SACW | Dec 13-16, 2009 / Fundamentalist Terror in Pakistan / Price of Pakistan-India Impasse / Shopian Cover Up / Nuclear Liability Bill
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Tue Dec 15 21:36:16 CST 2009
South Asia Citizens Wire | December 13-16, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2676 -
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] Pakistan: Is the Check in the Mail? - The Confessions of a
Groveling Pakistani Native Orientalist (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
+ In the name of religion (Ghazi Salahuddin)
[2] Pakistan - India:
Hard line diplomacy is not homeland security (Siddharth
Varadarajan)
"Children of Pakistani Poor Are Being Sold To Jihadis" -
Interview with Karamat Ali (Mohammed Wajihuddin)
Persisting threat to the life of border residents (Editorial,
Kashmir Times)
[3] India Administered Kashmir: Manufacturing a Suitable Story --
Shopian - Case Watch of a Cover Up (Report by IWIJ)
[4] Capping nuclear liability is a non-starter (Soli J. Sorabjee)
[5] India: Resources For Secular Activists
(i) Who are the guilty? (Editorial, Communalism Combat)
(ii) On the Liberhan Commission Report (Mukul Dube)
(iii) Ghettoes in the making (Ram Puniyani)
(iv) Rationalists seek reality check on TV show on past life
[9] Miscellanea:
(i) Book Review: Making Sense of Pakistan by Farzana Shaikh
(Reviewed by Robert Nichols)
(ii) We're photographers, not terrorists (Marc Vallée)
[10] Announcements:
(i) Public Meeting / Film Screening : Corporate Crimes, Environment
Plunder (New Delhi, 17 December 2009)
(ii) The Play 'Zikr-E-Nashunida' by Tehrik-e-Niswan theatre group
(Calcutta, 18 December 2009)
_____
[1] Pakistan:
Counterpunch.org, December 14, 2009
Is the Check in the Mail?
THE CONFESSIONS OF A GROVELING PAKISTANI NATIVE ORIENTALIST
by Pervez Hoodbhoy
Here ye, Counterpunch readers! The victory of Native Orientalists –
the ones which the late Edward Said had warned us about – is nearly
complete in Pakistan. It has been led by “the minions of Western
embassies and Western-financed NGOs” and includes the likes of “Ahmad
Rashid, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Najam Sethi, Khaled Ahmad, Irfan Hussain,
Husain Haqqani, and P.J.Mir”. Thus declares Mohammad Shahid Alam, a
professor of Pakistani origin who teaches at Northeastern University
in Boston, Massachussetts. [CounterPunch, 2 Dec 2009]
I ought to be thrilled. Now that I am a certified foreign-funded
agent/orientalist/NGO-operator who “manages US-Zionist interests”, a
nice fat cheque must surely be in the mail. Thirty six years of
teaching and social activism at a public university in Pakistan –
where salaries are less than spectacular – means that additions to
one’s bank balance are always welcome.
But what did I do to deserve this kindness? My sole interaction with
the good professor was in mid-2008, when we shared the speaker’s
podium at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. Sadly,
it was not terribly pleasant.
But then these are not pleasant times. There is carnage in the
streets. Blood flows down the gutters and body parts are strewn in
bazaars and markets. Suicide bombers have also targeted mosques,
funerals, and hospitals. The internet is filled with videos of
Pakistan army soldiers being decapitated, pictures of separated heaps
of limbs and heads of Shiites, and women writhing under the blows of
heavy whips and chains.
The Taliban, mostly from the mountains of Waziristan and other tribal
areas of Pakistan, are not particularly shy to broadcast such
achievements. For example, their decapitation movies – culminating in
heads being stuck upon poles and paraded around town – are watched
for free by kids. On 15 February 2009, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan
announced a ban on all female education and, at last count, 362
schools have been blown up in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Curiously, these very people also happen to be the heroes of
Professor Alam. This self-described “anti-imperialist” and “anti-
Zionist” migrant to the heart of imperialism tends to become
breathless in his celebration of the brave Taliban “resistance
fighters”. At the meeting I mentioned above, he received ecstatic
approbation from a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Khurshid Ahmad, who
chaired the meeting. This praise is also apparent in what the
professor writes:
"Yet, in one corner of Pakistan, resistance comes from the sons
and daughters of the mountains, yet uncontaminated by western
civilisation, firm in their faith, clear in their conviction, proud
of their heritage, and ready to fight for their dignity…. They stood
up against the Soviet marauders: and defeated them. Today, they are
standing up again, now against the American marauders and their allies."
--Pakistan’s Mercenary Elites, by M. Shahid Alam, http://aslama.org/
Pol/PolOctober92007.html
Unless the professor is physically infirm, may I suggest that he head
for the mountains of Waziristan to help the Pakistani Taliban
movement? Or give a helping hand to Al-Qaida, an organization also
known for its benevolence? To be sure, he may miss the free lunches
the American taxpayer provides to him, but surely there must be
satisfaction to be had in strapping a madrassa lad with explosives
aimed at a Pakistani bazaar – especially one frequented by unveiled
women and brides-to-be.
Politeness aside, I do take serious personal offence on just one
matter in his outbursts against the opponents of Al-Qaida and the
Taliban. This is when the good professor invokes the name and
authority of Edward Said, author of “Orientalism”, in condemning me
and my colleagues in Pakistan.
Edward was my mentor and hero, the man who wrote a highly positive
blurb displayed prominently on the backside of my book on Islam and
science. He was also the closest friend of Eqbal Ahmad – my guru and
dearest friend. With Eqbal, many were the pleasant evenings that we
spent at Edward’s apartment on Riverside Drive, New York. When Eqbal
died, Edward and I were both lost in grief. When Edward died in 2003,
I defended him against a poisonous article published the next day in
the Wall Street Journal by a notorious Islamophobe, Ibn Warraq.
So cut it out, professor! Edward Said does not belong to the
jihadists and their declared supporters – like you. He and Eqbal
loathed their primitivism and utter ruthlessness, as well as their
desecration of Islam. Please do not press him into your service.
On the contrary, Edward belongs to those of us on the Left who have
worked for the Palestinians and their right to the lands on which
they once lived, who keep fighting for justice and democracy in
Pakistan, and who fervently opposed America’s immoral invasion of
Iraq in the streets of Islamabad and elsewhere. Edward was a supreme
secular humanist who would have no truck with fanatics of any faith.
I do not know all the “native orientalists” and “brown sahibs” that
the professor lists. Perhaps he secretly hopes that they shall
receive appropriate attention from jihadist groups. But I do know
some of these “traitors” – and they are among the finest people
around. A couple, in their youth, had fought against the Pakistan
Army in the mountains of Baluchistan. Others have stoutly defended
religious minorities and worked to protect civil rights, democracy,
and human values.
Professor Alam: be assured that once the expected cheque arrives, I
shall be happy to send you a one-way ticket from Boston to Peshawar,
from where you will easily find your way to Waziristan. It shall be
no less than business class, in appreciation of the services you
render to your cause.
Pervez Hoodbhoy is chairman and professor at the department of
physics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.
o o o
The News, December 13, 2009
IN THE NAME OF RELIGION
by Ghazi Salahuddin
This insane surge in terror bombings early this week is bound to prey
on our minds. Yes, the instinctive response is likely to be that of
utter dejection. Still, the situation calls for some soul-searching.
This means we need to seriously examine our thoughts and feelings in
the context of what is happening.
Ah, but so much is happening on so many different fronts. One place
of action, of course, is the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Like suicide
bombings, these proceedings enhance our sense of helplessness. There
is nothing we seem to be able to do to deal with the high level of
corruption and sordid transgressions of moral values. The entire
ruling elite is infected with a virus as deadly as, say, the swine flu.
Some of us are able to see light from the cracks that have appeared
in structures designed and built by our rulers. Others are afraid
that when these structures finally crumble, we may be trapped in
their debris. Such is the pace of events and intensity of turmoil
within our frontiers and beyond that we may not have the respite to
clear the debris and lay the foundation of new structures.
