SACW | Jan 17-21, 2010 / Sri Lanka Election / Bangladesh: Conflicts among Paharis / Pakistan-India: Mindless war of words / India: Homage to Jyoti Basu / Taboo on underwear and premarital sex

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | January 17-21, 2010 | Dispatch No. 2684 -  
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]  Sri Lanka:
       (i) Grave Concerns For A Free And Fair Presidential Election  
And The Rule Of Law (Press release by Centre for Policy Alternatives)
       (ii) The Presidential Election 2010 and the people (Statement  
of the Ceylon Mercantile Industrial and General Workers Union (CMU))
[2]  Bangladesh: Brother against brother (Naeem Mohaiemen)
[3]  Pakistan: Religion and politics (Huma Yusuf)
[4]  India and Pakistan: Cold Start for the Hottest War? (J. Sri Raman)
[5]  India: ‘It is shameful to misguide people’ (P. Sainath)
        + Politics and the Praetorian Guard (P. Sainath)
[6]  India: A younger comrade, pays homage to Jyoti Basu (Ashok Mitra)
       + Minds In Thrall (Rudrangshu Mukherjee)
[7]  India: Resources For Secular Activists
        (i) Kandhamal Survivors letter to the Mohapatra Commission  
(Sampradayik Hinsa Prapidita Sanghathana)
        (ii) A.B.V.P. attack on 'Janchetna' Book Exhibition Van in  
Delhi University
        (iii) Hindutva Campaign to Free Madhya Pradesh of undies and  
condoms
            + Hindutva attack on lingerie - R Prasad Cartoon in Mail  
Today
         (iv) India's top most judge denounces actor's sex comments  
on pre-marital sex
[8] Book Review:
      A Deal with the Taliban? (Ahmed Rashid)

_____


[1] Sri Lanka:

(i) Press Release

Centre for Policy Alternatives

GRAVE CONCERNS FOR A FREE AND FAIR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND THE RULE  
OF LAW

20th January 2010, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Centre for Policy  
Alternatives (CPA) is deeply concerned by the developments this week  
that suggest the remainder of the election campaign and the  
presidential election itself would not be conducted according to the  
legal procedures and limitations established by the Constitution and  
the law.

The Commissioner of Elections appears to have given up on his  
attempts to enforce the law in terms of his powers under the  
Seventeenth Amendment. He has withdrawn the Competent Authority  
appointed to regulate the state media institutions due to the refusal  
of those bodies to implement the directions of the Competent  
Authority. He has also publicly stated that he would not be issuing  
any more directions to the Police, because his directions are not  
being followed. On other matters regarding the misuse of public  
property, in particular over the misconduct of the Telecommunications  
Regulatory Commission, the Commissioner has not taken any  
demonstrable measures.

We unequivocally maintain that the failure and/or refusal of public  
officials and other persons to follow the directions of the  
Commissioner and the Competent Authority is a clear breach of a legal  
duty imposed by the Constitution. That such officials feel able, by  
refusing to act according to the directions of the Commissioner, to  
violate the Constitution and election laws illustrates the contempt  
and disregard with which the Rule of Law is held in Sri Lanka today.

However, we also state that the Commissioner himself is under a  
constitutional duty to duly exercise his powers under the Seventeenth  
Amendment, notwithstanding any pressure brought upon him or in the  
face of non-cooperation from public officials. We note that the  
Commissioner has recourse to the writ jurisdiction of the Supreme  
Court to have his directions enforced in this regard; a course of  
action he has chosen to ignore. The result is that an undesirable  
perception is created that the Constitution and the law can be broken  
or disregarded with impunity. Moreover, more transparency and public  
information from the Commissioner’s office would have helped the  
Commissioner by generating public support for his endeavours.

In the context of a keenly contested election in which there is a  
rising trend of violence and the possibility of widespread election  
malpractice (including serious unresolved problems and public  
confusion over voter registration, electoral lists, voter  
identification and other matters), it is critical that the powers of  
the Commissioner are not neutralised in any way.

A free and fair election according procedure established by law is in  
the interests of all the citizens of Sri Lanka. It is also in the  
interests of those contesting this historic first post-war  
presidential election that there is no scope for question of the  
integrity of the electoral process and the legitimacy of the outcome.  
This election is a litmus test of our continuing commitment to  
democracy and the Rule of Law. It is also the basis of our commitment  
to post-war peacebuilding and reconciliation.

CPA therefore asks the Commissioner of Elections to exercise his  
powers without fear, that public officials discharge their duties  
impartially and according to the law, and requests the candidates and  
their supporters to desist from conduct that is against the law or  
inimical to democratic values. We also call upon voters to actively  
condemn instigators of election violence and malpractices,  
irrespective of party affiliation, in order to ensure an electoral  
process and outcome more reflective of essential democratic values  
shared by all.

o o o

(ii)

The Sunday Island
17 January 2010

Statement of the Ceylon Mercantile Industrial and General Workers  
Union (CMU)

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2010 AND THE PEOPLE

President Mahinda Rajapakse is seeking re-election for a second six- 
year term as Executive President. He has cut short his present term  
of office in order to do so, without having abolished the Executive  
Presidency, as he had pledged to do, before the end of his first  
term. What will be decided on January 26 next, therefore, is whether  
President Rajapakse is to continue to exercise the powers and enjoy  
the privileges of the Executive Presidency for another six years, or  
not. A majority of the millions of voters will exercise their voting  
rights either to vote for him, or for General Sarath Fonseka. Though  
the latter has made a pledge to abolish the Executive Presidency,  
President Rajapakse has evaded making any mention of his former  
pledge in that regard, in this election. It is not likely, in any  
case, that the issue of the abolition of the Executive Presidency  
will prove to be a crucial one for most of the voters. They will  
probably vote for President Rajapakse to continue in office, or for  
General Fonseka, in consideration of other matters that are of  
concern to them.

The Executive Committee of our Union, nevertheless, considers that  
the abolition of the Executive Presidency is of vital importance to  
the promotion of the basic social and economic interests, as well as  
the defence of the human and democratic rights and civil liberties of  
the masses of the people of this country. Unfortunately for them,  
they are caught in a trap under the present Constitution, under which  
their "Sovereignty" can be exercised only on January 26. The next  
day, they will be back to where they are now, whether President  
Rajapakse obtains more than fifty percent of their votes, and  
continues to be vested with the powers of the Executive Presidency  
for six more years, or General Fonseka is elected, and is vested with  
those powers, likewise.

President Rajapakse used his power to proclaim a State of Emergency,  
soon after he first took office in December 2005, and has extended  
it, with Parliamentary approval from month to month, up to now. The  
Emergency Regulations that he has made have served to suppress or  
repress fundamental democratic rights and civil liberties; and human  
rights have been violated to a greater extent under his regime than  
under any previous one..

He has gained and retained control of a stable majority in Parliament  
by appointing 109 of its Members, belonging to the Government Party,  
or who have crossed over to it from the Opposition, as Cabinet  
Ministers, non-Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers, at huge public  
expense. They have provided him with the required Parliamentary  
approval for the Proclamation and monthly extension of the "State of  
Emergency". They have also insured him against the possibility of his  
removal from office, even for flagrant violations of the  
Constitution, such as have been publicly pointed out by the recently  
retired Chief Justice, without contradiction.

Previous Presidents, like most professional politicians, have  
exercised their powers and privileges and the influence that they  
have gained thereby, to advance their own interests and those of  
their kith and kin, in the first place. They have also rewarded  
various other people who served their interests, in various ways,  
politically or otherwise. President Rajapakse has done so, quite  
blatantly. He has promptly awarded Ministerial portfolios and very  
lucrative "projects" to several former UNP Ministers for their cross- 
overs from the Opposition in Parliament. Caligula, the Roman Emperor,  
was said to have made his horse a Senator. President Rajapakse has  
appointed the former "Tamil Tiger" commander of Prabhakaran’s  
"terrorist" army, as a Cabinet Minister, after nominating him as a  
Member of Parliament. He has also had him elected as a Vice-President  
of his own party, the SLFP.

Bribery and corruption have increased to such an extent under his  
regime, that it is an issue that will undoubtedly weigh with voters  
against President Rajapakse. His Government seems to have realized  
this: His non-Cabinet Justice Minister, has just announced that a  
Bill would be tabled in Parliament, soon after the Presidential  
election, "to fight waste, corruption and irregular activities in the  
public sector".

Our Union has not supported any candidate at any previous  
Presidential election. We have always held the view that the powers  
of the Executive Presidency would not be exercised by any President  
who may be elected under the present Constitution, to promote the  
economic and social interests of the vast majority of the working  
people in this country, or to protect their democratic rights.

