SACW | July 8-9, 2009 / Nepal Languages / Maldives Public Floggings / Taslima Nasreen / Afghanistan, Kashmir, Pakistan / India: Guantanamo Bays ; Left Politics ; Obscurantism

Wed Jul 8 23:05:42 CDT 2009

South Asia Citizens Wire | July 8-9, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2642 - Year  
11 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.  
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and  
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]
____

[1]  Nepal plunges into politics of languages (Dhruba Adhikary)
[2]  Maldives: Woman faints after 100 lashes, says judge (Maryam Omidi)
[3]  There is no reason to call Bangladesh a secular state – Taslima  
Nasreen
[4]  The Afghan Triangle: Kashmir, India, Pakistan (Graham Usher)
[5]  Kashmir is Not a law and order problem (Editorial, Kashmir Times)
[6]  India's Multiple Secret Detention Centres - its little  
Guantanamo Bays (Syed Nazakat)
[7]  The Indian left in strategy crisis (Praful Bidwai)
[8]  India: What future for Nehru Memorial Museum And Library
[9]  India: Between vendors of culture of religious consumption and  
hard core obscurantist nuts
     - Urban Spaces, Disney-Divinity and Moral Middle Classes in  
Delhi (Sanjay Srivastava)
     - Yogi says it's a disease, astrologer brings in animals: 377  
goes to SC
     - Landmark Gay sex Ruling challenged in India's supreme court by  
an astrologer lawyer
     - Hindu guru claims homosexuality can be 'cured' by yoga (Dean  
Nelson)

_____

[1] Nepal:

Asia Times
July 9, 2009

NEPAL PLUNGES INTO POLITICS OF LANGUAGES
by Dhruba Adhikary

Kathmandu - The issue of official language(s) has never been as  
sensitive in Nepal as it is now. While the interim statute maintains  
the continuity of Nepali, in Devnagari script, as the language of  
official communication, some members of the 601-strong Constituent  
Assembly want to add 11 more languages to the list, giving them the  
same status, while others are advocating for the addition of Hindi.

Otherwise, the members will resort to writing "notes of dissent",  
unwittingly using an English expression to press their point. One  
contention is that since Nepal is now a republic, it should adopt a  
language policy to de-link the country's monarchical past.

If all 11 languages gain equal status with Nepali as demanded, that  
will still leave Nepal's 60 other languages and dialects, which are  
spoken by just 1% of the population in a country of over 25 million  
people, off the list.

But does Nepal have the required resource-base to have a dozen  
official languages? Yes, it is possible, said commentator Shyam  
Shrestha. Since democracy requires equality, the state should be  
prepared to pay a concomitant price for it, he said in a recent  
newspaper article.

Countries often cited for their liberal language policies are  
Switzerland, Canada, India and South Africa. Post-apartheid South  
Africa, for example, has accepted 11 languages to address some ethnic  
communities. But with the passage of time, English, although fifth on  
the list, has emerged as the most preferred language there. Efforts  
to promote Afrikaans as the first language have not produced  
encouraging results.

Nepali, an offspring of Sanskrit, is the mother tongue of 49% of the  
population and has been in use for official communication for  
centuries. In Nepal's neighborhood and beyond it is also called  
Gorkhali, a name derived to identify it with the world famous Gurkha  
soldiers. It is a language with an enriched vocabulary, grammar and  
literature. Besides being the official language, Nepali has provided  
a link between and among communities speaking local languages and  
dialects.

It is understood and spoken, with local accents and variations, in  
all 4,000-plus villages and towns that make up the present-day Nepal.  
No other language has this level of outreach.

Credit - or discredit - for having agitated the public to protest the  
perceived domination of the Nepali language goes to the Maoists. The  
Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), led by Prachanda, whose nine-month  
premiership ended in May, has found it expedient to extend support to  
those who insist that the new constitution must recognize all 12  
languages as official ones.

Assembly member Barshaman Pun, affiliated to the Maoists, told the  
panel that all remaining languages should be included in the annex of  
the statute. He also wanted the words "people's war" to be included  
in the preamble of the new statute so that the armed Maoist  
insurgency (1996-2006) will be remembered by future generations.  
Members belonging to other parties insisted that the period be  
described only as an "armed conflict".

In their initial effort to mobilize masses in favor of the "people's  
war", as they chose to call it, Maoist leaders issued slogans and  
promises that they would provide autonomous states "with the right to  
self-determination" on the basis of ethnicity, language or religion.  
Scholars and analysts see this as the main contradiction in the  
Maoist scheme.

If they were true communists they would have made it a class war - a  
battle to seek justice for poor and downtrodden people, irrespective  
of ethnicity or caste. They found it useful to go after catchy  
slogans without anticipating that their moves would eventually create  
divisions in society and threaten the integrity of Nepal as a nation  
state.

The persistent demand to turn Nepal's entire flatland, called Terai,  
in the south bordering India into one state is being backed by over  
two-dozen armed groups. There is a credible threat of separation  
should the current demand for statehood not be met.

Some of the Maoist leaders do accept, in private conversation, that  
they made some serious mistakes along the way but now find no  
agreeable way to rectify them. In the absence of a face-saving  
device, they don't want to backtrack from their declared objectives  
in public. On the day Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief  
Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed in Sri Lanka this year, Prachanda  
himself publicly alluded to the case of Sri Lanka, where the Tamil- 
speaking community fought a protracted civil war that ended in tragedy.

At the start, Maoists did not realize that they were opening a  
Pandora's box. And they also did not learn lessons from events in the  
former Yugoslavia and elsewhere. Now they are in the midst of a host  
of issues for which there is no durable or sustainable solution. The  
language issue is one such example. Of the 72 languages that are  
spoken in the country, some have numerous sub-groups.

Some scholars of the Rai community in the eastern hills, for  
instance, have discovered 28 variations of the Rai language, with  
speakers of each group wanting their dialect to receive identical  
treatment from the state. The Sherpa community, which provides high- 
altitude guides to mountaineers attempting to scale Everest and other  
Himalayan peaks, is uncomfortable over purported moves to marginalize  
their language to bestow a higher status to a language used by recent  
immigrants from Tibet. But people living in the foothills of snow- 
capped mountains in the northern belt have not lost their cool, and  
are not making much noise.

The situation is quite different in the southern belt, which shares  
porous borders with India's Bihar state - known for lawlessness - and  
Uttar Pradesh state, with a large population, among others. Small  
political parties, with loaded regional overtones, suddenly felt  
strong enough to demand that Hindi, spoken mainly in northern India  
and popularized by India's Mumbai-based film industry, be given the  
status enjoyed by Nepali. This happened on the eve of the national  
polls of April 2008 that were held to elect the constituent assembly.

Existing regional parties were emboldened with the sudden emergence  
of new parties, mainly consisting of disgruntled leaders from the  
mainstream national parties such as Nepali Congress and the Unified  
Marxist Leninist (UML), which is considered a moderate communist  
group when compared with the Maoists.

Media reports claimed the new political parties were floated - ahead  
of the crucial election - with moral and material support from the  
south; but official India promptly denied such reports and allegations.

Those who have appeared vocal in the constituent assembly debate  
belong to these newly formed parties, and have inserted the  
dissenting opinion with the demand that Hindi too be made an official  
language like Nepali. Their main argument is that since most Nepalis  
watch Hindi films and enjoy listening to Hindi music there should not  
be any hesitation to accept it as an official Nepal language.

Upendra Yadav, head of the Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum, a Terai-based  
party, said that given neighboring India already included Nepali in  
its list of recognized languages, Nepal needs to reciprocate the  
gesture by accepting Hindi on this side of the border. But he denied  
charges that he was speaking as a spokesman for India.

"English is the language of science and development," said Birendra  
Yadav, a lawyer based in the border town of Birgunj. In a written  
comment published recently he argued that should the government  
decide to make additional investments in language it must do so to  
enhance younger people's accessibility to English, not Hindi. India  
itself has flourished because of the use of English.
Ram Chandra Jha, a former minister representing the moderate Unified  
Marxist Leninist party, suspects that the idea to make Hindi a link  
language in Nepal could be a ploy to weaken the roots of the Maithili  
language on the Indian side. Maithili's status in Nepal is higher  
than in India. In other words, promoters of Hindi in India might have  
a hand in Nepal's campaign in order to preempt any identical demands  
on the Indian side of the border.

