SACW - 19 Jan 2015 | Sri Lanka: Transitional Justice & Constitution / Pakistan: Protecting Girls Isn’t ‘Blasphemy’ / Bangladesh: Islamic revolution? / India: Insaniyat vs Hindutva / Syria and Iraq: Ethnic cleansing / Tahrir square in Europe

Mon Jan 18 18:16:04 EST 2016

South Asia Citizens Wire - 19 January 2016 - No. 2881 
[since 1996]

Contents:
1. As Post War Sri Lanka Moves on Transitional Justice, Rewrites The Constitution - Reflections on the Issues Ahead
2. India: Rejecting Hindutva and wishing us all a New Year of Hindustaniat and insaniyat (Nayantara Sahgal)
3. Euro centrism as a fig-leaf, and the art of conjuring in politics: Tahrir square in Europe (Marieme Helie Lucas)
4. Open letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Net Neutrality advocacy in India
5. Enemy property: Why India is still struggling with a political legacy of Partition | Pallavi Raghavan
6. India: scholars letter to EPW
7. 1947 Communist Party pamphlet "Princistan - Imperialism’s Nest for Tomorrow"

8. Recent On Communalism Watch:
 - Bangladesh: Firms and organisations linked to the Islamist party may be taken over by govt
 - India: "Section 295(A) of the IPC is in urgent need of amendment to limit its misuse" says editorial in The Hindu (18 Jan 2016)
 - India - Rajasthan: violent attack led by BJP leader against activists of 'Soochna Evum Rozgar Adhikaar Abhiyaan' [Information and Employment Rights Campaign]
 - India:: Questions on the Technologies of Fascism: Making the ‘Modi Effect’ (Santhosh S)
 - India: Bihar Elections 2015 and the Left - A Short March to Nowhere
 - India - 23 years after the demolition Babri Mosue in Ayodhya: There is a rumble in the rubble (Vikas Pathak)
 - India: Indian pacer Mohammad Shami's brother was allegedly jailed on charges of cow slaughter
 - India: Attack on PIA (Editorial in Dawn, 16 Jan 2016)
 - Uttar Pradesh: 30 injured as riots break out in Fatehpur it began with a right-wing group, armed with swords and saffron flags, took out a procession
 - Video: Pakistan's Slow Genocide Of Minorities - interview with Farahnaz Ispahani
 - India: No Country for Funny Men (Sidharth Bhatia)
 - India: Niranjan Takle on V.D. Savarkar
 - Bangladesh: 300 unidentified people set fire to the Ustad Allauddin Khan Sangitangan at Brahmanbaria
 - India: Stench of intolerance rises afresh (Radhika Ramaseshan)
 - India: Faraz Ahmed's blog on Subramanian Swamy
 - India: Producing patriotism - Bollywood screenwriter hustled out of theatre for not standing for the national anthem
 - India: Welcome To Saffron Corridor! (Ankush Vats and Amit Bhardwaj)
 - The Hindu right is quietly funding—and lobbying—American universities (Rohit Chopra)

::: URLs & FULL TEXT :::

9. Bangladesh: Mufti Faizullah of Islami Oikya Jote and Hefazat-e-Islam eyes Islamic revolution
10. Bangladesh: An unrepentant Jamaat - Editorial, The Daily Star
11. Attack on PIA - Editorial in Dawn
12. Pakistan: The CII - overstepping its advisory role (Editorial, The Express Tribune)
13. Nepal: Ex-minor ex-Maoists | Om Astha Rai
14. Pakistan - Health: Why Terrorists Are Targeting 'Unsung Heroes' (Diane Cole)
15. India: There is a rumble in the rubble (Vikas Pathak)
16. Pakistan - India - Kashmir: The Gilgit conundrum (Editorial, Kashmir Times)
17. Dispatches: Protecting Pakistan’s Girls Isn’t ‘Blasphemy’ (Heather Barr)
18. [Announcement] Science in Saffron: Skeptical Essays on History of Science by Meera Nanda
19. China: High-Tech Manufacturing’s Disposable Workers | Michelle Chen
19. Syria and Iraq: Ethnic cleansing by Sunni and Shia jihadis is leading to a partition of the Middle East | Patrick Cockburn

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1. As Post War Sri Lanka Moves on Transitional Justice, Rewrites The Constitution - Reflections on the Issues Ahead
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commentary by Ahilan Kadirgamar, Vijay K. Nagaraj and Wimalanath Weerarathne
http://www.sacw.net/article12263.html

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2. India: Rejecting Hindutva and wishing us all a New Year of Hindustaniat and insaniyat (Nayantara Sahgal)
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Let me begin by wishing us all a happier New Year than the past year has been. Last year, we had to watch a series of events that attacked our democratic right of freedom of expression and our culture of secularism. It was a dangerous trend that we could not ignore, and we did not ignore it. Many of us took action against it, and the general public reaction against this trend sounded a note of warning to those who were responsible for it. But the danger is by no means over.
http://sacw.net/article12254.html

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3. Euro centrism as a fig-leaf, and the art of conjuring in politics: Tahrir square in Europe (Marieme Helie Lucas)
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On New Year’s Eve 2015, simultaneous coordinated sexual attacks took place against women in public space in about 10 cities, mostly in Germany, but also in Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland… Several hundred women, to this day, filed a case for sexual attack, robbery, and rape. These attacks were perpetrated by young men of migrant descent (be they immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, or other) from North Africa and the Middle East.
http://sacw.net/article12257.html

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4. Open letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Net Neutrality advocacy in India
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We also believe that a connectivity agenda must respect the right of all to equally access, receive, and impart information. For this reason, we are concerned about Facebook’s recent attacks on the millions of internet users in India and around the world who have fought, and who continue to fight, for Net Neutrality.
http://sacw.net/article12255.html

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5. Enemy property: Why India is still struggling with a political legacy of Partition | Pallavi Raghavan
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The history behind the ordinance that bans transfer of property of those who once left for Pakistan.
http://sacw.net/article12251.html

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6. India: Letter to Sammeksha Trust by Scholar Friends of EPW regarding exclusion of former editor from any role in the future governance of the journal
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We write to you today as longstanding admirers of EPW and as proud members of the “EPW community” that has benefited from the existence of this unique and high-quality journal. We wish to express our concern at what we have heard of the unusual circumstances in which the incumbent Editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, Dr. Rammanohar Reddy, who had decided to step down in April 2016 but had agreed to continue as Editor-in-Chief or in some other position as requested by the Board of Trustees, has chosen to formally announce that he is resigning from his position as Editor and severing all links with the institution.
http://sacw.net/article12259.html

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7. 1947 Communist Party pamphlet "Princistan - Imperialism’s Nest for Tomorrow"
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A 1947 pamphlet on the British Cabinet Mission to India and the politics of its dealings with the then princely rulers of India. It was written by Romesh Chandra an intellectual associated with the Communist Party of India, in the context of the coming partition of India. [This document has long been out of print, it was recently obtained by the Delhi Historian Prof Dilip Simeon. It has been digitised as part of sacw.net rare document archive]
http://sacw.net/article12258.html