We did not support Mahinda Rajapakse at the last Presidential  
election, because we saw no good reason to change our view in the  
above-mentioned respect.. The only promise he had given in his  
Mahinda Chinthanaya" to the millions of workers in the private  
sector, was that a low interest housing scheme, would be introduced  
"with the participation of the Employees Trust Fund and private  
banks". The loans that could be obtained under the legislation  
enacted in that regard, were only by a limited number of employees.  
Even that promise thus proved to be empty for the vast majority of  
workers in the private sector.

We had then pointed out that there was no mention in "Mahinda  
Chinthanaya" of the Workers’Charter, which he had advocated and had  
been adopted by President Chandrika Kumaratunga’ Government, when he  
was Minister of Labour. We have to point out that the Workers’  
Charter has remained a dead letter under President Rajapakse’s  
Government, and that he has nothing to say now about any legislative  
protection for several millions of workers, employed on a casual  
basis, directly or through labour contractors, on low daily rates of  
pay, with no paid leave or security of employment. Others are  
employed on "fixed term" contracts, renewable from time to time, but  
without any assurance of continued employment.

The Rajapakse Government has also failed to implement the two most  
important ILO Conventions, relating to the fundamental rights of  
Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining, that Sri Lanka has  
endorsed and the Government is bound to implement "in law and in  
practice".

With regard to the so-called "National Question", our Executive  
Committee observes that President Rajapakse has made no commitment,  
up to now, to implement even the limited degree of provincial  
autonomy that President J.R. Jayawardene had agreed to grant to the  
Tamil-speaking Tamil and Muslim peoples of the Northern and Eastern  
Provinces, under the 13th Amendment of the Constitution. Having  
achieved the complete destruction of the LTTE by the Armed Forces,  
last May, and subjected the people of those two provinces to military  
rule, the President sacked the Sri Lankan Representative to the UN in  
Geneva, when the latter published a statement in favour of the full  
implemention of the 13th Amendment, which the Jathika Hela Urumaya  
had completely opposed. When President Rajapakse repeats his catch- 
phrase of achieving a settlement of the "National Question",  
"acceptable to all", it is obvious, therefore, that he has no  
intention to "settle" that crucial question on any basis that would  
be acceptable to the vast majority of the Tamil and Muslim peoples in  
the North and East. His true attitude to them was revealed at the  
"Victory Parade" of the Armed Forces, last year, when he proudly  
declared that there were no "national minorities", in this country,  
and that all its people had been reunited under the "National Flag".  
In any case, whatever assurances President Rajapakse may now consider  
it expedient to give to the Tamil and Muslim peoples in the North and  
East, they cannot expect him to introduce any amendment to the  
Constitution to accord them any recognition of their fundamental  
democratic rights to self-determination, even on a limited basis.

The numbers of civilian deaths and casualties caused by the War in  
the North and East, have not been revealed by the Rajapakse  
Government, nor the numbers of Tamil youth, including child soldiers,  
who were killed or injured by the Armed Forces in armed combat. The  
extent of the destruction of public buildings and private homes by  
aerial bombing and by artillery bombardment have also been  
unreported. The kidnappings and killings of Tamil civilians,  
including journalists, suspected of having LTTE connections or  
sympathies, have never been acknowledged by the "Security Forces".

The population in the rest of the country has thus been kept in  
ignorance of the sufferings and miseries of the hundreds of thousands  
of people in the North and East. The deaths and destruction caused by  
the sporadic "terrorist" attacks or "suicide" bombings, on the other  
hand, were highly and repeatedly publicized. The fear of LTTE  
"terrorism" so engendered, was magnified by continuous media  
propaganda. It was also sustained by the deployment of thousands of  
police and military personnel, to carry out daily "security checks",  
which have been reduced but not yet ended up to now.

The severe hardships suffered by the entire population because of the  
phenomenal rise in inflation and the cost of living caused by the  
War, have not yet been reduced. The huge "Security" expenditure  
involved, amounting to hundreds of billions of rupees, continues with  
the continuing "State of Emergency, and financial corruption in that  
regard, too, no doubt. Furthermore, the huge debts incurred by the  
Government will remain as a burden on the masses of the working  
people. The huge loan of 2.6 billion US dollars (approximately 286  
billion rupees) that the Government found necessary to request from  
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the conditions for its  
grant, will have to be met. The IMF Chairman has explained that the  
loan was granted to prevent the collapse of our country’s economy.

Having regard to all the above-mentioned facts and circumstances, our  
Executive Committee considers that the re-election of President  
Rajapakse will only mean the continuance or even worsening of the  
living conditions of the working people, under the continuing  
political conditions of an already militarised society, in which  
democratic and human rights are no longer respected by the ruling  
regime. We have no reason to believe that General Fonseka will end  
this situation, and change it for the better, for the working people,  
with the political support of the UNP and the JVP. It is our  
considered view, therefore, that our own Union and other  
organizations of the working people, in urban as well as rural areas,  
will have to rely on their own strength and their capacity to combine  
their forces to deal with the situation that they will have to face  
after 26th January, whether President Mahinda Rajapakse is re- 
elected, or is displaced by General Sarath Fonseka.


_____


[2] Bangladesh:

The Daily Star,
January 21, 2010

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER
by Naeem Mohaiemen

EACH movement, in stasis or motion, gravitates to leaders. Symbols  
and enigma -- where hopes are invested, even in absentia.

For two decades, the movement for self-determination of the Pahari  
(Jumma) people of Chittagong Hill Tracts had leaders and symbols. The  
guerillas of Shanti Bahini were figures never seen, always imagined.  
Then, one day in 1997, the ghost army's representatives came out of  
hiding. A helicopter landed in a forest clearing. Designated men on  
each side, at the negotiation table. Finally, the signing of the CHT  
Accord with the government, a ceremony with doves, a surrender of  
guns in a stadium.

So there our curtain goes down, the story ambles along to a happy  
ending. Or does it? On the 12th anniversary of the Accord, the coda  
is that almost no aspect of the Accord has been implemented. Even the  
minimal steps towards implementation, that began last year under this  
new government, have provoked an organised opposition from groups  
that want to cancel the Accord. As always in Bangla politics,  
stopping things is easier.

A court case is underway, trying to declare the CHT Accord  
unconstitutional. With large amounts of land and forest timber at  
stake, those who want to keep Paharis marginalised, and the CHT  
Accord in permanent limbo, are muscular, connected and funded.

But another issue has emerged as a boon for the anti-Accord groups --  
the fractures within the Pahari movement itself, grown sharper each  
year the Accord remains unimplemented. Up to 1997, the Pahari  
community was represented militarily by Shanti Bahini, and  
politically by JSS (Jana Sanghati Samity). When the accord was  
signed, a section of the guerilla army and the political movement  
criticised the Accord, particularly because it failed to provide  
constitutional recognition to ethnic and adivasi groups. That  
opposition crystallised into UPDF (United People's Democratic Front),  
a new political party of Paharis that formed from the refusenik  
segment of JSS.

While much of the efforts of JSS and UPDF are focused on the  
conditions of Pahari oppression, some of their energy in recent years  
is diverted to conflicts with each other. These fractures do not  
spring out of thin air. Power struggles within movements are standard  
issue, especially when the struggle continues longer without results.

But another theory is that anti-Accord groups have also done their  
part to amplify these internal conflicts among Paharis. Certainly for  
those Bengalis who want to block the Accord, a common and convenient  
refrain is: How can we reach a settlement with the Paharis, they are  
fighting each other?

In the latest expression of fracture, leaders of the JSS called for a  
political ban on the UPDF. One reason for the call for a ban is that  
UPDF has opposed the 1997 Accord.

However, according to their recent press releases, UPDF still  
considers the Accord "unfair" but now accepts it as "fact" and works  
within that framework. In addition, JSS claims UPDF members are  
involved in kidnapping in the region. UPDF makes the same counter- 
claim against JSS. There are diametrically opposed claims from both  
sides, with no mechanism to get to truth, resolution or stability.

The pertinent question is, where are Pahari political leaders going  
with this? Do the JSS leaders think that calling for a ban on UPDF,  
besides being undemocratic, is going to help the movement for Pahari  
rights? UPDF also has not made significant moves towards making peace  
with JSS. Both sides seem deliberately oblivious to the fact that a  
widening fracture within the Pahari movement, through an active  
struggle for supremacy, will only help those who want to sabotage the  
CHT Accord.