With this compelling argument, Jha and his fellow UML leaders have  
convinced the party's central leadership that Nepali alone should be  
given official language status in Nepal. Nepali Congress, the other  
party among the three big parties, also holds the position that it is  
only Nepali that deserves to be the lingua franca of Nepal.

Language experts do not consider Hindi's case as a tenable  
proposition as the percentage of the population using Hindi as its  
mother tongue is 0.47%. To enjoy Hindi movies and music, which is  
done even in America and Europe, cannot be a basis to accept it as a  
serious language of mass communication. Hindi, although given  
national language status in India, is not widely used. Television  
viewers have seen Indian Interior Minister P Chidambaram handling  
Hindi questions in English. English continues to be the language of  
Indian law courts.

If Hindi is accepted as an official language this would pose a direct  
threat to Terai's existing regional languages such as Maithili,  
Bhojpuri, Avadhi and Thaaru, they contend. In the view of Professor  
Madhav Prasad Pokharel of Tribhuwan University, to entertain the  
current advocacy being made for Hindi would spark the highly  
sensitive issue of nationalism. Languages, he said, need to be placed  
in four categories: mother tongues of all communities; the link  
language, which is Nepali; cultural languages such as Sanskrit, used  
by Hindus and Buddhists alike for religious rites and Arabic/Urdu  
which are essential for Muslims; and English.

All mother tongues deserve preservation, Nepali should be allowed to  
function as the official and link language, cultural languages must  
be inserted on the list of recognized languages and English be  
formally accepted as the language of international communication.  
There is no role or room for Hindi as it stands now.

Meanwhile, leaders of various ethnic communities appear to have  
realized that the Nepali language is one vital foundation to  
establish the collective identity of the diverse ethnic groups that  
make up Nepal.

Dhruba Adhikary is a Kathmandu-based journalist.

_____

[2] Maldives:

http://www.minivannews.com/news_detail.php?id=6842

WOMAN FAINTS AFTER 100 LASHES, SAYS JUDGE
5 July 2009

by Maryam Omidi

An 18-year-old woman was flogged in public outside the Justice  
Building and sentenced to a year of house arrest today for having  
extra-marital sex.

Rahma Abdulla from Seenu Feydhoo Keeranmaage received 100 lashes  
after confessing to having extra-marital sex with a man named Shareef  
and another named Adam Suhail, Shaviyani Foakaidhoo Musthareege, on  
two separate occasions earlier this year.

Rahma was taken to hospital after the lashing; although an official  
at Criminal Court said she had tripped on a step and hurt her leg,  
Judge Abdulla Mohamed, chief judge of the Criminal Court, said she  
fainted.

Abdulla said the courts could not prosecute the two men as Rahma was  
unable to provide any details about the first man and the second man  
denied his involvement.

Latest statistics from the department of judicial administration’s  
website reveal that in 2006, out of 184 lashed for extra-marital sex,  
146 were women.

Speaking to Minivan News MP for Galolhu Eva Abdulla said, “It seems a  
bit disproportionate considering there always has to be two people  
involved.

She further pointed to other forms of corporal punishment in Sharia  
law, which were not practiced in the Maldives.

“We don’t cut off the hands of all those who steal and we don’t  
implement the death sentence so why do we continue with these very  
inhumane practices, especially when the statistics show that the  
victims are women,” she said.

But, Judge Abdulla said more women were sentenced than men because  
while men were able to deny the crime, pregnancy often implicated  
women in extra-marital sex.

“A man after making this problem will go and maybe the woman will  
have relations with more than one man and won’t know who was  
responsible or the man denies it,” he said.

Without a confession, extra-marital sex cases are very difficult to  
prosecute, he said, as they required the testimony of four witnesses  
for each of those involved.

While she did not comment on this specific case, Jeehan Mahmoud from  
the Human Rights Commission Maldives (HRCM) said the Maldives was  
signatory to both the Convention Against Torture and the Optional  
Protocol to the Convention Against Torture.

Under these international human rights instruments, any act which  
causes severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, and is  
used as a punishment is prohibited.

Judge Abdulla said the goal was not to cause injury to the offender  
and the person administering the punishment was not to raise his arm  
higher than his shoulder.

Flogging is dispensed with a leather paddle called a duraa in the  
Maldives.

On why floggings were public, Abdulla said the method was prescribed  
in the Qur’an and its purpose was to act as a deterrent.

“Because the public should know this lady or man have done these  
things and they will stay away from these things,” he said.

Speaking to Minivan News today, documentary filmmaker Ali Rasheed,  
said he hoped both the HRCM and the gender department in the health  
ministry would condemn the act.

While both Rasheed and Eva said they were “shocked” to hear about the  
lashing, Abdulla said public floggings were common in the Maldives,  
and the last one was carried out on 30 June.

Further, around 200 people found guilty of extramarital sex were  
awaiting the punishment.

Rasheed, who has made two films about violence against women, said an  
interview with one woman, who had been sentenced to flogging,  
revealed the practice left behind indelible psychological scars.

He added most Islamic countries had abolished the practice.

“People who support these kinds of acts will immediately bring  
religion into it and then the public are too afraid to speak,” said  
Rasheed. “I am sure most Maldivians wouldn’t support inhumane acts  
like this.”

© Copyright Minivan News

_____

[3] Bangladesh:

Weekly Blitz, July 1, 2009
Exclusive Interview

THERE IS NO REASON TO CALL BANGLADESH A SECULAR STATE – Taslima

Feminist writer Taslima Nasrin is set to back home after 15 years of  
life in self-exile. Recently Bangladeshi foreign minister Dr. Dipu  
Moni told reporters in New York that there is no obstacle for Taslima  
in returning home. But, despite such statement of the Bangladeshi  
minister, neither Bangladesh mission in Washington renewed her  
Bangladeshi passport nor stamped required seal, which would allow her  
in returning to the country. In 2007, Taslima Nasrin sought Indian  
citizenship, when governments in Dhaka were continuing to stop her  
from returning home.

Taslima Nasrin came in the forefront of global media exposure, when  
her novel ‘Lajja’ [Shame] was published and was subsequently banned  
by several countries for its contents. Indian political party named  
Bharatiya Janata Party asked Taslima Nasrin for withdrawing several  
contents of this book, which according to them “hurt Hindu sentiments.”

"Since she has withdrawn her controversial pages from her book  
Dwikhontito, as it hurt the sentiments of Muslims, we appeal to her  
to withdraw references which have hurt Hindu sentiments," West Bengal  
BJP general secretary Rahul Sinha said.

Taslima Nasrin believes that all governments in Bangladesh have  
continued to impose ban on her entering the country for years. She  
said, “I was born in Bangladesh and as a citizen it is my legal right  
to be able to live in Bangladesh. My right has been violated time and  
gain. Both the BNP and the Awami League Governments have violated my  
fundamental rights as a citizen.”

Commenting on political parties in India, Taslima Nasrin said, “The  
problem of all political parties in India is that they tend to  
appease the Muslim fundamentalists.”

Taslima Nasrin proclaims herself to be an atheist and secular person.  
She said, her battle is against discrimination of women and it has  
nothing to do with opposing any religion.

Taslima Nasrin supports the theme of ‘Moderate Muslim country’,  
saying “Secular state is the ideal choice. But being a ‘moderate  
Muslim country’ is not too negative considering the condition in  
other Muslim countries.”

In response to another question, Taslima Nasrin said, she does not  
blame the Talibans for repression and terrorist activities.

Weekly Blitz editor, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury took the exclusive  
interview of Taslima Nasrin four days back. Read the interview below:

Q: Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. Dipu Moni told reporters in New  
York that there is no obstacle for you in returning to Bangladesh.  
This has certainly received positive response from the secularist  
forces in Bangladesh and elsewhere. How do you assess this statement?