Be that as it may, this is surely a time for deep reflection. One
suspects that the existing conditions have prompted our major
institutions to make some assessments of what is likely to happen and
whether we need to change our national sense of direction.
We have lived with this cliché of Pakistan being at the crossroads.
Every military adventurer or a new civilian leader alludes to this
thought when he takes over. In some ways, a change usually comes at a
critical moment. More than half of our country's population is not
old enough to recall that late night impromptu speech on Pakistan
Television (PTV) on December 20, 1971, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
promised to pick up the pieces. But less than six years later, we
once again found ourselves fractured and another military saviour
promised to set things right.
On October 17, 1999, Pervez Musharraf, then Chief of the Army Staff
(CoAS), addressed the nation after his coup of October 12. This was
the first sentence of his speech: "Pakistan today stands at the
crossroads of its destiny – a destiny which is in our hands to make
or break." Forget that other cliché that the more things change, the
more they remain the same. In our case, things have changed
dramatically. What has not changed is our reluctance to take the
steps that the reality of being stuck at the crossroads demands.
What this would entail is becoming more and more obvious. Yet the
ruling elite remains in denial. And in this context, I want to refer
to the recent emphasis on the part of the government to mobilise the
support of religious leaders and scholars against the Taliban through
that dubious and hackneyed route of fatwa.
Some kind of a campaign was launched earlier this month with the
fatwa issued by Maulana Tahir-ul-Qadri, founding leader of Minhaj-ul-
Quran International and an effective speaker on religion. In his
fatwa against suicide attacks and bomb blasts, he called these acts
as 'kufr'. Then, Interior Minister Rehman Malik took over and held
meetings with the ulema and religious leaders in Karachi and Lahore.
There was this seminar in Lahore last week on 'The role of Ulema in
putting an end to terrorism'. The headline of the seminar story in
this newspaper said: "All terrorist activities are haram: Ulema".
What do you think this will achieve? Will this change the hearts and
minds of the Taliban and their brainwashed recruits? Is this the
right approach to confront the religious extremists, who themselves
swear by Islam and find justification for what they are doing in
their own interpretation of religion. Indeed, their principle aim –
remember the Taliban rule in Afghanistan that our establishment had
nurtured and had formally recognised? – is to enforce sharia.
As an aside, I am tempted to refer to a report published yesterday
about the discovery of what they called 'jannat' in South Waziristan.
The security forces have claimed that there is this location the
terrorists used to brainwash suicide bombers with "beautiful
paintings of running canals of milk and honey surrounded by hoors
(maidens of paradise)". The paintings were shown on TV and I am sure
art critics would not find them persuasive in any way.
Also interesting in this respect is the ambivalent attitude of some
prominent religious parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-
Ulema Islam (JUI) of Maulana Fazlur Rahman. One can see that the
induction of religion in politics is potentially divisive. One
compelling argument here is that you have so many different religious
parties who hold the same banner of Islam but detest one another.
What would you say about a strong faction with pronounced following
among violent extremists (terrorists), which claims that the Shias
are 'kafir'. Haven't we suffered enough sectarian killings?
The point I am trying to make is that our rulers must readily
deliberate on their policy of investing religion into the realm of
politics. The time has come for us to understand that only secular
ideas of democracy and social justice can steer our polity out of our
present difficulties. Yes, changing course in this matter will also
require a shift in our national security policies. A rational debate
on this matter should be possible, when we are dealing with educated
people who must, by the nature of their vocation, deal with modern
ideas. Or is there some element of brainwashing in this sector, too?
On Friday, we celebrated, with the rest of the world, the
International Human Rights Day. On this occasion, the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) was "extremely perturbed at the huge
suffering of people in Pakistan owing to the lethal brutality
unleashed by Islamist militants as well as the destruction caused by
internal conflicts in many parts of the country."
To return to what I stated at the outset, there seems no escape from
the feeling that we are at a crossroad and this is crunch time. Yes,
the war against terror must be fought and a lot may still happen on
the battlefield. But we must also begin to think about how we can
reinvent Pakistan.
Let me conclude with the first sentence of a report by Sabrina
Tavanise titled 'The demons that haunt the Pakistanis' published in
The New York Times on December 5: "At 62 years old, Pakistan is
something of a teenager among nations, even in its frame of mind –
self-conscious, emotional, quick to blame others for its troubles."
____
[2] Pakistan - India:
The Hindu, 15 December 2009
HARD LINE DIPLOMACY IS NOT HOMELAND SECURITY
by Siddharth Varadarajan
With terrorist incidents tearing Pakistan apart city by city, India
needs to realise that the continuing suspension of bilateral
engagement is not making itself or the region any safer.
As a victim of terrorism, much of which has emanated from across the
border in Pakistan, it is hardly surprising that India should confuse
diplomatic strategy with counter-terrorism strategy and believe that
“toughness” on the external front hardens the country internally and
insulates us from terrorist attacks.
For the better part of a decade, India’s politicians and pundits have
bought into the fallacy that diplomacy and security policy are one
and the same thing, effectively handing the terrorists who would harm
us a double bonus. Our complacency-induced vulnerability allows them
to strike fairly easily; and our predictable tendency to suspend
diplomatic engagement with Pakistan and rattle our sabres every time
there is a major incident gives them an added incentive to target us.
When the Parliament complex in New Delhi was attacked by terrorists
in December 2001, the erstwhile government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee
responded by mobilising the army and downgrading diplomatic,
commercial and people-to-people relations with Pakistan. This
coercive diplomacy initially yielded results, as Pervez Musharraf
banned the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba and placed their
leaders under house arrest. But the longer India persisted with its
hard line diplomatic tack, the more meagre were the returns. And
eventually they became negative. The prospect of triggering an Indo-
Pakistan war encouraged the terrorists to up the ante with an attack
on the army cantonment at Kaluchak. Western chanceries began to issue
travel advisories urging their citizens to steer clear of India
because of the danger of conflict with Pakistan. Eventually, the
international pressure that ought to have been applied on Islamabad
ended up being redirected towards Delhi. The situation only began to
change when Mr. Vajpayee recognised the limits of coercion and turned
towards engagement. The Siachen and Line of Control ceasefires of
2003 were concrete achievements of this period that have stood the
test of time. And then came the Vajpayee-Musharraf meeting of January
2004, which led to the resumption of the composite dialogue.
While there is no denying the political significance of General
Musharraf’s commitment of not allowing terrorists to use the
Pakistani territory to stage attacks against India, the Indian
strategic community erred in believing that what was an obvious
diplomatic achievement was also a gain on the counter-terrorism
front. As far as homeland security was concerned, in fact, such an
assurance was meaningless because the measures India needed to take
to protect itself ought to have been based on the worst case scenario
of Pakistan not delivering on its promises. In the event, no special
measures were taken.
If the government’s hard line diplomacy allowed a sense of
complacency to creep in on the counter-terrorism front from 2001 to
2004, our belief in Gen. Musharraf’s good intentions from 2004 to
2006 further strengthened that tendency. Most importantly, our
policymakers did not foresee the consequences that the metastasis of
terrorism in Pakistan from 2006 onwards would have as groups once
nurtured by the Inter-Services Intelligence started targeting
Pakistani cities and institutions, including the army. The fact that
the territorial United States has not been attacked by terrorists
since 9/11 has led some analysts to conclude that this is because
America struck back militarily, taking the war to the terrorists, as
it were, rather than allowing them to retain the initiative. Israel’s
tendency to lash out at the Gaza strip or Lebanon also finds favour
with some armchair Indian strategists who dream of “surgical strikes”
against terrorists based in Pakistan. While U.S. military action has
certainly disrupted the al-Qaeda’s ability to mount the kind of
operation it did in 2001, American territory has remained protected
because of geography and a professional, well-functioning police
force and intelligence gathering system. India, unfortunately, has
none of these advantages.