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8. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
========================================
 - Bangladesh: Firms and organisations linked to the Islamist party may be taken over by govt
 - India: "Section 295(A) of the IPC is in urgent need of amendment to limit its misuse" says editorial in The Hindu (18 Jan 2016)
 - India - Rajasthan: violent attack led by BJP leader against activists of 'Soochna Evum Rozgar Adhikaar Abhiyaan' [Information and Employment Rights Campaign]
 - India:: Questions on the Technologies of Fascism: Making the ‘Modi Effect’ (Santhosh S)
 - India: Bihar Elections 2015 and the Left - A Short March to Nowhere
 - India - 23 years after the demolition Babri Mosue in Ayodhya: There is a rumble in the rubble (Vikas Pathak)
 - India: Indian pacer Mohammad Shami's brother was allegedly jailed on charges of cow slaughter
 - India: Attack on PIA (Editorial in Dawn, 16 Jan 2016)
 - Uttar Pradesh: 30 injured as riots break out in Fatehpur it began with a right-wing group, armed with swords and saffron flags, took out a procession
 - Video: Pakistan's Slow Genocide Of Minorities - interview with Farahnaz Ispahani
 - India: No Country for Funny Men (Sidharth Bhatia)
 - India: Niranjan Takle on V.D. Savarkar
 - Bangladesh: 300 unidentified people set fire to the Ustad Allauddin Khan Sangitangan at Brahmanbaria
 - India: Stench of intolerance rises afresh (Radhika Ramaseshan)
 - India: Faraz Ahmed's blog on Subramanian Swamy
 - India: Producing patriotism - Bollywood screenwriter hustled out of theatre for not standing for the national anthem
 - India: Welcome To Saffron Corridor! (Ankush Vats and Amit Bhardwaj)
 - The Hindu right is quietly funding—and lobbying—American universities (Rohit Chopra)
 - Right-wing Hindu Mahasabha activists vandalise Pakistan airline office in Delhi (14 Jan 2016)
 - India actor Kiku Sharda arrested for mimicking guru - followers of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh said their sentiments hurt
 - India: 'Rejecting Hindutva and wishing us all a New Year of Hindustaniat and insaniyat' - Nayantara Sahgal
 - Govt institute can’t be minority one: Irfan Habib 

-> available at: http://communalism.blogspot.com/

::: FULL TEXT :::
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9. BANGLADESH: MUFTI FAIZULLAH OF ISLAMI OIKYA JOTE AND HEFAZAT-E-ISLAM EYES ISLAMIC REVOLUTION
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(Dhaka Tribune - 16 January 2016)
Tribune Report
Mufti Faizullah, secretary general of a faction of Islami Oikya Jote that cut ties with the BNP-led alliance, told Bangla Tribune recently that they aim at creating an independent course for Islamic politics through forming a larger alliance. He is also the joint secretary general of Hefazat-e-Islam. Here is the translation of the interview   

Why did you quit the BNP-led alliance?

Our convention says the IOJ has no relation with the 20-party alliance. We are maintaining this. You have to understand by yourself what we mean by this. We did not say we quit the alliance or anything like this. Our convention says the IOJ will form a platform of Islamic scholars and organisations to fulfil our mission of establishing Islam on the land of Almighty Allah and carrying it forward.

What will be the outline of this unity?

We want to wage an Islamic mass revolution. For this we need political unity. We want to move forward with the people who want to join us. We want to include the parties, organisations and individuals who want to establish Islam in this country. We have already talked to the persons concerned and will come up with a new name. But it cannot be done within a time frame.

Is there any possibility of joining any other alliance in future?

I want to say clearly that the IOJ is not with the Awami League or the BNP. And there cannot be a bond with the Awami League. Rather we want to ask the Awami League to get rid of the anti-Islamic people, apostates and radical atheists. We will also ask all political parties to clarify their stance with respect to Islam.

What is your future political plans?

Our specific aim is to establish Islamic rule in the country, and with this, we will protect the country’s independence and sovereignty. We will also work for improving the country’s image, human rights situation, dignity, equality and justice … to work for the welfare of the country and humanity … to establish the rights of the people, stop oppression, ensuring the basic rights of the people, stopping violence against women and improving the lifestyle of the common people through eradicating poverty. We need strong organisational base to achieve these targets. We have to move forward in a planned way by revamping the IOJ from the grassroots to the central level considering the reality. The IOJ is independent in taking up plans and materialising those. We do not depend on others.

How will you implement the plans?

We will bring to front the new generation leaders gradually with the blessings and advice of our top leaders. The new leadership will invite people to the path of Islam in a disciplined and peaceful manner. They
will establish an enlightened society, and carry out a mass Islamic movement to build the society and the country.

Why are the religion-based parties less vocal about other issues than religion?

Firstly, we do religion-based politics. We do politics as is said in Islam. But our programmes are not negligible. We carry out activities on every issue, but only the religion-related issues are highly discussed. So many people may think that we do not talk about the issues related to the country’s interests. Secondly, the other reason why we are vocal in favour of protecting Islam is that the country’s independence and sovereignty depend on the state of Islam and the Muslims. Independence and sovereignty of the country will remain intact as long as Islam and Islamic civilisation-culture is preserved. This is why we emphasise more on Islam and Muslim culture.

Do you think quitting the long-time alliance will have adverse impact within the party?

We gathered opinion of our leaders and supporters from across the country before taking the decision. We also talked to the scholars and senior leaders. The decision came up at the Majlish-e-Sura meeting following discussions. Now we will be able to give more time for the party. It will speed up the party’s activities. We hope to reach more people through our programmes. In result, there will be no adverse impact, and the party will be strengthened.

How will you give 300 candidates in the next general elections?

We have committees in all the 64 districts. Earlier we could not give candidates independently because of being a part of an alliance. But now we will try to give a candidate for every constituency. We have already travelled all the districts and have planned to move forward with the most efficient and skilled persons in the district level.

Why are you against the National Women Development Policy?

We are not against the development of the women. We want to say that the anti-Islamic sections of the policy must be removed. We raised this demand earlier too. We informed the government about those sections in writing in 2011. We think that the sections that are contrary to the Qur’an and Sunnah must be abolished and replaced by Islamic rules to increase the dignity of women and protect them from violence.

You have called for punishment for disrespecting religion. Do you want anti-blasphemy law?

We do not want anti-blasphemy law. We meant every religion, not only Islam. It is prohibited in Islam to insult any religion. Even the country’s constitution and the UN Declaration for Human Rights prohibits insulting any religion. We think that insulting religion is a reason behind the deteriorating law and order. So we demand formulation of a law in parliament so that no one can hurt someone’s religious sentiment. The maximum punishment should be death penalty as prescribed in Shariah Law. We do not want anti-blasphemy law and are also against taking law in own hand.