A: I know about this news, it was published in one or two obscure  
newspapers in Bangladesh. When journalists asked her about the  
possibility of my return to Bangladesh, she said I did not have any  
legal problem to return to my own country.
I know this. I know that I do not have any legal problem to return to  
my country, if that is so then why they prevented me from entering my  
country for more than a decade. They have never given me any reason  
for imposing the ban.

Without a valid travel document or visa I can’t board an aircraft. No  
government of Bangladesh is willing to renew my Bangladesh passport,  
they even do not issue a visa or ‘no visa required for Bangladesh’  
stamp (which is given to all Bangladeshi-born people) on my European  
passport. So how do I enter my country?

I was born in Bangladesh and as a citizen it is my legal right to be  
able to live in Bangladesh. My right has been violated time and gain.  
Both the BNP and the Awami League Governments have violated my  
fundamental rights as a citizen.

If there is no obstacle for me to return to my country, then they  
should accept my application of passport renewal, which is lying in  
the Home Ministry. Although a handful of secular human rights  
advocates have requested the government to help me to return, they  
have not got any positive answer yet. I wrote a personal letter to  
Sheikh Hasina requesting her to allow me entry. I do not know whether  
my sincere plea would yield any result.

Q: You have Bangladeshi passport. Have you already renewed your  
passport, as such renewal was not done by the BNP-led Islamist  
government and military-backed interim government for past several  
years. But, now, Bangladesh Awami League, which is a secularist  
party, has come in power. Have they instructed Bangladeshi embassy to  
renew your passport?

A: My Bangladeshi passport was not renewed either by the BNP or the  
AL regimes. Both the governments banned my books and shut the door of  
Bangladesh on my face.. I have been living in exile for 15 years.  
They are punishing me for crimes the Muslim fanatics committed  
against me. I have been to almost all Bangladesh embassies in the  
West to get my passport renewed. But no Bangladesh embassy issued me  
visa or renewed my passport. The embassies need permission from the  
supreme authority of the government to renew my passport. This rule  
is applicable only in my case. No permission has come for renewal of  
my passport from the government since 1999, the year the validity of  
my Bangladeshi passport was expired.

Q: The present government commented that Bangladesh is not a moderate  
Muslim country. How do you assess this statement?

A: The foreign minister said that Bangladesh is ''a secular country,  
it is not a moderate Muslim country''. That is wonderful to hear but  
it is not true. There is no reason why we should call Bangladesh a  
secular country. No secular country has laws based on religion. But  
Bangladesh’s family law (Marriage, Divorce, Child custody,  
inheritance) is based on religion. Secular state means religion and  
state exist separately. But Bangladesh is not a case for a secular  
state. No secular state can have any state religion. Bangladesh’s  
state religion is Islam. No government of secular country can  
participate in religious ceremonies or make the religion compulsory  
in the syllabus of academic curriculum in public schools. Secularism  
was erased from Bangladesh constitution in 80’s. It is still not  
restored---even the Awami League (AL) did not restore it during its  
last tenure (1996-2000). AL has come back to power again in 2008. But  
will they bring back the secular constitution of 1971 and quit the  
concept of having a state religion.

Awami league during their election campaign said a lot against  
fundamentalists, promised to punish the war criminals, but so far  
there is no sign to make the country secular, make the law secular  
(which must be based on equality, not based on any religion).

Secular state is the ideal choice. But being a ‘moderate Muslim  
country’ is not too negative considering the condition in other  
Muslim countries, which are more and more, inclined towards  
fundamentalism.

Q: Government of India is not letting you visit that country. What  
would be the reason behind such actions of the Indian authorities?

A: I lived in India for a few years. After I was attacked by the  
Islamic fundamentalists, the Indian government forced me to live  
under house arrest and then compelled me to leave the country. The  
problem of all political parties in India is that they tend to  
appease the Muslim fundamentalists. Muslims comprises 25% of Indian  
population, this section generally rely on their religious leaders to  
choose the politician or party to vote. So all political parties try  
to win the hearts of these religious leaders, who are often fanatics.  
The Indian authorities do not allow me to live in India, because they  
are afraid of being labeled as anti-Islam. Muslim fundamentalists  
claimed that I destroyed Islam. The politicians thought they, instead  
of supporting freedom of speech, should issue fatwa against it  
because to them supporting me would mean being labeled as anti Islam  
which would destroy their Muslim vote-bank.

I am genuinely, a secular person. I have been fighting for women’s  
rights and freedom. My fight is not against any particular religion.  
I always believe in secular state and secular education. Religion  
should be people’s personal matter. Nobody should be persecuted or  
oppressed for their beliefs (religious or atheism), gender, color or  
ethnicity. It is very painful to see that the largest democracy of  
the world can’t give shelter to a secular writer whose entire life is  
dedicated to secular humanism.

Q: How do you assess the leadership of Sheikh Hasina and her governance?

A: It is quite promising. I hope this government would take some  
progressive steps for good. As there is no true secular political  
party in the country, it is the only party we have pinned our hopes  
on. There is no alternative. I appreciate the idea of Sheikh Hasina  
to give some important ministries to women. For the empowerment of  
the women, she is doing good job.

I hope I would be able to return to my country during Hasina’s term.  
If I can’t go back now, I am afraid whether I will ever be able to in  
future. I have not seen any positive sign from her side so far to  
grant me a free passage to my own country. Hope the good sense would  
prevail.

Q: Rise of Islamist militancy is a great problem for many nations.  
What initiatives should be taken to check such rise and eliminate the  
Islamist forces?

A: In different cultures, different measures should be taken. What is  
good for Saudi Arabia may not be suitable for Bangladesh. Even the  
fundamentalists are of different kinds having not similar resistance  
power. I don’t prescribe the same medicine for all of them. I think  
what is necessary is to change the system. I, believe me, do not  
blame the Talibans. The innocent little boys are sent to Madrassas  
where they were not given any other book but the Koran and were  
brainwashed to become terrorists and pick up guns to kill people. So  
what would you expect from them? Killing Talibans would not solve any  
problem. You have to kill the system of making people Taliban. You  
have to stop that dangerous conspiracy, based on hatred, which is  
underway to destroy mankind.

Q: Are you presently working on a new book? Would you kindly describe  
the contents?

A: I am working on the 6th part of my autobiography. It is about how  
my mother suffered all her life in a misogynist society. How she was  
kept untreated for a decade, and died having lived a miserable life.  
My mother was religious, but she was the most honest person I have  
ever known. No priest came to my mother’s funeral because her crime  
was that she was the mother of an ‘apostate’. My mother was the most  
kind and generous person. She loved everybody. She did not use  
religion to harm others. She always tried to help people with all her  
goodness. If you believe in god, it does not necessarily mean that  
you become an enemy of the mankind. I believe even if my mother did  
not believe in god, she would have remained woman of high moral and  
ethical values – as she has always been.

______

[4] Kashmir / Afganistan / India / Pakistan:

Middle East Report No. 251 — Summer 2009
(special issue "Pakistan Under Pressure")

THE AFGHAN TRIANGLE: KASHMIR, INDIA, PAKISTAN

by Graham Usher

(Graham Usher is a writer and journalist based in Pakistan and a  
contributing editor of Middle East Report.)

[photo] The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons protesting  
in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir. (Faheem Qadri)

The Pakistani army’s operation in the Swat Valley in northwest  
Pakistan is the most sustained in five years of selective  
counterinsurgency against the local Taliban. The toll already is  
immense: 1.9 million internally displaced, including tens of  
thousands housed in tents on parched plains; 15,000 soldiers battling  
5,000 guerrillas; and more than a thousand dead, mainly militants  
according to available counts but also soldiers and of course civilians.

The war has not been confined to Swat. In revenge for losses there,  
the Pakistan Taliban has unleashed a torrent of attacks in Peshawar,  
Lahore, Islamabad and other cities, killing scores. “You know it’s  
serious this time: the scale of the army’s campaign confirms it. You  
fear the war is at your door,” said Sajjad Ali from Mardan, a city  
adjacent to Swat.