This is a familiar scenario, from many liberation movements in our  
past. The third world charisma crisis is embedded with this as well.  
Guerilla and liberation leaders in the Global South's recent past:  
They won the war, but lost the peace. In movements and in  
negotiations, the leader is the movement, the movement is the leader.  
But after accords, after independence, after an armistice, the same  
leaders can fail the movement.

It is urgent, on this crucial anniversary, that the two opposing  
factions of the Pahari movement stop battling each other, and reach  
some form of pragmatic détente. The government must be an active  
intermediary, by insisting that both organisations are represented in  
talks and decision-making bodies on the future of the CHT.

A continued internecine struggle between UPDF and JSS only helps  
those who want a return of conflict to Chittagong Hill Tracts. This  
group, pushing the Accord towards collapse, is not insignificant.  
They take advantage of chaos and continue to profit from the land,  
while this endless shadow battle plays out.

Naeem Mohaiemen wrote the chapter on ethnic and religious minorities  
in several Ain Salish Kendra annual reports.


_____


[3] Pakistan:

Dawn
17 January 2010

RELIGION AND POLITICS
by Huma Yusuf

As Shakespeare aptly told us, roses, no matter what you call them,  
will smell as sweet. The same, metaphorically speaking, can be said  
of religious parties: drop Islam from their party names, but the  
ideological leanings and support for militant fringes will remain.

This could soon become apparent in Bangladesh, where the supreme  
court recently upheld a 2005 high court judgment banning religion- 
based parties. That said, if it is appealed, the ruling could set an  
interesting precedent for the separation of religion and politics in  
Muslim-majority countries.

The supreme court ruling reverts to Bangladesh’s original, secular  
1972 constitution, drafted by the Awami League (AL), which is  
currently in power. The ruling will force religious parties to drop  
religious references from their names and prevent religious  
sloganeering during election campaigns. About 12 Bangladeshi parties,  
including the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) — an ally of the opposition  
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) — will be affected. However, the  
verdict does not touch on 1988 amendments that made Islam the state  
religion and introduced Quranic text in the constitution.

The fact is, bans only work when they are issued early, nipping the  
problem in the bud. Coming under the AL leadership, the ruling will  
be a tad suspect because this historically secular party has long  
branded the BNP and JI as fundamentalist for political leverage. It  
also doesn’t help that Islamic politicking and religious extremism  
are well entrenched in Bangladesh.

Since 1990, the rivalry between the AL and BNP has weakened  
Bangladesh’s political institutions. Whichever party has been in the  
opposition, it has made a sham of democracy by boycotting parliament  
and calling for nationwide strikes. Amidst the tussle, religious  
parties have done well. In 2001, the JI and Islamic Oikya Jote even  
formed the government with the BNP. With the support of these  
religious parties at the centre, Islamic militancy has flourished in  
Bangladesh through the activities of groups such as the Jagrata  
Muslim Janata Bangladesh, the Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami and the  
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh.

Although linguistic nationalism trumps religious identification  
amongst the Bangladeshi public, religious parties have also won many  
supporters in the past decade. People are impressed by their highly  
organised cadres; their involvement in a range of charitable, welfare  
and service-provision activities; and their gumption in standing up  
to India and protesting the maltreatment of Muslims in that country.  
The religious parties have also made the most of the influx of Saudi  
religious charities, taking credit for the education and free housing  
provided by an extensive network of Wahabi madressahs.

Some fear that a ban on religious parties will drive this religiously  
motivated activism underground, where it will drift even further  
towards extremism. And while in principle it is unfair to compare  
religious parties to militant outfits, Bangladesh should keep in mind  
the consequences of Gen Pervez Musharraf’s ban on militant and  
sectarian organisations: ‘jihadis’ from across Pakistan relocated  
to the tribal belt to continue training and recruiting and the  
fallout from their proximity to the Taliban and Al Qaeda is all too  
obvious today.

For fear of a similar scenario, many liberal, civil society activists  
in Bangladesh oppose the ruling and instead call for more regulation  
and monitoring of the religious parties. Their contention is that  
legalities cannot undo gains such as organised militancy.

But the secular-minded can take heart as the ruling comes when a  
religio-cultural shift is already under way. Bangladeshis have become  
more religious in their private lives: a Gallup poll in May 2009  
showed that all Bangladeshis believe religion is an important part of  
their daily lives and 98 per cent claim their confidence in religious  
organisations has increased over the years. But this religiosity has  
spiked at the same time that Bangladeshis overwhelming voted for the  
AL, which championed reform and secularism, in the 2008 elections.

In tandem, these facts suggest that Bangladeshis prefer to keep  
politics and religion separate — and it is this distinction that the  
ruling can help concretise.

Meanwhile, those concerned about driving religious politics  
underground should remember that the AL’s crackdown on a growing  
extremist threat is under way. Last October, the government outlawed  
a controversial Islamic party after accusing it of destabilising the  
country (four other Islamic organisations were banned in 2005 after  
nation-wide bombings left 28 dead). And throughout 2009, security  
forces arrested 600,000 people — including 518 terrorists — for  
ties to about 122 extremist organisations. These actions are a  
response to increasing attacks against secular politicians since  
2004. In this context, the ruling reiterates Bangladesh’s resolve  
not to emerge as an extremist hub.

Pakistan should keep a close eye on how the ruling is received by the  
Bangladeshi public. Now, more than ever, we need to shake off our  
complacent attitude towards Pakistan’s religious parties. Owing to  
their historically poor record at the polls, we have written off the  
2002 MMA victory in Balochistan and the Frontier as an anomaly.

But as recently pointed out by newspaper columnists, victory was  
fuelled by soaring anti-American sentiment in the wake of the US  
invasion of Afghanistan. Eight years later, Americanism has reached  
new heights in Pakistan. Widespread and rabid, this xenophobic  
sentiment could herald the return of religious parties in the next  
election. Such an outcome would make it almost impossible for  
Pakistan to separate religion and politics. And that separation — as  
the Bangladesh supreme court ruling suggests — is a democratic  
necessity.


_____


[4] India - Pakistan:


truthout.org
20 January 2010

INDIA AND PAKISTAN: COLD START FOR THE HOTTEST WAR?

by  J. Sri Raman

We have all been witness to a long and continuing war of words  
between New Delhi and Islamabad ever since the Mumbai terrorist  
strike of November 2008 disrupted the India-Pakistan "peace process"  
and "composite dialogue" which had kept going until then despite  
smaller problems and provocations. These statements and counter- 
statements, however, do not constitute the exchange that should cause  
the most serious concern over peace in South Asia.

A larger and direr threat is what a strangely less-noticed debate  
between the military establishments of the two countries presents.  
The chiefs of the two armies and security experts on both sides,  
besides others in either distinguished uniform or defense-related  
positions of prominence, have been engaged in the debate where a  
nuclear war is treated in mind-numbingly matter-of-fact terms.

It all started with a statement on November 23, 2009, by India's  
Chief of Army Staff Gen. Deepak Kapoor, which deserved a much wider  
notice than it received. He told a seminar in New Delhi: "The  
possibility of a limited war under a nuclear overhang is still a  
reality, at least in the Indian sub-continent."

He followed this up with public observations on December 29, 2009,  
about a plan to "launch self-contained and highly-mobile 'battle  
groups,' adequately backed by air cover and artillery fire assaults,  
for rapid thrusts into enemy territory within 96 hours." The  
reference was to the "cold start" military doctrine, reportedly first  
propounded by the Indian army in 2004 and fine-tuned subsequently.  
The doctrine for a "limited war" - something "short of a nuclear war"  
- has triggered a debate that actually raises again the prospect of  
the most dreaded of conflicts between the close neighbors.

Details of the doctrine make it clear that it is designed to promote  
war by countering Indian democracy and international peace  
initiatives. India's security analyst Subhash K. Kapila - who  
describes the doctrine as "a blitzkrieg-type strategy" to be pursued  
through "integrated battle groups" drawn from all the three wings of  
the armed forces - puts these objectives in other words.

In a paper titled "India's new 'cold start' doctrine strategically  
reviewed," Kapila notes that the doctrine, which says goodbye to  
weeks-long "military mobilization," will not only retain the surprise  
element in the offensive. It will also serve two other purposes.

In the first place, it will "compel the political leadership to give  
political approval ab initio and thereby free the armed forces to  
generate their full combat potential from the outset." The government  
is required to give the army a blank check, so to speak. Long  
mobilization "gives the political leadership in India time to waver  
under pressure, and in the process deny Indian Army its due military  
victories." Secondly, lengthy preparations also allow time for  
"Pakistan's external patrons ... to start exerting coercive pressures  
and mobilizing world opinion ..."