Do you think the rise of militancy is a threat to religion-based politics?

The rise of militancy is basically an effort to label the Muslims as terrorists. It is part of a conspiracy. We raised our voice against it and will do so in the future. If needed, we will announce programmes. We will also demonstrate to stop bomb attacks, murders and torture.

There has been a long-standing demand for banning religion-based politics. How will you face it?

It is not a demand of the ordinary citizen. They are pious. Such demand can come from the leftists. Rather I will demand banning the left parties. They are barring the development and prosperity of the country. They are the reason behind chaos in the society. For them, the blessings of Allah do not reach this country. They are threat to the country’s independence and sovereignty, and are harmful for the society and the country. They should not be allowed to do politics. 

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10. BANGLADESH: AN UNREPENTANT JAMAAT
- Editorial, The Daily Star
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(The Daily Star, January 08, 2016

Editorial
An unrepentant Jamaat
Offer apology to the nation

The Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty awarded to Matiur Rahman Nizami by International Crimes Tribunal-1 in 2014. The verdicts of the courts are based on evidence but Jamaat's reaction to it is reprehensible and unacceptable. By calling a hartal to protest the death sentence, Jamaat is, in fact, choosing to stand by its heinous role, of that of the local collaborator of the Pakistani killing machine, during the Liberation War. That the party has demonstrated its opposition to the ruling of the highest court of the land in itself amounts to contempt of court. 

Nizami's role as the chief of Al-Badr, the notorious militia that has the blood of hundreds of Bengalis including prominent teachers, intellectuals and scholars on its hands, has been proven in the highest court of the land. It is, therefore, only appropriate that Jamaat accepts the verdict and offers a genuine apology to the nation for its atrocious war crimes in 1971.

The long arm of the law has finally reached Nizami. It is high time the party reconciled with the truth and accepted responsibility for what it had done in 1971. The trials of war criminals open the window to heal wounds that have been festering for the last forty-four years and offer an opportunity to move forward accepting the basic tenets on which the War of Liberation was fought -- the fundamental principles and values on which this nation is built. 

The sooner Jamaat comes to terms with this fact the better for them, and the country. 

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11. INDIA-PAKISTAN: ATTACK ON PIA - Editorial in Dawn
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(DAWN, January 16th, 2016)

Attack on PIA
Editorial 

It is indeed welcome that India has arrested the chief of a Hindu extremist outfit responsible for ransacking the PIA office in Delhi on Thursday.

Earlier, the Hindu Sena said it had carried out the act of vandalism because it opposed talks with Pakistan unless “stern action” was taken against individuals like Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed.

The symbolic value of the attack cannot be missed as PIA’s Delhi office, and the Pakistani high commission in the Indian capital, are the most visible representations of this country’s presence across the border.

As the peace process between Pakistan and India cautiously moves forward, there is no dearth of bigoted elements on both sides of the border who will try and thwart progress.

The Pathankot air force base incident was, of course, the most obvious attempt to derail the talks.

It is positive that Islamabad and New Delhi are dealing with attempts to sabotage peace talks maturely, unlike many previous responses from both capitals. We can be sure that if the process moves forward — and especially if there is substantive progress — then spoilsports in both countries will try and throw a spanner in the works. In this country, the anti-India lobby balks at the thought of normalisation of ties with Pakistan’s ‘traditional enemy’.

In India, groups inimical to Pakistan, especially the more extreme elements of the Sangh Parivar, will similarly pull out all the stops to prevent Islamabad and New Delhi from coming closer.

Indian media has reported that the Hindu Sena wants to disrupt the Delhi-Lahore bus service as well as the Samjhauta Express train link. In view of these threats, the Indian government must provide additional security to these symbols of the Pakistan-India relationship, as well as Pakistan’s assets across the border.

Considering that the Hindu far right is part of Prime Minister Modi’s constituency, the BJP government has a greater responsibility to rein in rabidly anti-Pakistan elements. Both countries must continue to deal with provocations maturely, and keep the peace process moving.

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12. PAKISTAN: THE CII - OVERSTEPPING ITS ADVISORY ROLE (Editorial, The Express Tribune)
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(The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2016

Editorial

It is time our parliamentarians started making laws that reflect the country’s realities instead of being browbeaten by the pronouncements of a body that is only supposed to have an advisory role. PHOTO: AFP

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) is a constitutional body that advises the legislature on whether or not a certain law is repugnant to the Holy Quran and Sunna. It is strictly an advisory body and is not empowered to act like a supra-parliament. According to the CII’s 2008 special report, 90 per cent of the country’s laws are not in conflict with Islam and only 10 per cent may be reviewed by parliament. By implication, examining those laws is now the domain of parliament and not of the council. However, over the years, the CII has acquired an extra-constitutional influence and it has become almost impossible to reverse the process. This is more so because, instead of constitutional and legal experts, the CII’s membership is dominated by religio-political parties, which wield an unhealthy street power and threaten violent public protest at the slightest self-perceived provocation.

Earlier in the week, there was a debate in the Senate in which lawmakers suggested that the body should be abolished since it completed its constitutional task back in 1996. Going by the mood of the nation, this is not going to happen any time soon. But going by the CII’s performance, it is only logical not to rule out the possibility of a creeping backlash against its exaggerated self-image. The CII’s pronouncements started receiving royal treatment ever since the advent of General Zia’s regime.

It will be educational to remind readers of its various pronouncements over the years. Regarding punishing the misuse of blasphemy laws, the CII has said that there are laws in the Pakistan Penal Code, which deal with registration of false cases and false statements, and these can be applied to blasphemy cases as well. Regarding using DNA test reports as proof to verify rape, it has insisted adherence to the current law that requires four mature individuals to testify the occurrence of this crime, while DNA reports can only be used as supplementary proof. Regarding the existing law that requires a “written approval” from the first wife if a man wants to marry a second time, the council is of the view that this law is against Islamic principles and therefore should be abolished. It also ruled that a woman older than 40 can serve as a judge, provided she is properly veiled.

And now, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony has rejected the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bill 2014 after the CII dubbed it “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous”. Sindh now has a law that declares marriage before the age of 18 a violation of the rights of children, and carries fines and imprisonment. The Punjab Assembly has approved a bill amending the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, holding not only parents of underage children, but also the cleric who allows such a marriage, liable on criminal charges, including fines and imprisonment. It is crucial that the laws enacted be enforced. But cultural taboos carrying religious respectability and rampant poverty in the country have made it very difficult for these laws to be implemented.