If the country continued to remain vulnerable to Pakistan-based
terrorists even after the December 2001 attack on Parliament, it was
because none of the systemic improvements needed to ensure better
intelligence gathering, border and coastal security, investigative
and forensic skills was even considered, let alone implemented. Armed
with the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the traditional
permissiveness towards third-degree methods, effective counter-
terrorism came to mean rounding up the usual suspects, getting them
to confess to crimes they may or may not have committed, planting
stories in the media about how major incidents were averted in the
nick of time by our clever intelligence “sleuths,” and organising the
odd fake encounter for that added touch of authenticity. Needless to
say, none of this actually strengthened our national capacity to deal
with the threat of terrorism, native or foreign.
India’s vulnerability to terrorism was proved once again last
November in Mumbai, when 10 terrorists arrived in rubber dinghies and
staged a devastating series of attacks at a railway station,
hospital, café, Jewish cultural centre and two five-star hotels. We
now know this particular operation was at least two years in the
making and involved numerous reconnaissance trips to the city and its
harbour by Lashkar operatives. One of these alleged operatives, David
Headley, is now in the custody of the American police and has been
formally charged with being a part of the terrorist conspiracy.
There is nothing surprising or extraordinary about the fact that the
Mumbai police and the Intelligence Bureau were unaware of Headley’s
movements and agenda. What is shocking is the fact that no one
bothered to examine the registers of not just the Taj Mahal and the
Trident hotels going back a few years but also other hotels that
might have been potential targets in order to try and discover
whether the LeT had sent operatives on a recce mission. Prima facie,
any guest who provided a false name or address ought to have been
treated as an accomplice. But this kind of basic police work wasn’t
done. Here, again our investigative efforts fell into a depressingly
familiar pattern. With Ajmal ‘Kasab’ being apprehended and the
Pakistani origins of the attackers and conspirators firmly
established, the powers that be presumably saw little sense in using
the police and the IB to see whether the Mumbai plot involved a wider
set of conspirators. Our counter-terrorism strategy boiled down to a
single-point agenda: demanding that Pakistan act against the LeT and
its odious chief, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed.
That demand is a valid one and there is no harm in India pressing it.
Similarly, no one can fault the Indian government for demanding that
Pakistan swiftly prosecute and convict those LeT men whom it has
already indicted for their involvement in the Mumbai attacks. Even if
the big fish have not been caught there, the prosecution of small fry
can also affect the ability of LeT and its backers to mount
operations. Where the Indian strategy has gone wrong, tragically
wrong, is in treating diplomacy as a sign of weakness and assuming
that any form of engagement would be tantamount to making concessions
to the Pakistani military establishment. Despite Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh repeatedly emphasising the need for remaining engaged,
there has been no visible progress on the bilateral front. Earlier,
Indian officials let it be known that they were waiting for the trial
in Pakistan to begin; now some are saying, on background, that India
will wait for the LeT men to be convicted before considering the
resumption of any form of dialogue. Next, we may insist that all
appeals the convicted men file are dismissed, or that they be hanged
before we are ready to talk.
At the time of the Sharm el-Shaikh summit in July, there was hardly
any international sympathy for India’s position that dialogue had to
await meaningful action by Pakistan on the terrorism front. Today,
when some of the suspects are on trial and jihadi terrorists are
massacring innocent people in Lahore, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and other
cities and towns almost daily, the world and Pakistani civil society
are asking themselves what kind of a callous place India is for not
trying to help its neighbour deal with a common enemy. This
diplomatic vacuum also provides excellent fodder for the deranged
conspiracy theorists in Pakistan, who say India is behind the series
of bomb blasts there.
As India examines its options, it must take as a given that the
Pakistani military continues to harbour hostile intentions. And of
course that the ISI continues to have links with the LeT, the Afghan
Taliban and other groups. The correct Indian response should be a
better counter-terrorist strategy. Not talking to Pakistan’s civilian
government is hardly effective counter-terrorism. Nor is it effective
diplomacy.
o o o
Times of India 13 December 2009
Interview
‘POOR PAK CHILDREN ARE BEING SOLD TO JIHADIS’
Pakistani peace activist Karamat Ali disses terrorism-fomenting
mullahs, pseudo-nationalism and ugly politicians
by Mohammed Wajihuddin | TNN
Karamat Ali doesn’t want more wars between India and Pakistan.
And it’s not just because he’s a committed peacenik. There’s also a
personal reason.
“My wife, Amrita Chhachhi, is an Indian and lives in Delhi. If I
happen to be in India and a war breaks out, I will be imprisoned,’’
he deadpans, triggering loud laughter in the audience that’s gathered
at the Mumbai Press Club to hear him speak.
A senior trade unionist and founding member of the Pakistan-
India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy, the Karachi-based Ali
was in the city this week to give away prizes to the winners of an
essay-writing competition organised by Peace Mumbai and Mumbai
University. On the sidelines of the award ceremony and a subsequent
seminar on Indo-Pak relations, the fearlessly outspoken activist took
potshots at multiple targets, not just in Pakistan but the whole
South Asian region: the Taliban, marauding mullahs in cahoots with
“the Washingtonbacked Pakistani army’’ and contemporary rulers who
had “colonised’’ their own masses.
His Marxist ideology and bullin-a-China-shop demeanour colour
the 64-year-old’s every statement. “I am not a practising Muslim. I
do hold a Pakistani passport, but I don’t believe in nationalism.
Call me a South Asian,’’ he declares, adding, “Over 22% of the
world’s population lives in South Asia, and 60% of this population is
poor. The poor will have to unite and fight.’’
Ali, who’s known to maul politicians and babus at debates, has
been jailed several times but not deported yet (“Well, they may not
like me, but they can’t throw me out just because I question them
constantly,’’ he reasons). He has a clear definition for them: “Don’t
call them people’s representatives. They are rulers. And rulers have
a common interest in keeping subjects hungry and desperate.’’
Rulers everywhere find sanctuary in a skewed interpretation of
religion, is Ali’s firm belief. So have the rulers of Pakistan, who
misuse Islam when they are caught in a quandary. Ali remembers the
time when Asif Ali Zardari was attacked in the media for breaching
the pre-poll pact he had signed with Nawaz Sharif, and had famously
and shamelessly shot back: “The terms of the pact are not Quranic
that one cannot breach them.’’
The activist is also uncomfortable with the spirit of Pakistan’s
Constitution which mandates that it is the inviolable duty of every
citizen to be loyal to the state. “Nothing could be more foolish. Why
should citizens be loyal to the state? It should be the other way
round. It is the duty of the state to protect me, and I am free to be
loyal to my conscience,’’ he declares. He also pooh-poohs the
ludicrous condition the Constitution lays down for the President’s
job: ‘at least 45 years old, a male and a Muslim’. “They want a male
as the President because the army will feel humiliated to salute a
woman President,’’ he laughs.
Bring up the topic of terrorism, and Ali gets agitated about the
sense of helplessness induced in both the people and the State by
suicide bombers who strike suddenly and at targets ranging from
marketplaces to army and government headquarters. “A minister
recently said that people were selling their children to be trained
as suicide bombers at Rs 5 lakh per child,’’ he says. “As the
situation worsens and desperation deepens, they’ll become available
at cheaper rates.’’ This dire prognosis is self-explanatory: the
suicide bomber comes not from the Pakistani elite but the
dispossessed. Ajmal Kasab, a landless farmer’s son and school
dropout, went to a big city in search of livelihood but ended up in a
jihadi camp. “Why is it that the children of religious leaders are
not becoming suicide bombers?’’ Ali asks rhetorically, going on to
denounce fundamentalist mullahs who tell jihadis that they will enjoy
divine comforts in jannat even if they get blown up.
But what is Pakistan’s civil society doing to check the
onslaught of the suicide bombers? “We are not silent spectators. We
have protested and are protesting. Soon over 100 activists will march
to Peshawar to sympathise with the terror-affected families,’’ Ali says.