The analysis makes it clear that the doctrine will demand a new  
degree of militarism of India's political leadership. The strategy  
can succeed, Kapila points out, only if New Delhi has the "political  
will to use offensive military power" and "pre-emptive military  
strategies," the "political sagacity to view strategic military  
objectives with clarity" and the "political determination to pursue  
military operations to their ultimate conclusion without succumbing  
to external pressures."

Last, but certainly not the least, condition for the success of the  
strategy will be what Kapila calls the "political determination to  
cross [the] nuclear threshold if Pakistan seems so inclined." The  
paper notes: "Pakistan has declared that it will go for nuclear  
strikes against India when a significant portion of its territory has  
been captured or likely to be captured, ... when a significant  
destruction of the Pakistani military machine has taken place or when  
Pakistani strategic assets (read nuclear deterrents) are endangered."  
Offensives under the doctrine will not allow "Pakistan to reach the  
above conclusions."

What about the dreadful possibility that Pakistan does reach such a  
conclusion, even if by mistake, and responds with a nuclear strike?  
The analyst provides the answer implicit in the doctrine: "Pakistan  
cannot expect that India would sit idle and suffer a Pakistani  
nuclear strike without a massive nuclear retaliation." As the paper  
elaborates, "Pakistan's external strategic patrons can coerce or  
dissuade both sides to avoid a nuclear conflict, but once Pakistan  
uses a nuclear first strike no power can restrain India from going in  
for its nuclear retaliation and the consequences for Pakistan in that  
case stand well discussed in strategic circles. Pakistan would (be)  
wiped out."

Pakistani responses have been prompt and even worse than predictable.  
General Deepak's counterpart, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff (CoAS)  
Ashfaq Pervez Kayani charged India with "charting a course of  
dangerous adventurism whose consequences can be both unintended and  
uncontrollable." As Pakistan's peace activist Zia Mian put it: "In  
other words, Pakistan was threatening to use nuclear weapons if India  
tried to carry out the kind of conventional attack it has been  
rehearsing."

The civilian-military National Command Authority (NCA) of Pakistan,  
meeting under Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on January 13, took  
"serious note of recent Indian statements about conducting  
conventional military strikes under a nuclear umbrella" and said  
"such irresponsible statements reflected a hegemonic mindset,  
oblivious of dangerous implications of adventurism in a nuclearized  
context."

The NCA added: "Massive inductions of advanced weapon systems,  
including installation of ABMs (anti-ballistic missiles), build-up of  
nuclear arsenal and delivery systems through ongoing and new  
programs, assisted by some external quarters, offensive doctrines  
like 'Cold Start' and similar accumulations in the conventional  
realm, tend to destabilize the regional balance." Earlier, former  
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri took it upon himself to  
declare: "Pakistan's defense establishment has taken serious notice  
of the Indian doctrine of 'Cold Start' and all necessary arrangements  
have been made for an appropriate and timely response in case of any  
Indian misadventure."

It was left, again, to security experts to elaborate on the subject.  
Among these was Maleeha Lodhi, a journalist, an academic and a  
diplomat. A former high commissioner of Pakistan to the United  
Kingdom, and a former ambassador to the US, she was recently reported  
to be under consideration as a possible replacement for Hussain  
Haqqani as the new Pakistani ambassador in Washington.

In an analysis published on January 5 in Pakistan's News  
International, Lodhi talks of the notion of "limited war" contained  
in the doctrine, and says: "It overlooks the fact that in a crisis  
the nuclear threshold will be indeterminate. The threshold cannot be  
wished away by "speed in mobilization," she said.

"In fact," she added, "the shorter the duration needed for a  
mobilization the greater the risk of escalation and the likely  
lowering of Pakistan's nuclear red lines. The long fuse in a crisis  
provided by the time required for assembly and deployment of forces  
has so far helped to avoid a catastrophic war."

Lodhi warns: "If operationalized, the 'cold start' doctrine will  
force Pakistan to re-evaluate its policy of keeping its nuclear  
arsenal in 'separated' form and move towards placing its strategic  
capability in a higher state of readiness, including mating warheads  
to delivery systems. The action-reaction cycle will move the  
subcontinent to a perilous state of hair-trigger alert."

The same scary prospect is raised in an article by security columnist  
Farzana Shah in the Asian Tribune of January 14. She writes: "(The)  
Indian military establishment is relying much more on President (Asif  
Ali) Zardari's announcement that Pakistan will not use its nuclear  
weapon as first strike. In reality, it is Pakistan army who will  
decide which weapon is to be used when and where."

The deciding authority, Shah suggests, only makes the danger more  
real. She adds: "Another problem, which India is going to face during  
any execution of Cold Start, is the gauge of nuclear threshold of  
Pakistan, a point where Pakistan would decide to go for  
unconventional warfare. This is where Army Chief Asfaq Pervez Kayani  
(has) hinted that the consequences of any misadventure in a nuclear  
overhang can be suicidal for India."

Anyone with any doubt about the alternative to a peace-oriented India- 
Pakistan dialogue needs only to listen to even a little of the debate  
over the cold start doctrine and its nuclear dimension.

_____


[5] India:

The Hindu
December 23, 2009

‘IT IS SHAMEFUL TO MISGUIDE PEOPLE’

by P. Sainath

This file photo of 'Vikas Parv' pages shows coverage of Ashok Chavan  
and his government during the Maharashtra elections. In newspapers  
across the state, sometimes the same puff item appeared as ‘news’  
in one newspaper and as an advertisement in another.
THE HINDU This file photo of 'Vikas Parv' pages shows coverage of  
Ashok Chavan and his government during the Maharashtra elections. In  
newspapers across the state, sometimes the same puff item appeared  
as ‘news’ in one newspaper and as an advertisement in another.

Well-known PR firms, professional designers, and ad agencies served  
the richer parties and candidates. They made up “news” items in  
the standard fonts and sizes of the desired newspapers and even  
“customised” the items to make them seem exclusive in different  
publications.

So you thought you’d had enough of Page 3? Newspapers in Maharashtra  
think otherwise. Some of them had more than one, on several days  
during the recent state elections. They even had supplements within  
supplements. So you had page 3 in the main paper. Then the main  
supplement with its own page 3. Then a further supplement within  
that, marked as Page III with Roman numerals (rarely, if ever, used  
in the Marathi press).

This happened mostly during the last days before voting as desperate  
candidates poured in money to buy “news.” As one senior journalist  
explained it: “On television, the number of bulletins shot up. In  
print, the number of pages. The demand had to be met. Often the extra  
package stuff came in at the last minute and had to be accommodated.  
Why turn them away?”

In Marathi, Hindi, English, and Urdu newspapers across the State, you  
can find many fascinating things during the election period that were  
not turned away. Sometimes the same puff item appeared as ‘news’  
in one newspaper and as an advertisement in another. “It is shameful  
to misguide people,” reads the headline of an item paid for by  
Umakant (Babloo) Deotale, an independent candidate from Nagpur South  
West. This appears in Lokmat (Oct. 6) with a tiny  
‘ADVT’ (advertisement) at the bottom. It appears the same day in  
The Hitavada (Nagpur’s leading English language daily) with no  
mention at all of its being an advertisement. Mr. Deotale got one  
thing right: it is shameful to misguide people.

Interestingly, a spate of genuine advertisements hit the pages on  
August 30. This was 24 hours before the election code of conduct —  
under which party and government expenditures come under scrutiny —  
came into force. After that, the word “advertisement” disappeared,  
and with it even the fig leaf of “response feature.” The items  
became “news.” There was a second surge of real ads just before  
candidates began filing nominations from September 18. This is  
because individual expenses come under scrutiny from the day the  
candidate files his or her nomination. Both these devices enabled the  
government, big parties, and rich candidates to spend huge sums of  
money that would not figure in poll expenditure accounts. Yet another  
device, widely used during the actual campaign, is absent in almost  
all candidate expenditure accounts: the massive use of SMS and voice  
mail messages. Also, the setting up of campaign-related websites. The  
amounts involved were significant. Their reflection in candidate  
accounts is nil.

“News” reports after August 30 and September 18 were fascinating  
in many ways. For one thing, there is not a single critical or  
negative line in any of them. Across hundreds of pages, the “news”  
consists solely of how wonderful particular candidates were, their  
achievements, and the progress of their campaigns. Nothing about the  
issues. Their rivals, people of fewer resources, did not exist in  
these newspaper pages except, perhaps, as fall guys.

Further, if you struck the right deal, the same “news” could  
appear in print, on television, and online. This was “package  
journalism” at its most advanced, that was truly multi-media. The  
shift to this kind of “news” was so large that real advertising at  
election time — when it should have been highest — actually fell  
in some influential newspapers.

