SACW | Nov 13-14, 2009 / Militarisation, Violence and Impunity

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 13-14, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2666 -  
Year 12 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]  How Could This End Well? Short Cuts in Afghanistan (Tariq Ali)
[2]  Bangladesh: Obituary - Enayetullah Khan (New Age)
[3]  Pakistan:  "A nation of sleepwalkers" (Nadeem F. Paracha)
[4]  USA Debate on Health Care: Time for the theocrats and male  
chauvinists to give something up for the greater good (Katha Politt)
[5]  India: A Trapped People Between Violence of Left Insurgents vs  
State Violence - Resources
       - Interview: Himanshu Kumar (Jyoti Punwani)
       - Maoists and Government Forces Should Not Repeat Past Abuses  
(Human Rights Watch)
       - Two faces of extremism: A Spring Long Past  (Dilip Simeon)
       - An Open Letter to the Maoists (Sujato Bhadra)
       - Book review: Only Blood And No Power Flowed From The Barrels  
Of Those Guns
       - ‘Flawed programme and practice’ : Interview with Prakash  
Karat
       - What is Maoism?  (Bernard D’Mello)
       - The Ongoing Political Struggle in India (Saroj Giri)
       -  A Nowhere Approach to India’s Nowhere Revolution by Ajay  
K. Mehra
       + [Kashmir] Supremacy of Security Agencies (Editorial, Kashmir  
Times)
[6]  India: Resources For Secular Activists
        (i)  Remembering 1984 - The nightmare endures (Teesta Setalvad)
        (ii) Special Courts fail to give justice to the victims of  
the communal violence in Orissa (John Dayal)
        (iii) Book Review: Invading the Secular Space in India (Ram  
Puniyani)
        (iv) India: Wake up to take on terrorism of the Hindutva kind  
(Subhas Gatade)
[7] Miscellanea:
-  Daring to remember Bulgaria, pre-1989 (Maria Todorova)
-  Empires and the Sullying of Anthropology (Robert Lawless)
[8]  Announcements:
(i)  Remembering Prabhash Joshi (New Delhi, 18 November 2009)
(ii) Public Discussion: Land Violence And Development In Chhattisgarh  
(Chennai, 18 November 2009)
(iii) A Public Discussion: Secularism in Contemporary India (New  
York, 16 November 2009)
      + Workshop: Religion, Conflict and Accommodation in India (New  
York, 17-18 November 2009)
_____


[1] Afghanistan:

counterpunch.org, November 13-15, 2009

HOW COULD THIS END WELL?: SHORT CUTS IN AFGHANISTAN

by Tariq Ali

It’s been a bad autumn for Nato in Afghanistan, with twin disasters  
on the political and military fronts. First, Kai Eide, the UN headman  
in Kabul, a well-meaning, but not very bright Norwegian, fell out  
with his deputy, Peter Galbraith, who as the de facto representative  
of the US State Department had decreed that President Karzai’s  
election was rigged and went public about it. His superior continued  
to defend Hamid Karzai’s legitimacy. Astonishingly, the UN then  
fired Galbraith. This caused Hillary Clinton to move into top gear  
and the UN-supported electoral watchdog now ruled that the elections  
had indeed been fraudulent and ordered a run-off. Karzai refused to  
replace the electoral officials who had done such a good job for him  
the first time and his opponent withdrew. Karzai got the job.

Karzai’s legitimacy has never been dependent on elections (which are  
always faked anyway) but on the US/Nato expeditionary force. So what  
was all this shadowboxing about in the first place? It appears to  
have been designed in order to provide cover for the military surge  
being plotted by General Stanley McChrystal, the new white hope of a  
beleaguered White House. McChrystal seems to have inverted the old  
Clausewitzian maxim: he genuinely believes that politics is a  
continuation of war by other means. It was thought that if Karzai  
could be painlessly removed and replaced with his former colleague  
Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik from the north, it might create the  
impression that an unbearably corrupt regime had been peacefully  
removed, which would help the flagging propaganda war at home and the  
relaunching of the real war in Afghanistan. For his part, Abdullah  
wanted a share of the loot that comes with power and has so far been  
monopolised by the Karzai brothers and their hangers-on, helping them  
to create a tiny indigenous base of support for the family. Did the  
revelation that Ahmed Wali Karzai was not simply the richest man in  
the country as a result of large-scale corruption and the drugs/arms  
trade, but a CIA agent too come as a huge surprise to anyone? I’m  
told that in desperation Nato commissars even considered appointing a  
High Representative on the Balkan model to run the country, making  
the presidency an even more titular post than it is today. Were this  
to happen, Galbraith or Tony Blair would be the obvious front-runners.

Citizens of the transatlantic world are becoming more and more  
restless about the no-end-in-sight scenario. In Afghanistan the ranks  
of the resistance are swelling. The war on the ground is getting  
nowhere: Nato convoys carrying fuel and equipment are repeatedly  
attacked by insurgents; neo-Taliban control of 80 per cent of the  
most populous part of the country is recognised by all. Recently  
Mullah Omar strongly criticised the Pakistani branch of the Taliban:  
they should, he said, be fighting Nato, not the Pakistan army.

Meanwhile the British military commander, General Sir David Richards,  
echoing McChrystal, talks of training Afghan security forces ‘much  
more aggressively’ so that Nato can take on a supporting role.  
Nothing new here. Eupol (the European Union Police Mission in  
Afghanistan) declared several years ago that its objective was to  
‘contribute to the establishment under Afghan ownership of  
sustainable and effective civilian policing arrangements, which will  
ensure appropriate interaction with the wider criminal justice  
system’. This always sounded far-fetched: the shooting earlier this  
month of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman they were  
training confirms it. The ‘bad apple’ theories with which the  
British are so besotted should be ignored. The fact is that the  
insurgents decided some years ago to apply for police and military  
training and their infiltration – a tactic employed by guerrillas in  
South America, South-East Asia and the Maghreb during the last  
century – has been fairly successful.

It’s now obvious to everyone that this is not a ‘good’ war  
designed to eliminate the opium trade, discrimination against women  
and everything bad – apart from poverty, of course. So what is Nato  
doing in Afghanistan? Has this become a war to save Nato as an  
institution? Or is it more strategic, as was suggested in the spring  
2005 issue of Nato Review:

The centre of gravity of power on this planet is moving inexorably  
eastward … The Asia-Pacific region brings much that is dynamic and  
positive to this world, but as yet the rapid change therein is  
neither stable nor embedded in stable institutions. Until this is  
achieved, it is the strategic responsibility of Europeans and North  
Americans, and the institutions they have built, to lead the way …  
security effectiveness in such a world is impossible without both  
legitimacy and capability.

Whatever the reason, the operation has failed. Most of Obama’s  
friends in the US media recognise this, and support a planned  
withdrawal, while worrying that pulling troops out of both Iraq and  
Afghanistan might result in Obama losing the next election,  
especially if McChrystal or General Petraeus, the supposed hero of  
the surge in Iraq, stand for the Republicans. Not that the US seems  
likely to withdraw from Iraq. The only withdrawal being contemplated  
is from the main cities, restricting the US presence to the huge air- 
conditioned military bases that have already been constructed in the  
interior of the country, mimicking the strongholds of the British  
Empire (minus the air-conditioners) during the early decades of the  
last century.

While Washington decides what do, Af-Pak is burning. Carrying out the  
imperial diktat has put the Pakistan army under enormous strain. Its  
recent well-publicised offensive in South Waziristan yielded little.  
Its intended target disappeared to fight another day. To show good  
faith the military raided the Shamshatoo refugee camp in Peshawar. On  
4 November I received an email from Peshawar:

     Thought I’d let you know that I just got a call from a former  
Gitmo prisoner who lives in Shamshatoo camp and he told me that this  
morning at around 10 a.m. some cops and military men came and raided  
several homes and shops and arrested many people. They also killed  
three innocent schoolchildren. Their jinaza [funeral] is tonight.  
Several people took footage of the raid from their cell-phones which  
I can try to get a hold of. The funeral of the three children is  
happening as I’m typing.

How could this end well?

Tariq Ali's latest book, The Protocols of the Elders of Sodom and  
other Essays,  has just been published by Verso.