And as an antidote to all sorts of terrorism, including state-
sponsored, the veteran activist prescribes cooperation between South
Asian countries where hassle-free visas and intelligence-sharing will
be part of the practice, not just holy homilies delivered at SAARC
summits. Then, in Ali’s dream, at present a bit of a Utopian chimera,
a day will come when Ajmal Kasab and his Pakistani masters, including
the incendiary Hafiz Saeed, will be tried not in India or Pakistan,
but by a South Asian People’s Tribunal, in a neutral place. Maybe
Kathmandu—no longer capital of the Hindu Himalayan kingdom but of the
People’s Republic of Nepal.
o o o
Kashmir Times, 15 December 2009
Editorial : LANDMINE EXPLOSIONS
Persisting threat to the life of border residents
Landmine explosions at the Line of Control in Balakot sector of
border district Poonch triggered by the fire which spread from
Pakistan Administered Kashmir (PAK) to this side are a pointer
towards an alarming situation along the entire border belt. Landmines
planted by the security forces along the International Border (IB)
and Line of Control (LoC) at different intervals of time in the
border districts of Rajouri, Poonch, Jammu, Samba, Kathua in Jammu
region and Uri, Kupwara in Kashmir region are a persistent threat to
the life of both the civilians as well as security personnel
themselves. As far as the lurking danger to live stock, which forms a
major source of livelihood for the people living along the borders,
is concerned, that loss has never been taken into account seriously
by those at the helm of affairs. Officially speaking the landmines
have been planted to keep the enemy forces at bay during 1965, 1971
wars and recently during the standoff between two hostile neighbours
in the aftermath of attack on Indian Parliament and prevent the
infiltration. Tragically, so far, on account of landmines including
anti-personnel landmines, maximum damage has been suffered by the
common people on this side both in terms of lives and limbs, besides
the loss of live stock. Another irony is that the landmines have
taken the casualty of security personnel too. Even in the recent
past, many such incidents have occurred in different border areas
where the security personnel themselves have fallen prey to the mines
laid for the infiltrators when they accidentally stepped on them.
While in majority of the cases, they lost their limbs, in a few
cases, they even lost their lives. As far as civilians living the
borders are concerned, their loss on account of landmines is
multifarious. The problem has taken a grave turn particularly after
Indo-Pak standoff following attack on Indian Parliament. In many
border villages in Akhnoor, Khour belt in Jammu district, Samba,
Kathua, Poonch and Rajouri districts, the farmers are not even able
to till their fields as they have been mined. Thus many poor farmers
have lost their only means of livelihood forever. Although the
concerned authorities claim that they've de-mined the fields but the
ground realities don't match their tall claims. There have been
instances where the villagers lost their lives, limbs and livestock
while tilling their fields. The loss of livestock in the landmine
explosions has never been news for the concerned authorities.
Tragically in the past few years, innocent children too have lost
their lives in the border belts of Poonch, Rajouri districts, which
are heavily mined. The landmines are a persistent threat to the lives
of both the people and the security forces more so as they
(landmines) continue to drift from the original location for varied
reasons viz, rains, floods, quake etc. Thus once planted, it is very
difficult to de-mine the mined area because one is never sure about
the location of mines planted, which drift from the original
position, hence the threat continues to persist.
_____
[3] India Administered Kashmir:
MANUFACTURING A SUITABLE STORY : SHOPIAN - CASE WATCH OF A COVER UP
Interim Report by Independent Women’ Initiative for Justice
http://www.sacw.net/article1286.html
_____
[4] India:
The Hindu, 14 December 2009
CAPPING NUCLEAR LIABILITY IS A NON-STARTER
by Soli J. Sorabjee
The government proposes to introduce a Civil Nuclear Liability Bill
to appease foreign investors. Any legislation that attempts to dilute
the Polluter Pays and Precautionary Principle and imposes a cap on
liability will be in blatant defiance of Supreme Court judgments and
is likely to be struck down.
One of the vital guarantees in our Constitution is the protection of
the Right to Life enshrined in Article 21. Our Supreme Court by
creative interpretation ruled that the expression ‘life’ does not
connote merely physical existence but embraces the right to live with
“human dignity and all that goes along with it, namely, the bare
necessaries of life such as adequate nutrition, clothing and shelter
over the head.” Thereafter it further expanded the concept of the
right to live with human dignity to encompass within its ambit, the
protection and preservation of environment, ecological balance free
from pollution of air and water.
Our Constitution evinces great concern for environment. Article 48-A
of the Directive Principle mandates that the state shall endeavour to
protect and improve the environment. One of the fundamental duties
prescribed in Article 51-A is, inter alia, to protect and improve the
natural environment.
Despite these constitutional provisions, pollution continues
unabated. The river Ganges was brazenly polluted by the discharge of
effluents by some tanneries in Kanpur who, despite notices issued by
the Supreme Court to take steps for the primary treatment of
industrial effluent, had utterly failed to do so. Hence the court was
constrained to issue directions for the closure of the tanneries. The
court was conscious that closure of tanneries may bring unemployment
and loss of revenue, but it significantly ruled that “life, health
and ecology have greater importance to the people.”
In its landmark judgment in the Oleum Gas Leak case, the Supreme
Court laid down certain important principles. A five-judge bench
unanimously ruled that “an enterprise which is engaged in a hazardous
or inherently dangerous industry which poses a potential threat to
the health and safety of the persons working in the factory and
residing in the surrounding areas owes an absolute and non-delegable
duty to the community to ensure that no harm results to anyone on
account of hazardous or inherently dangerous nature of the activity
which it has undertaken.” The court further held that “it should be
no answer to the enterprise to say that it had taken all reasonable
care and that the harm occurred without any negligence on its part.”
At first blush, this may appear unduly harsh. However the rationale
for this rule as explained by the court is that “such hazardous or
inherently dangerous activity for private profit can be tolerated
only on condition that the enterprise engaged in such activity
indemnifies all those who suffer on account of the carrying on of
such activity regardless of whether it is carried on carefully or
not.” Therefore in a case of escape of toxic gas, “the enterprise is
strictly and absolutely liable to compensate all those who are
affected by the accident and such liability is not subject to any of
the exceptions.”
In 1996 in the case of Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action Justice
Jeevan Reddy speaking for the court pointed out that the rule of
absolute liability is premised on the very nature of the activity
carried on and “it is the enterprise carrying on the hazardous or
inherently dangerous activity alone has the resource to discover and
guard against hazards or dangers.” The court further introduced the
Polluter Pays Principle, which according to it requires that the
financial costs of preventing or remedying damage caused by pollution
should lie with the undertakings that cause the pollution. Under this
principle, it is not the role of government to meet the costs
involved in either prevention of such damage, or in carrying out
remedial action, because the effect of this would be to shift the
financial burden of the pollution incident to the taxpayer. The
responsibility for repairing the damage is that of the offending
industry. It is noteworthy that the Polluter Pays Principle has been
incorporated into the European Community Treaty as part of the new
articles on environment that were introduced by the Single European
Act of 1986.
In its subsequent judgment in Vellore Citizens Forum, Justice Kuldip
Singh speaking for the court held that “the Precautionary Principle
and the Polluter Pays Principle are essential features of Sustainable
Development.” This is a milestone judgment in our environmental
jurisprudence. The court reaffirmed the Polluter Pays Principle laid
down in its previous judgments to mean that “the absolute liability
for harm to the environment extends not only to compensate the
victims of pollution but also the cost of restoring the environmental
degradation. Remediation of the damaged environment is part of the
process of Sustainable Development and as such the polluter is liable
to pay the cost to the individual sufferers as well as the cost of
reversing the damaged ecology.” The seminal significance of this
judgment lies in the court’s holding that the Precautionary Principle
and the Polluter Pays Principle are part of the environmental law of
the country and the court’s pointed reference to Articles 21, 47, 48-
A, and 51-A (g) of the Constitution in this connection.
