SACW - 13 May 2014 | Pakistan: Remember Rashid Rehman / Sri Lanka: Evangelists / Bangladesh: freedom of expression; Interview with Kamal Hossain / India: Modi’s dog-whistle politics ; Hindutva With Corporate Power / Assam Violence 2014 / Statement from Nigerian Feminist Forum / The Crisis in Globalized Cricket

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - 13 May 2014 - No. 2822 
[since 1996]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contents:
1. Pakistan: Demonstration by Rights activists remember Rashid Rehman and stands up for minority rights
2. Review of Evangelical Christianity in Sri Lanka: The Politics of Growth, by Orlando Woods
3. Pakistan: HRCP mourns the loss of Rashid Rehman
4. Bangladesh: Contempt versus freedom of expression | Syeed Ahamed
5. Pakistan: Let's wait for the next Rashid Rehman to be murdered | Sana Saleem
6. Pakistan: A quiet hero. RIP Rashid Rehman | Beena Sarwar
7. Pakistan: AHRC condemns the assassination of Rashid Rehman Khan, a prominent human rights defender
8. Bangladeshi refugee talk part of Narendra Modi’s dog-whistle politics | Siddharth Varadarajan
9. India: Lal Salam to dear comrade Mukul Sinha
10. India: Sad and untimely death of Dr. Mukul Sinha
11. India: The BJP and the mainstreaming of majoritarianism | Mukul Kesavan
12. India: NTUI Statement on Assam Violence 2014
13. India's radioactive waste repository coming up in western ghats - the UNESCO heritage site
14. India: Fusing Hindutva With Corporate Power — The menace that's Modi | Praful Bidwai
15. India: NaMo Versus AK | Subhas Gatade
16. India: The Gujarat middle | Jean Drèze
17. India: SAHMAT Statement against communal Modi statement on Bengali speakers | 8 May 2014 | Sahmat
18. India: Condemn the Massacre in Assam, Demand immediate arrest of Pramila Rani Brahma; Ensure safety of Muslims in BTAD: A Statement by Civil Society Groups, Activists and Concerned Citizens
19. The abduction female students - Press Release by the Nigerian Feminist Forum
20. India: The Resistible Rise of Narendra Modi | Sumanta Banerjee
21. Selections from Communalism Watch:
 - If Modi Becomes The PM.... | Irfan Engineer
 - India 2014 elections: Think before you dismiss those who see the intimations of fascism as alarmists
 - India 2014 elections: Appeal to all secular parties, leaders and candidates to help prevent formation of communal central government in India
 - India 2014 elections: A Secularism Gone To The Moths | Saba Naqvi
 - India 2014 Elections: Violence in Meerut
 - India: BJP’s career and Myth of moderation | Christophe Jaffrelot
 - Assam Violence A Shame: Ram Puniyani 

::Full Text::
22. Believing in Bangladesh - Interview with Kamal Hossain | Shayan S. Khan
23. In memoriam: Civil society, lawyers protest murder of Rashid Rehman
24. Pakistan: Voice silenced - Editorial, The News
25. Pakistan: Another Voice Silenced - Editorial, The Express Tribune
26. CSS Solidarity and Condolences on Rashid Rehman 
27. Disease of Pakistan’s Poor Now Worries the Affluent | Saba Imtiaz and Declan Walsh
28. India: Low cunning, not low caste | Bharat Bhushan
29. India: Muting the bully pulpit | Bharat Bhushan
30. The Betting Mafia: The Crisis in Globalized Cricket | Tariq Ali

=========================================
1.PAKISTAN: DEMONSTRATION BY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS REMEMBER RASHID REHMAN AND STANDS UP FOR MINORITY RIGHTS
=========================================
A collection of press clippings from Pakistani newspapers in Urdu and English with reports on 12 May 2014 mobilsation of rights activists seeking protection for minority rights
http://www.sacw.net/article8640.html

=========================================
2. REVIEW OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY IN SRI LANKA: THE POLITICS OF GROWTH, BY ORLANDO WOODS
=========================================
Orlando Woods's dissertation interprets the politics of evangelical Christian growth in Sri Lanka by framing proselytization via a religious economy. Situating his study with the rise of a Buddhist political elite after the 1980s, Woods states that the “moral impetus” for the dissertation is his “belief in the freedom of religious choice” over and against the Sri Lankan state's attempts to restrict evangelical conversions, even while problematizing some of the coercive proselytization tactics used by evangelicals under the state's radar (p. 3).
http://www.sacw.net/article8630.html

=========================================
3. PAKISTAN: HRCP MOURNS THE LOSS OF RASHID REHMAN
=========================================
Lahore, May 8: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan is deeply grieved at the killing of its Multan Task Force coordinator, Rashid Rehman, Advocate.
http://www.sacw.net/article8633.html

=========================================
4. BANGLADESH: CONTEMPT VERSUS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION | Syeed Ahamed
=========================================
If we now expect the tribunal to prosecute every time someone makes a comment on the internet, it will fail to undertake its primary task
http://www.sacw.net/article8618.html

=========================================
5. PAKISTAN: LET'S WAIT FOR THE NEXT RASHID REHMAN TO BE MURDERED | Sana Saleem
=========================================
Fear should be a habit for each one of us and whether we are afraid or not, no one will be spared from the pious wrath of God's self-appointed helpers. Until then, sit back and await your turn.
http://www.sacw.net/article8617.html

=========================================
6. PAKISTAN: A QUIET HERO. RIP RASHID REHMAN
via Beena Sarwar
=========================================
Heard the terrible news a few hours ago that the courageous Multan-based advocate Rashid Rehman Khan of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has been shot dead in Multan. Criminal cowards barged into his chamber and shot him dead, injuring two others. He had been under threat for some time for defending a blasphemy accused, but no protection was provided to him – although given the climate in Pakistan, any lawyer taking up a blasphemy case should be given 24-hour protection.
Gentle, brave,  (...)
http://www.sacw.net/article8606.html

=========================================
7. PAKISTAN: AHRC CONDEMNS THE ASSASSINATION OF RASHID REHMAN KHAN, A PROMINENT HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER
=========================================
A lawyer and prominent human rights defender, Mr. Rashid Rehman Khan, was gunned downed yesterday by unknown persons at his chambers at 8.45 p.m. He had been receiving death threats from the Muslim fundamentalists since February. In the month of April he was threatened in court during the proceedings before the judge by a lawyer, Zulfiqar Sindhu and two other complainants and was warned that from the next hearing he should not defend a Muslim lecturer of Bahawalpur University in a case of Blasphemy. Sindhu actually stated before the judge that Mr. Rehman would be eliminated. The presiding judge remained silent and took no notice of the threats by the bigots who were forcing the judge to sentence the lecturer to death.
http://www.sacw.net/article8608.html

=========================================
8. BANGLADESHI REFUGEE TALK PART OF NARENDRA MODI’S DOG-WHISTLE POLITICS | Siddharth Varadarajan
=========================================
Singling out Hindu observances as one of the markers for deciding who can be an Indian is surely a red line Modi should not have crossed. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto for the 2014 election says it "believes in India being one country, one people and one nation... India constitutes of all its’ people, irrespective of caste, creed, religion or sex." Towards the end of the document, however, it reverses that formulation by asserting: "India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here."
http://www.sacw.net/article8604.html

=========================================
9. INDIA: LAL SALAM TO DEAR COMRADE MUKUL SINHA
=========================================
Comrade Mukul Sinha, a relentless revolutionary, fighter for justice, righteousness and peace is no more.
http://www.sacw.net/article8637.html