The war is the fruit of a failed peace process, denounced by the  
United States as an “abdication” that had allowed the Taliban to  
within 60 miles of Islamabad. In February, the provincial government  
had proffered a localized form of Islamic law in Swat in return for  
the Taliban disarming and recognizing “the writ of the state.” The  
insurgents observed their commitments only in the breach, which  
included the slaughter of their opponents. In May the army  
“reinvaded” Swat.

Pakistanis historically have been hostile to campaigns against the  
Taliban, casting them as “America’s war.” But not this time: The  
army, the civilian government and most Pakistanis, including the  
largest opposition party, support the Swat offensive. “The atrocities  
of the Swat Taliban galvanized public opinion,” says Maleeha Lodhi, a  
former ambassador to the US. “It produced a coincidence of military  
resolve, political consensus and strong public support. And because  
the US was not seen as calling the shots in any pronounced way, this  
helped the government pursue a very aggressive policy.”

The public support manifests as a spontaneous, generous solidarity.  
In cities like Mardan, Peshawar and Swabi, people have literally  
opened their homes to the refugees. In vast tent cities near the  
banks of the Indus, volunteers deliver food, clothes, utensils and  
shelter. The relief work, involving all parts of Pakistani civil  
society, is led by the Islamic charities.

One such charity is Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). Last December the Pakistani  
government banned JuD and arrested its amir, Hafiz Saeed, following  
the JuD’s designation as a terrorist group by the United Nations.  
Saeed founded Lashkar-e-Tayaba (LeT), the Pakistani jihadi group that  
India alleges was behind the attack in Mumbai in November 2008. In  
Pakistan, it is widely assumed that JuD and LeT are one and the same  
organization. On June 2, the Lahore High Court ordered Saeed’s  
release on the grounds that the state had supplied “insufficient”  
evidence to warrant his detention. India responded by saying that the  
decision raised “serious doubts over Pakistan’s sincerity in acting  
with determination against terrorist groups and individuals operating  
from its territory.” India has since conditioned any return to peace  
negotiations with Pakistan on the latter taking action against LeT  
and other jihadi groups.

For the Obama administration—which has cast Taliban and al-Qaeda  
“sanctuaries” in Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan as the  
“single greatest threat” to America—the enigma is whether Pakistan’s  
military establishment is friend or foe in America’s war against  
Islamic militancy. “I’ve rarely seen in my years in Washington an  
issue so hotly disputed internally by experts and intelligence  
officials,” ceded Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s point man for  
“Af-Pak,” when asked that question in February.

The dispute in Washington about how to perceive the Pakistani army  
runs along two colliding tracks. Track one says the army is a friend.  
Even before Swat, the Pakistani army had lost 1,000 men to Taliban  
and al-Qaeda guerillas in the tribal areas. Pakistan’s premier  
military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),  
had “rendered” more than 600 al-Qaeda suspects into CIA hands,  
including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind behind the  
September 11, 2001 attacks. Currently the Pakistani army is fighting  
the Taliban not only in Swat but also the tribal areas of Bajaur,  
Orakzai, Mohmand, Khyber and South Waziristan.

[photo] Kashmiri children watching cricket near an excavation site in  
Budgam, near Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir. (Faheem Qadri)

Track two says the army-ISI combination is a foe. It allows Afghan  
Taliban leader Mullah Omar and his Shura council free run in  
Pakistan’s Balochistan province from where they direct the insurgency  
in Afghanistan. It shelters Afghan Taliban commanders like Jalaluddin  
and Sirjuddin Haqqani in North Waziristan. And it supplies money,  
arms and training to jihadi groups fighting the Indian army in Indian- 
occupied Kashmir, including the “banned” LeT.

The two tracks collide because both, in part, are true. The army is  
combating the Pakistan Taliban and its jihadi allies in Swat and  
elsewhere, seeing their spread as a danger to Pakistan’s integrity as  
a state. One hundred and twenty thousand soldiers have been mobilized  
to fight them. But 250,000 remain rooted on the eastern border facing  
the Indian army, and primed by organizational formation, weaponry,  
ideology and ethos to a vision that defines India, not the Taliban or  
al-Qaeda, as the “strategic enemy.” That vision must change if  
Pakistan is to defeat the enemy at home.

Jockeying for Kashmir

For the last 61 years the fight has been fought, mostly, in and for  
Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK): the territory Delhi and Islamabad have  
contested since the 1947 partition cleaved them into two states—and  
Kashmir into “Pakistani” and “Indian” parts. Sometimes (1947, 1965,  
1971, 1999) the war has been hot. More often it has been waged via  
Pakistani proxies against a standing Indian military. Since 1989, it  
has been channeled through a low-intensity, Pakistan-backed  
separatist-Islamist insurgency that has killed 50,000 people and  
incurred an Indian military occupation three times the size of  
America’s in Iraq and three times as lethal.

Of all the jihadi groups the ISI nurtured in IoK, the LeT was the  
deadliest, but there were others. Their collective purpose was to  
“bleed India” until Delhi surrendered IoK to Islamabad. Pre-9/11, the  
collaboration was overt. LeT and other jihadi groups recruited  
fighters throughout Pakistan, but particularly from southern Punjab.  
They launched hundreds of guerilla attacks on Indian soldiers and  
civilians and fought alongside the Pakistani army in the 1999  
invasion of Kargil, the last time the two armies went head to head  
inside Indian Kashmir.

In December 2001, India charged LeT with attacking its parliament in  
Delhi, bringing the two countries to the brink of nuclear war. Under  
American pressure, General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s then-military  
dictator, banned the LeT and other jihadi groups. Moves against the  
militants in 2002 seemed like bluffs at the time. In fact, they were  
the beginning of a slow change. Steered by Washington, Islamabad and  
Delhi went from nuclear brinkmanship to a truce across the armistice  
line in Kashmir. In 2004, Musharraf began a peace process or  
“composite dialogue” with India predicated on the oath “not to permit  
any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support  
terrorism in any manner.” What had commenced as a feint by Pakistan’s  
military establishment was hardening into policy.

The ISI demobilized thousands of jihadi fighters in Pakistani- 
occupied Kashmir (PoK). Some of their camps were moved inland,  
including, ironically, to the Swat Valley. Six army divisions (about  
80,000 to 100,000 men) were repositioned from the eastern border with  
India to the western border with Afghanistan, where the army was  
becoming embroiled in its first clashes with the Pakistan Taliban.  
Under the command of General Ashfaq Kayani (now army chief of staff),  
the ISI was reformed, with the more Indo-phobic and jihadi officers  
purged. Guerilla infiltration into IoK slowed to a trickle.

Some of the army’s senior officers believed that because both  
Pakistan and India had become nuclear powers, hot war was no longer  
an option. More importantly, many generals were convinced that the  
army would not be able to preserve its preeminent position in the  
Pakistani state or defend its enormous corporate interests in the  
economy without sustained growth which would require peace with  
India. Musharraf was the leading proponent of this new thinking. In  
2004, he authorized Khurshid Kasuri, the civilian foreign minister at  
the time, to open “back-channel” negotiations with India on a  
possible settlement for Kashmir, one that would in essence give  
Islamabad an honorable exit from what had become an unwinnable war.

Over the next three years a deal took shape: Demilitarization would  
neutralize the two Kashmirs, open borders would unite them, and a  
form of self-government or autonomy would partly satisfy the Kashmiri  
aspiration to self-determination. The army agreed to the nucleus of  
this draft agreement with the proviso that the Kashmiris vote on it.  
“This was to allow the army to give up historic positions without  
appearing to,” said Hasan Rizvi Ashkari, a military historian.

The back channel ran aground in the storm that wrecked Musharraf  
after his illegal sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in March  
2007. Many fear that the attacks in Mumbai may have sunk prospects  
for a Kashmir agreement forever. But the progress of the discussions  
had suggested that the military was open to a resolution and had  
taken steps in that direction. “When the Kashmir camps were initially  
dispersed, the boys [fighters] were told that it was just a temporary  
measure because of 9/11,” a senior jihadi leader told the BBC in  
2008. “Then the arrests and disappearances started. The boys realized  
fundamental changes were underway and quietly slipped away beyond the  
control of the Pakistani authorities.” This is what happened in the  
Swat Valley where jihadi cells joined forces and lent enormous  
firepower to local Islamist groups demanding shari‘a law. The pattern  
was repeated in the southern Punjab and Islamabad.