_____


[2] Bangladesh:

New Age, 12 November 2009

WE DEEPLY MOURN ENAYETULLAH KHAN’S ABSENCE

This is a sad day for many in the city, and beyond, for, AZM  
Enayetullah Khan, a journalist of regional repute, died four years  
ago on this day. An editor of his own genre, Khan never hesitated to  
speak up his mind, and that too loudly, under any circumstances – a  
quality not displayed by many in his time. A leftwing political  
activist in the university days, Khan, along with some of his  
friends, founded the English language weekly, Holiday, in 1965.  
Enayetullah Khan took over as its editor the next year. Initially a  
soft publication, Holiday under Khan’s editorial leadership came out  
of its holiday mood to become a serious views-weekly with biting  
analysis of the political and economic order of the day. Holiday was  
the fiercest critic of the Pakistani military regimes that ruled our  
country during those years.
    Again, in the independent Bangladesh, Khan’s Holiday provided an  
intellectual platform for the mavericks critical of the undemocratic  
forces both in and outside the power and committed to protect as well  
as promote democratic rights of the people. While Holiday addressed  
many a controversial issues under his editorial leadership,  
particularly in the trying times of the country’s post-liberation  
years in the 1970s, there has been no controversy over the fact that  
Holiday was the most influential and most respected weekly of the  
time. And the influential people on both sides of the divide, the  
rulers and the ruled, used to wait eagerly for his column that most  
of the time used to provide perspectives entirely different from  
those of his contemporaries, both in forms and contents. His was an  
elitist style in dealing with the issues of public importance –  
political, economic and cultural. Khan’s extra-ordinary journalistic  
ability to go deeper into issues of the day forced both the friends  
and foes to take him seriously. Naturally, he was hated by some,  
admired by others, but ignored by none. And here lay his success as a  
journalist. Without Enayetullah Khan, Dhaka journalism is indeed poorer.
    Khan’s commitment to democratic values and passion for freedom  
often led him to take up social and political activism. He was in the  
forefront of the Buddijibi Nidhon Tathyanushandhan Committee formed  
on December 18, 1971 to investigate murders of the intellectuals by  
the killer wings of Jamaat-e-Islami in the closing days of our war of  
national independence, an organiser of the Civil Liberties and Legal  
Aid committee formed in 1974 to defend the political victims of the  
infamous Rakkhi Bahini, the Famine Resistance Committee in 1974 to  
help those affected by the devastating famine, the Farakka March  
Committee of Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani the same year to secure  
equitable share of Ganges water from India, and the Committee Against  
Communalism to protect the rights of the religious minority  
communities in 1981. He was truly an activist journalist – a  
proposition hitherto unknown in this part of the world.
    Khan had nurtured a dream to launch a daily for long. But he did  
not do so until the middle of 2003, only a couple of years before his  
death at 66. He was aware of the fact that the daily of his dream  
would require not only a genuinely passionate set of intellectually  
accomplished journalists, but also a huge investment. For him it  
would not have been difficult to assemble the best journalists of the  
time for the cherished daily; but a financially poor editor, Khan had  
always the fear of ‘big money’ to be invested by others, lest it  
should stand in the ways of his journalistic independence. It took  
him long, long years to combine the both – a group of thinking  
journalists committed to the democratic growth of the society and  
state on the one hand and some non-interfering investors with similar  
conviction on the other – to launch the daily, New Age that is. But,  
alas, killer cancer took him away from New Age in less than three  
years of its inception. While New Age continues to grow, with its  
head held high – bowing to none but democratic ideals, we at the  
paper miss our founding editor Enayetullah Khan, a truly free spirit.

    — Editor

_____


[3] Pakistan:

"A NATION OF SLEEPWALKERS"

by Nadeem F. Paracha

The day after the terrible terrorist attack at Islamabad’s Islamic  
University that took the lives of eight innocent students, certain TV  
news channels ran a footage of a dozen or so angered students of the  
university pelting stones. The first question that popped up in my  
mind after watching the spectacle was, what on earth were these  
understandably enraged young men throwing their stones at?

So I waited for the TV cameras to pan towards the direction where the  
stones were landing. But that did not happen. It seemed as if the  
students were pelting stones just for the heck of it.

So I called a fellow journalist friend who was covering the story for  
a local TV channel and asked him about the protest. He told me the  
students were pelting stones at a handful of cops. Now, why in God’s  
good name would one throw stones at cops after being attacked by  
demented men who call themselves the Taliban?

The very next day another protest took place outside the attacked  
University in which the students, both male and female, were holding  
banners that said: ‘Kerry-Lugar Bill namanzoor!’ (Kerry-Lugar Bill  
Not Acceptable).

I could barely stop myself from bursting into a short sharp fit of  
manic laughter. It was unbelievable. Or was it, really?

Here we have a university that was attacked by a psychotic suicide  
bomber who slaughtered and injured dozens of students so he could get  
his share of hooris in Paradise. The attack was then proudly owned by  
the Tekrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. And in its wake, we saw enraged  
students protesting against the Kerry-Lugar act? What a response!

What did the Kerry-Lugar act have to do with the suicide attack?  
Wasn’t this remarkably idiotic ‘protest rally’ by the students  
actually an insult to those who were so mercilessly slaughtered by  
holy barbarians?

But then, some would suggest that in a society like Pakistan, such  
idiosyncrasies should be swallowed as a norm. And I agree. What else  
can one expect from a society living in a curiously delusional state  
of denial, gleefully mistaking it as ‘patriotism’ and  
‘concern.’ It seems no amount of proof will ever be enough to dent  
Pakistanis’ resolve to defend the unsubstantiated, wild theories  
that they so dearly hold in their rapidly shrinking heads.

Take for instance the recent case of a famous TV anchorman who  
visited a devastated area in Peshawar that was bombed by a remote- 
controlled car bomb. He talked to about 10 people at the scene. More  
than half of the folks interviewed spouted out those squarely  
unproven and thoroughly clichéd tirades about RAW/CIA/Mossad being  
the ‘real perpetrators’ and that ‘no Muslim is capable of  
inflicting such acts of barbarity.’

A friend of mine who was also watching this hapless exhibition of the  
usual top-of-mind nonsense suddenly announced that he wanted to jump  
in, hold these men by the arms, and shake them violently so they  
could be ‘awoken from their dreadful sleepwalking state.’

Pakistanis routinely continue to deny the fact that the monsters who  
are behind all the faithful barbarism that is cutting this country  
into bits are the mutant product of what our governments, military,  
intelligence agencies, and society as a whole have been up to in the  
past 30 years or so.
Well, this is exactly what happens to a society that responds so  
enthusiastically to all the major symptoms of fascist thought.  
Symptoms such as powerful and continuing nationalism; disdain for the  
recognition of human rights; identification of enemies/scapegoats as  
a unifying cause; supremacy of the military; obsession with national  
security; the intertwining of religion and government; disdain for  
intellectuals and the arts; an obsession with crime and punishment, etc.

Have not the bulk of Pakistanis willingly allowed themselves to be  
captured in all the macho and paranoid trappings of the above- 
mentioned symptoms of collective psychosis. It clearly smacks of a  
society that has been ripening and readying itself for an all-round  
fascist scenario.

This is the scenario some among us are really talking about when they  
speak of ‘imposing the system of the Khulfa Rashideen’ or shariah,  
or whatever profound buzzwords adopted to explain Pakistan’s march  
towards a wonderful society of equality and justice? Words that mean  
absolutely nothing, or systems and theories either based on ancient  
musings of tribal societies or on glorified myths of bravado.

I felt bad for the few bystanders at that Peshawar bombing site who  
kept contradicting their more gung-ho contemporaries by reminding  
them that for months the shopkeepers where receiving threatening  
letters from the Taliban warning them that they should stop selling  
products for women and ban the entry of women in the area.

One shop-owner who said he lost more than millions of rupees worth of  
goods in the blast was slightly taken aback when the anchor asked him  
who he thought was behind the bomb attack. For a few seconds he  
looked curiously at the anchor’s face, as if wondering why would a  
major TV news channel be asking a question whose answer was so  
obvious. ‘What do you mean, who was responsible?’ he asked. ‘The  
Taliban, of course!’

Fasi Zaka wrote a scathing piece on the floozy response of some  
students who chanted slogans against the Kerry-Lugar Bill outside the  
freshly bombed Islamic University. He was battered with hate mail,  
even from those who did agree with him that it were the Taliban who  
bombed the unfortunate university. But these folks turned out to be  
even worse than the deniers. They are apologists of all the mayhem  
that takes place in the name of Islam in this country.

Every time the barbarians set themselves off taking innocent men,  
women, and children with them, these apologists suddenly emerge to  
write letters to newspapers and try to dominate internet forums  
explaining the intricate ‘socio-economic problems’ that are  
turning men into terrorists. Or worse – as is expected from  
reactionary news reporters like Ansar Abbasi – they will start  
giving details about the infidel targets that the terrorists were  
really after at the place of the attack.