Child marriage is closely associated with schooling for girls as poverty leads many families to withdraw their daughters from school and marry them at young ages. These girls are denied the benefits of education, which include improved health, balanced fertility and increased economic productivity. Seven per cent of Pakistani girls are married off under the age of 15, according to Unicef’s State of the World’s Children Report 2014. Statistics from as recent as 2014 indicate that one in three girls in Pakistan is married before her eighteenth birthday. There are several reasons behind these appalling statistics. They range from extremely weak legislation, lack of implementation of the laws that do exist, an absence of public awareness of the harmful effects of early marriage, poverty and a common perception that girls are liabilities. On top of all this, the attitude of the CII has clearly added to problems. It is time our parliamentarians started making laws that reflect the country’s realities instead of being browbeaten by the pronouncements of a body that is only supposed to have an advisory role.

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13. NEPAL: EX-MINOR EX-MAOISTS (Om Astha Rai)
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(nepalitimes.com)

Ten years after the conflict ended, former Maoist child soldiers are now fighting for survival and against social stigma Om Astha Rai

In a shanty town behind Kathmandu Airport, by the stinking Manohara River, Sukmaya Tamang keeps a careful eye on her four-year-old son playing outside as she works on her sewing machine.

Tamang, now 24, joined the Maoist ‘People’s Liberation Army’ when she was 13 years old, studying in Grade Six of a school in Batase of Sindhupalchok. Two years later, she was part of the guerrilla force that attacked the district capital of Chautara.

MAJOR PROBLEM FOR MINORS: Ex-Maoist child soldier Sukmaya Tamang is now mother of a four-year-old son. Disillusioned with the party she was ready to die for, she says she now lives only to see her son stand on his own feet. All pics: Yu Wei Liew 

“I was too small to lift a heavy machine gun, but I was still trained to fire it,” she told us, taking a break from her sewing. “I have no more dreams, the party I was ready to die for has forgotten me. The man I loved tortured me. I don’t trust anyone, I am just alive to see my son stand on his own feet.”

After leaving her abusive husband three years ago, Tamang has been working and living amidst the teeming squalour of this settlement of the landless and dispossessed as big jets roar overhead. Her neighbours are unaware of her warrior past.

Tamang was among nearly 1,000 Maoist guerrillas who in April 2006 captured Chautara District Hospital and used it to attack an adjacent army base guarding a telecom tower a day before king Gyanendra restored parliament and the conflict came to an end. A month earlier, she was nearly killed when army helicopters dropped bombs on a Maoist gathering in nearby Thokarpa.

Tamang was talked into joining the Maoist militia by senior girls of her village who were ‘whole-timers’ in the party. “They convinced me not to pursue the bourgeois education, and I was thrilled when I first got to wear combat fatigue, I thought I was fighting for the people’s liberation,” she recalled.

But four years later, after the peace accord in November 2006, Tamang was sent off to Shaktikhor, one of the seven United Nations-supervised camps for the 19,000 Maoist fighters. At the end of three years there, the guerrillas had a choice of being integrated into the national army or taking a voluntary retirement package.

“I was too small to lift a heavy machine gun, but I was still trained to fire it.” 

Like most ex-Maoists she wanted to join the Nepal Army, but Tamang was devastated when she was disqualified because she was a minor at the time of signing of the peace accord. She was among 2,972 Maoist guerrillas let go by the UN because they were child soldiers. Another 1,036 minors were disqualified as they were recruited only after the peace deal, and just given bus fares to go home and wait to sign up for vocational training.

Five years after the UN-supervised camps were dismantled those disqualified for being ‘minors’ feel betrayed by the party and stigmatised by society. “The party dumped us,” says Pradip Karki, a former child soldier. “We cannot go home because we have the label of being ‘disqualified’ hanging around our necks.”

The former child soldiers are now in their mid-20s, and most have children of their own. The struggle to survive after the war has been more difficult than the war itself. They say they were brainwashed to abandon ‘bourgeois education’ and to join the rebel army.

“Our biggest mistake was to quit school. When we were discharged, it was too late to go back to studying.”

Without school certificates, they now find it difficult to get decent jobs and many have paid their way to work in the Gulf and Malaysia. Some were so disillusioned, they committed suicide.

Karki, a veteran of several battles lost his closest friend in Malangwa. He says: “Our biggest mistake was to quit school. When we were discharged, it was too late to go back to studying.”

The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) offered vocational training to discharged combatants. But many who signed up ended up learning nothing useful. A former child soldier who was trained to be a cook found no one would hire him when they found out he was a Maoist. Their ‘glorious’ party has split into five factions, and their ‘revolutionary’ leaders have now become like the politicians they once fought.

During the 1996-2006 conflict the Maoists recruited children as spies, cooks, porters and even front-line guerrillas. As young men became harder to get, the Maoists went to schools to conscript children, indoctrinate them and then destroyed the classrooms.

Although the UNMIN disqualified about 3,000 ex-combatants, the Maoist leadership delayed their release for three years so they could bargain for bigger rehabilitation packages. As a result, child soldiers were released only when they had grown into young adults. By then, their rehabilitation had become much more complex.

In 2010, the Maoist leadership released the child soldiers without substantial rehabilitation packages, and did so only after fears that they may be charged with using minors in conflict. Maoist leaders have never acknowledged their use of child soldiers, either justifying the use of child soldiers or apologising to them and their families. 

CRUEL REALITY

Khadka Bahadur Ramtel was just 11 when he was abducted, sent to indoctrination camp and recruited as a whole-timer by the Maoists. He is now 25, and married to Motisara Khadka, also a child soldier. Ramtel still vividly remembers the day a group of gun-wielding rebels stormed into his school and captured all the students.

Khadka Bahadur Ramtel

“I was in the middle of writing a test,” he recalled, “they didn’t even let me submit the paper. They took us up a mountain and we had to learn about communism.”  

The abducted students were then allowed to meet their families one last time before being trained to kill or die. “I had no choice,” Ramtel says, “they would have harmed my family if I hadn’t gone with them.”

So, in 2001, Ramtel left his village of Maila in the remote Humla district for the life of a guerrilla. His job was to deliver confidential letters to guerrillas. As a Dalit who had experienced discrimination, what appealed to Ramtel about the Maoists is that they did not believe in untouchability.

Ramtel got the nom de guerre ‘Samrat Birahi’ after joining the Maoist militia, but he was physically too weak to use heavy guns. “I was shorter than a rifle, so I was just trained to clean, maintain and repair guns, and also to make bombs,” he recalls.

At 13, his unit was sent to Jajarkot and two years later he took part in attacks on security bases in Surkhet and Banke districts. His commander was killed during an attack on an army checkpost on the East West highway, and he was so traumatised he nearly deserted. He says: “I wanted to go home, but there was no way out of the war.”

Ramtel in a UN-supervised camp in Surkhet.

After the ceasefire in 2006, Ramtel was sent to a UN-supervised camp in Surkhet where he fell in love with Motisara. Both were disqualified from joining the Nepal Army because they were minors during the war.

Motisara is from a ‘high’ caste and her family did not accept Ramtel as their son-in-law. Despite raising arms against it, Ramtel found caste discrimination alive and accepted in his own village. The couple moved to Kathmandu, but found that they had no money and limited education. They took up construction work for the first two years.