Police paramilitaries in downtown Srinagar during a city shutdown  
called by separatists. (Liz Harris)

Deprived of support from their old (state) godfathers, the “youngest  
and most radicalized members” were drawn to new groups, says  
historian Ahmed Rashid. They “joined up with al-Qaeda and the  
Pakistan and Afghan Taliban in the tribal areas on the border with  
Afghanistan. They embraced the global jihad to fight US troops in  
Afghanistan and Iraq, and later attacked the Pakistan government.”  
Rashid believes this al-Qaeda, Taliban and jihadi nexus is the motor  
driving much of the violence that has rocked Pakistan, Afghanistan  
and India in recent years, including Mumbai, the assassination of  
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, and the recent  
wave of attacks in Pakistani cities.

In other words, after 2004 many LeT and other jihadi cadres ceased  
focusing their militancy exclusively on India or Kashmir. They  
fragmented and morphed into multiple cells with ties to al-Qaeda and  
other Pakistani Sunni sectarian groups, sometimes acting in alliance,  
sometimes autonomously, but together having an outreach that included  
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Kashmir, Iraq, Europe and  
beyond. The ISI was loath to cut ties with groups over which it did  
maintain some sway, like the old LeT-JuD nexus. Nor was the ISI  
inclined to abandon entirely the proxy war strategy in IoK before a  
settlement had been reached. “If we did that, Kashmir would go cold  
and India would bury it forever,” said a senior army general in 2005.

IoK has warmed. In 2008 there were 41 militant infractions across the  
armistice line, double the 2007 total. The upward curve has continued  
in 2009, with several skirmishes between the two armies. For the  
first time since 2004, LeT cadres have publicly surfaced in the  
southern Punjab, proselytizing for jihad. Seminaries and schools are  
acting as recruiting centers, with the traffic in students moving in  
both directions between the Punjab and the tribal areas. Funerals in  
both provinces eulogize “martyrs” in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

None of this could happen without the knowledge of the ISI. Militant  
activity increased in the twilight between the end of Musharraf’s  
military rule and Pakistan’s new civilian government. Yet the new  
militancy seems to have little to do with the mass demonstrations for  
independence that shook IoK in the summer of 2008, or with insurgent  
violence there, which remains low. It has more to do with Afghanistan  
or, more precisely, with India in Afghanistan.

India’s Regional Dominance

Pakistan has been worried by India’s widening footprint in  
Afghanistan since the Bonn conference in November 2001, where Afghan  
factions came together to determine their country’s post-Taliban  
future. The Afghan Taliban was purged from any interim government  
headed by Hamid Karzai, and replaced by forces loyal to the Northern  
Alliance (NA). The NA had opposed the Taliban regime before 9/11 and  
fought with US troops to topple it. India, Iran and Russia were its  
main sponsors; Pakistan and Saudi Arabia supported the Taliban.  
Neither the Taliban nor Islamabad was invited to Bonn. “This was our  
original sin,” said Lakdar Brahimi, the UN’s envoy in Afghanistan,  
who chaired the conference.

India remains one of Karzai’s few champions. And Afghanistan is seen  
to be very much within Delhi’s sphere of regional influence. India  
has four consulates and has given the Afghan government $1.2 billion  
in aid: a huge investment for a country that is 99 percent Muslim and  
with which India shares no border. Delhi has built the new national  
parliament in Kabul, runs the Afghan electricity and satellite  
systems and has helped train its army and intelligence forces, the  
latter staffed by many ex-NA commanders.

India’s most ambitious Afghan project is a new highway, routed across  
the western border to the Iranian port of Chabahar, that circumvents  
landlocked Afghanistan’s need to use Pakistani ports to the Gulf;  
Islamabad deems these trade and energy corridors vital to its  
economic future. For the Pakistan army, the highway’s importance is  
clear: India seeks to consolidate an alliance with Iran in western  
Afghanistan to counter Pakistan’s influence in eastern Afghanistan.  
This is a continuation of the pre-9/11 war in a post-9/11  
infrastructure, with India, Iran and the Karzai government on the one  
side, and Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban on the other. “The army  
feels under siege,” says Ayesha Siddiqa, a military analyst.

In 2004, the Bush administration tilted US South Asia policy toward  
Delhi, lured by the size of India’s markets and its potential role as  
a strategic “counterweight” to China, Pakistan’s closest regional  
ally. In 2008, the US signed an agreement that allows India to buy  
civilian atomic technology, including nuclear fuel, from American  
firms, even though Delhi is not a signatory to the non-proliferation  
treaty. Pakistan was granted no such privilege; on the contrary, it  
is denounced as a rogue for developing the bomb by stealth and for  
the proliferation activities of its former top nuclear scientist, A.  
Q. Khan. Some in Congress want aid to Pakistan tied to US access to  
Khan for questioning.

For all the fabled “chemistry” between Bush and Musharraf, since 9/11  
Washington has treated Islamabad as a gun for hire, providing certain  
weaponry and around $2 billion a year in exchange for securing supply  
lines for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan and for fighting the  
Taliban and al-Qaeda in the tribal areas. By cooperating in these  
ways, the army may have hoped that its interests would be taken into  
account in the post-invasion reconstruction. Yet unlike Iran or India— 
and despite the services or sacrifices rendered—Islamabad was given  
no say in the formation of the Afghan government or in its nascent  
military forces. This strengthened Pakistani perceptions that  
Musharraf and his army were mercenaries fighting “America’s war.” The  
Taliban, by contrast, were deemed Afghan or at least Pashtun  
nationalists resisting a foreign, colonial and anti-Muslim occupation.

These realities help explain the army’s selective counterinsurgency  
in the tribal areas. In Bajaur, Mahmond and to a lesser extent South  
Waziristan, the army has often been ruthless in campaigns against the  
Pakistan Taliban. This is partly revenge for the killing of Pakistani  
soldiers. But there is also the perception (and, the army insists,  
evidence) that “Pakistan’s enemies” are fomenting the militancy. A  
commander in Bajaur says many of those captured or killed by the army  
are Afghans, including Tajiks or Uzbeks, while the tribal areas are  
almost exclusively Pashtun. The inference is obvious. Some  
“insurgents” are “agents” working for Afghan intelligence and/or India.

In North Waziristan, on the other hand, the preferred policy is to  
negotiate ceasefires with tribal militants who openly provide  
fighters and arms to Afghan Taliban commanders like the Haqqanis.  
Unlike the Pakistan Taliban, these tribal militants do not attack the  
Pakistani army other than to avenge US drone attacks. “They’re our  
people; they’re not our enemies,” says an ISI officer.

A Pakistani analyst—who declined attribution—says these dual policies  
explain the enigma of the Pakistan army. It will act against those  
who threaten the state, such as the Taliban in Swat and al-Qaeda- 
linked militants elsewhere. But it will not act against those who,  
like the Afghan Taliban, seek only a haven from which to fight  
American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. In fact, “The ISI has  
retained its links to the Afghan Taliban because it wants to use them  
as a bargaining chip in Afghanistan,” says the analyst. “The Pakistan  
army wants to have a bigger say in whatever new regional dispensation  
America is planning. The view within the army and ISI is if the  
Afghan Taliban is abandoned, this would strengthen the Afghan  
government, as well as India in Afghanistan, at Pakistan’s expense.”

A Fork in the Road

Prior to his election, Barack Obama was clear on the link between  
peace in Kashmir and war in Afghanistan. “If Pakistan can look  
towards to the east with confidence, it will be less likely to  
believe its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the  
Taliban,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs in 2007. Ensconced in the Oval  
Office, the president now dismisses Islamabad’s focus on Delhi as  
paranoia. “The obsession with India as a mortal threat to Pakistan is  
misguided [because] their biggest threat right now comes internally,”  
he said in April 2009.