Zaka told me that he got letters suggesting that the Taliban attacked  
the canteen of the Islamic University because ‘women students were  
not behaving and dressing according to Islam.’ The state under Ziaul  
Haq had the Hudood Ordinance for such ‘loose women,’ but now the  
Taliban have bombs for them. And mind you, those who were trying to  
justify the bombing in this respect at the University were  
‘educated’ young men and even women.

Recently, we also heard about a hijab-clad female student at the  
prestigious and ‘liberal’ Lahore University of Management  
Sciences, who bagged her 15 minutes of fame by capturing images  
through her mobile phone of students indulging in ‘immoral  
activities’ on campus. Of course, the same lady’s ‘concern’  
and righteousness ends at becoming a self-appointed paparazzi for the  
reactionaries, whereas it was young women (in hijabs) and men with  
beards who died so senselessly at the Islamabad Islamic University  
campus.

Pathetic, indeed.

http://blog.dawn.com/2009/11/12/a-nation-of-sleepwalkers/


_____


[4]  USA:

The Nation, November 11, 2009

WHOSE TEAM IS IT, ANYWAY? SUBJECT TO DEBATE

by Katha Pollitt

Katha Pollitt's new book of poems, The Mind-Body Problem, has just  
been published by Random House.

You know what I don't want to hear right now about the Stupak-Pitts  
amendment banning abortion coverage from federally subsidized health  
insurance policies? That it's the price of reform, and prochoice  
women should shut up and take one for the team. "If you want to  
rebuild the American welfare state," Peter Beinart writes in the  
Daily Beast, "there is no alternative" than for Democrats to abandon  
"cultural" issues like gender and racial equality. Hey, Peter,  
Representative Stupak and your sixty-four Democratic supporters, Jim  
Wallis and other antichoice "progressive" Christians, men: why don't  
you take one for the team for a change and see how you like it?

For example, budget hawks in Congress say they'll vote against the  
bill because it's too expensive. Maybe you could win them over if you  
volunteered to cut out funding for male-exclusive stuff, like  
prostate cancer, Viagra, male infertility, vasectomies, growth- 
hormone shots for short little boys, long-term care for macho guys  
who won't wear motorcycle helmets and, I dunno, psychotherapy for  
pedophile priests. Men could always pay in advance for an insurance  
policy rider, as women are blithely told they can do if Stupak  
becomes part of the final bill.

President Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help  
him out by sacrificing your denomination's tax exemption. The  
Catholic Church would be a good place to start, and it wouldn't even  
be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the US Conference of  
Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on  
electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions. Why should  
antichoicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes  
support something they dislike? You don't want your tax dollars to  
pay, even in the most notional way, for women's abortion care, a  
legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in  
her lifetime? I don't want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and  
sour-old-man hierarchies.

Women Democrats have taken an awful lot of hits for the team lately.  
Many of us didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary because the  
goal of electing a woman seemed less important than the goal of  
electing the best possible president. Only a self-hater or a  
featherhead didn't feel some pain about that. And although women are  
hardly alone in this, we've seen some pretty big hopes set aside in  
the first year of the Obama administration. The Paycheck Fairness  
Act, which would expand women's protections against sexism in the  
workplace, is on the back burner. Meanwhile, the Office of Faith- 
Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is not only alive and well; it's  
newly staffed with antichoicers like Alexia Kelley of Catholics in  
Alliance for the Common Good, who, as Frances Kissling notes in  
Salon, has compared abortion to torture.

I know what you're thinking: conservative Democrats like Stupak took  
Republican districts to win us both houses of Congress. Thanks a lot,  
Howard Dean, whose bright idea it was to recruit them, but those  
majorities would not be there, and Obama would not be in the White  
House, if not for prochoice women and men--their votes, talent,  
money, organizational capacity and shoe leather. We knocked ourselves  
out, and it wasn't so that religious reactionaries like Stupak--who,  
as Jeff Sharlet writes in Salon, is a member of the Family, the  
secretive right-wing Christian-supremacist Congressional coven--would  
control both parties. Elections have consequences, you say? Exactly:  
Obama, the prochoice, prowoman candidate, won. Stupak didn't put him  
in the White House, and neither did the Catholic bishops or the white  
antifeminist welfare staters of Beinart's imagination. We did. And we  
deserve better from Obama than sound bites like "this is a healthcare  
bill, not an abortion bill." Abortion is healthcare. That's the whole  
point.

What makes the Stupak fiasco especially pathetic is the fumbling  
response from prochoicers. Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill would  
not be in the Senate today were it not for prochoice and feminist  
supporters like EMILY's List. How does she thank us? By telling Joe  
Scarborough that Stupak isn't so bad, that it won't affect "the  
majority of America"--just low-income women--and that it's "an  
example of having to govern with moderates." So people who'll tip  
healthcare reform into the trash unless it blocks abortion access are  
the moderates now! (McCaskill took it back later that day, but the  
damage was done.) If I ever give that woman another dime, shoot me.

The big prochoice and feminist organizations are up in arms--NOW and  
Planned Parenthood want to see healthcare reform voted down if Stupak  
is retained--but writing in the Daily Beast, Dana Goldstein nicely  
captures the bewilderment of leaders caught by surprise. "It's the  
feeling that you've been rolled," said Eleanor Smeal, of Feminist  
Majority. Or haven't been paying attention. Smeal was onto something,  
though, when she told Goldstein, "Here we are playing nice guy again,  
we didn't want to make a fuss." Consciously or unconsciously, by not  
organizing in advance to insist on coverage of abortion, prochoicers  
set themselves up to be out-maneuvered. In fact, as Sharon Lerner  
reported on TheNation.com, Democrats stood by while antichoicers kept  
contraception out of the reform bill's list of basic benefits all  
insurers must cover. So much for the "common ground" approach where  
we all agree that birth control is the way to lower the abortion rate.

Enough already. Prochoicers have been taking one for the team since  
1976, when Congress passed the Hyde amendment, which Jimmy Carter  
would later defend with the immortal comment, "There are many things  
in life that are not fair." Time for the theocrats and male  
chauvinists to give something up for the greater good--to say nothing  
of the twenty prochoicers, all men, who supported Stupak out of sheer  
careerism. After all, if it weren't for prochoicers, there wouldn't  
be much of a team for them to play on.


_____


[5] India: Dangers of Deepening Militarisation

(i) Times of India: Q&A

'GREEN HUNT WILL RESULT IN GENOCIDE OF ADIVASIS'
13 November 2009
	
Gandhian Himanshu Kumar has been working among tribals in Bastar for  
more than 17 years. Though he has rehabilitated 30 villages  
devastated by the Chhattisgarh government's anti-Naxalite campaign  
Salwa Judum, his ashram was demolished by the government in May this  
year. Kumar spoke to Jyoti Punwani :

How did you rehabilitate the villages?

As a Gandhian, I could not just stand by and watch when Adivasis who  
had fled their village because of Salwa Judum, were beaten up for  
having returned to their village to depose before the NHRC. I decided  
to set up camp in that village. If the Salwa Judum forces came to  
burn it, they would have to burn me first. We persuaded the villagers  
to come back. They had lost everything seeds, cattle because whenever  
they tried to return, the Salwa Judum forces hounded them into camps  
and burnt their village. We arranged for everything, helped them  
plough their land. Slowly others began returning. Peace reigned in  
those villages till last month when Operation Green Hunt began.

The Supreme Court has directed the government to rehabilitate the  
tribals. If the government is not willing, let me do it. I can bring  
peace in a week. You withdraw your forces and provide the amenities  
that were stopped after Salwa Judum started: doctors, schools,  
aanganwadis.

Will the Maoists allow these to run?

Medical officers tell me ruefully that it's the CRPF that beat up  
their doctors who go into the jungle to treat patients. They beat up  
teachers too. They are furious that these people can travel safely  
inside the jungle, while they get blown up. I pointed out that  
doctors and teachers don't go there with weapons like the CRPF does!  
Naxalites have said they will not interfere with my rehabilitation  
work because i have no political ambitions.

Is a dialogue possible?

What stops the government from talking to the Adivasis? You are a  
democratically elected government, find out what your people want. As  
for the Maoists, how can the Centre tell them to stop violence  
without stopping it first? Every day, your forces demand liquor,  
chickens, women... they behead a child in front of his grandfather,  
rape Adivasi women at will... And when the Adivasi picks up a lathi,  
they cry foul. Why are the forces there in Bastar? The Maoists  
weren't marching into Delhi. Nor did the Adivasis plead for  
protection from them. When the police, the administration, the  
judiciary has turned against the Adivasis, the Maoists have stood by  
them. The forces are there only to hunt the tribals from their land,  
so that the state can hand it over to corporates. The state has no  
desire for peace and is too arrogant to acknowledge its crimes. We  
have tried to file 1,000 FIRs against the police; not one has been  
registered.