Sadly, a few senior journalists had their bylines on some of the paid  
stuff. Some of them had the rank of chief reporter or even chief of  
bureau. A few may have done so willingly. But there were those who  
told me: “In the days when this was about petty corruption of  
individual journalists, we had a choice. To be or not to be corrupt.  
Now when this is an organised industry run by our employers, what  
choice do we have?”

Several newspapers published in Maharashtra between October 1 and 10,  
2009 make fun reading. Sometimes, you find a page of mysteriously  
fixed item sizes, say 125-150 words plus a double column photo. The  
“fixed size” items are curious. News seldom unfolds in such rigid  
terms. (Advertisements do.) Elsewhere, you can see multiple fonts and  
drop case styles in the same page of a single newspaper. This was so  
because everything — layouts, fonts, and printouts came from the  
candidate seeking a slot. Even the bad pictures sullying the pages of  
organised papers came from candidates. There was no way a daily with  
two or three photographers could cope with the frenzy and demand of  
the first ten days of October.

Sometimes you got a more organised page or two — on which every  
single “news item” was on one political party only. No one else  
was found newsworthy on those pages. Page 3 of Pudhari (Oct. 6)  
worked for the Congress this way. Pages 3 and 4 of Sakaal’s  
Ranadhumali (“Tumult of the Battlefield”) supplement (Oct. 10)  
found only MNS-related items relevant. Other major parties too, those  
with ample resources, got such treatment elsewhere. There were pages  
where only the NCP made “news” ( Deshonnati Oct.11).  
Deshonnati’s Sept. 15 edition had four pages on Chief Minister Ashok  
Chavan. Nothing else appeared in those pages. There were similarly 12  
pages of Mr. Chavan in the Hindi daily Nav Bharat between Sept. 30  
and Oct. 13 (which brings our tally of Chavan-centric full pages to  
89). On the other hand, as D-day approached, you got crowded pages,  
some with as many as 12 items and 15 photographs.

Since candidates or their political parties mostly delivered the  
“news” in the poll-period, most papers did not edit or change a  
thing. How do we explain otherwise why the items and their  
“bylines” violate the papers’ own style or practice? At the very  
least, this raises troubling questions.

For instance, Sakaal normally credits reports from its own staffers  
as “Batmidar” (reporter). Or else as being from Sakaal Vruttaseva  
(News Service) or from the Sakaal News Network. Or it uses the  
reporter’s name in the story. But what are obviously Congress  
handouts (masquerading as news) come signed as  
“Pratinidhi” (correspondent). So you found the newspaper carrying  
items marked “Pratinidhi” against its own run of professional  
play. One of these party plugs signed “Pratinidhi” ( Sakaal, Oct.  
4) bears the headline “State’s leadership will return to  
Congress!” Sakaal places “Batmidar” at the top of its stories,  
the Congress handouts place “Pratinidhi” at the bottom. The two  
make odd bedfellows in the issues of October 4 and 9. Was this news?  
Was it advertising? Was it a bird or a plane?

Well-known PR firms, professional designers, and ad agencies served  
the richer parties and candidates, making up their items in the  
standard fonts and sizes of the concerned newspapers. They also  
“customised” the “news” to make it seem exclusive in different  
publications.

A handful of candidates, many of them builders, made more “news”  
than others. Conversely, smaller parties and less well-endowed  
candidates tended to get blacked out of any coverage in several  
newspapers across the State. Some of them have written to me, telling  
their stories. One, Shakil Ahmed, a lawyer and independent candidate  
in Sion-Koliwada in Mumbai, said the very newspapers that had earlier  
given him space as a social activist “demanded money to write about  
me as a candidate. Since I refused to pay, nobody wrote about me.”  
Mr. Ahmed is eager to depose before the Election Commission of India  
as well as the Press Council of India.

Journalists and activists from the districts sent us over a hundred  
issues of 21 different newspapers in the State. These ranged from  
high-circulation big names to small local dailies. All had their  
pages crowded with such “news.” In television channels, the same  
items making the rounds sometimes arrived as news on one channel and  
as advertisements on another. One such item appeared on two channels  
with the voice of a reporter from a third. And with the boom mike of  
the third channel showing up on rival screens.

As polling day approached, some journalists were besieged by  
desperate candidates with limited resources who risked being drowned  
in the flood. They needed professionals, they pleaded, to write  
their “paid news” items and were willing to shell out the modest  
amounts they could afford. The last days of the campaign actually saw  
some of these tiny items —reflecting the candidate’s financial  
status — find their way on to newspapers pages.

And these were elections, the news media told us, that had “no  
issues” at all.

The Hindu
November 7, 2009

POLITICS AND THE PRAETORIAN GUARD

by P. Sainath

Politicians pay to a section of the media for a coverage, but  
ultimately the public pays the price for electing them.
The Hindu Politicians pay to a section of the media for a coverage,  
but ultimately the public pays the price for electing them.

And so we have a government in Maharashtra, almost, the loaves and  
fishes having been evenly shared among a swollen cabal of crorepatis.  
Choosing the Chief Minister was the easy part. The Congress method of  
picking a Chief Minister is more transparent and effective than we  
give it credit for. Essentially, the high command hands the elected  
legislators a menu and says they are free to choose any flavour so  
long as it is vanilla. If the going flavour at the Centre changes to  
strawberry, well then, it’s “See? Pink vanilla!”

Government formation has proved more complex. The Nationalist  
Congress Party held out for more than a slice of the cake. It sought  
half ownership of the bakery and seems to have got it. It has the  
vital jagirs of Finance, Home, Power and Rural Development. And has  
managed an almost equal number of portfolios as the Congress despite  
that party having won 20 seats more. What accounts for this? This  
time round, there was a marked lack of gusto among some of the  
Congress seniors who were most aggressive towards the NCP earlier.  
After all, each one of them had hoped to be Chief Minister. That  
didn’t happen. And so, in their view, if life gets a little tough  
for Ashok Chavan, so be it.

Vilasrao Deshmukh is among the saddened. He had worked hard for his  
party’s win and for Chief Ministership. Ever since Mr. Deshmukh  
became a Union Minister, it was almost as if the Indian Union had  
only one State in it: Maharashtra. So frequent were his visits there.  
Mr. Deshmukh did fairly well during his tenure as Chief Minister,  
even if his State did not. His assets — going by the affidavits he  
filed in the 2004 State elections and in 2009 (for the Rajya Sabha)  
— went up by over Rs. 27 million. That is, while Chief Minister, his  
worth increased by around Rs.5.5 million a year. Or by not much less  
than half-a-million a month on average.

But a Chief Minister’s duties are onerous. Which could explain why  
his gains were dwarfed by the re-elected MLAs in Maharashtra. Their  
average asset growth, according to National Election Watch (NEW), was  
over Rs.35 million. Even here, re-elected crorepatis fared better,  
says NEW. Their assets grew by well over Rs.45 million, on average,  
these past five years. So Mr. Deshmukh’s prosperity, or his  
affidavit, is quite modest by these high standards. On the surface,  
the MLAs in Haryana appear to have outclassed those in Maharashtra.  
However, they started on a much lower base. In Maharashtra for  
instance, MLA Suresh Jain saw his assets rise by a trifling 200 per  
cent. Haryana MLAs averaged 600 per cent. But Mr. Jain was already  
worth over Rs.260 million in 2004. That became Rs.790 million by  
2009. Which means his assets grew by well over Rs.8 million a month  
on average in that period. Still, there is no scoffing at Haryana’s  
entrepreneurial spirit. Its re-elected crorepatis clocked an increase  
of over Rs.93 million between 2004 and 2009.

A sweet share of this money power directs itself at the media. Unless  
the Election Commission of India studies at least one State in depth,  
it will be hard to gauge the extent to which large sections of the  
media have sold both space and soul. “Know your candidate” was a  
feature quite often seen in newspapers during the Maharashtra poll  
campaign. On the surface, this seemed to be a service by a newspaper  
for its readers. In truth, it was really a hit job for rich  
candidates, dressing their paid-for propaganda and advertisements as  
“news.”

Well, thanks in part to NEW, you do know your candidate better than  
you might otherwise have known. Maybe it’s time to know your media.  
Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh would be good States for a solid study  
on how newspapers and TV channels made millions misleading their  
audiences. As the Vice President points out: “The Press Council has  
noted that paid news could cause double jeopardy to Indian democracy  
through a damaging influence on press functioning as well as on the  
free and fair election process.” The Council’s guidelines also  
state that “the press shall not accept any kind of inducement,  
financial or otherwise, to project a candidate/party.” But too many  
in the media did exactly that.