=========================================
10. INDIA: SAD AND UNTIMELY DEATH OF DR. MUKUL SINHA
=========================================
In the sad and untimely demise of Dr. Mukul Sinha, India has lost one of her most dedicated sons who consistently strove for truth and justice particularly on behalf of the poor, the marginalized and minorities. His death is a tremendous loss very specially for the many victim-survivors he was fighting for. It is a void that will never be filled!
http://www.sacw.net/article8635.html

=========================================
11. INDIA: THE BJP AND THE MAINSTREAMING OF MAJORITARIANISM | Mukul Kesavan
=========================================
The most interesting — and insidious — aspect of this election is the mainstreaming of the sangh parivar's principal belief: that India is a Hindu nation. India might well turn into a tinderbox. And if Indian newspapers and television channels continue to normalize extremist rhetoric into ‘common sense', they will be remembered for having had a hand in sowing the wind.
http://www.sacw.net/article8632.html

=========================================
12. INDIA: NTUI STATEMENT ON ASSAM VIOLENCE 2014
=========================================
Full text of the statement by New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) on 10 May 2014 regarding violence in Assam
http://www.sacw.net/article8636.html

=========================================
13. INDIA'S RADIOACTIVE WASTE REPOSITORY COMING UP IN WESTERN GHATS - THE UNESCO HERITAGE SITE
=========================================
Sites for high level radioactive wastes sites should be geologically stable, of very low population density, ground water etc. Sites are selected after decade long studies, discussions and consultations. None of these in India. Here a few technocrats sit in a closed room and decide the site. The site chosen is in the districts of Idukki-Theni in Kerala/Tamil Nadu. The site is tectonically active, water capital for 20 million people and is part of the UNESCO heritage site.
http://www.sacw.net/article8631.html

=========================================
14. INDIA: FUSING HINDUTVA WITH CORPORATE POWER — THE MENACE THAT'S MODI 
by Praful Bidwai
=========================================
As the momentum of India's nine-phase Lok Sabha election shifts in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party's opponents, a new bunch of writers and social scientists have risen to defend its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Some of them see virtue and talent, indeed even poetic genius, in a man who presided over the mass butchery of Muslims in Gujarat. (One of them compares Mr Modi's ghastly poetry with Kabir's!)
http://www.sacw.net/article8627.html

=========================================
15. INDIA: NAMO VERSUS AK | Subhas Gatade
=========================================
Neelanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of a much discussed book on Modi, made few interesting observations about AAP's (Aam Aadmi Party ) foray into electoral politics of Gujarat. Underlining the fact that Kejriwal's entry into the state - wherein he tried to put the government on the mat for its acts of omission and commission - did raise expectations, he maintains that the momentum did peter away slowly. What is more important to note that when the electoral battle started the party did not field a single candidate from the minority community despite the fact that population of Muslims in Gujarat is more than nine percent.
http://www.sacw.net/article8626.html

=========================================
16. INDIA: THE GUJARAT MIDDLE | Jean Dreze
=========================================
If Gujarat is a model, then the real toppers in development indicators, like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, must be supermodels
http://www.sacw.net/article8625.html

=========================================
17. INDIA: SAHMAT STATEMENT AGAINST COMMUNAL MODI STATEMENT ON BENGALI SPEAKERS | 8 MAY 2014
=========================================
We the undersigned are deeply disturbed by the reported remarks of the Prime Ministerial candidate of the NDA at an election rally in West Bengal that “infiltrators” from Bangladesh belonging to a particular religious community must be sent back. Apart from the sheer inhumanity of the remark, we fear that in a country in which every citizen does not possess documentary proof of citizenship such a move would simply cause a general victimization of persons belonging to that particular religious community.
http://www.sacw.net/article8607.html

=========================================
18. INDIA: CONDEMN THE MASSACRE IN ASSAM, DEMAND IMMEDIATE ARREST OF PRAMILA RANI BRAHMA; ENSURE SAFETY OF MUSLIMS IN BTAD: A STATEMENT BY CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS, ACTIVISTS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS
=========================================
We, the undersigned, express our profound sense of grief and alarm over the gruesome massacre of Bengali-speaking Muslims on 2nd May. This most recent round of killings — in which 32 people, mostly women and children have lost their lives – is another link in the long and... bloody sequence of ethnic cleansing being carried out by tribal Bodo militant groups with impunity.
http://www.sacw.net/article8591.html

=========================================
19. THE ABDUCTION, KIDNAPPING AND TRAFFICKING OF 234 FEMALE STUDENTS FROM CHIBOK, BORNO STATE - PRESS RELEASE BY THE NIGERIAN FEMINIST FORUM
=========================================
It looks unlikely that the Nigerian government is doing everything it can to trace and bring back the more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram. In the face of frequent raids by the militant group, the government must do more to secure all citizens
http://www.sacw.net/article8609.html

=========================================
20. INDIA: THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF NARENDRA MODI
by Sumanta Banerjee
=========================================
A rereading of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941) and Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here (1935) is helpful in understanding the social psyche in India today that is being moulded by Narendra Modi and is greasing his - and his party’s - path to power. It can happen here.
http://www.sacw.net/article8590.html

=========================================
21. SELECTIONS FROM COMMUNALISM WATCH
=========================================
If Modi Becomes The PM.... | Irfan Engineer
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/if-modi-becomes-pm-irfan-engineer.html

India 2014 elections: Think before you dismiss those who see the intimations of fascism as alarmists
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-2014-elections-think-before-you.html

India 2014 elections: Appeal to all secular parties, leaders and candidates to help prevent formation of communal central government in India
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-2014-elections-appeal-to-all.html

India 2014 elections: A Secularism Gone To The Moths | Saba Naqvi
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-2014-elections-secularism-gone-to.html

India 2014 Elections: Violence in Meerut
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-2014-elections-violence-in-meerut.html

India: BJP’s career and Myth of moderation | Christophe Jaffrelot
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-bjps-career-and-myth-of.html

Assam Violence A Shame | Ram Puniyani
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/assam-violence-shame-corrected-version.html

Atrocities against Assamese Muslims must cease now, demand Indian Americans - IAMC press release
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/atrocities-against-assamese-muslims.html

India violence 'politically orchestrated' | Wasbir Husain
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-violence-politically-orchestrated.html

India: Hindutva redux in Uttar Pradesh
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-hindutva-redux-in-uttar-pradesh.html

Where everyone is a minority | Sanjoy Hazarika
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/where-everyone-is-minority-sanjoy.html

Pakistan: April 2014 BBC Urdu report concerning the Blasphemy case handled by the courageous lawyer Rashid Rehman Khan
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/pakistan-april-2014-bbc-urdu-report.html

India - 2014 elections: Modi openly addressed an election meeting in Faizabad with a Lord Ram Backdrop; So what do the election rules say?
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-2014-elections-modi-openly.html

India: The BJP’s contribution to the reshaping of Hinduism
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-bjps-contribution-to-reshaping-of.html

India: Photos of protest demo in Delhi against May 2014 killings in Assam
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-photos-of-protest-demo-in-delhi.html

India: RSS 3.0 - Mohan Bhagwat brings a resurgent Sangh to the cusp of political power | Dinesh Narayanan
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-rss-30-mohan-bhagwat-brings.html

India 2014 elections: Modi is testing the Model Code of Conduct`s limits in the final phase of campaigning 
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-2014-elections-modi-is-testing.html

::: FULL TEXT :::
=========================================
22. BELIEVING IN BANGLADESH - INTERVIEW WITH KAMAL HOSSAIN
Shayan S. Khan
=========================================
(Dhaka Courier - April 30th, 2014)

By anyone’s standard, Kamal Hossain is an extremely accomplished individual. Over the years, his weighty imprint can be found dotting the breadth of international affairs, most often in his primary avatar – the international lawyer in the era of accelerated globalisation. Yet without question, his interventions have been most profound, and dare I say impassioned, in relation to the one constant that has defined him throughout his career: as a citizen of Bangladesh.