Salwa Judum saw a 22-fold increase in Maoist numbers. Green Hunt will  
result in genocide of Adivasis. Those who survive will become Naxalites.

o o o

(ii) India: Protect Civilians In Anti-Maoist Drive
Maoists and Government Forces Should Not Repeat Past Abuses
Human Rights Watch , November 5, 2009
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/05/india-protect-civilians-anti- 
maoist-drive

(iii) Two faces of extremism: A Spring Long Past
       by Dilip Simeon
       http://www.himalmag.com/Two-faces-of-extremism_fnw15.html

(iv) An Open Letter to the Maoists
       by Sujato Bhadra
       http://tt.ly/F

(v) Only Blood And No Power Flowed From The Barrels Of Those Guns
      Naxalbari Before And After: Reminiscences And Appraisal By  
Suniti Kumar Ghosh, New Age Publishers, Rs 495
      http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091106/jsp/opinion/ 
story_11698415.jsp

(vi) ‘Flawed programme and practice’ : Interview with Prakash Karat
        http://www.flonnet.com/fl2622/stories/20091106262201200.htm

(vii) What is Maoism?
       by Bernard D’Mello
       http://www.monthlyreview.org/091106dmello.php

(viii) The Ongoing Political Struggle in India
         by Saroj Giri
         http://monthlyreview.org/091106giri.php

(ix)    A Nowhere Approach to India’s Nowhere Revolution
        by Ajay K. Mehra
        http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1732.html

(x)  Kashmir Times, November 14, 2009

Editorial

SUPREMACY OF SECURITY AGENCIES
Discordant notes at the Centre apart, endless powers to forces are  
destructive

The defence ministry shooting down home ministry's proposal of  
shifting some battalions of Rashtriya Rifles from Jammu and Kashmir  
to the Maoist infested areas demonstrates two aspects of New Delhi's  
perspective about the Kashmir issue. First is the clear manifestation  
of contrasting lines of ideas and actions regarding the Kashmir  
situation within various departments and ministries of the central  
government. New Delhi's plans for Kashmir are seriously marred by the  
confusion springing from different agencies, officials and political  
leaders in corridors of power. All of them work in absolute contrast  
with each other, often at cross-purposes, aiding the process of  
greater damage than doing any good. This is not the first instance of  
the defence ministry and the home ministry being at loggerheads about  
the Kashmir issue. Just two days after prime minister Manmohan  
Singh's recent Kashmir visit, marking a fresh beginning with his  
promise of a dialogue, the GOC Northern Command got busy briefing  
media persons in Jammu to caution against 'agitational terrorism',  
equating it with threat of Talibans and defining all organised  
agitations in Kashmir Valley as the brain-child of terrorists. This  
came close on the heels of union home minister P. Chidambaram's  
assertion about 'quiet diplomacy' in Kashmir. This jarring mismatch  
between the home ministry and the security agencies is a symptom of a  
much larger phenomenon of different power centres in New Delhi  
adopting differing lines of action when it comes to the troubled  
state of Jammu and Kashmir. Their assessments, perceptions and their  
actions just do not match. The rift is not confined to the defence  
and the home ministries. The ministry of external affairs, with its  
own set of concerns, also often throws a spanner at the efforts made  
by the other two, demonstrating the absence of a consensus,  
indecisiveness, and the dilemmas with which the Centre can function  
on an issue of vital importance. The inability to take a decisive  
course of action in Jammu and Kashmir springs from the lack of vision  
that is blurred by a cacophony of different noises within the  
government.

The second aspect of the problem may be equally alarming, if not  
more. At no cost the security agencies are willing to compromise  
their authoritative position in Jammu and Kashmir. Any decisions  
taken at the top level are obviously grounded in some basic feedback  
from the security agencies. Even as official statistics have for  
quite a few years revealed level of militancy reducing and numbers of  
militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir diminishing, New Delhi is  
not guided by a sense of reason in beginning the process of thinning  
down troops. It only relies on a feedback that seeks to perpetuate  
the authority and brutal might of the security forces, whose  
disproportionate presence and increasing number of cantonments and  
camps are highly undemocratic and unjustified. All this is wrongly  
legitimised in the name of security concerns and national interest,  
which are better served by also keeping the interests of the people  
in mind. The refusal of the defence ministry to even allow a few  
battalions to be shifted out, despite the security situation  
providing no cause for alarm, points out to the dangerous carrot and  
stick policy that New Delhi is embarking on. On one hand, it is going  
ahead with a probable talks process and on the other, facts point out  
to the bitter reality that the state, whatever its political future,  
may be doomed to a future of enormous presence of troops and their  
interference even in political decisions. Security concerns have  
always been invoked to ensure that there is no erosion of the  
authority and unlimited power of the security agencies and their big  
bosses sitting in New Delhi. The inability of the Centre to amend the  
Armed Forces Special Powers Act, as per a pending proposal, not even  
revoke it totally, and the haste with which the government has banned  
the pre-paid mobile phones in this part of the world are evident  
pointers in this direction. That security agencies should be bestowed  
with such unlimited powers, even if in some pockets, can make the  
forward journey of a democratic country perilious.


_____


[6] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i) Communalism Combat, November 2009

REMEMBERING 1984: THE NIGHTMARE ENDURES

by Teesta Setalvad

Twenty-five years ago, in November 1984, as Delhi burned, no Sikh  
life in the capital was safe. Eminent writer Khushwant Singh sought  
shelter at the Swedish embassy. Justice SS Chadha of the Delhi high  
court had to move to the high court complex. His residence was no  
longer secure.

Though the official death toll in Delhi was 2,733, victims’ lawyers  
submitted a list to the officially appointed Ranganath Misra  
Commission in 1985 detailing the 3,870 Sikhs who had been killed.  
Twenty-six persons were arrested by the police on November 1 and 2,  
1984; unbelievably however, all of them were Sikhs! So far only nine  
cases of murder related to the 1984 carnage have led to convictions.  
Only 20 persons have been convicted for murder in 25 years, a  
conviction rate of less than one per cent.

The cover-up

Within weeks of the massacre, a fact-finding report prepared by the  
civil liberties groups, People’s Union for Civil Liberties and  
People’s Union for Democratic Rights (‘Who are the Guilty’, PUCL- 
PUDR report, November 1984), named senior Congress leaders on the  
basis of allegations made by victims who had taken refuge in relief  
camps. However, no action against the perpetrators was forthcoming.  
The report listed HKL Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and Lalit  
Maken among the Congress leaders active in inciting mobs against the  
Sikh community. The media had named only one, Dharam Das Shastri, a  
former MP.

Riding the wave of nationwide sympathy following Prime Minister  
Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the Congress party swept to power in  
the general elections held in late December. Her son, Rajiv, failed  
to isolate the leaders who had been specifically named for their role  
in the massacre. Far from being politically isolated, these men were  
instead given tickets for the polls by the party leadership. Worse,  
they contested and won the election.

Within a short and bloody spell of 48 to 72 hours, nearly 4,000  
Sikhs, residents of Delhi, were massacred or burnt to death in cold  
blood. The central government announced no judicial steps for  
redressal, to identify and punish the guilty and offer justice to the  
victim survivors. Within weeks of the assassination and the massacre,  
the ruling party had switched to election mode and, winning a  
landslide victory in the polls, came to power with an overwhelming  
majority in the newly formed Lok Sabha. When Parliament met in  
January 1985, resolutions were passed condemning the assassination of  
the former prime minister; another condemned the loss of life in the  
Bhopal gas tragedy of December 1984. No official condolence motion  
was moved to mark the massacre of Sikhs. To date, the Indian  
Parliament has not rectified this shocking lapse.

None of the four politicians named for leading the mobs have so far  
been punished. Instead, their election to seats in Parliament, from  
the city where they were accused of leading mobs, signalled brute  
democratic sanction for the massacres. HKL Bhagat, who was named by  
several eyewitnesses as leading mobs, was chosen as the Congress  
party’s candidate from East Delhi, the worst affected area. Of the  
whopping 76.97 per cent of votes polled, Bhagat cornered a staggering  
59.8 per cent (3,86,150 votes as opposed to the BJP’s 73,970). The  
majority of constituents chose to back a man identified as leading a  
murderous mob. Was this democratic sanction for carnage?

