of al-Qaeda, is being presented  
almost as a provocation to India.

Nostalgia for the Bush era accompanies the nervousness. The Tauscher  
appointment has made some of the mandarins turn wistfully by to days  
when the "non-proliferation people were usually overruled" in  
Washington. Dwelling on the pressure for an India-Pakistan dialogue,  
security analyst Harsh V. Pant writes: "(The two countries) were  
close to a deal on Kashmir in 2007 not because of any outside  
pressure but because India was confident of the support of the  
friendlier Bush administration."

The people of India may be less misty-eyed about that past and  
"partnership." But the victory of bipartisanship over the deal will  
deny the voters an opportunity to pronounce their verdict on it. A  
post-election struggle awaits the nation's small but significant  
movement for peace and against nuclear militarism.

o o o

THE LEFT AND THE THIRD FRONT
by Pritam Singh

Even though the third front has had a fluctuating history, the common  
opposition to the centralising idea of nationalism espoused by both  
the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party provides the ground for  
the coming together of left, regional and lower caste political  
forces. For this to happen, all three will have to imaginatively  
rework their programmatic positions to accommodate the aspirations of  
the others. While there are many hurdles to this, such a front is  
essential if the stranglehold of the parties representing Indian big  
capital has to be broken and space created for long-term success of  
progressive politics.
http://www.epw.in/uploads/articles/13313.pdf

o o o

rediff.com

'I TRUST THE AAM-AADMI AND AAM-AURAT' - MALLIKA SARABHAI

March 27, 2009

She is the daughter of danseuse Mrinalini Sarabhai and India's  
pioneering space scientist Vikram Sarabhai. Captain Lakshmi Sehgal,  
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's trusted aide in the Indian National  
Army, is her aunt, and Marxist politician Subhasini Ali is her  
cousin. With such lineage, it is hardly surprising that Mallika  
Sarabhai's has been a consistent voice against criminalisation of  
politics and the communalisation of society.

Even given her lineage, it came as a surprise when she announced her  
candidature in the Lok Sabha elections against no less than the  
Bharatiya Janata Party's [Images] L K Advani [Images] from  
Gandhinagar in Gujarat. In an emailed interview with rediff.com,  
Mallika Sarabhai outlined what motivated her to take the plunge,  
finally.

What do you intend to achieve by contesting the Lok Sabha polls as an  
independent?

So many of us for so long have urged clean people to go into  
politics. I got fed up of urging others. So many people and groups  
had been telling me. So here I am.

How do you rate your chances of winning against the Bharatiya Janata  
Party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani? Is your fight merely  
symbolic?

No, it is not symbolic but yes it is. This is going to be a fight to  
win, but a fight that is transparent where I will try innovative  
means of reaching people through people and by sticking to rules and  
my integrity. I invite all others in the constituency to fight it as  
transparently. Every rupee I raise and spend will be there for all to  
check. I shall not resort to personal slander or to threats and  
bribes. The process is as important as the goal.

Winning? Let's see.

Have you felt like contesting elections before? Why didn't you? And  
how is the present different? You said the Congress has been offering  
you a ticket since 1984. Why didn't you take it up before?

I have contemplated it for years and always felt I was more effective  
outside the system. The degeneration in political life and the  
stridency of the divisive forces perhaps tipped the balance.

Why didn't you contest the Gujarat assembly elections?

I will now if I lose.

How do propose to go about your campaign? Given your background, do  
you plan to employ any novel methods, like street theatre? Could you  
elaborate?

Watch this space! Of course I have to be inventive and innovative. I  
have only Rs 25 lakh that I can spend and that too I haven't raised yet.

You know fighting an election is not inexpensive. How will you cope  
on this front? What are your plans for fund-raising?

I have made an appeal through my web site http://mallikasarabhai.in  
and from door to door. I am asking people who believe in this fight  
for a secular peoples' India to contribute and become the campaign.

Things could get dirty as the campaigning hots up, are you prepared  
for it?

I will have to be. I am preparing shoulders to cry on.

For many in the political spectrum the Indo-US nuclear deal is a red  
rag to a bull. As the daughter of one of India's eminent scientists,  
what are your views on the Indo-US nuclear deal?

Papa believed in nuclear non-proliferation. So do I.