Famously of course, he was a wunderkind of sorts, in Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s post independence administration, having been imprisoned in Pakistan alongside Bangabandhu for the duration of the 9-month war in 1971 that yielded Bangladesh. He was implicated as a member of the three-man committee involved in negotiations over a new constitution with the West Pakistani contingent led by Yahya Khan in the build-up to the night of March 25. Once Operation Searchlight commenced, the other two managed to flee, but Dr Hossain was captured and flown across to West Pakistan in the first week of April. Following his release and return to independent Bangladesh at Bangabandhu’s side on January 10, 1972, he went on to occupy important posts in the new government, serving up until August 15, 1975.

As the country’s first law minister, he became acknowledged as the architect of the Constitution of Bangladesh, that was adopted in 1972. Over the years the progressive spirit of the founding document became much distorted at the hands of military and civilian leaders, a sad victim of the ‘sick politics’ Dr Hossain ascribes to the present-day polity more than once, over the course of the following conversation, that took place a few days following his 77th birthday. It could never suffice as all one could want to talk about with the man. It turns out to be mostly about how he has witnessed the political economy of Bangladesh evolve over four decades, till now that basic democratic rights are being denied to the people whose republic it is. But we left with a promise to return.

Unsurprisingly for one who has dedicated a lifetime’s struggle to the underdog’s cause, it is the people he puts his faith in still, to realise their power and take what is theirs. He puts a lot of it down to their ability to organise. But with society as divided as it is, or at least disparate, the ability to organise a wide section of society around even legitimate demands is hampered. Avowedly, he believes politics can be a force for good, but it needs to be cured of systemic ills here in Bangladesh, such as the influx of black money into areas like campaign financing. He sees an active role for the citizen in the process of cleansing. But it requires them to claim their stake – ‘If you own something you can’t just sit there and hope, you must exercise your right to ownership’, he says. Excerpts:

Shayan Khan (SK): Dr Hossain how different is the Bangladesh you live in today from the one that was envisaged 43 years ago?

Kamal Hossain (KH): Well of course, as we started off our journey as an independent state, it represented a major change from when we were not independent. We started off with expectations of fundamental change. Principally, the empowerment of people, people who had been mere subjects under the previous status quo were now citizens of an independent state. The expectations were of a state where people would be the source of power – something that was affirmed in our Constitution, that power belongs to the people, and the state would be run by elected representatives at all levels.

See it’s very significant that we emphasised that not only would there be an elected parliament, but elected officials at all levels, right down to effective local government. The concept therefore, being that people would be participating in governance and policymaking as well as policy implementation. That was the main contrast to having been passive subjects in a state where all power was exercised from the centre, and people were reduced to being helpless subjects.

The concept of empowerment was critical in our concept of an independent state. We not only wrote that in the Constitution, we wanted to see this manifested in reality. But of course the 40 years of our history has seen its fair share of upheavals. We’ve not had a steady evolution of our democratic system, we’ve lacked continuity in the development of our democratic institutions. We’ve faced a series of crises, within the first three to four years, we had the assassinations (of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family, followed by the Jail Killings). Following the assassinations, there was the attempt to alter the character of the state – both the democratic aspect as well as the fact that we had envisioned a state where religion would not be exploited or abused for political purposes. That was our basis for having secularism as one of the founding values of the Constitution, to see to it that religion wasn’t used to discriminate between people.

So those were the expectations but of course, after the assassinations, we saw that those were precisely the things that were assailed. Meanwhile those who were committed to that original vision had to rally together against the attempt that was underway to change that vision under the umbrella of Martial Law. But after the assassinations, having themselves become targets as a part of this attempt, those who were committed to the democratic vision of Bangladesh needed time to reorganise and gather their strength. Which they did, and you saw that in the anti-authoritarian movement through the Eighties. Ziaur Rahman lasted till ‘81, but then came Ershad, who really tried to consolidate an authoritarian, military-based government, even sending people to Indonesia for inspiration.

But against that, there was a united assertion in favour of the restoration of democracy, and a successful mobilisation of the masses to that end. It was under the impact of that movement that Ershad had to resign. Justice Shahabuddin was made head of the caretaker government, and we restored a parliamentary system in 1991. The Ershad regime was based on a very centralised, presidential system.

Since then, we’ve had four or five elections, but to answer your question with regard to our expectations – well clearly what we wanted, we haven’t got yet. But that should not obscure the fact that our sights are still set on a working democracy.

SK: In that sense 1991 was supposed to have been a watershed, was it not? We re-asserted the ideal that defined the independence movement, of having a democratic state. Yet qualitatively, over 20-22 years we have not seen this democracy enhanced, till now that we’ve come to a stage where democracy can be said to have been compromised.

KH: Yes but among the people, if you were to carry out any sort of survey or opinion poll on the issue, you will find that they are very committed to realising that ideal. They don’t want to see the kind of partisanship that you now see in public life. Especially in areas where you do not want to see that kind of partisanship hold sway. For example, public appointments should be by the Public Services Commission on the basis of merit, based on your qualifications. Similarly disappearances, extrajudicial killings, the negation of the rule of law, of the security of life and property as guaranteed by the Constitution – these may have become the norm, but the people don’t want any of that.

The people want to see a working democracy, they want to see accountability, they want to see the rule of law prevail, they want to see security of life and property provided by the state. They want to see an independent judiciary, especially the Supreme Court playing a role in ensuring that independence. I think it is noteworthy that people have held on to these aspirations, across the board. If you ask them, you’ll find these are the things they’re still committed to.

Now if these are being in some way undermined, as they are, or being negatively affected, this is where we need a unified assertion that challenges the process through which it is happening. That makes clear that undermining our legitimate aspirations is a situation we can’t accept.

SK: Certainly the people have no desire to see some of the things you hold up there, like the partisanship we find today in the public arena. All of these malcontents must surely be tackled. But at the moment, democracy at its most basic level is being compromised, is it not, with the elections? If we look at the January 5 election, where franchise rights were denied to a majority of the electorate, and the subsequent upazila elections as well, it becomes clear that the electoral process as it stands is open to manipulation.

KH: It’s the result of a situation where the political parties are out to capture the state, and they pay no heed to the people’s aspirations. All the public opinion polls showed that this election (January 5) was unacceptable. Up to 90 percent of the people have said that this election is not acceptable. It showed total contempt for people’s rights, contempt for public opinion, they’ve defied it all.

The electoral process has long been undermined by the injection of money, especially the influx of black money into the campaign-financing process, and by the political parties exercising their power in a way that shows no regard for the Constitution or the values of democracy. Especially the major parties, the two big parties, as we know them to be.

SK: How can we force them on to a different path though? Can we hope that they themselves will see the error of their ways?

KH: No no, not only hope, we have to do a lot, you cannot just hope! Remember, power belongs to the people, and those who own power cannot just be hoping. You have to assert your power. If you own a house, you cannot just say “I hope I’ll be able to live there!” You have to use the key to get in and actually reside.

SK: But there’s a sense of frustration within the masses over this question of whether they’ll get to realise their ownership.

KH: Yes frustration is there because as your question suggests, we haven’t got what we hoped for or what we are entitled to. I can understand that. But the response cannot be to just feel frustrated, we’ve got to see what we can do about it. Because we haven’t got it yet, you can’t just throw up your hands thinking you’ll never get it. You must get it.