Similarly, Jagdish Tytler, chosen by the Congress party to contest  
elections from Sadar in Delhi, won with a whopping 62 per cent of the  
total 71.83 per cent of votes polled. His opponent, Madan Lal  
Khurana, won the remaining 35.78 per cent. Lalit Maken, another  
accused, fielded by the party from South Delhi, received 61.07 per  
cent of the 64.68 per cent of votes polled, capturing 2,15,898 votes.

Amidst the euphoria of the electoral victory that followed the  
massacre, these men were also elevated to more powerful positions in  
government. HKL Bhagat, previously a minister of state, was elevated  
to cabinet rank and Jagdish Tytler was made minister of state for the  
first time. Lalit Maken, formerly a councillor, had already been  
rewarded with a ticket for the polls in which he had won.

By early 1985 the Congress party was in the seat of power, with a 90  
per cent majority in the Lok Sabha. Not surprisingly, the new  
government did not set up a commission of inquiry until forced to do  
so, five months after the massacre. It was under pressure to initiate  
talks with the more moderate Akalis (remember the Rajiv-Longowal  
accord) that Rajiv Gandhi, the new prime minister, was forced to  
accede to the precondition for talks set by the Sikh leadership –  
their demand that an inquiry commission be established to investigate  
the massacre. The Akalis had even threatened a nationwide agitation  
on April 13, 1985 to press their demand. Two days before the  
threatened stir, the Congress government finally announced the  
establishment of an inquiry commission.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Ranganath Misra, was  
appointed to head the commission set up in May 1985. But the  
commission did little to advance the cause of justice as the judge,  
who was subsequently associated with the Congress party’s human  
rights cell for several years, in fact covered up the role of the  
ruling Congress party in the violence, failing to summon top Congress  
leaders and subject them to the rigours of cross-examination.  
However, even the Misra Commission was compelled to concede that  
during the carnage the police refused to register any first  
information reports (FIRs) that named any policeman or person in  
authority as the accused:

"It is a fact and the commission on the basis of satisfaction records  
a finding that first information reports were not received if they  
implicated the police or any person in authority and the informants  
were required to delete such allegations from written reports. When  
oral reports were recorded, they were not taken down verbatim and  
brief statements dropping out allegations against police or other  
officials and men in power were written" (Misra Commission report).

The Jain-Banerjee Committee (one of three committees set up on the  
recommendation of the Misra Commission and which investigated  
omission in registration of cases) actually instructed the Delhi  
police in October 1987 to register a case of murder against Sajjan  
Kumar, who was a Congress MP from the Outer Delhi constituency in  
1984, on the basis of an affidavit filed by a riot widow, Anwar Kaur.  
However, no action was taken until the cover-up was exposed by  
journalist Manoj Mitta in The Times of India. (An individual named  
Brahmanand Gupta, who was also named in the affidavit, obtained a  
stay order against the Jain-Banerjee Committee from the Delhi high  
court and the court allowed the matter to languish for two years,  
furthering injustice to the victims.)

The CBI finally registered a case against Sajjan Kumar only in 1990  
and completed its investigations two years later. Apart from charging  
Sajjan Kumar with murder, the CBI also charged him with hate speech,  
invoking Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. This required central  
government sanction before prosecution, which was obtained from the  
Narasimha Rao government only in June 1994.

In 1991 the Jain-Agarwal Committee, a panel set up to continue the  
unfinished task of the Jain-Banerjee Committee, had specifically  
recommended the registration of two cases against HKL Bhagat. The  
then lieutenant governor of Delhi, Markandey Singh, accepted the  
committee’s recommendation but Bhagat made a representation before  
him claiming that he had already been exonerated by the Misra  
Commission, a plea that was finally turned down on the grounds that  
the commission had not examined the matter beyond a prima facie look  
at the case. Despite the firm stand taken by the lieutenant governor,  
for five years no case was registered against Bhagat at all. It was  
only in 1996, when the Congress party was out of power, that the  
police registered the two cases in question.

The Jain-Agarwal Committee had in 1991 also recommended the  
registration of cases against other politicians and Markandey Singh  
had ordered the registration of those cases as well. But in a  
Machiavellian ploy, the Rao government actively prevented the  
registration of the stronger cases against politicians whilst  
registering those that relied on flimsier evidence thus ensuring that  
justice was not done. Manoj Mitta and HS Phoolka, co-authors of When  
a Tree Shook Delhi (Roli Books, 2007), exposed this as a government  
sham. They dug out, in affidavit form, the original testimonies of  
witnesses against all these politicians, demonstrating that the  
authorities, by replacing them with weak and false testimonies, had  
suppressed the honest, unambiguous and strong testimonies on oath.

Another panel appointed on the recommendation of the Misra  
Commission, the Kapur-Mittal Committee, which investigated acts of  
omission and commission by police officers, had identified delinquent  
police officials. A report submitted in 1990 by one of the two  
committee members, Kusum Lata Mittal, recommended various degrees of  
punishment for 72 police officials, including six IPS officers. But,  
on one flimsy pretext or another, the government has so far not taken  
any action against any of those indicted.

It was against this dismal background of legal deception and failure  
to punish the perpetrators that the Vajpayee government took the  
momentous decision in December 1999 to accept the demand for a fresh  
judicial inquiry into the 1984 carnage. In Parliament, the members of  
all political parties, including the Congress party, now under the  
leadership of Sonia Gandhi, passed a resolution supporting the  
government’s decision in this regard. The subsequent appointment of  
the Justice GT Nanavati Commission in May 2000, nearly 16 years after  
the killings, was an unprecedented development. The commission  
submitted its report in February 2005.

Through the findings of the Nanavati Commission, many eminent persons  
have for the first time been able to put on record how, during the  
massacre of 1984, the then union home minister, PV Narasimha Rao, and  
the then lieutenant governor of Delhi, PG Gavai, failed to take  
constitutionally binding and firm measures when urged to call in the  
army. Several depositions before the Nanavati Commission also  
provided fresh evidence against Congress leaders HKL Bhagat and  
Sajjan Kumar, reiterating their role in the violence. Analysis of the  
evidence before the commission also brought to light an important  
pattern/strategy followed by the police authorities during that  
period, which was to first disarm Sikhs and then arrest them. The  
Kusum Lata Mittal report, which revealed police complicity at the  
highest level, was also revealed for the first time through documents  
placed before the Nanavati Commission.

Communalism Combat has over the years revisited the 1984 carnage in  
its commitment as a journal to examine and illustrate the breakdown  
of the rule of law within a functioning, vibrant democracy. The 1984  
Sikh massacre in the nation’s capital was also the first full- 
fledged anti-minority pogrom in independent India. That justice has  
not been done and perpetrators among policemen and politicians have  
not been brought to book is a comment on our agencies and  
institutions. We dedicate this issue to the pursuit of justice even  
as we pay homage to the victims and salute the grit and courage of  
the survivors.

(ii) INDIA: SPECIAL COURTS FAIL TO GIVE JUSTICE TO THE VICTIMS OF THE  
COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN ORISSA

 From John Dayal
12 November 2009

I have just come back from Orissa, very depressed at the way the  
criminal justice system is working in that benighted state.
I had gone to take part in a rare Civil Society meeting with victims,  
some law experts and some Human Rights activists on 3rd November 2009  
in Bhubaneswar. In truth, barring some leaders of various Left  
parties and Women's groups, there is not much of a civil society in  
Orissa as far as violence on Christians or Muslims is concerned.  
Fortunately, there are activists - and Dhirendra Panda is one such -  
who are determined to press for justice. Fortunately again, there are  
some more activists working in the defence of the rights of Tribals  
and workers whose very existence is threatened by the entry of global  
mining giants trying to profit from the underground riches of  
Orissa.  About them, in another note.
Advocate Rasmi Ranjan Jena says "As we know in most of the cases  
already tried in the Fast Track Courts in Kandhamal the accused  
persons have been acquitted. This is nothing but a great failure of  
the criminal justice system which has miserably failed to give  
justice to the victims of the communal violence. At this juncture  
there is an urgent need of critical analysis of the factors  
responsible for the failure. Though nothing much should be expected  
from a judicial forum in a communal society, but we need to have a  
self introspection to develop a strategy for the upcoming days."
[. . .]
http://www.sacw.net/article1221.html

(iii)

INVADING THE SECULAR SPACE IN INDIA

by Ram Puniyani ( http://www.sacw.net/article1223.html )

Satya Sai Baba of Puthaparthi in his recent tour of Mumbai (Nov.  
2009) was invited by the Maharashtra Chief Minister designate, Ashok  
Chavan to his official residence, Varsha, for blessing the house and  
for the associated puja (invocation). When criticsed for inviting the  
Holy Guru to his official residence he said that since he is a  
devotee of the Baba from last many decades it is a privilege for him.  
There are many other news items where state functionaries mark their  
presence for the programs of Gurus and Babas (God men).