A great pity. Elections have often been the one part of India’s  
democracy to be proud of. That is fast eroding. Money power is well  
ahead of muscle power (though the latter is often merely a function  
of the former). It starts at elections to the students unions in  
colleges and universities, and gains full scale at the State and  
national level.

Oddly, in this grim landscape, one oasis that could be a model — and  
not just for universities — has had no elections for over a year  
now. Elections to the Students’ Union of Jawaharlal Nehru University  
(JNUSU) have been stayed by the Supreme Court. The reason: perceived  
non-compliance with the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee. Yet  
that Committee’s report acknowledges the strengths of what could  
well be the most unique student union elections anywhere.  
(Disclosure: this writer was a student at JNU nearly three decades  
ago. And is a member of the University’s Executive Council now. And  
a reporter who has covered most general elections since 1984 and a  
large number of State polls since 1982).

For almost four decades, the students of JNU have held their  
elections without a trace of money or muscle power. The students set  
up an election commission to conduct the polls. The university  
authorities have no role in this. No one can remember a whisper of  
rigging or malpractice. Poll violence has been unknown. The worst  
that candidates in this campus can do is talk you to death.  
Seriously, though, these are polls to be proud of. More so in a  
society which is firmly headed in the reverse direction. Here is  
autonomy at work, democratic participation at its best. A live  
tradition that sparkles in contrast to the thuggishness of elections  
on so many campuses. The campaigns still run mostly on meetings,  
handmade posters and pamphlets.

About two-thirds of Central universities have seen no elections at  
all. Even though the Lyngdoh Committee called for them. That is, even  
though students of those age groups there can vote in the national  
election. Can belong to political parties or even hold a seat in  
Parliament. In JNU, the elections are held with great zest and  
vibrant debate. School and university-level general body meetings  
ensure that those voted in are held to account for their actions.  
These GBMs can last hours with packed attendance. Something that hits  
you when you see the Lok Sabha deserted even as Bills involving life  
and death issues for millions come up for discussion.

It would be a travesty if the example the students of JNU have set  
for the rest of us is gutted on the ground that their polls do not  
comply with the minutiae of a Commission’s report. (A report that,  
in fact, sees the JNU model as suitable for smaller universities.) It  
would be a thumbs down for diversity, pluralism and autonomy. (All in  
short supply in the public sphere today.)

But back to money power, the media and the moguls of politics. Public  
response to the exposure of “paid news” and coverage packages has  
been huge. There is anger and anguish over what the media have done  
and persist in doing. (There will be more on that subject. Watch this  
space.) Also heartening is that so many working within the media that  
have embraced such practices are hurt and appalled by it. But in some  
vital sectors, silence rules. “Convergence” has a political  
meaning too, when it comes to the cosy integration of the government,  
the media and the corporate world.

Many forget that “India Shining” was not just a stupid slogan. It  
was a campaign on which the then government spent thousands of  
millions of rupees of public money. The great gainer from this being  
the corporate media. New links to this chain are forged each day. You  
can see that in every sphere from politics to hyper-commercialised  
sport. You could see it in the unease of the media as a whole  
Parliament session focussed on almost nothing but the battles between  
two corporate behemoths. You can view it in the Union government, the  
BCCI, IPL and sections of the media that gain directly from these  
links and the revenues involved. That’s just a couple of instances.  
The chains are complex, and their links increase daily. This has a  
distinct meaning for the content of media.

Decades ago, columnist Murray Kempton described editorial writers as  
those who come down from the hills after the battle is over — and  
shoot the wounded. In the Maharashtra elections, they served as the  
Praetorian Guard of the moneyed and the mighty.

Public response to the exposure of “paid news” and coverage  
packages has been huge. There is anger and anguish over what the  
media have done and persist in doing.


_____


[6]

The Telegraph
January 18 , 2010	

MASTER OF THE POLITICS OF FEASIBILITY
Ashok Mitra, a younger comrade, pays homage to Jyoti Basu, a leader  
who died with his faith in the historical process unimpaired

India is to be without Jyoti Basu. The new reality will not sink  
easily into most minds. For most of the past half-a-century, the man  
had filled a crucial spot in the country’s political landscape. It  
was a movable spot since circumstances were evolving all the time,  
but the picture would never be complete without this man’s position  
and point of view. Allies, permanent or temporary, would be there to  
seek his counsel. Adversaries, too, would be aware of the differences  
and the weight of his views. The general feeling of a lack of  
coordinates, which has accompanied the announcement of his passing,  
is therefore understandable. This vacuum of feelings will, however,  
be different from person to person. That too owes to the magic of his  
persona. He had a way of interacting on the individual plane with  
whomever he met.

And this is perhaps what charisma is about. After Subhas Chandra  
Bose, Jyoti Basu was the next idol the Bengali masses created and  
clung to. The chemistry at work was almost inexplicable, for Jyoti  
Basu was by nature a shy and reserved individual. That apart, despite  
his fame as a spellbinding speaker, he abhorred histrionics; his  
voice never deviated from the normal pitch, the electric current  
nonetheless hurtled across in waves and a bond got instantly  
established between the person on the podium and the assembled  
dishevelled rows of humanity. The Communist Party of India (Marxist)  
and the Left Front owe an immense deal to this inexplicable phenomenon.

The Jyoti Basu story has a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary beginning.  
Some three quarters of a century ago, India was still a subjugated  
nation. The main agenda was the struggle for freedom. But a few  
youngsters with a background of affluence, living and studying in  
India, were convinced that liberation from foreign bondage was not  
enough: postcolonial India must be a just India, a socialist India,  
an India which would be an integral part of the great proletarian  
revolution ushered in by the Soviet Union. Jyoti Basu joined in and  
found company in the imperial capital. The young cadets even  
redistributed their allegiance between the India League and the  
Communist Party of Great Britain.

He returned to Calcutta as a full-time party worker, learning the  
rudiments of trade unionism in the loco-shed at Kanchrapara, at the  
docks in Kidderpore, spending long hard days at the Terai as comrade- 
in-arms of the struggling tea-garden workers, agitating for the  
tenurial rights for the share-croppers and living rights for the  
landless workers, learning the art of public speaking at impromptu  
street-corner sessions in Calcutta, getting to know comrades with  
different backgrounds in party classes where one learnt as much as  
one taught, finally arriving at the exhilarating awareness of  
reaching emotional integration with the down-and-outs in society.  
Charisma develops from a modest base, but once that base was formed,  
there was an inevitability in the manner Jyoti Basu went to win mass  
adulation. His entry into the Bengal legislature was a happenstance  
that turned into a qualitative departure. The clipped three-fourth  
complete sentences that comprised his individual style of speaking to  
comrades, mixed with controlled passion and an added tincture of  
sarcasm, began to make history. The man continued to make history since.

The post-freedom Congress ruling the country had its own agenda. The  
fledgling communist party, often irrepressible, was a nuisance. Jyoti  
Basu was an integral part of that nuisance. Prison terms, short or  
long, therefore became commonplace. That further contributed to the  
charisma. For many from the lower echelons of society, going to his  
meetings or participating in a strike led by him was a privilege cum  
romantic adventure. But there was another side to his personality. He  
did not think much of the so-called intellectuals. He, however, knew  
that in Indian conditions a revolutionary party must strike its roots  
in the psyche of the middle-class. The intellectual community is an  
excellent intermediary. It was not difficult for Jyoti Basu to speak  
to them in their own lingo and tickle their ego. He, however, also  
knew how far to depend on them.

When the uprooted millions arrived from East Pakistan, his charisma  
worked wonders again. The great coalition formed in the Sixties and  
Seventies of the middle- and lower-classes, the peasants, the  
organized workers, the millions of unemployed and underemployed  
seemingly lost in the wilderness of the informal sector and, finally,  
the displaced persons provided the communists with its massive base  
of support in West Bengal, and in turn became the capital asset of  
the Left Front. Jyoti Basu emerged as the natural leader because of  
one particular personal attribute: he knew the limits of feasibility.  
He did not promise the moon either to the peasantry or to the workers  
or the destitute refugees. When he negotiated on behalf of  
engineering workers or college or school teachers too, he urged them  
to stay united, but he also warned them against indulging in excesses.

When he assumed office as chief minister, it was once more the same  
concern for feasibility. Entering government was not a giant stride  
towards revolution; a state administration has to respect the ambits  
laid down for it in the Constitution, reflecting the mindset of the  
feudal capitalist power structure. The opportunity still has to be  
availed of to prove the point that the Left was capable of combining  
passion with efficiency and use the limited resources and the limited  
authority to advance the cause of the deprived masses. It was  
important to succeed in this goal, for such success would increase  
the credibility of the Left all over the country, thereby advancing  
the cause of the popular democratic revolution.