SK: One of my abiding childhood memories happens to be the overthrow of Ershad, that I witnessed as an 8-year-old living on the same road back then as the Jatiya Party office in Dhanmandi. There was the sense of elation on the streets, and in the decade or so that followed, we seemed to establish some of the fundamentals that are essential to living in a democratic system, such as peaceful transfers of power. Discouragingly though, just in the last decade, something has shifted, and we seem to have gone backwards again, with the parties’ thirst for power and what they are willing to do for it. How can the people gather up their strength to resist this?

KH: At different levels, people have been trying to express what you are expressing, within what is called ‘civil society’. Here, I’d like to make the point that civil society is nothing but citizens. Conscientious citizens are expressing this. The press is I think projecting this very effectively – the gaps in the working of democracy, the gaps between what is promised by governments and what is delivered, and between what is expected by people and what they have got. All this has been well projected, now the question is what can you do about it?

What you can do falls precisely under the category of what is called citizens’ activism, actually being citizens rather than making ourselves into passive subjects, by making use of all that is being projected, the information that we are getting. You also have the Right to Information Act these days, on the basis of which you can gain even more information. The essence of citizenship that everyone must get is that if you own something and you are not willing to exercise your right of ownership, you cannot then feel frustrated. Then you have only yourself to blame.

Take those who were denied their right to franchise in January. They recognise they were denied their right in a democracy, and they are expressing themselves, but they have to do it in a more organised way. They should be having meetings in every thana I say, where they articulate what they’ve lost with their right to vote being taken away. You have not voted I suspect?

SK: No, and nor do I know anyone who has!

KH: Yes, I have not voted either. I’ve been saying so. Even yesterday on one of the television programmes I said how sorry I am about not having been able to vote. This is a minimum expectation for anyone living in a democracy, that one should be able to vote. Even in 2008 we had to win that right back in order to exercise it. But what has happened in 2014? It goes back to the growing influence of money in politics, that has raised the stakes for those involved personally. Politics is now controlled by money, and therefore people have been effectively disenfranchised.

Even when elections are held and people get to vote, they end up being represented by corrupt people. That’s because nominations are given centrally by the parties. More like sold by parties. Just consider some of the terms that have entered our language from these processes, like ‘mononoyon-banijjyo’ (candidacy business), ‘voterless election’. Just take a survey of how much is actually spent by candidates in an election. The latest limit on what one can spend in an election is Tk 15 lacs. Can you find out if there’s any election being held anywhere in Bangladesh where the candidates spend within that amount? Not one you’ll find. If there’s one constituency where that is happening, it should make the headlines.

SK: The down-payment to the party’s central fund in many cases probably exceeds that

KH: Yes, and these are the things you should write about. You see if you write about it, then people become conscious of how they are being disenfranchised, how they’re being made powerless. As citizens of this country, we should all know we are very powerful. We are all owners of certain powers as citizens of a democracy. But we are owners who are unable to enjoy the rights of ownership, the power that comes from ownership.

SK: There’s a cultural aspect too, isn’t there, to this failure to realise our position as masters in a democratic system?

KH: That’s right, the authoritarian culture has in a way been carried over from the past and democratic culture – essentially the empowerment of the people – has been sidelined. People must be made to not only think that they are owners, they must also act in a way that’s conscious of that. As citizens you must question, you must assert. This election as you have rightly pointed out, where people have been disingenuously deprived of their right to vote, people must realise that this is not a BNP issue or a party issue, it’s true for everybody. That’s a point you must make, in writing.

SK: We have at Dhaka Courier. That is the point, really. A lot of the time you hear the Awami League rather gleefully expound upon how the BNP have “missed the train”. They rather blissfully ignore the electorate, considering that only 35 million ballot papers were even printed, for an electorate of 92 million.

KH: Yes, I’m glad you have understood that, and you must continue insisting upon it in writing. It’s a very important to make. You see politics is not just about two parties as if playing with something, and one going “I now have the ball and you don’t have the ball” like children. Political parties, due to the kind of leadership they have, are conducting themselves like children fighting over some kind of toy, which is the state, or the 170 million people.

People must know how we arrived at our present predicament. The election rules were unilaterally changed in a way that flew in the face of 40 years of experience. That in itself was lacking in good faith. Because the rules as they were, had been brought about on the basis of our experience of elections in the past. We saw how elections were vulnerable to being manipulated by the incumbents, so we settled on the caretaker. BNP held an unacceptable election in February 1996, same as Ershad had done in 1986. After that we agitated for the caretaker, and Constitution was changed to provide for that. Under that four elections were held. When in 2006 BNP tried to tinker with the system again, we took it on and succeeded. We got the voter list changed, we got Iajuddin (then president) out, we brought in somebody accepted as neutral, and the result was dramatic – Awami League came through with four-fifths majority.

Then suddenly we had this peculiar judgement on the caretaker issue – but it would be unwise to blame the judgement only, as it said clearly you could continue with the caretaker system for another two elections. And more than two years before the next election was due, and one year before the judgement even came out in writing, it was used as a pretext for the 15th amendment, that removed the caretaker provision. It was, to put it simply, in bad faith. People’s right to a free and fair election was severely damaged, through this amendment that was brought about without any consultation with the people, or the opposition, and against the declared recommendation of the parliamentary committee. WHo had made this change, and why? It’s purely self-serving.

SK: Yes, that is pretty well-documented by now, at whose behest this change was pushed through parliament. That is another issue I wanted you to touch upon, how party culture has developed so that the lion’s share of power accrues to the party leader.

KH: Parties have been transformed into centralised units, centrally controlled by an individual. They are not only flouting democratic norms, they are also failing to project the aspirations of the people. Parties should be responsive to people’s expectations. This has increased the need for a united citizens’ movement.

Power becomes disproportionately vested in an individual. That is why we had the custom, both pre- and post- independence, whereby upon taking up a role in government, leaders would give up their party post. So even Bangabandhu, the Father of the Nation, when he became prime minister, party presidency went to Mr Qamruzzaman. And historically the Awami League constitution clearly stated that government and party head should not be the same. But now they seem to have changed it.

SK: Moving on to the issue of the history of the Liberation War, why has this history remained debatable? You’ve seen recently how this issue of who declared independence became hotly contested.

KH: This is simply because of sick politics – oshustho rajneeti. Sick politics generates these false issues, these are not issues. History is history, and everybody knows the history. We are all alive, and we know what happened. I mean, if it was like it happened a hundred years ago and now there are people coming in and making all these claims, that is one thing. But everybody knows what happened in Bangladesh. While Bangabandhu and Ziaur Rahman were both alive, these issues never arose, could not have.

SIck politics is at the heart of most of our ills. It has lost all attachment to the real issues of the day, the real concerns of the people. Healthy politics can be a very positive force. It creates consensus, motivates people, it sets their objectives together, harnesses their energies. But sick politics is exactly the opposite. It creates disunity, division, discord, on the most basic issues. Even where there is no scope for disunity -  there are certain issues where we must agree for the national interest – but even there it manages to divide us.

The interesting thing is that I firmly believe among the people there is that basic sharing of views and values, but sick politics does not reflect that. It promotes the narrow, partisan, interests of the coterie which controls the party and wants to control the state.

SK: So are we then stuck in a situation where the people have the right aspirations and imbibe the correct values, but they are not driven enough, as opposed to the polity that is sick, but is driven by its sheer will to power?

KH: Again I come back to the need for citizens to be more organised and more active, active citizenship. That to me is what is urgently needed. In the same way that as a conscious citizen, you are expressing all this dissatisfaction with what you see. The point is to not just be unhappy about it. What you’re doing is part of what I expect, to write about it. You must write about it by properly articulating the reasons so that people who read it can understand what can do about it.