As far as Satya Sai Baba is concerned he is regarded as the living  
God by his devotees, while he himself claims to be the reincarnation  
of Sai Baba of Shirdi. This Sai Baba is also a miracle person and a  
spiritual Guru. His miracles have been exposed by the Rationalist  
Associations and his trick of producing Gold chain was brought up in  
the court, as production of gold is illegal. This case was not  
pursued for various reasons. There are many charges of sexual abuse  
by Sai baba. Magician of fame P.C. Sarkar also said his miracles have  
nothing to do with divinity but are mere magical tricks.

Use of official residence for such functions is in total violation of  
the secular constitution of the country where religion is a private  
matter of the individual and state functionaries can’t wear their  
religion on their sleeves in official capacity and in official  
places. Contrary to that norm, lately this norm is known more for its  
violation than by adherence to it. Gone are the days of Nehru when he  
could stand up and snub such actions by whosoever it is in the  
official capacity. Of course, Gandhi, Father of the nation and Nehru  
the architect of Indian state were no devotees of any Baba or Guru.  
Over a period of time such principles have been violated with  
impunity. Uma Bharati during her brief tenure as the Chief Minister  
ship of Madhya Pradesh converted her official residence in to a  
Gaushala (Cow shed) with saffron robed Sadhus forming the main  
residents of her official residence.

India has quite a broad fare of God men. There are Gurus, Sants,  
Maharajs, Acharyas and Purohits (clergy) in the main. Their role has  
been changing over a period of time. Last three decades seem to be  
the time of their major glory, with their presence in all spheres in  
a very dominating way. Their number has also proliferated immensely  
and while some of these are big players, Sri Sri Ravishankar, Baba  
Ramdeo, Asaram Bapu to name the few. There are hundreds of them  
scattered in each state. Many of them are working in close tandem  
with Hindu right, Swami Assmanand, Late Swami Laxmananad Sarswati,  
Narendra Mahraj etc. These are the one’s who have created their own  
niche with different techniques, while Shankarachayas, are associated  
with the Mutts coming from historical times, the Akshrdham chain is  
also not very old a tradition. The Pramukh swamis (Chief Guru) of  
these temples wield enormous clout. One recalls Anand Marg came up  
during the decade of seventies and not much is hearing of that now.

Overall religiosity has been on the upswing and not many are  
protesting the promotion of blind faith by many such God men. The  
rational thought and movement is on the back foot and political  
leadership, social leaders, of many hues are bending over backwards  
to please these Babas, some of whom are also dispensing health and  
some of them claim to be looking into the crystal ball of future.

There is an interesting correlation between the coming up of adverse  
effects of globalization, rise in the anxieties and deprivations and  
the current dominance of God men. Many an interesting observations  
about these God men are there, the major one being the rise in  
alienation in last three decades along with the rising religiosity in  
the social space. Many a remarkable studies on this phenomenon are  
coming forth. One such is by a US based Indian scholar of repute,  
Meera Nanda. In her book, The God Market, she makes very profound  
observations. She points out that this rising religiosity is  
manifested in boom in pilgrimages and newer rituals. Some old rituals  
are becoming more rooted and popular. She sees a nexus between state- 
temple-corporate complexes also. Secular institutions of Nehru era  
are being replaced by boosting demand and supply of God market.

A new Hindu religiosity is getting deeply rooted in everyday life, in  
public and private spheres. The distinction between private and  
public sphere is getting eroded as the case of Sai Baba in  
Maharashtra Chief Ministers official bungalow shows. Hindu rituals  
and symbols are becoming part of state functions; Hinduism de facto  
is becoming state religion. Hindu religiosity is becoming part of  
national pride with the aspiration of becoming a superpower. She  
observes a trend of increased religiosity. In India there are 2.5  
million places of worship but only 1.5 million schools and barely  
75000 hospitals. Half of 230 million tourist trips every year are for  
religious pilgrimage. Akshardham temple acquired 100 acres of land at  
throw away price. Sri Sri Ravishanker’s Art of Living Ashram in  
banglore has 99 acres of land leased from Karnataka Government.  
Gujarat Govt. gifted 85 acres of land to establish privately run  
rishikul in Porbander. Most significantly Nanda argues that the new  
culture of political Hinduism is triumphalist and intolerant, while  
asserting to be recognized as a tolerant religion. While claiming to  
have a higher tolerance, its intolerance is leading to violence  
against minorities.

It is because of this that even if the BJP may not be the ruling  
party, the political class and other sections of state apparatus have  
subtly accepted Hindu religiosity and the consequent politics as the  
official one, and so the justice for victims of religious violence  
eludes them. The question is, can the struggle for justice for weaker  
sections also incorporate a cultural-religious battle against the  
blind religiosity and proactive efforts initiated to promote rational  
thought.

o o o

(iv)

India: Wake up to take on terrorism of the Hindutva kind
by Subhash Gatade
http://tt.ly/G

_____


[7] Miscellanea:

The Guardian, 9 November 2009

DARING TO REMEMBER BULGARIA, PRE-1989

As the memory of communism fades, nostalgia is viewed as suspect –  
but to lament losses is not to wish state socialism back

by Maria Todorova

This year's jubilee has been dominated by what all festive  
anniversaries do: remembering and celebrating a victory. Because it  
is an official victory, it is to a large extent a prescriptive  
remembering, focused on two central pillars and their firmly  
entrenched formulas: the "peaceful revolution" and the normative  
Vergangenheitsbewältigung, as in Germany. In Bulgaria, 1989 is  
popularly known, in a typically anticlimactic fashion, not as  
revolution, but as "the change" (promianata), much like the German  
Die Wende.

In fact, it started as a liberal intellectual revolution, soon to be  
transformed into a drastic social revolution, turning a fairly  
egalitarian society into one of enormous wealth differentiation and a  
marginalised intelligentsia. Even in this anniversary year, 1989 is  
not in the centre of popular attention except in small intellectual  
circles, but I would argue – counter-intuitively – that alongside  
its natural fading away, the memory of communism is growing in many  
and novel ways. Communist presence diminished the fastest in the  
visual and symbolic sphere: almost 100 populated areas were renamed,  
street names were changed and a new coat of arms, national flag,  
anthem, and holiday system were adopted. A huge number of communist- 
era monuments were dismantled, the culmination being the dynamiting  
of the Dimitrov mausoleum in 1999. Rival ones were constructed,  
commemorating the victims of communism. While the monumental evidence  
from the communist period is clearly diminishing, it is more  
noticeable now when its presence is not mandated. It is acquiring the  
status of the formerly cherished pre-communist monuments.

In the legal sphere the memory of communism is still present, but is  
fading irreversibly. Legal proceedings against former communist  
politicians (few of which ended with convictions) hardly achieved the  
desired function of clearing up and catharsis. The repeal of  
repressive legislation, the restoration of private ownership of land  
and the restitution law sought to create a new owner class with a  
market orientation but the formation of the new moneyed elite  
followed different avenues. The secret files were opened but,  
compared to other East European societies, the attempt to condemn the  
past with the help of disclosures was unsuccessful. Only a small  
number of Bulgarians views the pre-1989 system as undeniably  
criminal. For the majority, the regime was restrictive of political  
and economic freedoms, but provided security, and the plummeting  
living standards in the 1990s contributed to this perception. The  
blanket criminalisation of communist rule in Bulgaria is a failure.

Debates about the communist legacy were fierce in the first decade  
after 1989, but the "rewriting of history" was almost entirely  
confined to the mass media, memoirs and popular history. Since the  
end of the 1990s, when the transition period ended and the  
irreversibility of the process became clear, an exponentially growing  
scholarly literature has reassessed the communist period within a  
variety of frameworks: totalitarianism, state capitalism,  
paternalism, economy of deficit, "second" and "third" network theory,  
"domesticated" socialism, elitism, even Dada. "Modernisation" is  
becoming hegemonic even as it attracts accusations of "normalisation".