The thrust of these Supreme Court judgments is for compensating and
protecting the victims of accidents as part of their fundamental
right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution. Under our
Constitution, Supreme Court judgments constitute the law of the land
and are binding on all courts, authorities and persons.
It is claimed that foreign companies are reluctant to invest in India
as they do not want to run the risk of having to compensate without a
cap for a nuclear accident on account of imposition of absolute
liability. It is understood that the government to appease the
foreign investors proposes to introduce a Civil Nuclear Liability
Bill whereby inter alia the compensation payable in case of a nuclear
accident is capped at $450 million.
In effect, this means that in case the actual damage and the cost of
remedying environmental degradation exceeds the proposed ridiculously
low cap of $450 million or any other sum, the government would have
to bear the remaining burden. This would be directly contrary to the
Supreme Court’s ruling that it is not the role of the government to
meet the costs involved. The effect of a cap in reality would be to
shift the financial burden of the consequences of the accident to the
taxpayer. According to the Polluter Pays Principle that has been
embedded in our jurisprudence, the liability and responsibility for
compensating the victims of accident and remedying the environmental
damage caused is that of the offending industry alone. No part of the
liability can be limited nor passed on to the government.
There can be two views about the advantages or disadvantages of
foreign investment in India in the nuclear energy sector. But there
can be only one view: health well-being and protection of our people
are paramount and must override dollar considerations. Foreign
multinationals are not solicitors of the fundamental rights of our
people. The Bhopal Gas case is a burning reminder.
Any legislation that attempts to dilute the Polluter Pays and
Precautionary Principle and imposes a cap on liability is likely to
be struck down as it would be in blatant defiance of the Supreme
Court judgments. Moreover, it would be against the interests and the
cherished fundamental right to life of the people of India whose
protection should be the primary concern of any civilised democratic
government.
(The author is a former Attorney General for India.)
_____
[5] India: Resources For Secular Activists
(i) Communalism Combat, December 2009
EDITORIAL : WHO ARE THE GUILTY?
What can one say about the wisdom of a judge who damages his own case
before his verdict concerning others! After 17 long years and eight
crore rupees of public money Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan has
delivered to the country an over 1,000 page report on the 1992 Babri
Masjid demolition that is full of howlers. According to the Liberhan
Commission report, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on January 31,
1948. Names of the same persons are spelt differently in different
places; designations too are mixed up on occasions. Looks like the
learned judge could not be bothered with reading his own report
before placing it before the nation.
Not surprisingly, those indicted, and rightly so, have latched on to
the howlers to dismiss the entire report as lacking credibility. But
though Justice Liberhan’s callousness is indefensible, his report
remains an evidence-backed damnation of those who took the Indian
Republic to the brink in December 1992. Not only was the Babri Mosque
demolished in full public view on December 6, it also created the
communal climate that made possible the pogrom against Mumbai’s
Muslims in December 1992-January 1993 and the Muslims of Gujarat 10
years later.
Reading the report is like watching a horror film with an unfolding
evil plot, step-by-step. Until 1983 when the VHP decided to jump on
to the bandwagon, the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi dispute remained a
local issue that agitated some residents of Ayodhya… and Faizabad
district at most. By 1989, however, a multitude of ordinary Hindus
from across the country had been transformed into a frenzied mob that
converged on Ayodhya again and again with a single object:
construction of a Ram Mandir on the very spot where the Babri Masjid
had stood for a few hundred years. Mission demolition on December 6,
1992 was the logical culmination and climax of a hate-driven agenda.
If the criminal intent of the various constituents of the sangh
parivar and its ally the Shiv Sena was public knowledge the
contribution of the report lies in establishing in great detail how a
malevolent intent was translated into malicious action in such a
short period as the institutions of State sworn to protect
constitutional values and provisions – Union government, Parliament,
the Supreme Court of India, the governor of Uttar Pradesh – stood as
"helpless" spectators while corresponding institutions and
individuals with similar obligations at the state level – chief
minister Kalyan Singh, his cabinet, senior to top level civil
servants and police officers – acted instead as the private army of a
campaign brimming with contempt for the rule of law. If the Liberhan
report provides us overwhelming evidence of the acts of commission of
those guilty of the criminal act, far more damning is the evidence it
marshals against those whose acts of omission made it possible.
It has been the plea of the BJP and the RSS ever since December 1992
that mosque demolition was never on their agenda. To puncture this
claim, Justice Liberhan asks a simple question: why then were tens of
thousands of kar sevaks mobilised to descend in Ayodhya repeatedly,
indoctrinated with incendiary slogans till a very large number of
individuals had turned into a hate-filled frenzied mob, straining at
the leash? Justice Liberhan does not buy the innocence plea.
From the evidence gathered before the commission it was more than
apparent well before December 6 that the plan for that day was
anything but a "symbolic kar seva". What’s more, the report points
out that much of this information was already in the public domain.
By December 2, if not earlier, it was so easy to anticipate the
climax of this dance of the macabre on December 6. Why then did the
Union government, the Allahabad High Court, the Congress-appointed
governor of UP, the Supreme Court of India not intervene?
Justice Liberhan seems over-eager to give the then Prime Minister
Narasimha Rao (and the Congress party?) a clean cheat. "In 1992, the
central government had been blinded and handicapped by the inaction
of its own agent (governor) in the state and by the unfathomable
trust the Supreme Court placed in the paper declarations of the sangh
parivar". But he is not so sparing with other agents of State. Here
are his parting words: "the intransigent stance of the High Court of
Uttar Pradesh, the obdurate attitude of the governor (of UP), the
inexplicable irresponsibility of the Supreme Court’s observer (sent
to Ayodhya) and the short-sightedness of the Supreme Court itself are
fascinating and complex stories, the depths of which I must not
plumb... (But) historians, journalists and jurists may – and should –
explore these dimensions and tell these untold stories for the
benefit of the current and unborn generations".
In short, the Liberhan Commission tells us that our constitutional
edifice today stands on shaky pillars – legislature, executive,
judiciary – of State. Unless the System addresses the rot within and
secures its porous borders from pretentious infiltrators, there’s
little hope of meeting the challenge from without.
We reproduce in this issue excerpts from the Liberhan Commission’s
Report with a few obvious corrections and clarifications.
– EDITORS
The complete December 2009 issue of Communalism Combat is available at:
http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2009/dec09/index.html
(ii)
(To appear in Mainstream Weekly)
ON THE LIBERHAN COMMISSION REPORT
by Mukul Dube
(http://www.sacw.net/article1284.html)
It has long been held that justice delayed is justice denied. The
16.5 years that the Liberhan Commission took to produce its report on
the Babari Masjid demolition must, in that light, be called a
travesty of justice. Why might it have taken so much longer than the
three months it was allotted when it was appointed by the government
of Narasimha Rao?
One reason that the Commission itself offered was that witnesses
delayed making their appearances before it. It is entirely possible
that this happened - after all, people who have things to hide do not
speak of them in public - and it may be that Commissions of Inquiry
have only limited powers in the matter of summoning witnesses and
compelling them to testify before it.
None of this, however, can explain why the Commission presented its
report to the Home Minister only in June 2009 even though it had
examined the last witness, Kalyan Singh, in August 2005, almost four
years earlier.
The Liberhan Commission was granted forty-eight extensions in all:
that is, an extension in every third month. It can safely be assumed
that over its life of more than a decade and a half, the money
allotted to it will steadily have increased to take account of
inflation and the salary increments of its staff.
One person to whom I spoke attributed the phenomenal delay - and the
total expense, said to be 8 crore rupees - to the sole factor of
human cupidity. He said that Justice Liberhan had every reason to
delay his report because each day meant the continuance of the
perquisites of office, essentially a sinecure after retirement.
I object to this characterisation of Justice Liberhan as a greedy and
grasping man not because I have reason to think him a saint but
because the argument reduces political criminality to one of an
individual kind.