We have to organise, we have to assert our rights, and not only in one place. I say now throughout the country, in every thana, we should have citizens’ committees saying we want to enjoy our rights that were won at great cost. It wasn’t a gift from somebody. Lacs of people gave their lives to make us independent. As a citizen of an independent state I have certain powers, but that is what is being taken away from me by absolute criminals. It amounts to a criminal hijacking of my rights, for criminal purposes.

SK: Yet surely the ability to organise such a movement that rallies around these rights that are being hijacked is made all the more difficult by the divisions that are being sown in society by this sick form of politics? What relevance can terms like “pro-liberation” and “anti-liberation” hold in 2014?

KH: Well, it has some meaning, although I don’t know about relevance. I don’t believe that you should try to divide the country on this basis. I believe you must assume everyone to be “pro-liberation”. Some of the people who practise sick politics may be “anti-liberation” for their own partisan purposes, otherwise no sane person, in an independent state, can be “anti-liberation”.

I can only ascribe the term to mean the defeated forces at the end of the Liberation War in 1971 – a small minority who fought with the Pakistanis and fled with the Pakistanis, through Burma and so on. Some of them later came back into the country, 5-7 years after the assassinations.

SK: And on the back of all this, things probably came to a head in 2013 with all that was happening. Do you actually remember any other point in Bangladesh’s history when the country was so divided?

KH: No, but you see the attempt by those who practise sick politics is always to project division. It’s right that those who are in politics currently, the principal actors belong to two highly centralised parties want to project this division because that is the basis on which they can say that one section belongs to them, while the other belongs to their opponents. For ulterior purposes, parties in their own interest are dividing people. It is only those who want to control the state in an undemocratic fashion who are out to divide the people. It’s the old colonial doctrine of ‘divide and rule’ being practised by what are really authoritarian governments. But my point is if you look at it from the people’s point of view, we are not divided. And we can only rescue ourselves by becoming aware of how we are being divided, and manipulated.
- See more at: http://www.dhakacourier.com.bd/?p=17227

=========================================
23. IN MEMORIAM: CIVIL SOCIETY, LAWYERS PROTEST MURDER OF RASHID REHMAN
=========================================
(The Express Tribune - May 9, 2014)
By Our Correspondents 
LAHORE / MULTAN / ISLAMABAD: 
Human rights activists, locals and members of the legal community came together on Thursday to condemn the murder of human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman. He was killed on Wednesday night when two armed men opened fire at him in his law chambers in Multan’s Kutchery Square. Rehman, the coordinator for the Punjab office of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), had been facing threats for pleading the case of a blasphemy suspect.

A condolence reference was held at HRCP’s Islamabad office where those gathered said they were “appalled that the judge hearing proceedings in Rehman’s case did not take the threats made to the lawyer seriously”. On April 10, the HRCP had issued a statement saying Rehman was being threatened by lawyers in Multan District Prison where he was representing a man accused of blasphemy. The hearing was being held in the prison due to security concerns. Three persons had addressed Rehman in the judge’s presence and said, “You will not come to court next time because you will not exist anymore.”

“Rehman’s murder is an indication that tomorrow it could be me or some other activist who is targeted,” said anthropologist and activist Samar Minallah, joined by 30 civil society activists at a demonstration organised by Insani Huqooq Ittehad at Islamabad’s Super Market, where candles were lit in Rehman’s memory. “Is the state unwilling or unable to stop those who kill with impunity?” asked activist Tahira Abdullah.

“Rashid bravely decided to represent a blasphemy-accused in a society where bigots believe that those accused do not have the right to defence,” HRCP Chairperson Zohra Yusuf said in a statement.

In Lahore, an event was organized by the HRCP on Thursday. HRCP Director Husain Naqi said lawyers are unwilling to take up cases involving those accused of blasphemy. HRCP demanded that the three men who threatened Rehman be “proceeded against under the law and effective measures be taken to ensure the defence lawyer’s security”.

In Multan, activists gathered in front of the Multan Press Club, led by lawyer Asma Jahangir. Rehman’s wife Beena told The Express Tribune that her husband had received threats since January. Chehlak police has filed a case against two unidentified suspects in the case.

=========================================
24. PAKISTAN: VOICE SILENCED
Editorial, The News
=========================================
(The News, May 09, 2014)
 
We write obituaries way too often for people who should never have died the way they did. Rashid Rehman, the coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s Special Task Force at Multan, becomes the latest among them. Rehman, in his early 50s, was shot dead on Wednesday at HRCP’s office near Kutchery Road in Multan. A colleague and an office assistant were seriously injured. Rehman’s crime had been to take on a blasphemy case that no other lawyer would touch. The case concerns a professor at the Bahauddin Zakariya University against whom charges had been made in March 2013. Rehman, a committed activist who took on the case recently, had been receiving threats including some made before the judge as the case was heard within prison premises some weeks ago.

Rehman had brought these to the notice of the district bar association. The police say they had received no complaint. But all this is rather irrelevant. Messages that have been sent out before have been written out in bolder letters: no one who dissents from a specific point of view is safe; those accused of blasphemy will be presumed guilty from the start and anyone who chooses to defend them, to try and uphold the norm of a person being innocent till proven otherwise, will do so at risk of his or her life. Rehman paid with his life. His brutal death means still fewer lawyers will be ready to defend those accused in blasphemy cases. Fewer activists will raise their voice for others. This is our tragedy. We have allowed savagery and hatred to take over our country, and now it devours more people with each month that passes. We cannot afford to lose these people. When they are taken away by bullets, as Rashid Rehman has, a bloodier, more brutal reality is left behind.

=========================================
25. PAKISTAN: ANOTHER VOICE SILENCED
Editorial, The Express Tribune
=========================================
(The Express Tribune, May 9th, 2014)

Another outspoken defender of the downtrodden and a voice of tolerance in Pakistan has been silenced. While we do not officially know who was behind the cold-blooded murder of human rights activist and lawyer Rashid Rehman in Multan on May 7, piecing together motive may not be very difficult here. Rehman was currently defending a man accused of blasphemy — a lecturer at Bahauddin Zakaria University — on social media. The lawyer, who was also a coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, had been threatened multiple times for taking up the case and had even complained about the warnings.

On the one hand, it is shocking that these threats were made on the premises of the court, reportedly by lawyers of the prosecution team, while on the other it is deeply disturbing that no action was taken against the people he had complained about. No security was offered to Rehman despite his complaints — but that may not have mattered. Rehman was known as a brave man who did not care for fame, attention or for security protocols of any sort. The easy accessibility of his office, which is where two assailants gunned him down after entering without any sort of resistance, is proof of that. But security in Pakistan guarantees nothing. How can we forget the case of former Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer.

The problem here is far more serious than a lack of security — even if we wait for official pronouncement over whether the murder was linked to the blasphemy case. It is the crippling absence of tolerance and the ubiquitous threat of violence — violence with impunity. It is the monopolisation of the social narrative in Pakistan— particularly when it pertains to the interpretation of religion — by bigoted hate-cartels, and silence of the state in the face of the bloody manifestation of this monopoly. Rehman was not the first victim of this problem and may not be the last. What can be said with certainty is that he is yet another casualty for a fast-thinning last-line of defence against bigotry in Pakistan.

=========================================
26. CSS SOLIDARITY AND CONDOLENCES ON RASHID REHMAN 
=========================================

To the
Chair, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

Dear Zohra Yusuf,

The Centre for Secular Space is deeply anguished to hear the news of the assassination of Rashid Rehman, lawyer for the Pakistan Human Rights Commission.  Our condolences and solidarity go to his family and his colleagues.