The shift seals a “new” American policy toward Pakistan that marks  
more continuity than change with Bush’s second term. Under Obama, US  
drone attacks into the tribal areas—inaugurated by Bush—have  
continued and may be extended to other areas of Pakistan. Whatever  
good will Obama hoped to generate through increases in civilian aid  
has been wiped out by the increase in Pakistani deaths by American  
rockets.

The Pakistan aid bill before Congress, although promising a “deeper,  
broader, long-term engagement with the [Pakistani] people,” could be  
as conditional as anything tendered by Bush. Military aid is not to  
be tied only to fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda but may require  
Pakistan’s pledge not to support “any person or group that conducts  
violence, sabotage or other activities meant to instill fear or  
terror in India.” Some members of Congress want aid to Pakistan  
linked to moving troops from the eastern border with India to the  
western border with Afghanistan.

American policy towards Kashmir also reveals India’s widening  
influence in Washington. In an intensive lobbying effort, Delhi made  
clear to Obama that his envoy would be shunned if any link were made  
between Kashmir and Af-Pak. It worked. In a trip to Islamabad in  
April, Holbrooke refused to even say “Kashmir.” And while in Delhi,  
he was effusive about India’s “critical role” in the region without  
which “we cannot settle Afghanistan and many other world problems.”  
The implication was that Kashmir, clearly, is not among them.

This Indian-American axis presents Islamabad with a fork in the road.  
One way goes back. The ISI again could try to bleed India via  
surrogates in Afghanistan and Kashmir in the hope that its regional  
concerns will be addressed, above all a final status for Kashmir and  
recognition of its western border with Afghanistan. But such a  
strategy would likely fail; pursuing foreign policy objectives  
through guerilla violence rarely worked in the past. It simply  
creates conditions of friction that al-Qaeda, the Taliban and jihadi  
groups can exploit to keep 80 percent of Pakistan’s military manpower  
and hardware pinned down on India rather than on them or the tribal  
areas. Mumbai and the Taliban’s conquest of Swat are two examples of  
just how useful a diversion this can be.

The alternative is to go forward and insist that Kashmir, Afghanistan  
and Islamic militancy are regional problems requiring regional  
solutions. India is right to insist that Pakistan go after those  
nationals and groups implicated in Mumbai and other attacks in India  
with the same vigor as it is currently going after the Pakistan  
Taliban in Swat. But equally Delhi must recommence serious  
negotiations to resolve Kashmir and other outstanding water and land  
disputes with Islamabad.

On such bases Pakistan and India could come together to agree to  
terms for coexistence in a neutral and neutralized Afghanistan. For  
economic, energy and geopolitical reasons, both nations have an  
interest in their roads crossing in Kabul. But the road must start in  
Kashmir.

______

[5] India Administered Kashmir:

Kashmir Times
15 June 2009
Editorial

NOT A LAW AND ORDER PROBLEM
Replacing para-military forces by dreaded and directionless state  
police is no solution

While the Union home minister after his visit to Srinagar on Friday  
was non-committal on the demand for revocation of the draconian Armed  
Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and removing of armed forces and  
para-military forces from the civilian areas, the leaders of the  
ruling establishment are busy in creating an impression that the  
replacement of the armed forces by the dreaded and directionless  
state police will not only bring peace and normalcy in the State but  
is also a solution of the Kashmir problem. This is precisely what Dr.  
Farooq Abdullah, on his first visit to the State after his induction  
in the Union cabinet, said when he asked the state police to prepare  
for lead role in maintaining the law and order situation in the  
State. The prolonged Kashmir issue is not a law and order problem  
that it can be tackled by replacing one force by the other and by  
taking other cosmetic steps like reduction of troops. Primarily it is  
a political problem which calls for a political solution. Even P.  
Chidambaram has conceded that Jammu and Kashmir needed political  
solutions, though he did not spell out the nature of the problem and  
the manner in which it has to be resolved. The issues like the  
revocation of the draconian laws, removal of troops and restoration  
of civil liberties, peace and normalcy are the bye-products of the  
basic Kashmir problem which has remained unresolved for the past over  
six decades. It concerns the basic right of the people of the State  
to determine their future and this right has been denied to them. Any  
lasting and just solution must take into account the urges and  
aspirations of the people living in all the regions and areas of the  
State and belonging to all the communities. This calls for  
reconciliation of divergent aspirations and perceptions and a  
solution based on consensus. In the present climate multi-level  
dialogue involving India and Pakistan as well as the people of Jammu  
and Kashmir is the only way out. Unfortunately such a dialogue has  
yet to be started. Even a conducive climate through various  
confidence building measures has not been created for initiating such  
a process of dialogue.

The demands for revocation of all draconian laws, removal of troops,  
restoration of civil liberties and end to all kinds of human rights  
abuses should be viewed as measures to overcome trust-deficit and  
create a congenial climate for dialogue and not as a solution of the  
vexed problem. While removal of troops from the civilian space is  
paramount it needs to be understood that merely replacing the army  
and para-militaries by the highly indisciplined, trigger-happy and  
lawless state police will not achieve any miracle. Replacing one  
ruthless force by the other is not going to make any difference. This  
is particularly so in view of the fact that apart from the armed  
forces and other central forces the State police too is responsible  
for untold atrocities committed on the people and is equally involved  
in the cases of rape, custodial killings, disappearances, extortion  
and other grave human rights abuses.Intriguingly instead of making  
the state police accountable with a humane face it has been used by  
the successive regimes to silence the voice of dissent and suppress  
people's urges and aspirations. The Special Operation Group with a  
large number of ex-militants on its rolls, which has not been  
disbanded despite commitments in this regard, is much more ruthless  
than any other force involved with the so-called counter-insurgency  
operations. Unless the lawlessness force is disbanded and the State  
police acquires a human and people-friendly face nothing is going to  
change. The police in the State has been misused for years as an  
instrument of repression and not that of service and has been trained  
and groomed that way. It has achieved notoriety both for corruption  
and high-handedness. The police,like the bureaucracy in the state,  
has also been misused by the successive regimes to serve their  
partisan interests and act as an instrument to victimize their  
critics and suppress people's urges and aspirations. Whether Kashmir  
remains an army cantonment or a police state is not going to make  
much difference. Peace and normalcy can only be achieved by resolving  
the basic political problem and creating a democratic temper and  
climate.

______

[6] India's Multiple Secret Detention Centre - its little Guantanamo  
Bays

The Week
5 July 2009

Cover Story

EXCLUSIVE: INDIA'S SECRET TORTURE CHAMBERS

They are our own Gitmos. Where, far away from the eyes of the law,  
'enemies of the state' are made to 'sing'. THE WEEK investigates

By Syed Nazakat

Little Terrorist, as the intelligence sleuths came to call him,  
turned out to be a hard nut to crack. No amount of torture would work  
on 20-year-old Mohammed Issa, who was picked up from Delhi on  
February 5, 2006. The Delhi Police believed that he had a hotline to  
Lashkar-e-Toiba deputy chief Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhwi, who later  
masterminded the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. At a secret detention centre  
in Delhi, the police and intelligence officers tried every single  
torture method in their arsenal-from electric shock to sleep  
deprivation-to make Issa sing. He stuck to his original line: that he  
had come from Nepal to visit a relative in Delhi. Only, they refused  
believe him.

According to the police, the youth from Uttar Pradesh, who had moved  
to Nepal in 2000 along with his family after his father, Irfan Ahmed,  
was accused in a terrorism case, returned to India to set up Lashkar  
modules in the national capital. More than six months after he was  
picked up, the police announced his arrest on August 14. He has since  
been shifted to the Tihar jail. His lawyer N.D. Pancholi said Issa  
was kept in illegal custody for months. If not, let the police say  
where he was between February 5 and August 15, he challenged.

Issa could have been detained in any of Delhi's joint interrogation  
centres, used by the police and intelligence agencies to extract  
precious information from the detainees using methods frowned upon by  
the law. As one top police officer told THE WEEK in the course of our  
investigation, these torture chambers spread across the country are  
our "precious assets". They are our own little Guantanamo Bays or  
Gitmos (where the US tortures terror suspects from Afghanistan and  
elsewhere for information).