Most interesting today is "post-communist nostalgia" as a special  
memory case. Lamenting the losses that came with the collapse of  
state socialism does not imply wishing it back. Not all aspects are  
missed. Mainstream ideological treatment, however, would like us to  
believe that it was all one package, that one cannot have full  
employment without shortages, inter-ethnic peace without forced  
homogenisation, or free healthcare without totalitarianism. And since  
allegedly you cannot wish for a part without wishing for the whole,  
any positive mention of the socialist past is seen as ideologically  
suspect. We quickly label a video clip of socialist era commodities  
as communist nostalgia, when we obviously would not apply the term  
Ottoman nostalgia to a video clip of belly dancers gyrating to  
oriental tunes. Post-communist nostalgia is not only the longing for  
security, stability and prosperity but also the feeling of loss for a  
specific form of sociability. Above all, there is a desire, among the  
ones who lived through communism, even when they opposed it or were  
indifferent to its ideology, to invest their lives with meaning and  
dignity, not to be thought of, remembered or bemoaned as losers or  
"slaves". Lastly, there is the tentative but growing curiosity among  
the younger generation.

A joke encapsulates the ambivalent attitude toward the communist  
past, as it exemplifies the traditional ironic response of Bulgarians  
both before and after the fall of communism. A woman sits bolt  
upright in the middle of the night. She jumps out of bed and rushes  
to the bathroom to look in the medicine cabinet. Then, she runs into  
the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. Finally, she dashes to the  
window and looks out into the street. Relieved, she returns to the  
bedroom. Her husband asks, "What's wrong with you?" "I had a terrible  
nightmare", she says, "I dreamed we could still afford to buy  
medicine, that the refrigerator was absolutely full, and that the  
streets were safe and clean." "How is that a nightmare?" The woman  
shakes her head, "I thought the communists were back in power."

o o o

counterpunch.org

FROM MALINOWSKI TO HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEMS - EMPIRES AND THE SULLYING  
OF ANTHROPOLOGY

by Robert Lawless

In the September 30, 2009, online edition of CounterPunch in an  
article titled “Country of Constant Sorrow:  McChrystal's Afghan  
Desolation,” Vijay Prashad wrote,

     “Enter a war zone with the expectation that the heavy armor  
will coerce the population into electing a favorable head of state;  
if this fails, then take refuge in your anthropologists, who will  
find a quick way to ‘nativize’ the war and help you clamber onto  
the helicopters.  The country you have left behind is now more of a  
humanitarian disaster than when you self-righteously flew in on the  
wings of humanitarian interventionism.”

The notion of anthropologists being helpmates in the First World  
conquest of the Third World seems now to have become embedded in the  
day-to-day understanding of the Bush-initiated Iraq-Afghanistan  
cultural-military fiasco.  Whether political scientists,  
philosophers, area specialists, or whoever actually fills the  
“societal” expert position on the Human Terrain Systems (HTS)  
teams, anthropologists apparently are to take the blame.  And  
anthropologists themselves are not exempt from furthering this notion.

Perhaps the most notorious anthropologist associated with the U.S.  
military’s HTS is Montgomery McFate, who writes primarily for  
military publications and whose pivotal article “Anthropology and  
Counterinsurgency” appeared in the April 2005 issue of Military  
Review.  A hapless mix of shoddy history and misdirected  
anthropology, her article was, nevertheless, reprinted in the 2007  
edition of Annual Editions Anthropology -- along with articles by  
Conrad Kottak, Richard Lee, and Ralph Linton, and in the 2009 second  
edition of Classic Readings in Cultural Anthropology, edited by Gary  
Ferraro -- along with brand-name anthropologists such as Horace  
Miner, Clyde Kluckhohn, Edward T. Hall, Richard Lee, and E. E. Evans- 
Pritchard.  Why McFate deserves to be in this company is unclear;  
there are many other articles by respectable anthropologists that  
clearly explained the HTS affair. [Among them have been  David  
Price’s path-breaking contributions on this site and in our  
CounterPunch newsletter. Editors.]  Making McFate’s piece widely  
available only further sullies anthropology.

Anthropology hardly needs a renewed association with First World  
empires; it has obviously had difficulty living down its close  
association with colonialism in its formative recent past.  The great  
British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the most  
important founders of modern anthropology who provided a model for  
nonjudgmental, systematic, long-term fieldwork -- the hallmark of  
anthropology -- was director of the International African Institute  
in London for a few years, and in that position he was concerned  
primarily with helping British colonial officials with their  
problems.  One specific problem for Britain centered on getting the  
indigenes to work hard on the cash-crop plantations owned by the  
Europeans.  In a 1929 article Malinowski wrote:

     “The simplest experience teaches that to everybody work  
is . . . unpleasant, but a study of primitive conditions shows that  
very efficient work can be obtained, and the Natives can be made to  
work with some degree of real satisfaction if propitious conditions  
are created for them. . . . In Melanesia I have seen this applied on  
some plantations.  Use was made of such stimuli as competitive  
displays of the results, or special marks of distinction for  
industry, or again of rhythm and working songs. . . . Such things  
must never be improvised -- an artificial arrangement will never get  
hold of native imagination.  In every community I maintain there are  
such indigenous means of achieving more intensive labour and greater  
output.”

And in further advising about the duties of the anthropologist  
Malinowski wrote, "He should formulate his conclusions in a manner so  
that they can be understood by those who carry out policies.  He also  
has the duty to speak as the natives' advocate, without, however,  
succumbing to an outburst of pro-native ranting.  Through comparative  
study he can discover and define the common factor of European  
intentions and of African response. . . . Knowledge gives foresight,  
and foresight is indispensable to the statesman and to the local  
administrator, to the educationalist, welfare worker, and missionary  
alike."  Notice that it is European intentions and African response.   
Notice that "knowledge" and "foresight" is for the European  
colonialists, not for the “natives.”

No anthropologist in these early years suggested that anthropology  
should be used to help the indigenes throw off the yoke of colonial  
oppression or that anthropologists should study the contradictions  
and weaknesses of colonial imperialism so that the indigenes could  
strike at the heart of the oppressors.

Malinowski was, of course, a product of his time.  And before World  
War II it was widely assumed in the colonial metropoles, that  
colonialism was beneficial in the long run to everyone; backward  
peoples were, after all, being civilized so that they could enjoy the  
benefits of modernization and civilization in the future.  And these  
early anthropologists strove to enlighten the rulers and protect the  
ruled from the more brutal aspects of colonialism, such as forced  
labor.  Today, however, most anthropologists have moved beyond this  
1920s colonial version of the discipline.

Some anthropologists even at the time escaped this ethnocentric  
perspective.  Franz Boas, the founder of U.S. anthropology, famously  
critiqued anthropologists involved with the U.S. military in World  
War I in his 1919 letter to the Nation titled “Scientists as  
Spies.”  His student, and my first anthropology instructor, the  
great Melville J. Herskovits, refused government financial assistance  
for Northwestern University’s African Studies program and he also  
refused to accept government officials into the Ph.D. program.  These  
towering figures certainly would not allow anthropology to be  
sullied.  The discipline did, however, suffer some sullying during  
World War II and the subsequent Cold War.  Anthropologists’  
activities in World War II are examined in David Price’s 2008  
Anthropological Intelligence, and the Thailand part of Project Agile  
is examined in Eric Wakin’s 1992 Anthropology Goes to War.  One  
would hope, however, that modern-day anthropologists have learned the  
lesson and that such sullying and empire-helpmate activities would no  
longer occur.

As Price wrote on October 1-15, 2009, however, in an article in  
CounterPunch newsletter titled “Anthropology, Human Terrain’s  
Prehistory, and the Role of Culture in Wars Waged by Robots,”  
“Human Terrain Systems is not some neutral humanitarian project, it  
is an arm of the U.S. military and is part of the military’s mission  
to occupy and destroy opposition to U.S. goals and objectives.  HTS  
cannot claim the sort of neutrality claimed by groups like Doctors  
Without Borders, or the International Committee of the Red Cross.”   
In October 2007 much to its credit the Executive Board of the  
American Anthropological Association denounced HTS for its failure to  
follow the fundamental principles of anthropological ethics.  Out of  
the 261 comments from members of the American Anthropological  
Association in the blog accompanying the statement of the executive  
board the vast majority overwhelmingly condemn the participation of  
anthropologists in HTS.

The few anthropologists engaged in these neocolonial enterprises  
cannot be said to represent the discipline, but they have received  
considerable publicity thereby sullying anthropology’s reputation.   
Exactly what they expect to accomplish anthropologically is not  
entirely clear.  They are a fairly motley bunch.  The ones that we  
have information on seem to have little if any expertise in the  
Middle East.  And most of them are not exactly forthcoming about  
their activities -- nor is the U.S. military.