Who pays the piper, calls the tune. Justice Liberhan was a paid
employee, and if his work was unconscionably delayed, the blame for
that must rest squarely on his employer, the Government of India. We
know that he was given one extension after another: we can only
examine the known facts to decide whether he was passively permitted
to go on and on or was actively restrained from finishing his work.
I hold that it was in the interest of every successive government in
New Delhi to not have the Liberhan Commission complete its work. The
governments between December 1992 and June 2009 were those headed by
P.V. Narasimha Rao, A.B. Vajpayee, H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral, A.B.
Vajpayee (again) and Manmohan Singh.
Vajpayee’s first ministry was something of a joke, and most of us
failed to see the future in it; and the period of Deve Gowda and
Gujral has aptly been described as "time pass", a period in which the
country rolled along without much guidance. That leaves two Congress
governments with a BJP one between them.
I shall summarily dismiss Vajpayee’s second ministry, in so far as
the Liberhan Commission is concerned, by pointing out that he was
always crafty and calculating and certainly was not likely to take an
axe to his own knees. The NDA period was marked by loud crowing about
the "resurgence" of Hindutva (a phenomenon which had, of course,
never existed earlier): and the razing of the Babari Masjid was
described, in speech after speech, video after video, as a great
achievement. It was natural that the "achievers" should go to any
length not to be shown up as common vandals or, worse, a disciplined
army of demented apes carrying out a well planned manoeuvre.
Many have held Narasimha Rao guilty of allowing the one-time mosque
to be destroyed, and some have gone a step beyond by attributing
complicity to him. Here I shall say only that India has a federal
structure, that Narasimha Rao headed the Central Government at the
time, that his Home Minister controlled an array of intelligence
sources and para-military forces, that his President commanded the
armed forces, and that the Constitution gave him certain powers. From
around the time of Advani’s first, massive, Rath Yatra, everyone -
and I include in this term my then panvala and the men from whom I
bought vegetables and meat - knew what was going to happen. I heard
BJP and ABVP people brag about it and saw them rub their hands in
anticipation. Narasimha Rao claimed to have had no inkling. In his
report Justice Liberhan concluded that Narasimha Rao did no wrong. I
do not know if this has anything to do with the principle of not
biting the hand that feeds you, or with that of not speaking ill of
the dead. (I am compelled to speculate about how different the report
would have been if more years had passed and more of the people under
investigation had died.)
In the run-up to the general election of 2004, the Congress party
spewed fire and thunder about the "misdeeds" of the BJP and promised
to set things right. When it was returned to power, it did nothing
about the Gujarat events of 2002, only two years in the past. Half a
decade later, Narendra Modi and other Hindutva goons - as well as the
administration of the state - continue to terrorise Muslims and to
deny them their basic rights: and Manmohan Singh’s troupe in New
Delhi continues resolutely to look towards the West.
(iii) GHETTOES IN THE MAKING
by Ram Puniyani
As per the report in a section of media recently (November 2009) UK
based Muslim charities have warned the Muslims living in the relief
colonies set up in the wake of Gujarat carnage, that they must abide
with a code of conduct, no TV, no music, education only in Madrassa,
particular type of cap and beard for men, hijab for women, etc. If
these are not adhered to the Charity threatened that they will stop
supporting the relief work. At the same time the members of Tablighi
Jamat insisted on the similar lines, 'Islamic Behavior' or else! The
Muslims living in these colonies are living a wretched life, totally
bereft of any support from state and boycotted by the society at large.
There are cases where the residents of this 'lesser world' have
opposed such dictates coming through local Maulanas, but they have
been beaten to silence. The society at large is not permitting them
to come out of the emotional and physical walls erected by the state
and civil society around them. The orthodox elements, clerical etc.,
are not permitting them to live as they like, to endeavor for modern
education and jobs, a life matching with our times. One recalls that
in the aftermath of Godhra train burning and the riots engineered on
the pretext of taking revenge of Godhra, took a heavy toll of the
life of Muslim minorities. As the refugee camps were to be set up by
the state, it reluctantly did part of the job and soon enough, even
before the tears of trauma dried up and scars of the violence were
healed, the state supported camps were wound up. The Gujarat Chief
Mininster Narendra Modi said that there is no need to keep these
'Child producing factories to go on'.
Other charities enlarged their scope of work and stepped up their
activities to fill the vacuum left by the action of heartless state
administration and a largely hostile civic society. The mosques which
gave them shelter also imposed a version of Islam, a type of life
style on them, which was alien to most of the Gujarat Muslims. The
compensation by the state did not come up to the necessary and
mandatory level. Once the total rehabilitation fell under the control
of orthodox Muslim charities, they started imposing the retrograde
norms on the community. The most glaring example of this was manifest
in the housing pattern which came up in due course. One noticed that
the dwellings were comparatively smaller while the mosques were
bigger. One also noticed that the presence of Maulanas became more
dominant in these communities. The Madrassas were the only type of
schools available for these 'children of the other God'.
One knows very well that prior to violence in Gujarat the Muslim
community there was going more for trade, modern education and the
like. The process has been reversed by the physical insecurity
created by carnage and this has been topped with the total neglect of
the plight of Muslims by the state. One is witnessing a very
interesting sociological phenomenon in Gujarat. On one side the
planned carnage left the minority community helpless and gripped by
insecurity. On the other, since the state controlled by right wing
politics bypasses the legal, social and moral norms, it left the
victims to fend for themselves.
The popular perceptions accuse the Muslim minority of being
conservative etc., but it never goes beyond this level of perception
to understand as to why it is so. One concedes that what is going on
so intensely in Gujarat today vis a vis Muslim community has been a
widespread phenomenon in different Muslim majority areas, more so
those areas which have seen communal violence. One also knows that in
communal violence the percentage of Muslim victims is over 80%, while
their percentage in population is 13.4%. The insecurity this creates
is the root of conservatism in this community. One also knows that
Muslim community is no uniform monolith. There are types and types
of pattern of living. Till 1990 large sections of Muslims girls and
boys were trying to come up and take to Modern vocations, teachers,
professionals of various types and what not. 1992-93 Mumbai carnage
came as a big damper and the Muslim youth got a big setback, economic
deprivation on the top of insecurity. For sometime the large section
of community could not recover from the trauma of the violence. As
they began to recover, there was Gujarat baying at them.
A chicken and egg situation! The insecurity ghettoizes them and
retards their path; the same is then used by the propaganda mills to
demonize them. On one hand the myth is spread that Madrassas are a
breeding ground for terrorists, on the other a situation is created
where Madrassas remain the only option for Muslim children. While
this Madrassa and terrorism is a total lie, barring of course those
Madrassas which were set up with US-CIA link in Pakistan, where
Muslim youth were indoctrinated to take the path of violence against
Russian army. One can confidently say that the Indian Madrassas are
just teaching Koran and not terrorism.
The condition of large section of Muslims can only be compared to the
Shudras in Ancient India, where the society treated them as slaves
and codified their slavery as their Dharma, Shudra Dharma. They were
also ghettoized. The other example is the African Americans of US,
where the Whites committed atrocities on them and pushed them to the
ghettoes, depriving them of dignity and civic rights. The rise of
Right wing communal politics in India from last three decades in
particular, politics in the name of religion, which is seeping
through different pores of state apparatus and social thinking, is
achieving the same purpose, to create a set of second class beings at
the mercy and service of the elites trying to impose retrograde
politics on the society at large.
(iv)
HIndustan Times, 14 December 2009
RATIONALISTS SEEK REALITY CHECK ON TV SHOW ON PAST LIFE
The scientific community has labelled a new reality television
programme that deals with past life regression therapy to be an
irresponsible propagation of blind superstition.
The show, Raaz Picchle Janam Ka, which NDTV Imagine began airing on
December 7 and claims it addresses people’s fears by connecting them
to their past life, has prompted scientists and rationalists to
question its effect on millions of Indian television viewers.