Not many admit their existence, because doing so could result in  
human rights activists knocking at their doors and bad press for the  
smartly dressed intelligence men. It is a murky and dangerous world,  
according to K.S. Subramanian, Tripura's former director-general of  
police, who has also served in the Intelligence Bureau. "Such sites  
exist and are being used to detain and interrogate suspected  
terrorists and it has been going on for a long time," he told THE  
WEEK. "Even senior police officers are reluctant to talk about the  
system." So are people who have been to these virtual hells that  
officially do not exist.

THE WEEK has identified 15 such secret interrogation centres-three  
each in Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir, two in Kolkata  
and one in Assam. (One detention centre that is shared by all  
security and law enforcement agencies is in Palanpur, Gujarat.) Their  
locations have been arrived at after speaking to serving and retired  
top officers who had helped set up some of these facilities. Those  
who have spent time in these places had no idea where they are. They  
were taken blindfolded and were allowed no visitors. The only faces  
they got to see were those of the interrogators, day in and day out.

The biggest of the three detention centres in Mumbai, the Aarey  
Colony facility in Goregaon, has four rooms. The Anti-Terrorism Squad  
questioned Saeed Khan (name changed), one of the accused in the  
Malegaon blasts of September 2006, here. He was served food at  
irregular intervals (led to temporary disorientation) and was denied  
sleep. Another secret detention centre maintained in the city by the  
ATS at Kalachowky has a sound-proof room. Sohail Shaikh, accused in  
the July 2006 train bombings, was held here for close to two months.  
"He was kept in isolation for days together," said an officer. "He  
crumbled after being subjected to hostile sessions. Intentional  
infliction of suffering does not always yield immediate results.  
Sometimes you have to wait for many days for the detainee to break.  
It is a tedious process." The smallest of the three facilities at  
Chembur has just two rooms.

Parvez Ahmed Radoo, 30, of Baramulla district in Kashmir, was  
illegally detained in Delhi for over a month for allegedly trying to  
plot mass murder in the national capital on behalf of the Jaish-e- 
Mohammed. The Delhi Police's chargesheet says he was arrested from  
the Azadpur fruit market in Delhi on October 14, 2006. But according  
to Parvez's flight itinerary, he travelled from Srinagar to Delhi on  
September 12 on SpiceJet flight 850. The flight landed at Delhi  
airport at 12.10 p.m. He had to catch another flight at 1.30 p.m.  
(SpiceJet flight 217) to Pune, where, according to his parents, he  
was going to pursue his Ph.D. But he never boarded the Pune flight as  
he disappeared from the Delhi airport.

Parvez wrote an open letter from the Tihar jail, where he is  
currently held, in which he said he was arrested from the airport on  
September 12 and kept in custody for a month. Apparently, he was  
first taken to the Lodhi Colony police station and then to an  
apartment in Dwarka, where electrodes were attached to his genitals  
and power was switched on. (Delhi's secret detention centres are  
located at Dwarka in south-west Delhi, the Inter-state Cell of the  
Crime Branch in Chanakyapuri in central Delhi, and the Lodhi Colony  
police station in south Delhi.)

"After my arrest on September 12, I was taken to Pune, where I was  
shown pictures of many Kashmiri boys," Parvez said in the letter.  
"They wanted me to identify them. As I didn't know any one of them,  
they brought me to Delhi again and threw me into the torture chamber  
of Lodhi Road [sic] police station. They took off my clothes and  
started beating me like an animal, so ruthlessly that my feet and  
fingers started bleeding. I was later forced to clean the blood- 
stained floor with my underwear. They gave me electric shocks and  
stretched my legs to extreme limits, resulting in internal  
haemorrhage. I started passing blood with my urine and stool. Later I  
was shifted to one flat near Delhi airport [he later identified the  
place as Dwarka]. From the adjacent flats, voices of crying and  
screaming had been coming, indicating presence of other persons being  
tortured."

Throughout his detention, wrote Parvez, he was asked to lie to his  
parents that everything was fine. In the letter he also gave the  
mobile number from which the calls were made-9960565152. His family  
is trying to collect the call site details of the number to prove his  
illegal detention.
Delhi-based journalist Iftikhar Geelani, who spent nine days in the  
Lodhi Colony police station after his arrest in 2002 on spying  
charges, is yet to get over the traumatic experience. "There are lock- 
ups with such low ceilings that a person will not be able to stand,"  
he said. "There is an interrogation centre within the police station  
where people are brutally tortured with cables, and some are  
completely undressed and abused. They also have a facility to raise  
the temperature of the cell to a point where it is unbearable and  
then suddenly bring it down to freezing cold."

Assistant Commissioner Rajan Bhagat, spokesman for the Delhi Police,  
denied the existence of such facilities. "Nobody ever asked me the  
question [about secret detention centres]," he said. "We don't  
operate any such facility in our police stations."
But Maloy Krishna Dhar, former joint director of the IB, confirmed  
the existence of secret detention centres in Delhi and other parts of  
the country. He was convinced that detention outside the police  
station and torture are an inevitable part of the war on terrorism.  
"Now I would never dream of doing the things I did when I was in  
charge," said Dhar. "But security agencies need such facilities."  
Interrogating suspected terrorists at secret detention centres, he  
said, is the most effective way to gather intelligence. "If you  
produce a suspect before court, he will never give you anything after  
that," he said. In other words, once you record the arrest you are  
within the realm of the law and you have to acknowledge the rights of  
the accused-arrested and contend with his lawyer.

An officer who worked in one of the detention centres admitted that  
extreme physical and psychological torture, based loosely on the  
regime in Guantanamo Bay, is used to extract information from the  
detainees. It includes assault on the senses (pounding the ear with  
loud and disturbing music) and sleep deprivation, keeping prisoners  
naked to degrade and humiliate them, and forcibly administering drugs  
through the rectum to further break down their dignity. "The  
interrogators isolate key operatives so that the interrogator is the  
only person they see each day," he said. "In extreme cases we use  
pethidine injections. It will make a person crazy."

Molvi Iqbal from Uttar Pradesh, a suspected member of the Harkat-ul- 
Jihadi-Islami who is currently lodged in Tihar, was held at a secret  
detention centre for two months according to his relatives. They  
alleged that during interrogation a chip was implanted under his skin  
so that his movements could be tracked if he tried to escape. "He  
fears that the chip is still inside his skin," said one of his  
relatives. "That has shattered him."

Kolkata has its own Gitmos in Bhabani Bhawan, now the headquarters of  
the Criminal Investigation Department, and the Alipore Retreat in  
Tollygunj, a bungalow that is said to have 20 rooms. They were  
bursting at the seams at the height of the Naxalite movement, but are  
more or less quiet now. "A large number of innocent people, as well  
as suspected terrorists, have disappeared after being taken to such  
secret detention centres," said Kirity Roy, a Kolkata-based human  
rights lawyer. "Their bodies would later be found, if at all, in the  
fields."

That was how militancy was tackled, first in Punjab and then in  
Kashmir. Today no secret prison exists in Kashmir officially after  
the notorious Papa-2 interrogation centre was closed down. But secret  
torture cells thrive across the state. The most notorious ones are  
the Cargo Special Operation Group (SOG) camp in Haftchinar area in  
Srinagar and Humhama in Budgam district. Then there are the joint  
interrogation centres in Khanabal area of Anantnag district and Talab  
Tillo and Poonch areas in Jammu region. Detentions at JICs could last  
months. Lawyers in Kashmir have filed 15,000 petitions since 1990  
seeking the whereabouts of the detainees and the charges against them  
without avail.

The most recent victim of the torture regime was Manzoor Ahmed Beigh,  
40, who was picked by the SOG from Alucha Bagh area in Srinagar on  
May 18. His family alleged that he was chained up, hung upside down  
from the ceiling and ruthlessly beaten up. He died the same night.  
Following public outrage, the officer in charge of the camp was  
dismissed from the service in June.