Our thoughts and sympathy are also with Advocate Nadeem Pervaiz and client, Muhammed Afzal  who have been seriously injured.   This terrible attack is yet another reminder of the danger to human rights advocates and the difficulties that professionals such as lawyers and journalists have in carrying out their duties.

We have followed the case closely and know that Rashid Rehman understood he was at grave risk. He received death threats for doing his job as a lawyer and defending Junaid Hafeez, a young lecturer who has been falsely accused of blasphemy. With great courage, he
continued to do his job.

We note the exceptionally strong statement made by the HRCP on April 10th,  calling attention to threats made to Rashid Rehman and the failure of the state to ensure proper representation for an accused.  He was threatened inside and outside court, by two members of the prosecution team and by three unidentified men. Although Mr Rehman immediately drew the Judge’s attention to the threats, the Judge remained silent.

We are very disturbed to learn that he appeared to have no police protection  although Special Branch had alerted law enforcement agencies about the threat to him. Nor, according to news reports, had a case been filed by the police although Mr Rehman had made an application.

In a recent interview for BBC Urdu, he said that defending a blasphemy case was like going into the ‘ jaws of death’. He said it was difficult for lawyers to function because of the threats they were under. The Pakistan Human Rights Commission has repeatedly made the
point that human rights are indivisible. You are paying the very highest price for your integrity.  

We stand in solidarity with you at this perilous time, and call for protection for advocates and other human rights defenders as well as the accused and their families.

In grief and solidarity,
Gita Sahgal

Background: 
1) http://hrcp-web.org/hrcpweb/hrcp-slams-threat-to-lawyer-representing-blasphemy-accused/
2) http://tribune.com.pk/story/705659/human-rights-lawyer-rashid-rehman-shot-dead/
3) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1pe70l_sairbeen18apr2014_news?start=3

=========================================
27. DISEASE OF PAKISTAN’S POOR NOW WORRIES THE AFFLUENT
by Saba Imtiaz and Declan Walsh
=========================================
(The New York Times, May 11, 2014)

A worker administering polio vaccine drops to a child at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. Credit Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

KARACHI, Pakistan — Until recently, polio was considered a poor man’s problem in Pakistan — a crippling virus that festered in the mountainous tribal belt, traversed the country on interprovincial buses, and spread via infected children who played in the open sewers of sprawling slums.

But since the World Health Organization declared a polio emergency here last week — identifying Pakistan, Syria and Cameroon as the world’s main reservoirs of the virus — the disease has become an urgent concern of the wealthy, too.

A W.H.O. recommendation that travelers not leave Pakistan without a polio vaccination certificate has caused confusion. Doctors, clinics and hospitals have been inundated with inquiries. The association of travel agents has reported “panic” among air travel customers.

“It’s very worrisome,” said Mohammad Akbar Khan, a passenger at the Karachi airport on Thursday, as his family clustered around a desk on the departures concourse normally used to immunize infants. “We just found out about this on the news, and we’re trying to find out what to do.”

The government, which is scrambling to meet the W.H.O. requirement, says it needs two weeks to make arrangements at airports and buy more vaccines. But to most Pakistanis, it is a jolting reminder of the gravity of a crisis that has been quietly building for years, and which is now, according to the W.H.O., spilling into other countries, threatening to undo decades of efforts to eradicate polio across the globe.

Despite years of multimillion-dollar immunization campaigns, led by the government and international organizations, this year Pakistan reported 59 new polio cases, by far the most of any country. The W.H.O. had reported only 68 cases worldwide as of April 30.

Instability is driving the crisis. The Taliban, which had long opposed the vaccinations as part of what its leaders said was a Jewish conspiracy, has stymied immunization efforts in the northwest and the tribal belt, where infection rates are highest. The Taliban have forbidden vaccinations in North Waziristan for years, and killed vaccination teams in other areas.

Suspicions among the Taliban and others that the vaccination campaign was an espionage effort gained currency after 2011, when a covert, C.I.A.-financed vaccination campaign used to try to find Osama bin Laden came to light.

The sense of urgency that has gripped health professionals for years, however, was largely absent among the upper class, who have had limited exposure to polio. “There was a total disconnect” in society about the problem, said Dr. Anita Zaidi, a pediatric infectious diseases expert and a member of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group.

Some of the highest refusal rates for polio vaccination were recorded in wealthy Karachi neighborhoods, where residents had little faith in public health care, Dr. Zaidi said, citing a 2011 study. Now, the vaccination requirement has drawn an ambivalent response from the wealthy.

Ibrahim Shamsi, a textile exporter who intends to travel to Canada, called it “a lot of botheration.” He said, “I’m sure I was vaccinated as a child so I don’t know why I need to do it now.”

Seher Naveed, an artist with travel plans for Berlin and Amsterdam, said she was worried that the vaccine could have an adverse effect on adults.

In Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, residents of the wealthy Gulberg neighborhood also expressed unease about the new requirements. Jameel Ahmed, a businessman, said he was embarrassed to have to take a vaccination at the age of 57.

A woman who gave her name as Mrs. Ahsan said the restrictions were discriminatory and unfair. “We have been singled out in the world,” she said. For some experts, the worry is that immunizing all travelers will divert scarce resources from efforts to fight polio where it is most prevalent. Dr. Zulfiqar A. Bhutta of the Center for Excellence in Women and Child Health at Karachi’s Aga Khan University, said the W.H.O. travel advisory was “unfortunate,” and would foster an erroneous sense that polio is a universal problem in Pakistan.

“It’s not — it’s a geographic problem, and this will take the pressure off the hot spots,” he said.

One such hot spot is on the edge of Karachi where, on a desolate stretch of road at the city gates, the fight against polio is being fought bus by bus.

Buses filled with ethnic Pashtuns, fleeing poverty or conflict in the northwest, enter the city every day; some are unwittingly carrying the polio virus from areas where infection rates are highest, W.H.O. officials say.

On Friday morning a team of eight government health workers, clad in bright yellow jackets and blue caps, boarded passenger buses as they entered the city, administering the vaccine to children under the age of 5.

One vaccinator, Nadir Ali, wove through the crowded aisles with a box filled with vaccines. Children bawled in protest, and passengers looked bemused. “Shh,” one mother said to her crying baby. “You’ve gotten the drops, now quiet.”

Every day Mr. Ali and his fellow vaccinators, who are paid $2.50 a day, immunize at least 2,800 children. Some eight million children were immunized at 10 such transit points across the country in 2013, in a program that is partly financed by Rotary International and supported by the W.H.O. “Terrorists may want to destroy Pakistan, but this virus is destroying our nation,” Mr. Ali said.

Karachi’s importance in this battle stems from its position as a trade and transit hub, which facilitates the movement of migrants, travelers and, more recently, the polio virus.

“Karachi acts not only as a reservoir for the disease, but also as an amplifier,” said Dr. Zubair Mufti, the national coordinator for the W.H.O.’s polio campaign.

Efforts to banish polio from the city have also been hurt by the growing Taliban presence in ethnic Pashtun neighborhoods. There have been several militant attacks on polio vaccination teams since the first in July 2012; over the same period reported cases of polio — a disease that can be carried by adults but mostly strikes infant children — have steadily risen. Eight cases were reported in 2013; so far this year the figure is four.

The latest Taliban attack in Qayumabad, an area close to the upscale Defense neighborhood, on Jan. 21 resulted in the death of three female health workers.

One Pakistani Taliban militant, who identified himself as Gul, said in an interview that his group had attacked two polio teams in Karachi in 2012 because “they were trying to find the hide-outs of our leaders in these areas.”