Ramtel now drives a three-wheeler to feed his wife and young son. “The dream I had of an egalitarian society was an illusion,” he confided, resignation in his voice, “I have just woken up to reality, and it is very cruel.”

A boy named Lenin

Lenin Bista, 24, is livid at the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) that supervised the demobilisation of Maoist guerrillas for classifying former Maoist child soldiers as ‘disqualified’ and not eligible to join the national army or opt for voluntary retirement. He says the term has been humiliating and has labeled them as failures in society. “We cannot go to our villages because we are looked down upon as ‘disqualified’ people,” says Lenin, who now heads an organisation of ex-child soldiers to seek reparations. He even led a group of other ‘disqualified’ child soldiers to attack UN vehicles in Chitwan.

They were promised by Maoist leaders Barsaman Pun and Janardan Sharma that the party would look after them. But when nothing happened, Bista laid siege to the Maoist party headquarters. Says Bista: “They must say sorry. The party wants to forget about us, but we will not let them forget.”

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14. PAKISTAN - HEALTH: WHY TERRORISTS ARE TARGETING 'UNSUNG HEROES' (Diane Cole)
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(npr.org - January 15, 2016)

A Pakistani mourner sits alongside bodies of blast victims following a bombing near a polio vaccination center at a hospital in Quetta.
Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Just last month, polio experts were wondering if the tipping point for bringing an end to the crippling disease was near, with cases having further declined in the only two remaining countries not yet free of the infection, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But earlier this week, a suicide bomber's blast outside a polio eradication center in Quetta, Pakistan, killed at least 15 people. According to reports, most of the dead were security personnel assigned to protect health workers as they began a planned three-day door-to-door vaccination campaign.

A little-known militant group called Jundullah, or Army of God, claims responsibility for the attack and has threatened more attacks on polio teams. And this is not the first time terrorist groups have targeted polio workers; more than 60 workers have been killed in Pakistan since 2012.

How come? We asked Joel Charny, who works on humanitarian aid policy at the nonprofit advocacy group InterAction, to explain.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Why target polio centers and workers for attacks?

There is a history of trying to disrupt polio campaigns. They are viewed by the Taliban as an intrusion into traditional society, and vaccination campaigns are fundamentally run and organized by central governments [as in Pakistan] that are contrary to the ideology of these militant groups.

There is also suspicion of the vaccination itself as something from the outside. There are misinformed, nefarious beliefs that this is a medical plot by the West. This was compounded by the CIA's actions five years ago [creating a fake hepatitis vaccination program to help locate Osama bin Laden].

Why this attack now?

I think why now is impossible to answer. There is nothing in particular in the environment that provoked the attack at this moment. This is something that has been ongoing sporadically — and I emphasize sporadically — by militant groups in Pakistan and northern Nigeria.

Do you expect more attacks?

Because of the nature of global communications, the fact that this is taking place in Pakistan is known, and there might be copycats. I don't mean to imply that something will happen tomorrow. But we know that similar attacks have taken place in northern Nigeria. In areas where there are militant organizations with similar ideologies, you might see more.

What is the impact of such attacks on immunization efforts?

If you're one of the vaccinators, there will be a natural sense to ask: Do I have the courage to go forward?

And I would say that what is most striking is just the incredible will of the vaccinators and their determination to continue these campaigns, in spite of these attacks. If there is anything that should be highlighted, it is the determination and that courage that the local vaccinators have. They continue because they understand the importance of these campaigns, that to eradicate a disease you need 100 percent vaccination coverage. Most of the workers are going to be from the community — they know the risk, the dangers. They are the unsung heroes.

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15. INDIA: THERE IS A RUMBLE IN THE RUBBLE (Vikas Pathak)
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(The Hindu, January 14, 2016)

   "Discussions on the Ram temple help fringe organisations retain the spotlight on themselves.” Picture shows the scene at Shri Ram Janam Bhumi Trust workshop in Ayodhya. Stone carving on pillars, slabs and bricks have been done at this workshop for possible temple at Babri Masjid-Ram Janam Bhumi site. Photo: Rajeev Bhatt
   — Photo: PTI

The VHP’s heightened pitch for a Ram temple in Ayodhya might be a bid on its part to retain relevance, but it will also give the organisationally weak BJP communal traction in U.P.

Twenty-three years after the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished, and 19 months after the Narendra Modi government swept to power on a promise of good governance, the Ram temple campaign seems to be picking up again, even if lazily.

Many see in this an attempt on the part of Sangh Parivar groups to polarise Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) and create some buzz around the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after its dismal loss in the Assembly elections in neighbouring Bihar; the State goes to polls early in 2017. Others say this is more a bid on the part of organisations such as the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) to stay relevant.

Many in the BJP, however, warn that the Ram temple as an electoral issue may have lost relevance in U.P., unless a temple indeed comes up. This, however, is beyond the party’s capacity to deliver in the near future. The Ayodhya title suit is pending in the Supreme Court after the Allahabad High Court in 2010 divided the land between the Hindu and Muslim litigants, a verdict both sides appealed against.

VHP’s fight for relevance

On December 6, the VHP’s youth wing, Bajrang Dal, observed Shaurya Diwas (Valour Day) to mark the 23rd anniversary of the demolition of the Babri mosque. Two weeks later, truckloads of engraved stones began to arrive in the temple town, generating political heat. “We require more stones for a grand temple to be built in Ayodhya. We have waited for long and the government should now get a law passed in Parliament to facilitate the construction of the temple,” was how VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain defended the development.

Many BJP leaders say the VHP — a fellow constituent of the Sangh Parivar — fears a complete loss of clout and wants to stay relevant by raising core Hindutva issues, something the ruling party at the Centre may be in no position to control or calibrate. The VHP has lost stature in recent years as the Ram temple movement lost its appeal. Its clout among Hindus apart, the death of its stalwart, Ashok Singhal, in November 2015 seems to have brought down the VHP’s standing even in BJP circles. Mr. Singhal was seen to be the only VHP leader with deep access at top levels of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP. It is reported that Mr. Modi does not get along well with VHP international working president Pravin Togadia. It is also felt that the VHP post-Singhal may be less concerned about whether a renewed temple pitch may cause embarrassment to the Modi government.

The RSS, which has much greater clout as the fountainhead of the Sangh Parivar, is much more reticent in speaking on core issues. Rare statements apart, it avoids being seen as leading the pack on any Hindutva issue. It has in recent times backed the Modi government on a number of difficult decisions, including its bid to engage Pakistan — which is unlikely to find favour with hard-line followers of Hindutva who want a belligerent line on Pakistan — despite the Pathankot attack.

However, the RSS often has to display in-principle support for Hindutva issues so as to not lose its core hard-line constituency. This makes the Sangh issue statements in favour of the Ram temple every now and then.

In December, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had said in Kolkata, “The temple will be built within my lifetime… Maybe we will see it with our own eyes. None can say when and how the temple will be constructed, but we need to be prepared and ready.”