Maqbool Sahil, a Srinagar-based photojournalist who was held at  
Hariniwas interrogation centre for 15 days, says it is a miracle that  
he is alive today. "If you tell them [interrogators] you are  
innocent, they will torture you so ruthlessly that you will break  
down and confess to anything," he says.
Human rights organisations are understandably concerned.   Navaz  
Kotwal, coordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, said  
that there should be an open debate on the illegal detention centres.  
"The US had a debate on the Gitmos. Our government should come  
forward and respond to these allegations," she said.

No one wants to compromise the nation's safety, but the torture  
becomes unbearable, and questionable, when innocent people like the  
14-year-old boy Irfan suffer (see box on page 30). The security of  
the country and its people is important and terrorism should be  
crushed at all cost. But the largest democracy in the world should  
also ensure that human rights are not violated.

Dhar defended the secret prison system, arguing that the successful  
defence of the country required that the security establishment be  
empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as  
necessary and without restrictions imposed by the legal system. "The  
primary mission of the agencies is to save the nation both by overt  
and covert means from any terrorist threat," he said. "But to keep  
the programme secret is a horrible burden."
with Anupam Dasgupta

_____

[7]  India: Needed A Perestroika, A Rebuilding of the Left

The News
July 9, 2009

THE INDIAN LEFT IN STRATEGY CRISIS

by Praful Bidwai

India's Left parties, which command credibility and respect far in  
excess of their membership, have been forced to debate the causes of  
their recent electoral setback, which saw their Lok Sabha tally to  
drop by 61 percent to a historic low of 24 (of a total of 542 seats).  
Unlike the other big election loser, the Bharatiya Janata Party, in  
which personalised mudslinging substituted for "debate," the Left has  
tried to address programme- and policy-related issues, including its  
poor management of relations with the Congress-led United Progressive  
Alliance.

This is welcome. But it doesn't go far enough. Going by the first  
post-election meeting of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)  
central committee, the four Left parties--including the CPI,  
Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc--are reluctant to go  
the whole length in clinically dissecting their weaknesses.

Unless they do so, they may not recover from the electoral rout. The  
Left parties are at a fork in history: Either they re-establish an  
organic relationship with the working people, or become irrelevant  
and perish, like other communist parties.

The Left is debating four questions. First, to what extent can its  
rout be attributed to its splitting with the UPA over the India- 
United States nuclear deal? Second, was the Left right to take  
"equidistance" from the Congress and the BJP, and project the motley  
non-Congress, non-BJP Third Front?

Third, to what extent were "tactical mistakes" in the two biggest CPM  
bases--allying with the Islamic-Right People's Democratic Party in  
Kerala, and coercive land acquisition and mishandling of the Rizwanur  
Rehman suicide in West Bengal--responsible for the Left's dismal  
performance? And, most vitally, did structural factors related to the  
Left's ideology, strategy and policies contribute substantially to  
its defeat?

The CPM central committee fudged the answers to three of the four  
questions. In effect, it endorsed general secretary Prakash Karat's  
line that it didn't err on any major ideological, policy or strategy  
issue. Its mistakes were minor and don't warrant a radical shift of  
stance.

The central committee emphasised state-specific factors for the CPM's  
poor showing in West Bengal and Kerala, rejecting the state leaders'  
criticism that the central leadership's policies and actions  
destabilised their political standing there.

Many state CPM leaders, and CPI general secretary A B Bardhan,  
questioned the wisdom of trying to topple the UPA on the nuclear deal  
after the government deplorably reneged on its promise not to push it  
through without agreement in the UPA-Left joint committee. But the CC  
said the move was "consistent with the Left's stand" of opposing a  
strategic alliance with the US.

The issue isn't consistency, but the wisdom of withdrawing support on  
a foreign policy-security issue which isn't centrally important or  
comprehensible to most people.

As this column has repeatedly argued, the deal is bad because it  
legitimises nuclear weapons. It's part of an unbalanced and growing  
India-US strategic alliance. And it promotes environmentally- 
unfriendly, costly energy.

The Left criticised the deal primarily because it would take India  
into the US strategic camp. But, like the BJP, it also argued that it  
would restrict India's nuclear weapons programme. (In reality, the  
deal will allow India to stockpile an additional 40 bombs annually.)

The US isn't popular in India. But people don't bring down  
governments on foreign-policy issues. The Left should have realised  
this. Its attempts to mobilise opinion against the Iraq war and the  
2007 India-US military exercises didn't evoke a strong response.

Yet, the CC's "firm opinion" was that "withdrawal of support to the  
UPA … was correct … and necessary. There was no other option …" The  
CPM also wrongly thought its former ally, Mulayam Singh Yadav,  
wouldn't switch sides to support the UPA.

On the "tactical mistakes" question, the CPM concedes it was  
unprincipled, opportunistic and stupid to make a deal with the PDP in  
Kerala, which nearly wrecked the Left Democratic Front. But the CC  
doesn't criticise the deal's rationale, which falsely called the PDP  
"secular."

The CC is silent on the root causes of the Singur and Nandigram  
disasters, and on CPM cadres' violence against innocent people. It  
attributes its West Bengal debacle to "local factors," and  
"political, governmental and organisational reasons" related to the  
Left Front's "shortcomings" and "certain wrong trends and practices"  
in the party. These were rooted in the government's "failure to  
properly implement various measures directly concerning the lives of  
the people."

However, these "failures" and "mistakes" weren't aberrations. They  
flowed from the Front's larger ideological and policy framework,  
which was responsible for the "shortcomings" and "wrong" trends.

This framework is neo-liberal and pro-Big Business and derives from a  
mechanistic, warped understanding of "stages of historical  
development," which demands industrialisation at-any-cost and the  
only way forward for society.

The CPM followed reckless pro-private capital and predatory land  
acquisition policies in the states. Its Left allies by and large  
tailed it, especially when the crunch comes, as with industrialisation.

The Left Front's industrialisation strategy is based on offering  
private investors undeserved subsidies and crony-capitalist deals.  
The Front offered Tata Motors incentives running into half the  
project cost! And it's still wooing the Selim group, which is a front  
for Indonesia's super-corrupt Suharto family.

This strategy dispossesses the poor and undermines the agenda of  
radical social transformation, as opposed to passive management of  
predatory capitalism. The CPM shows fundamental strategic confusion  
on this.

The sole issue on which the CPM's CC concedes its error is its  
creation of the Third Front--a ragtag combination of regional and  
caste-based parties tainted by association with the BJP and anti- 
people policies.

The notion of "equidistance" from the Congress and the BJP took the  
focus away from the latter's rightwing threat to democracy. But the  
CC is silent on this and still defends the "third alternative" idea.  
It contends the Third Front contributed to the BJP's defeat, but  
concedes "it should not have extended the call … [for the Front] … to  
form an alternative government."

Third Front sponsorship resulted in alienating secular votes from the  
Left and the Congress. It also put off many West Bengal Muslim voters  
already alienated by the Sachar Committee's disclosures.

Worse, the Left's zealous advocacy of the Front's opportunistic  
leaders lowered its moral stature--its greatest asset.

The Left doesn't acknowledge that its election rout is part of a much  
greater crisis: of ideological clarity, of political strategy, and of  
social and economic policy. The Left is unable to relate to parts of  
its core-constituency because it doesn't come through as an  
intransigent opponent of capitalism with all its inequalities and  
brutalities.

The Left focuses excessively on parliamentary politics, not the gut- 
level issues of the dispossessed. This will only aggravate its  
crisis. The CPM hasn't shown a way out of it. One can only hope the  
CPI's national council meeting in early July does better.

The Left needs to regain ideological clarity, political vision and an  
alternative radical perspective. Simultaneously, it must focus on  
mass mobilisation of the poor to defend and extend their rights.

If the Left fails to do this, it will face marginalisation, isolation  
and irrelevance. That isn't a fate to be wished for. The Left is an  
important and healthy influence on Indian democracy. It must  
rejuvenate itself.

The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and  
human-rights activist based in Delhi.

_____

[8]  India: The Heated Debate on Nehru Memorial Museum And Library

The Telegraph, July 9 , 2009

IN NEHRU’S HOUSE - A unique institution in decline
by Rudrangshu Mukherjee
http://tinyurl.com/ljj9zb