What are the issues facing the electorate, in Gandhinagar and  
elsewhere, in your opinion?

Gandhinagar is very diverse. The rural middle class and poor;  
degraded lands and insecure livelihoods, urban slums with huge issues  
of health, lack of basic infrastructure, huge middle class who fear  
their safety, who don't have access to first rate education. Women  
across the spectrum whose issues of safety and respect haven't been  
tackled or even heard. Rape, murder, suicide and violence soaring --  
are some of the issues.

The 2004 election was turned on its head by the aam-aadmi. What kind  
of result do you foresee from the 2009 Lok Sabha elections?

I repose my trust in the aam-aadmi and, equally importantly, the aam- 
aurat.

You said that while you are a political novice politics flows in your  
blood. Was the reference to Capt Lakshmi Sehgal's legacy? Do you see  
yourself taking it forward?

Yes, and that of Ammu Swaminathan, Anasuya Sarabhai, Mridula  
Sarabhai, Subhashini Sahgal and Srilata Swaminathan. And all the  
others on both sides of my family who may not have fought elections  
but spent their lives fighting for justice and an equitable India for  
ALL Indians.

You also said politicians have killed democracy. Democracy  
unfortunately is a politician's game; by aspiring to join their  
ranks, what do you hope to achieve/change?

Politics need not be dirty. It need not be self-serving and vile. Our  
current politicians have made it so. We need to take a vacuum cleaner  
at them.

Who among your friends and associates will be involved in your campaign?

Everyone that I can inspire and many whom I don't yet know.

o o o

 From mayorleela at yahoo.com

SUPPORT MALLIKA SARABHAI'S CAMPAIGN

The reason I am writing to you all is to tell you that Mallika  
Sarabhai is contesting for elections as an Independant candidate from  
the Gandhinagar constituency in Ahmedabad which is also L K Advani's  
constituency. So far there are no candidates from the Congress or the  
CPI so there is a possibility that they may back her. For all of us  
interested in the fight against the BJP this is a great opportunity  
to pitch in our resources and help her make a great push towards a  
victory. It is also a great chance to undermine Narendhra Modi and  
all that he stands for and to put a spoke in the wheels of Advani's  
quest for Prime Ministership of India. This will be a national battle  
fought out at the micro level and all eyes will be on it.

Mallika is looking for support in terms of ideas for campaigning (she  
already has a good idea of strategy but is open to fresh and new  
ideas) and also very importantly, FUNDS. If you feel you can rally  
like-minded people to contribute in any which way they can it would  
be great. The Bank Account details are as below. She wants total  
transparency in terms of how the monies are spent and there will be  
public accountability for this. She wants people to contribute  
upfront without wanting anonymity. I am a point of contact for anyone  
wanting information. I will be working for and with the campaign. We  
also need on the ground volunteers and workers.

Please let me know how you can help. Hope to hear from you anyway.....

Please find below the information on Accounts for transfer of funds.  
Please pass on to anyone interested. Please let everyone know that  
funds can be as small or as large as people can afford. It is also  
for us a token of their involvement and support.

We really appreciate your support and the fact that you share our  
enthusiasm.

Fund transfer Information
No foreign contribution possible. If the NRIs have an Indian account,  
they may transfer it to that account and then forward that cash to us  
by bearer("self") cheque or cash itself.

For domestic wire transfer, please use this:
A/c Name: "Mallika Sarabhai MP Election 2009"
A/c Number: 202810110001569
Bank of India
Vadaj Branch
Ahmedabad 380013

If you are sending a check, please make check payable to:
Mallika Sarabhai MP Election 2009
& mail to:
Mallika Sarabhai
Chidambaram
Usmanpura
Ahmedabad 380013

o o o

ELECTORAL CONTEST BETWEEN MALLIKA SARABHAI AND LK ADVANI IS LIKE  
GANDHI VS GODSE
by K G Kannabiran, 26 March - sacw.net
http://www.sacw.net/article773.html

o o o

APPEAL - RALLY BEHIND MALLIKA SARABHAI IN HER FIGHT AGAINST COMMUNAL  
FASCISM
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/appeal-to-support-mallika- 
sarabhai.html


_____


[5]  India: Hindutva hard and soft . . . - Can law help contain the  
poison ?