“When India is trying to be scientific and development-oriented, a
show like this is highly regressive, perpetuating superstition while
playing on peoples’ vulnerabilities, said Jayashree Ramadas, Dean,
Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. “So-called past life
regression through hypnotism has been tested and debunked, and
besides, it has dangers.
From watching the show for fun, many will start believing it, and it
may take hold of their lives, leading to trouble for them and their
families.”
Past life regression therapy claims to use hypnosis to delve into the
memories of people’s past lives. It has no scientific basis and there
is no evidence to show that hypnosis helps recall past life events.
“Science has not been able to establish that we have a past life.
Psychologists and psychiatrists do not accept it either,” said Dr
Yusuf Matcheswala, a practicing psychiatrist. “The concept of a past
life is more of a cultural and religious belief. An unconscious mind
can go to any limits. One’s thoughts could also be based on what’s
read in history.”
But Nikhil Madhok, vice-president of NDTV Imagine, said that the show
was not pitching the therapy as a panacea for medical problems. “The
therapy is specific to people who cannot resolve the extreme phobia
and paranoia they possess,” said Madhok. “It will not dent scientific
beliefs.”
He said that the show has found many viewers because many people
believe in a past life. “The channel received 600 phone calls every
day for six weeks when we opened telephone lines those wishing to
participate,” added Madhok.
In a country where many believe in reincarnation, academicians and
rational thinkers feel that the show will reinforce such beliefs.
“The show tries to prove to the gullible masses that all their
physical and mental problems are derived from their past lives,” said
Sanal Edamaruku, president, Indian Rationalist Society.
_____
[8] Miscellanea:
Book Announcements and Book Review:
(i) FARZANA SHAIKH. MAKING SENSE OF PAKISTAN New York: Columbia
University Press, 2009. ix + 274 pp. $24.95 (cloth), ISBN
978-0-231-14962-4.
Reviewed by Robert Nichols
Published on H-Asia (December, 2009)
Commissioned by Sumit Guha
The Crisis of Identity in the Postcolonial State
Farzana Shaikh offers a scholarly and erudite study of the
competition to define and establish a “national” identity for
Pakistan. The author argues that contested visions of the religious
nature of the postcolonial state in large part explain a history of
instability, fragmentation, and power abuse. The tension from
independence in 1947, but especially after the death of founding
ideologue M. A. Jinnah in 1948, was “the question of whether Pakistan
was intended to be an Islamic state that privileged Muslims, or a
Muslim nation-state that would guarantee the equality of all its
citizens” (p. 116). Six chapters trace the identity question through
colonial roots and legacies, post-partition social and ethnic
friction, the “sacralization” of party politics, incomplete and
unequal development regimes, the evolution of an “Islamic army,” and
claims to status and parity in foreign affairs.
Students of Pakistan’s difficult and complex history are familiar
with discussions of what the author summarizes as the country’s “key
problems: its failure to withstand military dictatorships; its uneven
social and economic development; its severe ethnic divisions, and
even the pursuit of questionable foreign policies” (p. 9). In her
analyses of these problems, Shaikh argues that these issues are to be
understood not as causes of the weak state, but “as symptoms of the
underlying uncertainty about its identity--an uncertainty that stems
from the lack of consensus over Islam” (p. 9). As Jinnah’s vision of
a secular, constitutional state offering equal protection to citizens
of all religions and backgrounds faded in the face of political
divisiveness and economic hardship, other voices, representing other
visions and agendas, especially in regard to Islamic initiatives and
alternatives, pressed for influence over national policies. The
failure, then and now, to reach “consensus over the meaning of
‘Islam,’” soon became “the cancer that threatens Pakistan’s body
politic” (p. 8).
Shaikh considers and reflects on colonial and postcolonial debates
about Muslim nationalism, Islamic universalism, and religion as
ethnic or sectarian marker. Subtle distinctions are made that add
thoughtful contributions to well-studied dynamics and history. The
core issue at stake was less a contest between a secular leadership
and a resistant religious establishment than between “two rival
discourses of Islam,” one communal (an elite Muslim separatist and
community vision) and one Islamist (a value-based vision, often with
a political agenda attached) (p. 11 and chapter 1). Over decades,
questions of who was a legitimate Pakistani and the meaning of
citizenship were pressed by both Muslim communal and Islamist agendas
to variously exclude Ahmadis in the 1950s, drive Bengalis to revolt
and separation in 1971, divide out “mohajirs” as a new ethnic
identity in the 1980s, and generate support for “a vigorous state
sponsored program of Islamization” in the late 1980s (p. 56). From
the 1970s, Sunni-Shi‘a sectarian rivalry and conflict, spurred by
international sectarian competition, aggravated the lack of consensus
over the terms of identity for Pakistanis. With Ziaul Haq's Ordinance
20 of 1984 institutionalizing discrimination against Ahmadis, the
concept of citizenship moved far from Jinnah’s vision and became
“dependent almost wholly on the definition of an individual’s creed
and religious profile,” with an accompanying and ongoing “erosion of
the rights of Pakistan’s non-Muslim citizens” (pp. 63, 79).
Jinnah’s own “prevarication” over the ultimate relation of religion
and politics in the postcolonial state allowed multiple voices and
perspectives to claim legitimacy from religion after an independence
“movement that under Jinnah came to represent all things to all
men” (p. 83). Ayub Khan’s secular development state approach in the
1950s, Zia’s Islamist initiatives in the 1977-89 period, and Pervez
Musharraf’s “enlightened moderation” after 1999, all attempted to
define, and redefine, the state’s relation to Islam and Sharia. At
the same time, a host of parties and sectarian interests continued to
espouse unique interpretations of the balance needed between
spiritually and secularly guided authority.
Shaikh revisits the complex relationship with religion of succeeding
political regimes and state institutions, discussing how each ruler
sought to promote particular arguments about the appropriate role for
Islam and Islamic oversight and legislation. Contested
interpretations shaped debates on the 1949 Objectives Resolution
requiring an “Islamic Constitution”; on the secularist 1961 Muslim
Family Laws Ordinance, that then experienced limited enforcement; and
on Zia’s 1979 Hudood Odinance, seen as restricting equal rights for
women. Politicians, such as Z. A. Bhutto, sought to frame and
manipulate Islamic issues even as they might be ultimately
outmaneuvered, as was Bhutto, by competing discourses of appropriate
Islamic conduct and political legitimacy. Zia’s engagement with
Islamist politics and parties, from creating new provincial Shariat
courts to Islamizing the 1980s Afghan “jihad” against the Soviet
Union, had a double aim, “to ensure that Islamization remained a
state-sponsored and state controlled exercise” and to provide
legitimacy for the coup-maker who had overthrown Bhutto (p. 102).
Institutionally as well, over decades, different Islamists and many
in the Pakistan military were drawn together by mutual interests and
agendas in East Bengal, Kashmir, and Afghanistan.
The author distinguishes between Zia’s state policy of Islamization
and the later, non-state politics of a partially class-based “process
of shariatization” generated by different social and political
dynamics (p. 107). The rise in Pakistan of “so-called vernacular
groups, which are neither Anglicized nor western but recognizably
modern on their own terms,” saw urban, private sector interests
grounded in conservative cultural values, often mobilizing “the
language of religious sectarianism” (p. 107). A cogent summary notes
how Zia’s “state-sponsored Islamization,” supported by the Jamaat-i-
Islami party, “who made no secret of their hostility to the
traditional, mainly Sunni, clerical establishment,” gave way after
the mid-1980s to a religious establishment, led by the Jamiat-ul
Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) party, that “has undergone a process of
radicalization that has enabled it successfully to appropriate the
rhetoric of political Islam, typical of the Islamist lay
intelligentsia represented by the Jamaat-i-Islami” (p. 108).
Importantly, with profound ideological and foreign affairs
implications, shariatization was framed as within an Islamist
conceptual world of a transnational community of believers existing
beyond individual state-building concerns.