On January 4, RSS leader Indresh Kumar said that Muslims of India should choose to be seen as descendants of Hasan Khan Mewati, who fought Mughal ‘invader’ Babur in alliance with the Rajput warrior Rana Sanga “to defend the country” and died a martyr’s death. Speaking in the capital at the release of a book titled ShriRam Mandir, Mr. Kumar, who is also patron of the Sangh’s Muslim outreach wing Muslim Rashtriya Manch, thus sought to present opposition to Babur as the cornerstone of Indian nationalism, a view endorsed by Hindutva forces that talk of “1,000 years of slavery” that Hindus purportedly suffered. A Ram temple in Ayodhya, in such a schema, becomes a symbol of “national reawakening”.

The Sangh is likely to offer intermittent support to the Ram temple rhetoric in times to come.

Electoral compulsions in U.P.

The BJP wants to talk a language of governance rather than Hindutva at the national level, and particularly at the global level. It is aware that while Hindutva gives it a distinctive identity, it must be underplayed to shield the ruling party and the Modi government from criticism.

But it does become a default option where the BJP is organisationally weak, indicating that the party may have to use it in a calibrated manner in the run-up to the polls in U.P. in 2017. Two things dictate such an approach: the BJP’s outstanding electoral success in 2014 was built on the edifice of rich pickings from the large northern states of U.P. and Bihar, with U.P. alone giving the party and its allies 73 seats out of the State’s 80; and the difficulty of emulating its performance in the general election in the State given the fact that the party’s State-level machinery isn’t a patch on that of the two main claimants to power there, the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

While the “Modi wave” of 2014 enabled the BJP to sweep the State, party leaders say the U.P. Assembly polls would be very different. The issues would be more regional, to begin with. The party is unlikely to pit the Prime Minister against the BSP’s Mayawati or incumbent Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to avoid a repeat of the Bihar debacle. And even if it does showcase the Prime Minister, the party organisation may be lacking the firepower to convert Mr. Modi’s high-profile rallies into votes. In such a scenario, Hindutva is likely to be on the agenda, as the party has few options otherwise. This would become all the more pronounced in the State as the SP too may adopt the politics of polarisation to retain Muslim support; SP leader Azam Khan has been accused of making polarising statements off and on anyway.

Times when the BJP is in power end up also becoming times when Hindutva and Sangh Parivar outfits are discussed more often. Even if much of this discussion is negative, it helps fringe organisations retain the spotlight on themselves, giving their communal ideas a certain currency in political discourse.

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16. PAKISTAN - INDIA - KASHMIR: THE GILGIT CONUNDRUM (Editorial, Kashmir Times)
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(Kashmir Times - January 16, 2016)

Editorial
The Gilgit conundrum
By merger, Pakistan would be committing a legal, political and moral blunder with disastrous consequences

ActIT Jammu, ASP.net Projects, Java, Vb.net, C# Training Jammu
Pakistan would be exposing its utter hypocrisy by giving provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and also lose the high moral ground it takes in the case of Kashmir. The proposed move will further erode the credibility of the Pakistani state and put a question mark over its sincerity vis a vis the Kashmir question and will eventually put Pakistan in deep waters. Caught between the devil and deep sea situation of trying to balance between political compulsions and economic concerns, Pakistan may push for complete merger of GB. Under pressure from China to offer it free access to GB and meet its (China's) legal concerns for fulfilling the latter's ambition of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan with a network of roads, highways, railways and investment parks, Pakistan is mulling to make GB its fifth province. This move will further complicate the Kashmir issue as Gilgit Baltistan is a disputed territory and is part of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir state, as it stood in August 1947. Such a move will finalise the merger of this part of the state, already sliced away from rest of Kashmir under Pakistan's control, into Pakistan and it will also give China a greater legitimacy to control the over 5000 acres of Askai Chin area of GB that Pakistan ceded to it. While Pakistan's gamble in the proposed move is necessitated by economic and development concerns as the CPEC project is touted to bring a windfall of oil and markets, China's interest may be far more than just simple economics. GB is known for its historical worth as strategically significant in view of the corridor it provides via central Asia. In the past it has been eyed upon by several global powers including Russia. The Chinese interests need to be located in this particular context as well. While India and Pakistan have been battling with each other over the Kashmir question since the last over six decades, the Chinese influence and control in a part of the state has been conveniently skirted due to unequal power relations, exposing the hypocrisy of both India and Pakistan. The question of Kashmir, however, requires getting the Chinese dragon as well on the negotiating table, besides the two states of India and Pakistan as well as people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has always taken the high moral ground on the question of Kashmir and rakes up UN resolution from time to time, according to which the entire territory of Jammu and Kashmir as it stood in 1947 is disputed and needs to be resolved. However, while it has failed to stand by its own commitment of withdrawing forces from its side of control, it further complicated the issue by slicing GB from rest of Pakistan administered Kashmir through the dubious Karachi agreement of 1949 allowing it to federally control the area. In 1970, it declared GB, rechristening it as Northern Areas, as an autonomous area controlled by a political agent of Islamabad. Since then, the question of GB as part of Jammu and Kashmir remains a bone of contention in academic circles and in courts inside Pakistan as well as in Pakistan administered Kashmir. While the question of merger of GB into mainland Pakistan may irk the Indian state at a timing that is totally wrong, with a peace process just beginning to take off, it will not augur well with the peoples of PAK or Kashmir on this side of the Line of Control. The sentiments of a united Jammu and Kashmir are strong in PAK; and the move is likely to throw a spanner also on the aspirations of complete independence on this side. Kashmir's separatist leaders apprehend that such a move could give the Indian state greater legitimacy to exert greater control over Jammu and Kashmir or be a precursor to maintaining a status quo without involving the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir including GB. The Pakistan Administered Kashmir assembly has passed a resolution to oppose the merger and the issue is likely to snowball into a conflict in the days to come, creating more problems for Pakistan if the latter decides to put economic concerns and Chinese pressure before political correctness. Is Pakistan biting off more than it can chew?

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17. DISPATCHES: PROTECTING PAKISTAN’S GIRLS ISN’T ‘BLASPHEMY’ (Heather Barr)
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(Human Rights Watch - January 18, 2016 Dispatches)

A female member of Pakistan’s parliament recently introduced legislation to set the minimum age for marriage at 18 for women as well as men. Under current Pakistani law, it’s 16 for women. On January 14, her proposal was withdrawn by a parliamentary committee after the Council of Islamic Ideology, a body established in 1962 to advise the parliament on Islamic law, denounced the change as "anti-Islamic" and "blasphemous."

This decision keeps Pakistan on the wrong side of human rights protections in the Islamic world. Change is happening on child marriage, including in countries that, like Pakistan, are committed to upholding Islamic values. In 2009, Afghanistan, an Islamic republic, set tough new penalties for child marriage. The prime minister of Bangladesh, another majority Muslim country, has pledged to end all child marriage by 2041.