Times of India
29 March 2009

HATRED JUSTIFIED?

by Manoj Mitta

One of Varun Gandhi’s speeches, which earned him the Election  
Commission’s censure was, “All the Hindus stay on this side and send  
the others to
Pakistan.” Then there was his other threat: “This is the lotus hand.  
It will cut their throats after elections.” The message was  
unmistakable. He was promising to turn Pilibhit into a completely  
Hindu constituency. However objectionable, his words are arguably in  
line with the Hindutva judgments delivered by the Supreme Court in 1996.

In one of those verdicts, a bench headed by Justice J S Verma upheld  
a promise that was even more explicit than that made by Varun. That  
promise was made by Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi in Maharashtra’s  
first election after the 1992-93 Mumbai riots and blasts. Joshi  
promised to turn Maharashtra into India’s first Hindu state. He went  
on to head a Shiv Sena-BJP government but the Bombay high court  
struck down Joshi’s election on the grounds that he had violated the  
constitutional commitment to secularism by seeking votes on the basis  
of his promise to establish a Hindu state.

The Supreme Court overturned the high court decision. It played down  
the import of Joshi’s promise. “In our opinion, a mere statement that  
the first Hindu state will be established in Maharashtra is by itself  
not an appeal for votes on the grounds of his religion but the  
expression, at best, of such a hope.”

Thanks to such reasoning, Varun may well defend himself against the  
charge of electoral offences by claiming that he too was merely  
expressing the hope that Pilibhit would be rid of Muslims after the  
elections and that he was not really appealing for votes on the  
grounds of his religion.

Not surprisingly, BJP leaders cited the Supreme Court’s ruling when  
they justified their decision to field Varun as a candidate in  
defiance of the Election Commission’s advice. If the Supreme Court’s  
approval of the Emergency’s suspension of right to life and personal  
liberty is ranked as its worst failure, its 1996 clean chit to  
Hindutva is the most politically corrosive. It has been cited by the  
Sangh Parivar over the years to rationalize a range of illiberal  
activities, from moral policing to preventing religious conversion;  
from the campaign to build the Ayodhya temple to killing minorities  
in mob violence or fake encounters.

Given the tendency to repose blind faith in Supreme Court judgments,  
the secularist parties have never been able to come up with an  
adequate response to the apparently solid judicial backing for  
Hindutva ideology. Although they amended the Constitution with  
alacrity in the last Lok Sabha to undo a Supreme Court bar on  
reservations in private professional colleges, no non-BJP party has  
so far sought to neutralize the Hindutva verdicts of 1996 through  
legislation or asking the Supreme Court to reconsider.

Varun is only the latest example of how the Hindutva verdicts have  
fostered a climate of impunity, during, before and after elections.  
Justice Verma’s rulings buck the international trend of recognizing  
hate speech as an exception to the freedom of expression. Buying into  
the Sangh Parivar view that it was no more than cultural nationalism,  
Justice Verma said, “Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of  
life or a state of mind and it is not to be equated with, or  
understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism.” Then, undermining the  
pluralism cherished by the Constitution, Justice Verma added, “The  
word Hindutva is used and understood as a synonym of Indianisation,  
i.e. development of uniform culture by obliterating the differences  
between all the cultures co-existing in the country.”

Whatever its drawbacks, coalition politics at the national level  
mocks this judicially-sanctified recipe for majoritarianism. The  
rumblings — even within the NDA — against Varun’s alleged hate speech  
indicate the odds stacked against the Hindutva project of developing,  
in the Supreme Court’s words, a uniform culture. It may be high time  
for a political consensus on legally burying the 1996 judgments on  
Hindutva.

o o o

Who’ll silence Varun?
by Soli J. Sorabjee
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/absence-of-legislation- 
dealing-with.html

India Needs A Law To Check Hate Speech
by Rajeev Dhavan
http://www.sacw.net/article799.html

Farzana Versey on Varun Gandhi's Nice Touch
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/farzana-versey-on-varun- 
gandhis-nice.html

LSE-SOAS Statement Against the Campaign of Varun Gandhi
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/lse-soas-statement-against- 
campaign-of.html

A hawk dressed as a dove: The marketing of a repackaged L. K. Advani
by Subhash Gatade
http://www.sacw.net/article778.html