In the final chapters, Shaikh follows the nuances of state
development rhetoric and military-foreign policy approaches as
succeeding leaders and party positions strained to justify policies
shaped mainly by class, party, or ethnicity through the use of
Islamic symbols and moral values. If “Jinnah’s economic interests
were overwhelmingly conservative and favoured private property,” even
as he expressed a public “commitment to the objectives of economic
and social justice,” then what guidance did that leave for later
framers of public policy (p. 119)? Ayub Khan’s trickle down
development strategy creating “functional inequality” generated
limited results and alienation. Bhutto’s populist “Islamic socialism”
of nationalization that stopped without land reform, and Zia’s
efforts to nurture a conservative, urban, merchant middle-class
reflected differing political constituencies and differing
interpretations of how an Islamic framework might contribute to
ending poverty and building a national economy. “What separated the
two sides of this debate was not whether Islam should determine
economic policy, but which Islam should serve as its engine” (p.
125). Limited economic development and the failure of consensus
building over an appropriate role for Islamic idioms and policies led
to charges and countercharges of bad faith, corruption, and moral
failure.
Over the years, the Pakistan military would respond to such political
vulnerability and assert moral probity and patriotism to justify
taking power. The military represented itself as best able to defend
interests fixed by a problematic national identity. And it would
reflect in its recruitment and policies the evolving interpretations
of Islamic identity that transformed other aspects of Pakistani
politics and society. The military would uphold the original claim of
the two-nation theory, that Muslims and Hindus were two different,
equal nations, by continuing to confront and challenge India in
Kashmir, in conventional arms acquisition, and in nuclear arms
development. In the 1980s, first in Afghanistan and then in Kashmir,
“there began to emerge signs of a recognizable symbiosis between the
senior military leadership and parts of the religious establishment
committed to a vision of ‘transnational’ Islam” (p. 153). A
transnational religious focus might diffuse ethnic differences, even
as it diverted attention from the problems of the nation-state.
Shaikh fully details the religious texturing of Pakistan political
history as prime ministers, generals, religious parties, and ethnic
and regional interests drew on Islamic rhetoric, values, and
interpretations to advance goals and visions of the nation. As
political and military leadership supported more extreme and violent
Islamic factions in Afghanistan and Kashmir they did so in part to
further national claims to international prominence and to
geopolitical parity with India as a power of the first rank. Rather
than gaining such recognition, Pakistan had to struggle to convince
allies and opponents of the legitimacy of these claims. Shaikh traces
Pakistan’s bittersweet “search for national validation” through
decades of less than decisive foreign policy and diplomatic
initiatives (p. 191). American connections would provide neither
sufficient arms packages nor the permanent international status that
would allow Pakistan to claim genuine equality with India. Instead,
Pakistan reaped the unintended consequences of internal
“Talibanization” and persistent sectarian violence.
For many, Pakistani self-perception remains that of America’s “sullen
mistress” (p. 199). Expectations based on unrealistic and unresolved
notions of national identity continue to plague Pakistan’s relations
with Afghanistan, China, and the United States. The country’s
“unending search for meaning” continues (p. 208). The author closes
by reflecting on the possibility of the nation turning away from
transnational Islamism. “By recasting its enduring quest for
religious consensus in terms of a cultural heritage rooted in the
discourse of Indian Islam, it may yet salvage a pluralist alternative
consistent with democratic citizenship” (pp. 211-212).
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it
through the list discussion logs at: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/
logbrowse.pl.
Citation: Robert Nichols. Review of Shaikh, Farzana, Making Sense of
Pakistan. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. December, 2009.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25405
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
o o o
(ii) WE'RE PHOTOGRAPHERS, NOT TERRORISTS
Society's visual history is under threat of extinction. The
government must scrap section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000
by Marc Vallée
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/dec/11/
photographers-section-44-terrorism-act
_____
[11] Announcements:
(i) CORPORATE CRIMES, ENVIRONMENT PLUNDER:
Peoples’ Struggle against Vedanta company and its powerful supporters
PUBLIC MEETING AND FILM SCREENING
Thursday, 17 December, 2009 4.30 to 7 PM
* What is it like for those most directly affected by Vedanta
plc and its subsidiaries?
* What is the role of the government, the judiciary, Hindutva
forces International agencies and NGOs?
Samarendra Das activist, film-maker and researcher will discuss
these and related issues at a screening of extracts from his
remarkable film Wira Pdika (Earthworm and Company Man) in which
people from the Adivasi Dongria Kondh and Majhi Kondh communities,
activists, singers and dancers, forest dwellers and fisher people
speak about their lives and their struggles against ‘the company’.
Samarendra has been an activist for the past 16 years with the
Kondh communities, and his research includes extensive studies of
transnational companies, NGOs and the institutional architecture of
the global elite.
His path-breaking book ‘Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and
the Aluminum Cartel’, co-authored with Felix Padel is likely to be
released soon.
Vedanta’s record
On the 23 September, more than a hundred people lost their lives in
one of the worst accidents in India's recent construction history at
a power plant being commissioned by the Vedanta-controlled Bharat
Aluminium Company (Balco) in Chhattisgarh state. In India, health and
safety rules are routinely flouted, even so, this was one of the
worst accidents in recent history. While a state-level inquiry was
launched, Balco officials fled Chhattisgarh leaving local people
rescuing the survivors. Meanwhile Vedanta officials in London
ascribed it all to ‘bad weather’. In fact, Vedanta and its
subsidiaries are routinely implicated in death and destruction in
other parts of India too, most notably in the state of Orissa state
where their mining activities are causing:
*The drying up of streams and major rivers, which are the lifeline
for tens of thousands of people leading to unprecedented
environmental disasters in drought and famine prone districts
* The pollution of fertile agricultural lands and contamination of
drinking water sources in vast areas
*The destruction of the Niyamgiri hills – known as the most beautiful
mountains in India - which will wipe out the ancient civilization of
the Dongria Kondh adivasi community who regard the Niyam Dongar
mountain and forests of the area as their Gods.
*Mass Unemployment and Destitution as farmers, fishing communities
and forest dwellers are being displaced and abandoned in shanty-towns.
*The destruction of the social structure in the areas where the
company and its subsidiaries are involved leading to a sharp rise in
illegal liquor shops, fraudulent money-lenders, domestic abuse and
suicides.
You are requested to attend and strengthen peoples’ struggle
against corporate crimes and environment plunder.
Prof. Amit Bhaduri will preside.
Date: 17th December, 2009 Thursday : 4.30 PM to 7 PM
Venue : Plenary Hall, Indian Law Institute,
(Opposite Supreme Court of India)
Bhagwan Dass Road, New Delhi-110001
Uma Chakravarti (Phone: 011-24117828)
N.D.Pancholi (M: 09811099532)
Convenors
On Behalf of : Champa – the Amiya and BG Rao foundation
o o o
(ii) Pakistan India peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy West
Bengal Chapter, BEYOND, Jadavpur Alumni Association and Centre for
Peace and Progress have joined together to organize a drama
performance to be performed by Tehrik-e-Niswan, a theatrical group
from Karachi, Pakistan: Director- Sheema Kermani at Dr. Triguna Sen
Auditorum , Jadavpur University at 5 pm sharp on 18 December, 2009
(Thursday) . [Calcutta]
On behalf of the organizers I invite you all in the said program.
Come one and all.
About the drama
34th Production (March 2005)
ZIKR-E-NASHUNIDA
The play deals with the aftermath of war.
Written by: Prasanna Ramaswamy
Translated by: Anwer Jafri
Source Material: Euripides “Trojan Women”, Les Smith, Julia Starzky
Director: Prasanna Ramaswamy
Cast: Mahvash Faruqi, Asma Mundrawala, Shazia Qamar, Shama Askari,
Shama Altaf, Saif Hasan, Salim Meraj, Atif Siddiqui, Mehmood Bhatti,
Sheema Kermani
Performed in India Dec 2005
With Greetings,
Friendly yours
(Amit Chakraborty)
Secretary,
Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy, West Bengal
Chapter.
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