The deep regard for him at the national level was for a similar  
reason. Given the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-party  
chiaroscuro and the fact that the Left had to contain simultaneously  
the two dominant national parties, it would be necessary to combine  
formations that did not that easily combine. It was therefore  
important to harp on issues that bring disparate elements together.  
Jyoti Basu found a uniting theme in the early 1980s: the third  
alternative was a living reality. Debate continues whether the  
refusal of his party in 1996 to let him be prime minister was a  
historic blunder or not. What can, however, be asserted with a  
measure of confidence is that but for the historic mishap which took  
place in October 31, 1984 — Indira Gandhi murdered by her own  
bodyguards — Jyoti Basu might well have emerged as the nation’s  
prime minister following the 1985 Lok Sabha elections. The powerful  
movement for restructuring Centre-state relations which Jyoti Basu  
initiated had gone from strength to strength and counted within its  
fold apart from the Left the as yet unfractured Janata Dal, the DMK,  
the Telugu Desam, and even the National Conference in Kashmir. Public  
fury at Indira Gandhi’s coups in Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh — the  
first successful, the second a disaster — was intense and there was,  
of course, the standing discontent with runaway prices. It could have  
been a famous victory for the Opposition and the Left and its allies  
might have emerged as a major and decisive force in the rainbow  
coalition that would have come to power. Indira Gandhi’s  
assassination overturned the pseophologic arithmetic. The coalition  
Jyoti Basu had put together disintegrated. The 1996 scenario was  
qualitatively different. After that, it was a more inward looking  
statesman concentrating on West Bengal and retiring with grace in the  
final year of the century. The last few years were sad. Unfortunately  
his legacy was made a hash of in the last couple of years. But he  
still maintained his fortitude.

But he must have been an intensely lonely man missing his comrades,  
such as E.M.S Namboodiripad, B.T. Ranadive, P. Sundarayya and Pramode  
Dasgupta. And even earlier from his London days — Snehangshu Kanti  
Acharya and Bhupesh Gupta. The tranquillity of death could not have  
been altogether unwelcome to him, for he departed with his faith in  
the inevitability of the historical process totally unimpaired. Did  
he not, given his long long years in the movement, face the  
sequences, ups and downs?

This piece is a humble homage from a comrade 13 years his younger who  
happened to be sworn in as minister under his leadership in the first  
Left Front government on that morning of June 21, 1977. Of the five  
sworn in that day, the rest are gone, only the junior comrade will  
perhaps have to survive for a while longer.

o o o

The Telegraph
January 19 , 2010 	

MINDS IN THRALL
- There was an international context to Jyoti Basu’s conversion
by Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Come then, companions. This is the spring of blood,

heart’s hey-day, movement of masses, beginning of good.

— Rex Warner, “Hymn’’

Jyoti Basu was the last of a generation. He was best described — for  
lack of a better description — as a sahib communist. That epithet  
referred to those sons of affluent families, many of them  
Westernized, who went to Great Britain, either for higher studies or  
to the Inns of Court to qualify as barristers-at-law, and then  
converted to communism. Many of these were from Calcutta: Sushobhan  
Sarkar, Hiren Mukherjee, Nikhil Chakravarty, Indrajit Gupta, Bhupesh  
Gupta, Arun Bose, Basu, of course, and others.

Kuruvilla Zachariah, who taught history in Presidency College, once  
asked Sushobhan Sarkar, one of his dear students, if it was true that  
Hiren and Nikhil had become communists and that Sarkar too was  
inclined in that ideological direction. A devout Syrian Christian,  
Zachariah was pained and bewildered at this ideological turn in the  
lives of three of his favourite students. He had good reasons to feel  
that way since there was nothing in the family and educational  
background of these people to quite explain their attraction to  
communism and Marxism. Basu’s teacher, the legendary professor of  
English in Presidency College, Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, would probably  
have echoed his colleague Zachariah’s sentiments.

One way to clear up the bewilderment is to try and comprehend the  
international context that drew many members of a generation to  
communism. It is especially important to do so at this juncture, when  
the local achievements (or their absence) of Basu are under the  
scanner. Except for Sushobhan Sarkar, all those who have been  
mentioned above took to communism in England while they were students  
there in the late 1920s and the 1930s. The timing is significant.

The entire world, following the Great Depression of 1929, was in a  
severe economic crisis. To many it seemed that this signalled the end  
of capitalism. There were millions of people unemployed. Inflation  
was soaring and there was widespread social unrest. One manifestation  
of this unrest was the rise to power of fascist parties, first in  
Italy and then in Germany. In other parts of Europe, too, the spectre  
of fascism loomed large. In England, which is where most Bengali  
students went to study, there was a very strong belief among the  
gentry and the upper classes that Hitler should be appeased and used  
as a bulwark against Soviet Russia and communism. The Labour  
government of 1929-31 had collapsed. There were dramatic Hunger  
Marches against poverty and mass unemployment caused by the closing  
down of industrial units. Many radical students from Oxbridge  
participated in these marches and demonstrations. In the second half  
of the 1930s came the Spanish Civil War, and exceptionally bright  
young men from privileged backgrounds — Julian Bell, Christopher St  
John Sprigg and John Cornford to name a few — went out to Spain to  
fight and die for the cause of liberty.

Indian students from Calcutta and elsewhere in India, when they  
arrived in London, Oxford or Cambridge, encountered, willy-nilly,  
this charged atmosphere. In India, they had been exposed to the  
national movement and, as intelligent young men and women, had  
realized their own and their country’s subjugated status. In  
England, they imbibed the promise not only of political freedom but  
also perceived that there was a world beyond the independence of India.

That world was represented to the youth of the 1930s in England by  
the ideology of communism. With the onset of the crisis of  
capitalism, communism appeared to offer an alternative that promised  
justice and equality. Communism, as one Frenchman, Gabriel Péri, who  
died in the hands of the fascists, put it, seemed to represent “our  
singing tomorrows”. Communism in the eyes of the young idealists was  
synonymous with freedom. In hindsight, it might be convenient to  
sneer at these ideas, but at that time in the 1930s, in the given  
context, communism was the only ideology that consistently opposed  
Hitler and fascism.

Thus, men like Jyoti Basu were drawn to communism and to the  
Communist Party of Great Britain. The conversion was a product of the  
context, their own awareness of it and of the influence of certain  
individuals that they met. Foremost among such individuals was Rajani  
Palme Dutt (popularly known in communist circles in India and England  
as RPD), the powerful general secretary of the CPGB. Dutt had a  
special claim on students coming from India and moving towards  
communism. He hailed from the famous family of Dutts in Rambagan in  
north Calcutta. His grand uncle was R.C. Dutt, a member of the Indian  
Civil Service and author of The Economic History of India Under  
British Rule. RPD was a formidable intellectual with a first in  
Greats (as the Classics BA is known in Oxford) from Balliol College.  
All the young Bengalis who converted to communism in England spoke of  
the formative influence of RPD. The other communist leaders whose  
influence the Thirties’ brigade acknowledged were Ben Bradley, Harry  
Pollitt and James Klugman.

There was thus a combination of factors that affected Basu and his  
friends and produced their conversion: a particular historical  
conjuncture, awareness of the international situation and, finally,  
the influence of particular individuals. There was another factor  
that is hardly ever spoken about: this was guilt. Their awareness of  
poverty and inequality ran counter to their own privileged  
backgrounds. Being a communist and working for the downtrodden was a  
salve to their conscience.

The conversion brought with it a price tag and this was unquestioning  
loyalty to the cause of communism (read the Soviet Union) and blind  
obedience to the party line as laid down by RPD, who ran the Indian  
communist party sitting in London. The implication of this needs to  
be spelt out bluntly and without any qualifications. It meant that  
these men — some of the best and the brightest of their generation  
— surrendered their minds to the party. They allowed the party to do  
their thinking for them. If they had doubts they suppressed them.  
They refused to accept the many brutalities and horrors that  
communist regimes across the globe unleashed on the poor. Even in the  
1930s, they refused to accept that the Moscow Trials were a sham.  
They embraced communism, like many others across the world, as a new  
and secular religion with the party as god.