‘RSS Members Are Present Even In The Congress Party’
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/rss-in-congress-party-and- 
surely-in.html

Saffron power in Gorakhpur
http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/30/stories/2009033050901500.htm

Full Text of the Gujarat High Court’s order rejecting the bail  
application of a Minister
http://www.sacw.net/article779.html


_____


[6]  India: Human Rights Campaign for the Release of Dr Binayak Sen

FREE, FREE BINAYAK SEN!" -- REPORT ON U.S. ACTIONS IN SOLIDARITY WITH  
THE RAIPUR SATYAGRAHA
http://www.freebinayaksen.org/?p=244

VARUN GANDHI ROAMS FREE AND BINAYAK SEN IN PRISON: THE SCANDALOUS  
DOUBLE STANDARDS
http://www.freebinayaksen.org/?p=241

UPDATE ON SECOND RAIPUR SATYAGRAHA, 23 MARCH
http://www.freebinayaksen.org/?p=240

_____


[7] MISCELLANEA

WALKING BETWEEN WORLDS: AN CONVERSATION WITH PIREENI SUNDARALINGAM  
(WLT, March 2008)
http://www.ou.edu/worldlit/onlinemagazine/2009March/sundaralingam.html

THE MYSTERIOUS "AMAR SINGH"- WHAT DID HILLARY CLINTON DO?
by Vijay Prashad (counterpunch.org)
http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad03102009.html

______


[8] Announcements:

(i) INSAANIYAT and the Committee For The Release of Binayak Sen

Invite you to:

“ISN’T IT TIME TO END THIS INJUSTICE? FREE BINAYAK SEN!”

a solidarity meeting with short contributions from

film makers Anand Patwardhan & Sudhir Mishra,

Binayak’s friends Drs Sanjay Nagral & Santosh Karmarkar, and Pranita  
Sen (Binayak’s daughter)

The discussion will be followed by a screening of

Anjaam, a documentary film by Ajay T. G., and a short clip by Anand  
Patwardhan on the ongoing satyagraha

No political prisoner in independent India has evoked so much support  
for his release nationally and internationally as Dr Binayak Sen. Dr  
Sen, held in prison since May 2007, campaigned fearlessly against the  
Salwa Judum, appealing to the government to terminate its policy of  
military suppression of the people of Chhattisgarh. He dared to  
expose the truth about a veritable civil war that has involved the  
rampant grabbing of land and forest and violent suppression of local  
adivasi opposition. In response, the state government has gone all  
out to present Dr Sen’s civil rights activities as a threat to  
national security. It has trumped up charges against him and  
continues to make a mockery of the rule of law. To silence the voice  
of Dr Sen is an attempt to silence all political dissent in society.  
No wonder the campaign for his release has received such widespread  
support throughout the world. Come and express your solidarity with him!

Venue: Conference Room, The Press Club, Mumbai

Time and date : 6.30 p.m. Thursday 2nd April 2009

---

(ii) MUMBAI, TERROR, AND ISLAMISM

April 7, South Court Auditorium, 7 p.m. (New York)

A conversation about the connections between the recent attacks in  
India and radical Islamist ideology, the historic struggle over  
Kashmir, and the prospects for future relations between India and  
Pakistan.

Fawzia Afzal-Khan is a professor in the Department of English at  
Montclair State University, and the editor, most recently, of  
Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out

Akeel Bilgrami is a current Cullman Center Fellow.  He is the  
Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, and the  
author of the forthcoming What Is a Muslim?

Hari Kunzru is a current Cullman Center Fellow.  He is the author of  
the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, and My Revolutions.

Basharat Peer is a journalist whose first book, Curfewed Night:The  
Battles for Kashmir, a memoir of the Kashmir conflict, will be  
published this fall

FREE with university ID and to SAJA members! Co-sponsored by the  
Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University and the Asia  
Society.

TICKETS: $15 general admission/$10 NYPL Donors & Seniors/FREE for  
students.  To purchase tickets (to all but the FREE 3/25 program),  
visit www.smarttix.com or call 212.868.4444.  For more information:  
www.nypl.org/csw
http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/scholars/cswpepdesc.cfm?id=5240

- - -

(iii) NUCLEAR THREAT TO INDIA - PRESS CONFERENCE

April 13, 2009, Monday, at Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC, 5  
Windsor Place, New Delhi-1, Phone: 23325366) at 3:00 PM sharp!