Twenty-one percent of girls in Pakistan marry before age 18. Globally, 700 million women alive today married before they were 18, and almost half of all child brides live in South Asia.

Child marriage in Pakistan and elsewhere has devastating consequences. Married girls typically stop going to school. They give birth early and frequently, and both they and their babies often suffer serious health consequences, including fistula, uterine prolapse, and low birth weight. Married girls are more likely to become victims of domestic violence than women who marry later. Child marriage helps to hold families in poverty.

Global attention to the harm child marriages cause, not only to married girls and their children but to the development of entire countries, has spurred increased efforts across many countries to end child marriage. Pakistan is no exception. In 2014, Sindh province passed a law setting the age of marriage at 18 for both men and women. In 2015, Punjab province increased the penalties for those found guilty of arranging or conducting child marriages.

But these province-by-province efforts at reform are undermined by a national law, the 1929 Child Marriage Restraint Act, which sets the age of marriage at 18 for males and 16 for females. International law and standards provide that the age of marriage be the same for both men and women and that it be set at a minimum of 18.

Legislators in Sindh, Punjab, and Islamabad have taken important steps to end the scourge of child marriage in Pakistan. The parliament should demonstrate resolve and move ahead with raising the age of marriage for girls to 18. That would not only be in the best interest of Pakistani girls, but all Pakistanis.

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18. [ANNOUNCEMENT] SCIENCE IN SAFFRON: SKEPTICAL ESSAYS ON HISTORY OF SCIENCE BY MEERA NANDA
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Three Essays Collective
New title:
Available from 1 January 1916

SCIENCE IN SAFFRON
Skeptical Essays on History of Science
by Meera Nanda

First Edition
2016

There is much talk of the glories of ancient Hindu sciences in India today. Landmark discoveries in every field of science, from mathematics to medicine, are being credited to ancient scientists-sages of India. This book places such priority claims in a comparative global history of science. While fully acknowledging the substantial contributions of Indian geometers, mathematicians, physicians, artisans and craftsmen, it challenges their glorification for nationalistic purposes. It also questions the neo-Hindu scientization of yoga and Vedanta pioneered by Swami Vivekananda. Backed by the best available scholarship on history of science, this book offers a reading of history of Indian science without the hype that has come to surround it.

Meera Nanda is a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Mohali, where she teaches history of science. Trained in science as well as the humanities, she is author of several books including Breaking the Spell of Dharma; The Wrongs of the Religious Right; Prophets Facing Backward and The God Market.
––
Contents:  
Introduction
1.  Who Discovered the Pythagorean Theorem?
2.  Nothing That Is: Zero’s Fleeting Footsteps
3.  Genetics, Plastic Surgery and Other Wonders of Ancient  Indian Medicine
4.  Yoga Scientized:  How Swami Vivekananda rewrote Patanjali’s  Yoga Sūtra
References  and Index

––
pp viii+196, 8 pages of color plates; demy octavo 8.5 x 5.5 in.,
includes  bibliography and index
ISBN 978-93-83968-08-4    Paperback   Rs475

Available at major bookstores and with IPD Alternatives 35A/1 Shahpur Jatt, New Delhi 110049 Tel. 011-26491448/26492040 e-mail ipd.alternatives at gmail.com

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19. CHINA: HIGH-TECH MANUFACTURING’S DISPOSABLE WORKERS | Michelle Chen
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(The Nation - 13 January 2016)

The electronics industry is poisoning the workers who make our shiny gadgets.

Workers at SK Hynix plant in Icheon, South Korea, August 25, 2015. (Reuters / Kim Min-hee)

The global electronics industry boasts of technical perfection and seamless production. But look closer and you can spot assembly lines tangled with rotten nerve endings and veins swollen with toxins. Workers of the high-tech economy face hazards that echo the lethal smokestacks of Dickensian England.

This time, however, it’s not Manchester where workers are ailing, but the semiconductor capitals of the world in East Asia. South Korea, which together with China leads the world in production of brand-name electronics, has been slowly awakening to the public health fallout of workplace poisoning. Two of South Korea’s major semiconductor producers, SK Hynix and Samsung, are coming under heavy pressure to investigate and pay for an epidemic of occupational illness that many trace back to their production lines.

A 2014 analysis by Hankoryeah newspaper found that “at least 13 people who worked at SK Hynix between 1995 and 2010 died of lympho-hematopoietic malignancies (five from leukemia and five from non-Hodgkin lymphomas), while at least 11 people working at the semiconductor division at Samsung Electronics during the same period died of the same diseases.”

At both SK Hynix and Samsung, over a 15-year period, “around 80 people altogether fell ill with lympho-hematopoietic diseases. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma rates were particularly elevated among women.

Though proving a direct causal link to either of the firms is difficult, SK Hynix is now moving forward with a precautionary approach by implementing an independent investigation committee’s recommendations for long-term compensation. Advocates hope the measures will lead to strengthened chemical safeguards across the manufacturing process.

Meanwhile, the South Korea-based No More Deaths campaign has for years sought to hold Samsung accountable for a spate of cancers, which the group says has resulted in more than 70 worker deaths. Although the company recently relented to years of pressure from victims’ advocates by allowing workers to apply for compensation from a special $85.8 million fund, survivors have rejected the plan, arguing that it has stonewalled victims, and that even the latest promises of compensation and reform are whitewashed and lacking transparency. They also object to the restrictions Samsung sought to place on the fund, such as rules limiting the number of diseases covered or requiring several years of employment with the company.

The arbitration committee established by third-party experts called for a more objective process with oversight from an independently appointed ombudsman, and recommended the inclusion of 12 additional diseases for compensation claims.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s controversies may be eclipsed by a parallel crisis in China. A recent Wired investigation revealed alarming patterns of electronics workers reporting waves of respiratory and neurological illness. Factory worker Long Li described her rapid physical deterioration over just a few months: going numb in her hands, then roiling joint paint, and eventually, “Long found herself unable to move her legs. ‘I was just lying on my bed all day and needed help to eat.’” Fair compensation from employers is rare, and China’s anemic healthcare infrastructure is sorely lacking.

Though firm statistics are lacking on the scope of the hazards, a 2013 public health survey of about 7,600 electronics workers found that “More than 60% of the female workers self-reported occupation-related diseases.”

Often illnesses occurred in the workforces of shady supplier factories that subcontract with brands like Apple and Samsung. While tech giants tout “corporate social responsibility” programs to improve supply-chain labor conditions, Wired reports that health and safety may be sidelined in the pursuit of basic wage-and-hour improvements: “In many cases, companies have merely pushed the problems outward from their own factories to contractors and subcontractors, where compliance is more difficult to enforce.”