But some experts say the bin Laden factor has been overstated, noting that the Taliban started to target polio workers long before the American commando raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader.

“The Taliban in North Waziristan didn’t stop the campaign because of Shakil Afridi, they did it for political reasons,” said Dr. Bhutta, referring to the Pakistani doctor hired by the C.I.A. to run the vaccination campaign in 2011. “And they’ve done themselves and the country a lot of damage.”

But for Mr. Ali, the immunizer jumping between buses outside Karachi, the most immediate problem is persuading reluctant parents. Some passengers offered up their children enthusiastically for immunization; others were cajoled into compliance by fellow passengers or even bus drivers.

But one mother, on a bus from Bahawalpur in Punjab Province, staunchly refused his entreaties to immunize her baby son.

“The vaccination is necessary against the virus. There are no side effects,” he pleaded.

“I’m his mother,” said the woman firmly.

Mr. Ali shrugged and retreated.

Saba Imtiaz reported from Karachi, and Declan Walsh from London. Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting from Karachi, and Waqar Gillani from Lahore.

A version of this article appears in print on May 11, 2014, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Disease of Pakistan’s Poor Now Worries the Affluent.

=========================================
28. INDIA: LOW CUNNING, NOT LOW CASTE
by Bharat Bhushan
=========================================
(Asian Age. May 09, 2014)

As the campaign for this general election nears its end, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, has shown that he also excels in low cunning.

He was quick to pick on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s reference to his low-political discourse (“neech rajneeti”) and twist it to convert it into a caste slur against the Hindu lower castes.

 He has demonstrated that he can play both sides — growth and divisiveness. His public interviews are elevated, highfalutin and almost statesmanlike. His print interviews reflect a polished mind — or minds, as if they have been conceived, written and edited by sympathetic intellectuals. It is in his poll speeches that the kinks in his politics stand out.

 As the campaign has progressed, he has supplemented his initial development and growth plank with a host of divisive themes. Increasingly, the trusses of communalism have undergirded his campaign. For the votaries of Hindutva, a part of Mr Modi’s dubious “charisma” always came from his communal track record in Gujarat. However, when he found that reinventing himself as the new messiah of economic growth was insufficient to propel him towards the high office, he shed some of the ballast to soar high on divisive winds.

 That this would be tried in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — with a whopping 120 parliamentary constituencies — was expected. In Uttar Pradesh, communal sentiments were first fanned in Muzaffarnagar to divide Jats and Muslims. Then Mr Modi’s lieutenant, the wily Amit Shah, reaped the communal riots for votes. When pulled up for his inflammatory speeches by the Election Commission, he promised to behave. But he deliberately revived the communal agenda in a speech where he designated Azamgarh as a den of Islamic terrorism. When he was talking about who has converted Azamgarh into a base for terrorists, he might have paused to consider the role of those who demolished the Babri Masjid structure, his government which oversaw organised riots in Gujarat in 2002 and the Hindutva terrorists who bombed Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, Ajmer Sharif and the Samjhauta Express train to Pakistan.

 Mr Modi’s decision to contest from Varanasi, the suggestion that he had been “sent by Mother Ganga” almost as a divine intervention and then the attempt to convert the worship of the river (“Ganga Aarti”) into an electoral show were part of the same divisive strategy.

 In Bihar, the bomb blasts at Mr Modi’s rally were a great help in creating a communal atmosphere. When they did not prove effective, the OBC card was played by telling the electorate that Mr Modi himself came from an OBC caste. He apparently comes from the caste of oil-pressers — Ghanchis or Telis. Sushil Modi declared that the OBCs will relate to him in Bihar “because he is the first from their ranks to become the strongest contender for the PM’s post”. The OBCs account for 54 per cent of the state’s population.

 Having tried to reap the benefits of communalism in western Uttar Pradesh, it was back to the caste card again in central and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Like in Bihar, it was the 39 per cent OBC population of Uttar Pradesh which prompted Mr Modi to deliberately misinterpret Ms Vadra’s comment on his low-level political discourse to portray himself as a victim of upper caste snobbery — in effect implying that he represented all the lower castes.

 In Jammu and Kashmir, given the background of the Kashmir militancy and Pakistan’s role in fomenting it, he tried to incite anti-Pakistan sentiment and proclaimed that his political opponents were helping Pakistan. In Assam, he focused on illegal Bangladeshi migrants and threatened to throw them out. He also made the outlandish claim that the Congress government in the state was killing rhinos to make space for illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

 Given the long history of communalism in Bengal which was partitioned not once but twice by the British, Mr Modi raised this divisive theme once again. Besides calling for tighter immigration controls, he went on to say that those Bangladeshis who worship Ma Durga (i.e. Hindus) would be welcome to India but not the infiltrators. While there may be a good case for better immigration control and a clear refugee policy, that was not what Mr Modi intended. He ought to have been aware of the possible impact of his statements on the security and well-being of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, or does Mr Modi prefer short-term electoral gains over the strategic interests of India in Bangladesh?

 These are clearly serious flaws in the politics of this man who wants to lead India. They are being ignored because the middle classes and the opinion makers are seduced by his promise of growth and development. It almost seems as if a collective moral insanity has taken over our society. Why else would we see the Modi campaign’s lies, deception, intimidation and lack of regard for differences of opinion not as socially disruptive but as more or less acceptable?

 As the shifting strands in his campaign strategy show, Mr Modi is less about growth and development and more about somehow coming to power. However, a large section of the corporates who have developed a taste for crony capitalism and the middle classes which saw a huge increase in their riches when the economy was growing, pine for someone who will lead them to El Dorado once again. They are prepared then to repose faith in Mr Modi — without bothering about the damage he has already done to India’s social fabric. They are desperate to see Mr Modi as Prime Minister in the expectation of breadcrumbs from his table. They are stakeholders in his potential success.

 Mr Modi has tended to skate on pretty thin ice as far as political norms are concerned. He has skirted all the criticism leveled against him by blaming others and instead portrayed himself a victim of motivated and false propaganda. Only the election results of May 16 will show whether the people of this country have bought this problematic argument.

The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi

=========================================
29. INDIA: MUTING THE BULLY PULPIT
by Bharat Bhushan
=========================================
(Business Standard. May 6, 2014)

“Priyanka Gandhi's stance against Modi has exposed the low standards of public discourse he has chosen to adopt”

Any school counsellor will tell you that remaining silent only emboldens a bully; the victim has to stand up for the bullying to stop. Is it possible that Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has finally met his comeuppance at the hands of Priyanka Gandhi?

 For someone who aspires to become the prime minister of India, Modi's tongue is far too caustic. Perhaps his is a classic case of what can happen to loners, who tread a path of their own calling, away from the socialisation of their families. They may have sacrificed the comforts of home for a greater cause, but they lack proper socialisation of what constitutes acceptable discourse by role models within the family - mother, aunts, sisters, brothers and cousins. Modi, the youngster, left home to give his life to the "national" cause epitomised by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, but in the process, he did not learn to communicate without relying on denigration and demeaning others to be effective. This makes him less statesmanlike, less prime ministerial and more like a bully.