The sacrifice of the self at the altar of the party was not an easy  
one for some of the young men. It meant that when they came back to  
India and joined the Communist Party of India — as indeed, Indrajit  
Gupta, Bhupesh Gupta, Basu and Arun Bose did — they abandoned their  
life of privilege. They lived among the workers or in party communes  
or in accommodation provided by the party. Stints in jail were not  
uncommon. The material suffering was all too evident. Most  
significantly, what none of them ever spoke about is what it meant  
for them mentally and psychologically to have surrendered their minds  
to the party and then suffer an intellectual imprisonment. Jyoti Basu  
suffered this imprisonment, bursting out only when his party stopped  
him from becoming the prime minister of India.

What is difficult to understand is not what bewildered Zachariah but  
why bright minds suffered for so long the illusion of their epoch.  
Karl Marx declared that his life’s motto had been “doubt  
everything”. His followers abandoned their privileges and their  
doubts. Those among his followers who gained access to power and  
position reclaimed the privileges but not their doubts.

_____


[7] India: Resources For Secular Activists

(i) A letter to Hon’ble Justice Sri Sarat Chandra Mahapatra,  
Chairman, Inquiry Commission for Kandhamal Violence sent by  
Sampradayik Hinsa Prapidita Sanghathana (Association of Survivors of  
Communal Violence)
http://tinyurl.com/y9jgusn

(ii)  A.B.V.P. attack on 'Janchetna' Book Exhibition Van in D.U.

Injured the activists, damaged the van

PRESS RELEASE

January 20, New delhi. Nearly 25 members of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi  
Parishad, the student wing of the R.S.S., attacked the 'Janchetna'  
Book Exhibition Van which has been displaying books inside the  
premises of Arts Faculty, Delhi University, with the permission of  
the University authorities. They broke the windscreen and glasses of  
the exhibition van and injured three activists Kunal, Sanjay and  
Naveen who were present at the exhibition. As is well known,  
'Janchetna' is a cultural campaign propagating democratic and  
progressive ideas in the society through the writings and literature  
of the likes of Premchand, Bhagat Singh, Sharatchandra, Gorky,  
Tolstoy, Hemingway, Rahul Sankrityayan, Radhamohan Gokulji etc. This  
is not the first attack by the Sangh Parivar on 'Janchetna' book  
exhibition van. 'Janchetna' has been targeted by the sang parivar  
outfits even before. Last year too, A.B.V.P. had attacked the  
exhibition van in the Delhi University. Earlier, the ABVP, VHP and  
Bajrang Dal had attacked the exhibition van at Mathura, Meerut,  
Moradabad, Agra, Jaipur, Kota and several other places.

Today, the A.B.V.P. goondas were equipped with rods, hockeys etc.  
They had come with the aim of damaging the exhibition van and they  
were openly declaring that the 'Janchetna' van will not be allowed to  
propagate these ideas inside the campus. When the activists of  
'Janchetna' tried to argue with them they attacked the activists and  
broke the windscreen and display glasses of the van. They threw away  
books by Bhagat Singh and other writers and also threatened to put  
the van on fire. Before the news of this attack could reach the  
volunteers and wellwishers of 'Janchetna', the goons had left the  
scene. Soon after the students affiliated with Disha Students  
Organisation, AISA and SFI came to express solidarity with  
'Janchetna'. The entire democratic and progressive community of Delhi  
University is organizing of protest demonstration in the Arts Faculty  
Against this Fascist attack tomorrow.

The activists of 'Janchetna' have registered a complaint in the  
Proctor's Office and also lodged FIR in the Maurice Nagar Police  
Station. Sanjay, one of the activists present at the van during the  
attack, said that if the hooligans of A.B.V.P. believe that they can  
terrorise us through these kinds of acts, then they are grossly  
mistaken. The 'Janchetna' van will continue its work in the Arts  
Faculty and we will give a 'tit for tat' answer in case of any future  
attack. The security of the van is the duty of the University  
administration as they have granted the permission to hold exhibition  
in the Arts Faculty, and that of the Police administration. If they  
fail to provide protection, then we will be left with no other choice  
but to defend ourselves.

Satyam
For, Janchetna
Phone: Abhinav 9999379381 / Satyam 9910262009

(iii)

The Hindu
January 17, 2010

‘CULTURE COPS’ BAR M.P. SHOPS FROM DISPLAYING INNERWEAR
by Mahim Pratap Singh

File picture of Sanskriti Bachao Manch activists beating up Rishi  
Ajaydas, author of book 'Vivah Ek Naitik Balatkar' in Bhopal. Photo:  
A. M. Faruqui'
The Hindu File picture of Sanskriti Bachao Manch activists beating up  
Rishi Ajaydas, author of book 'Vivah Ek Naitik Balatkar' in Bhopal.  
Photo: A. M. Faruqui'


The overarching presence of the Hindu “cultural” right in Madhya  
Pradesh has come to the forefront again, this time seemingly at the  
behest of none other than Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan.

“Culture cops” belonging to the Sanskriti Bachao Manch–an  
affiliate of the Bajarang Dal and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh,  
which are the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological collaborators– 
have gone on a rampage in the State capital threatening local  
shopkeepers against displaying innerwear outside their shops and  
tearing down hoardings and advertisements of condoms and women’s  
innerwear.

Civil society members and intellectuals have spoken against the  
current phase of moral policing going on in the State capital.  
Renowned documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan and film and theatre  
actor Piyush Mishra, among others, have criticized the ruling BJP  
government for patronizing such regressive elements.

“Sexual repression is the cornerstone of any fascist apparatus and  
not just of Hindutva,” said Patwardhan, in Indore for the annual  
cultural fest of the Indian Institute of Management. “Be it Nazi  
Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, all of them had strong elements of  
sexual censorship, mainly of female sexuality, in order to exercise  
state power on bodies,” he said.

Mr. Patwardhan, maker of several documentaries portraying the rise of  
Hindutva in national politics like ‘War and Peace,’ ‘Father, Son  
and the Holy War’ and ‘Ram kay Naam’ among others, emphasized on  
Hindutva’s collective ideological repression being a reason for such  
moral policing.

Earlier this week, Mr. Chauhan sparked off the moral police’s  
outrage when he asked the municipal corporation to remove the  
“obscene and vulgar” hoarding of a local spa in front of a  
girls’ college, portraying a bareback woman.

“We are happy that the Chief Minister himself has taken the lead in  
the fight against this moral pollution,” said Chandra Shekhar Tiwari  
of the Sanskriti Bachao Manch. “We have given an ultimatum of seven  
days to all shopkeepers to remove all the innerwear hanging outside  
their shops or we will set these on fire,” he said.

The incidents reflect badly on the state’s cultural environment in  
the background of the recently held Prawasi Bharatiya Sammelan (NRI  
meet). The investment climate in the State, which the meet was  
supposed to encourage, is likely to suffer from such acts of moral  
policing, causing damage to corporate advertisement spaces and  
discouraging investors from coming to the State.

o o o
·see also:
Hindutva attack on lingerie - R Prasad Cartoon in Mail Today
http://tinyurl.com/y94jz92

o o o

Indian judge denounces actor's sex comments
by Thangavel Appachi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8468942.stm

_____


[8] Book Review:

The New York Review of Books
February 25, 2010

A DEAL WITH THE TALIBAN?
by Ahmed Rashid


My Life with the Taliban
by Abdul Salam Zaeef, translated from the Pashto and edited by Alex  
Strick van Linschoten and Feliz Kuehn

Columbia University Press, 331 pp., $29.95

1.

For thirty years Afghanistan has cast a long, dark shadow over world  
events, but it has also been marked by pivotal moments that could  
have brought peace and changed world history.

One such moment occurred in February 1989, just as the last Soviet  
troops were leaving Afghanistan. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard  
Shevardnadze had flown into Islamabad—the first visit to Pakistan by  
a senior Soviet official. He came on a last-ditch mission to try to  
persuade Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the army, and the  
Interservices Intelligence (ISI) to agree to a temporary sharing of  
power between the Afghan Communist regime in Kabul and the Afghan  
Mujahideen. He hoped to prevent a civil war and lay the groundwork  
for a peaceful, final transfer of power to the Mujahideen.

By then the Soviets were in a state of panic. They ironically shared  
the CIA's analysis that Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah would  
last only a few weeks after the Soviet troops had departed. The CIA  
got it wrong—Najibullah was to last three more years, until the  
eruption of civil war forced him to take refuge in the UN compound in  
April 1992. The ISI refused to oblige Shevardnadze. It wanted to get  
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the seven disparate Mujahideen leaders  
and its principal protégé, into power in Kabul. The CIA had also  
urged the ISI to stand firm against the Soviets. It wanted to avenge  
the US humiliation in Vietnam and celebrate a total Communist debacle  
in Kabul—no matter how many Afghan lives it would cost. A political  
compromise was not in the plans of the ISI and the CIA.
[. . .]
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23630

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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.