Given the growing scale of the problem, the SK Hynix settlement marks a relatively clean first step in redressing occupational illnesses in tech. Jeong ok-Kong, an occupational physician with South Korea-based Supporters for the Health And Rights of People in the Semiconductor Industry, tells The Nation via e-mail that SK Hynix’s compensation framework could “be a good example on how to address this type of problem in a socially-acceptable and responsible way, especially in contrast to what Samsung has done.” For example, the company ensured “social communication and transparency” by including a civil society group on the advisory committee and publicizing the investigation’s results, and “respond[ed] quickly without delaying the solution by repeated denial of the problem.”

The need for corporate transparency is a question of social and workplace democracy. Garrett Brown, a workplace health and safety specialist who previously worked with California’s occupational health agency, says, “The right of workers to know what they’re exposed to…is missing throughout the industry and throughout the supply chains.” Right-to-know laws in the US chemicals and processing industries have led to regulatory breakthroughs and major advocacy campaigns. Today, Asian workers—some of whom constitute workforces that rival the population of a small nation—remain in the dark about what they breathe and touch every day at work.

To tech firms, protecting “product integrity” takes priority over protecting human safety: “The production process has never really been designed to protect workers, it’s always been designed to protect the product,” Wright says. Routinely, “workers are exposed to very high levels of toxic chemicals which change all the time, many of which have never been sufficiently studied as to what their effects are in human beings.”

The problem lies in a production system that incentivizes firms to ignore safety concerns to achieve what Wright calls the “Iron Triangle”: ever-higher product value, ever-accelerating production speeds, and ever-cheaper production costs. The most convenient source of such “efficiencies” for employers is naturally squeezing an increasingly exhausted, overstretched workforce.

“So you pay them less, you have unpaid overtime, you pay as little as possible for health and safety compliance or environmental compliance,” Wright says, “and it’s all driven by the sweatshop biz model of global supply chains.” But the bodies of workers are only so pliable until their health finally gets spent. And as economic development accelerates, the societies that have tried to prosper from cheap tech manufacturing are now facing a devastating public health debt.

Technology firms pride themselves on defining what’s cool and cutting-edge, but until the workers in high-tech sweatshops get some relief, no amount of Silicon Valley style can gloss over the toxic substance fueling its profits. 

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20. SYRIA AND IRAQ: ETHNIC CLEANSING BY SUNNI AND SHIA JIHADIS IS LEADING TO A PARTITION OF THE MIDDLE EAST | Patrick Cockburn
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(The Independent, 27 December 2015)

Conflicts among communities that once lived together in peace brings the prospect of a refugee crisis that will continue long after the fighting ends

Sectarian and ethnic cleansing by all sides in Syria and Iraq is becoming more intense, ensuring that there are few mixed areas left in the two countries and, even if the war ends, many refugees will find it too dangerous to return to their homes.

Communities which once lived together in peace are today so frightened of each other after years of savage warfare that the more powerful sect or ethnic group is forcing out the weaker one. This pattern is repeating itself everywhere from the Sunni towns captured by Shia militiamen in provinces around Baghdad to Christian enclaves in central Syria under threat from Isis, and in Turkmen villages just south of the Syrian-Turkish border being bombed by Russian aircraft.
Read more
UK air strikes in Syria have helped Sunni states 'ditch Isis fight'

The inability of Syrians and Iraqis to return home in safety means that Europe and the Middle East will have to cope for decades to come with an irreversible refugee crisis brought on by the war.

There are good reasons for everybody to be afraid, though outside powers play down the sectarian or ethnic agenda of their local Syrian proxies and allies. “We will end up like the Christians, being forced out of the country,” says a young Sunni photographer, Mahmoud Omar, who once lived in Ramadi in the overwhelmingly Sunni province of Anbar. Many fled when Isis captured the city in May which is now under assault by the military forces of the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad trying to recapture it. Some 1.4 million people from Anbar or 43 per cent of its population are displaced, according to the International Organisation for Migration.  
19-Graphic.jpg

The Sunni Arab tribes in Raqqa province in Syria issued a statement earlier this month accusing Kurdish forces, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), of displacing Arabs from the Tal Abyad town on the border crossing with Turkey. It says that “no YPG fighter can enter the Arab areas where our fighters are present”. The YPG denies that it has forced Arabs to leave Tal Abyad, but Syrian Kurds often see Sunni Arabs as Isis collaborators.

Smaller communities such as the Christians in Iraq and Syria are being eliminated. In the village of Sadad, once a home to 5,000 Syriac Orthodox Christians off the highway linking Damascus and Homs, people are leaving because there is only a few hours of electricity a day and prices are very high, but above all because villagers are terrified of being slaughtered by Isis. Two years ago extreme Sunni jihadis, this time led by the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, captured Sadad and held it for 10 days, killing 45 Christians and destroying or looting 14 churches before being driven out by the Syrian army.

In Syria many of the estimated 5.3 million refugees and 6.5 million internally displaced people are likely to find that their houses and neighbourhoods have been destroyed or permanently occupied by well-armed members of a hostile community. 

The same is true in Iraq. Describing Sunni villages south of Kirkuk whose inhabitants have been driven out by Shia and Kurds, a human rights specialist, who wished to remain anonymous, said “if the Sunni flee then people say it is proof they were working with Isis and, if they stay, they are members of Isis sleeper cells who are waiting to strike. They can’t win either way.” Fear of “sleeper cells” is pervasive in both Iraq and Syria.

The mass flight and expulsion taking place is on the scale of that in India and Pakistan at the time of Partition in 1947 or in Germany at the end of the Second World War. “Efforts at local ethnic cleansing are already making Syria’s de facto partition more and more irremediable,” says Professor Fabrice Balanche of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in a study called Ethnic Cleansing Threatens Syria’s Unity. He adds that “sectarian diversity is disappearing in many areas of the country”. 

The takeover of a whole area by a single sect, ethnic group or political affiliation tends to be difficult to reverse because houses are distributed to new owners who do not want to give them up.

The Sunni Arabs have been at the heart of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad since 2011 and likewise see non-Sunni communities as supporters of Assad, and hence the targeting of Sunni districts by government artillery and bombing. Whole districts of Damascus and Homs once under rebel control are today a sea of ruins with every building shattered by explosives. But the Sunni community is also split, often along social lines, with the better-off and better-educated siding with Assad against the poorer, more rural and tribal Sunnis.

Mercy is scarce in the war in Syria and Iraq. Shia in Iraq say that since 2003 Isis and its al-Qaeda-type predecessors have systematically targeted Shia mosques, marketplaces, bus queues and pilgrimages, killing thousands of civilians. When Isis took northern and western Iraq last year its fighters filmed themselves executing 1,700 young Shia military recruits near Tikrit. Last August Isis raped, murdered and enslaved members of the Yazidi minority. Captured Syrian soldiers were ritually decapitated. In June an Isis suicide squad killed 220 Syrian Kurdish men, women and children in Kobani.

Terror and counter-terror created by these atrocities determine how different communities in Iraq and Syria perceive each other and may make it impossible for them to live together ever again.

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South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. Newsletter of South Asia Citizens Web: 
www.sacw.net/

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