One who has written rather openly is Marcus Griffin, who has a Ph.D.  
in anthropology from the University of Illinois and who, until  
recently, was an assistant professor at Christopher Newport  
University in Newport News, Virginia, a rapidly growing public  
university with an enrollment of about 5,000.

Griffin has been the subject of several articles, has written about  
his experiences in his own blog, and has briefly replied to criticism  
in the anthropological blog Savage Minds.  In an article in the April  
21, 2008, issue of Newsweek titled “A Gun in One Hand, A Pen in the  
Other” written by Dan Ephron and Silvia Spring it is pointed out  
that Griffin “had never been to the Middle East before he arrived in  
Iraq last fall,” though he had spent much of his life in the  
Philippines with his anthropologist father who does research on the  
Agta of Northern Luzon.  Ephron and Spring noted that although he is  
a civilian Griffin wore army clothing and carried a rifle.  The  
reporters stated, “For their services, the anthropologists get up to  
$300,000 annually while posted abroad -- a salary that is six times  
higher than the national average for their field.”

The rest of the Newsweek article is largely critical of the HTS  
program, which, it reported, “was handed to BAE without a bidding  
process.”  BAE Systems is a company that apparently lives off U.S.  
Department of Defense contracts.  According to their website, BAE  
Systems currently has positions open for HTS Reachback Research  
Center Analyst, Human Terrain Systems Analyst, Human Terrain Systems  
Research Manager, and HTS Team Leader.

A more critical article by Dahr Jamail in the May 1, 2009, edition of  
Truthout titled “An Anthropologist and Army Medics Work at a Medical  
Clinic in the Shabak Valley in Afghanistan” pointed out that HTS  
developed “into a $40 million program that embedded four or five  
person groups of scholars in the aforementioned fields in all 26 US  
combat brigades that were busily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.”   
Jamail reported that Griffin, “while preparing to deploy to Iraq at  
part of an HTS team, boasted on his blog, ‘I cut my hair in a high  
and tight style and look like a drill sergeant . . . I shot very well  
with the M9 and M4 last week at the range . . . Shooting well is  
important if you are a soldier regardless of whether or not your job  
requires you to carry a weapon.’”

An article meant to be favorable toward HTS and toward Griffin was  
datelined Baghdad and released by the American Forces Press Service  
on January 25, 2008.  Titled “Anthropologist Helps Soldiers  
Understand Iraqis’ Needs” and written by Sgt. James P. Hunter,  
U.S. Army, it characterized Griffin as “an anthropologist working  
for the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team” who is  
bringing “his knowledge and experience to the fight” and “is  
helping soldiers better understand the needs of the Iraqi people.”   
The article focuses on Griffin’s study of Iraqi local markets, which  
he toured accompanied by an armed escort.

In responding to questions of ethics posed by anthropologists on the  
popular blog Savage Minds in August 2007, Griffin wrote:

     “I am deploying in a few days and time is very short.  I work  
sixteen hour days and can expect to do so from now on seven days a  
week until I’m given R&R in six months.  That is not an  
exaggeration.  I am not evading questions about ethics, I simply  
cannot devote the time to my blog because my blog is not my job, just  
a way to show my students how I am doing my job away from the  
classroom.  I write in it when I can.

     “As for going native, how can I possibly help the Army use  
fewer bombs and bullets to achieve the operational goal of securing  
neighborhoods from sectarian, criminal, and political violence if I  
don’t know anything about Army culture and don’t seem to care  
about living as they do?  Living with the Iraqi population is simply  
not an option -- the last time I checked people get their heads cut  
off or are shot by a sniper for lingering around.  Personally, I  
think going to Iraq tests the current relevance of anthropology.   
We’ll see how relevant the discipline is and how well or poorly I  
perform as an anthropologist.  My blog will contain posts about it  
all.  My next entry will be from downrange.  Ciao.”

Griffin’s blog is currently unavailable.  Griffin is no longer with  
Christopher Newport University and is, in fact, now employed by BAE  
Systems.  In response to questions I recently posed to Griffin, he  
wrote on October 7, 2009, “I am currently getting ready for a trip  
to Afghanistan and not able to give answering these questions  
priority.  Perhaps when I return next month I will have more time.”

In a similar fashion to the problems faced by psychologists dealing  
with the role of a few of their cohorts’ compliance with torture,  
anthropologists will need to cleanse the standing of  the profession  
not only by careful discussion of the issues but also by taking  
action that clearly separates the discipline of anthropology from  
war, spying, empire building, and military adventures.

Robert Lawless teaches anthropology at Wichita State University . He  
has done fieldwork in the Philipinnes, Haiti , Florida and New York  
(studying urban hippie communes in the early 1970s).  He can be  
reached at robert.lawless at wichita.edu


_____


[8]  Announcements:

(i)  REMEMBERING PRABHASH JI

Gandhi Peace Foundation, November 18 2009, 5:00 pm onwards

November 12 2009

Friends,

Prabhashji was known to almost all of us in his different avatars :  
as a journalist, editor, writer, thinker, cricket connoisseur, peace  
builder, fiercely secular but also a humanist and Gandhian whose  
actions were guided by Gandhian thoughts. He lived in a way emulating  
Gandhi's mantra, 'My Life is My Message'. Writing about him some  
people did describe him as perhaps one of the last Gandhian  
journalists. Today he is no more but his deeds will remain with us.

To many of us in different peoples movements and Andolans he was a  
proactive supporter and he used everything within his powers to lend  
voice to our struggles, be it Narmada, Bhopal, Gujarat riots, Human  
rights violations in North East Manipur, Chattisgarh and other states.

To celebrate his life and contributions to movements and expanding  
the boundaries of justice and truth we invite you to join us at  
Gandhi Peace Foundation on November18, Wednesday, from 5 : 00 pm  
onwards.

Yours Sincerely,

Surendra Mohan, Socialist Front
Kuldeep Nayyar, People's Political Front

Rajnder Sachar, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties

Medha Patkar, National Alliance of Peoples Movements
Surendra Kumar, Gandhi Peace Foundation
Mahadev Vidrohi, Sarva Sewa Sangh
Ajit Jha, Samwajwadi Jan Parishad

Prashant Bhushan, Sumit Chakrvarty and friends from Delhi Solidarity  
Group, Jan Sangharsh Vahini, National Domestic Workers Union and many  
others...

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(ii) LAND VIOLENCE and DEVELOPMENT in CHHATTISGARH

Speakers

Sudha Bharadwaj, is a well known and long serving union leader, in  
the forefront of Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, the movement initiated by  
Shankar Guha Niyogi.

Himanshu Kumar, a gandhian, has spent his entire active life in  
Chattisgarh and through his ashram has been trying to provide the  
people what the Indian State that prides itself with the Gandhian  
legacy has failed to provide. His ashram was bull dozed by the police  
for his struggle against Salwa Judum.

Venue : Loyola College

Time:    4pm -- 8pm

Date:     18th Nov 2009

Organised by: PUCL Tamilnadu & Pondycherry, Department of social  
work, Loyola College, Vettiver Collective, Makkal Nalvazhuvu Iyyakam

for information contact 9176079543


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(iii) Secularism in Contemporary India
Monday, November 16, 10:30am-12:30pm
International Affairs Building, Room 1512
A discussion with CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT, Alliance Visiting Professor  
at Columbia and Professor of Political Science at Sciences-Po, Paris,  
THOMAS BLOM HANSEN, Professor of Anthropology at the University of  
Amsterdam, and RAJEEV BHARGAVA, Director of the Center for the Study  
of Developing Societies.
Co-sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life;  
the Alliance Program; the South Asia Institute; the Department of  
Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures; and the Center for the  
Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.


Religion, Conflict and Accommodation in India
Tuesday-Wednesday, November 17-18, 9am-5pm
Common Room, Second Floor
Heyman Center for the Humanities
A workshop led by Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle East and Asian  
Languages and Cultures, and Rajeev Bhargava, Director of the Centre  
for Studies in Developing Societies (Delhi). Discussion will focus on  
the role of religion in India throughout its history, particularly  
the dynamics of conflict and accommodation between Buddhists and  
conventional Vedic religion and among Saivas, Vaisnavas and Jains in  
ancient and medieval society.
For schedule of presentations:
http://ircpl.org/events/religion-conflict-and-accommodation-in-india

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life,  
the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion and  
the Heyman Center for the Humanities. For directions to the Heyman  
Center:
http://heymancenter.org/visit.php



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  (v)

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(vi)

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South Asia Citizens Wire
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/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.