YOU ARE INVITED to a press conference on the NUCLEAR THREAT TO INDIA,  
at which some of India ’s leading anti-nuclear activists will  
describe how nuclearism is slowly but surely seeping into our  
national life with disastrous consequences for our society, economy,  
politics, and the very democratic fabric of our country. They will  
bring this danger to the Indian electorate's attention as they are  
about to elect the next Parliament and exhort them to shun  
nuclearization of India .

Chair: Dr. S. P. Udayakumar, Coordinator, People's Movement Against  
Nuclear Energy, Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu.

Speakers:
Mr. Praful Bidwai, Senior journalist, peace activist, founder of  
Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND) (invited).
Mr. Anil Chowdhary, Social activist, Coalition for Nuclear  
Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF).
Dr. Sandeep Pandey, social activist, Asha Parivar (invited).
Ms. Medha Patkar, Narmada Bachao Andolan (Invited).
Mr. Anand Patwardhan, Film-maker and activist (Invited).
Admiral (Retd.) Ramdas, peace activist, and Mrs. Ramdas, educationist  
and leader of Green Peace (invited).
Ms. Aruna Roy, political and social activist (Invited).
Ms. Arundhati Roy, novelist, essayist and activist (Invited).
Professor Achin Vanaik, Professor of International Relations and  
Global Politics, Department of Political Science, Delhi University .

Tea and refreshments will be served.

Media Enquiries:
People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy
Mobile : 09865683735
Email: koodankulam at yahoo.com

- - -

(iv)  Call for Papers

THE ANXIETY OF BELONGING: PARTITIONS, REUNIFICATIONS, MODERNITY

Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory

Cardiff University, Wales, July 15th-17th, 2009

Keynote Speakers: Joseph Cleary (NUI, Ireland), Meenakshi Mukherjee,  
(JNU, India) Hannah Behrend (Humboldt University, Germany), Ilan Pape  
(Exeter, UK)

In an increasingly globalized world, the fractures caused by  
Partitions and their papering over by Reunifications raise one of the  
most important questions of modernity, that of belonging.  The focus  
of this conference will be to do comparative work on Partitions and  
Reunifications and understand these political events in their global  
complexity.  “The Anxiety of Belonging: Partitions, Reunifications,  
Modernity” conference calls for papers that will open up new ways of  
theorizing and new approaches to Partitions and Reunifications by  
problematizing political and nationalistic frameworks in an era of  
the postnational and the global. How will a cultural studies approach  
with its emphasis on cultural practices and their relationships to  
power, the focus on culture in its complex forms, and on the  
practices of everyday life, along with its variety of theoretical  
frameworks and interdisciplinarity invigorate Partition and  
Reunification studies?  How do contemporary discourses of identity,  
gender, sexuality, intellectual traditions, religion, the re- 
imagination of the nation-state, and memory work reshape the  
scholarship on Partitions and Reunifications? Further, how do the  
structures of partition function in settler countries, which though  
not politically partitioned, spatially separate the indigenous from  
settler populations.

The broad themes of the conference will include:
*   Comparative partitions and reunifications
*   The importance of partition study in the face of the declining  
nation-state and the           postnational
*   The reshaping of knowledge in the wake of a partition or a  
reunification (for instance what impact does the loss of archives at  
partition have on a new nation’s knowledge production)
*   The impact of partitions and reunifications on the discourse of  
diaspora
*   The meaning of reunifications in the face of globalization
*   The re-imagination of the nation-state and reunifications
*   Race, ethnicity and religion in partitions and reunifications
*   Gender, sexuality, identity and partitions and reunifications
*   Indigenous populations and their relation to a segregated nation- 
space
*   Memory, Trauma, and Forgetting

The Conference invites 20 minute papers from the following  
disciplinary areas: Critical theory, history, sociology, cultural  
studies, literary and media studies, politics, visual culture, and  
religious studies.  This list is not exhaustive.

Send 200-250 word proposals by February 5th to partitions at cardiff.ac.uk

Details:  http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/newsandevents/events/ 
conferences/partitions.html


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S o u t h      A s i a      C i t i z e n s      W i r e
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

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necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.