 Modi's election campaign, especially his attempt to publicly humiliate the Gandhi family, has crossed a critical line in the use of language that politicians seldom did in the past. Lowbrow satire is a form of political critique. His references to Sonia Gandhi as "Matashri", to Rahul Gandhi as a "namuna" (an odd specimen) or a "shehzada" (princeling) is pure derision, competing with the cheapest of television's comedy shows. Robert Vadra was referred to as "jijaji" (brother-in-law) to rhyme with 2G (the telecom scam). Much humour is sought to be generated around the abbreviation RSVP - Rahul, Sonia, Vadra and Priyanka - and the ABCD of corruption as (A - Adarsh scam, B - Bofors scam, and C - coal scam). The United Progressive Alliance government was referred to as "Ma-Bete ki sarkar" (mother and son's government). It is not surprising that the person whose public discourse comes closest to Modi is another social misfit, the yoga guru, Swami Ramdev.

 The Gandhi family is not the only one for whom derogatory language was used by Modi. In a rally in Jammu, he claimed that three AKs had emerged as a unique strength for Pakistan - AK-47 (an assault rifle favoured by terrorists), A K Antony (our defence minister), and AK-49 (Arvind Kejriwal, who ran a 49-day government in Delhi). He referred to the Congress, the Samajwadi party and the Bahujan Samaj party as WWF contestants who only shadow-box. And he suggested that the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, was accepting bribes in the guise of selling her paintings. In these and other examples, Modi's political language shows no respect for the social rules of public discourse.

 He addresses the masses in a mode which assumes a shared pathological hatred of the privileged class - "Don't make me PM, make me chowkidar - watchman," and emphasises his image as a self-made man who was once a tea-vendor. It is their applause that he seeks through his low satire. His derogatory language against more privileged others is also supposed to strike a sympathetic chord. Privilege, of course, is epitomised by the Gandhis and Congress, the mere mention of whom makes him lose all behavioural control and brings forth his threatening best.

 The other target of his and supposedly his audience's ire is the religious minorities. Images of intimidation (Gujarat riots of 2002 under his chief ministerial watch) and violence (the social fallout of communal riots in Gujarat and Muzaffarnagar) cannot be disowned from his persona, no matter how persistently he is asked to do so by television anchors. They were, in fact, reinforced in his public speech in Assam where he warned "Bangladeshis" to have their bags packed by May 17 - the day after election results are declared.

 What has the reluctant participant in politics, young Priyanka Gandhi done? She has taken on each of his vitriolic outbursts and shown them to be short of publicly desirable conduct. She told him that he was being childish and should conduct himself with dignity if he wants to become the prime minister. "Why indulge in these juvenile attacks? PM pad ki garima ko toh pehchaaniye" (at least understand the dignity of the office you aspire to)," she said in her ultimate put-down.

 Nothing could have communicated Modi's callousness and lack of empathy for women than a smiling Priyanka mimicking a telephone call with her hand to her ear saying, "If you talk of women's empowerment, then stop tapping our phones and listening to us in closed rooms. There is one leader who wrongs women. Be wary of him."

 To Modi's jibe about RSVP and ABCD, the Gandhi daughter's riposte was, "You are not teaching in a school, you are addressing the nation, tell them what you will do. Don't teach them the English alphabet like RSVP, ABCD... You are not addressing a primary school. It is the public of this country, which is intelligent."

 Of course, she has also countered his political promises such as the so-called Gujarat model. She said: "The people understand your Gujarat model, in which you have given away thousands of acres of land at throwaway prices to your friends... Tell us what is the condition of farmers in your model... What are the daily wages of workers?... What have you done for women?" But it is her defence of her family that is significant in the context of Modi's abusive rhetoric.

 It should not be underplayed, as some have tried to do, as merely the expected reaction of a woman defending her husband and family. She has taken on a political bully in public and pointed out where he has fallen short in his public discourse. She has shaken his composure sufficiently - forcing him to say that she was like a daughter to him. Once a bully is taken down in public he loses his swagger.

The writer is a journalist based in Delhi

=========================================
30. THE BETTING MAFIA: THE CRISIS IN GLOBALIZED CRICKET
by Tariq Ali
=========================================
(counterpunch.org - May 06, 2014)
Globalised cricket – epitomised by the Indian Premier League with its billions, its imported cheerleaders, its shady business deals, its manic marketing – is enmeshed in crisis. The seventh surreal season of the IPL is currently taking place in Dubai and Sharjah, an emirate that was once considered out of bounds for Indian teams because it is the centre of the betting mafia that dominates world cricket. But India is in the midst of a general election and the politicians of the Indian political leagues have priority as far as security is concerned. Hence the shift to the Gulf, where there’s easy money and a bubble world perfect for keeping reality at bay.

Back in India more trouble is brewing. The first CEO of the IPL, Lalit Modi (who told its PR men that his beaming face had to be seen on the screen at regular intervals chatting to some of the famous Bollywood stars – Preity Zinta, Shahrukh Khan, Shilpa Shetty – who had bought franchises for teams in the league), was sacked for misdemeanours including insider dealing in the allocation of franchises. One case involved Sh’ashi Tharoor, a leading Congress politician and former UN apparatchik – we once, a long time ago, crossed swords on the letters page in this paper.

Last year three cricketers, including the test-player and fast bowler Sreesanth, were charged with spot fixing (fixing a particular part of a game rather than the whole thing), found guilty and sent to prison. This was followed by allegations of match fixing against the IPL’s most successful side, the Chennai Super Kings. The Supreme Court set up an investigation headed by Mukul Mudgal, the former chief justice of Punjab and Haryana. His report, which was submitted to the court in February, confirmed the allegations. This caused a sensation because the team is owned by Narayaswami Srinivasan, president of the BCCI, not the bank that laundered money, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the governing body of Indian cricket. Srinivasan’s son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, was named as the intermediary with the betting mafia.

It’s clear enough that throwing a match requires the collaboration of the captain and a few senior players. The captain of the Super Kings is M.S. Dhoni, who is also captain of the Indian cricket team; his deputy is Suresh Raina, who also plays for India. We should find out soon which players are involved. Mudgal gave a sealed envelope with 12 names in it to the Supreme Court. One is said to be a very big name. The informant, a journalist, refused to go public. The reason, according to the Mudgal Report, was that ‘in spite of repeated requests to put the name of the said player in a sealed cover for perusal before the Supreme Court, the journalist appeared terrified and was very reluctant to do so and pleaded that it would be dangerous.’ Who can blame him? The betting mafia is known to bump off those who testify against it.

Nothing much seemed to happen after the initial excitement. Srinivasan went swanning round the world and succeeded in setting up a new ICC oligarchy by proposing that the England and Wales Cricket Board and its Australian equivalent form a triumvirate with the BCCI that would make all the key decisions in world cricket. The one member, one vote system that had dethroned Britain and Australia in the first place was ditched, with the ‘lesser’ countries acquiescing in their demotion. Indian money had won the day. Giles Clarke of the ECB seems to have learned nothing from his dealings with another crook, Allen Stanford, who soon after signing a huge deal with the ECB was arrested in the US for fraud and sentenced to 110 years. To add to all this, Srinivasan is due to take over as chairman of the ICC.

The 2014 IPL season began last month; late in March Srinivasan temporarily stood down as head of the BCCI after a Supreme Court judge declared that the thought of Srinivasan retaining control of the IPL via his position in the BCCI ‘nauseated’ him. The Super King was replaced in the IPL by the cricketing legend Sunil Gavaskar. The Supreme Court then instructed the BCCI to appoint a panel to investigate corruption in the IPL. The BCCI suggested a collection of its favourites, one of whom was the bullying and boorish commentator Ravi Shastri, a well-known apologist for the IPL. The court rejected the names and brought Mudgal back to head a new inquiry with more powers and investigative help from the police. Meanwhile two former chairmen of the BCCI have demanded that all IPL matches be investigated. And there the matter rests for now.

Tariq Ali is the author of The Obama Syndrome (Verso).

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

South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. Newsletter 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.
=====================================